The historical origin of the State Aristotle finds in the family. At first there is the individual. The individual gets himself a mate, and the family arises. The family, in Aristotle's opinion, includes the slaves: for, like Plato, he sees no wrong in the institution of slavery. A number of families, joining together, develop into a village community, and a number of village communities into a _polis_ (city), or State. Beyond the city, of course, the Greek idea of the State did not extend. Such then is the historical origin of the State. But it is of capital importance to understand that, in Aristotle's opinion, this question of historical origin has nothing on earth to do with the far more important question what the State essentially is. It is no mere mechanical aggregate of families and village communities, {322} The _nature_ of the State is not explained in this way. For though the family is prior to the State in order of time, the State is prior to the family and to the individual in order of thought, and in reality. For the State is the end, and the end is always prior to that of which it is the end. The state as form is prior to the family as matter, and in the same way the family is prior to the individual. And as the explanation of things is only possible by teleology, it is the end which explains the beginning, it is the State which explains the family, and not vice versa. The true nature of the State, therefore, is not that it is a mechanical sum of individuals, as a heap of sand is the sum of its grains. The State is a real organism, and the connexion of part to part is not mechanical, but organic. The State has a life of its own. And its members also have their own lives, which are included in the higher life of the State. All the parts of an organism are themselves organisms. And as the distinction between organic and inorganic is that the former has its end in itself, while the latter has its end external to it, this means that the State is an end in itself, that the individual is an end in himself, and that the former end includes the latter. Or we may express the same thought otherwise by saying that, in the State, both the whole and the parts are to be regarded as real, both having their own lives and, in their character as ends, their own rights. Consequently, there are two kinds of views of the nature of the State, which are, according to Aristotle, fundamentally erroneous. The first is the kind of view which depends upon asserting the reality of the parts, but denying the reality of the whole, or, what is the same {323} thing, allowing that the individual is an end in himself, but denying that the State as a whole is such an end or has a separate life of its own. The second kind of false view is of the opposite kind, and consists in allowing reality only to the whole State, and denying the reality of its parts, the individuals. The opinions that the State is merely a mechanical aggregate of