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or the other parts of the body1 must know their anatomy. Indeed a foundation of science is even more
requisite for the statesman, inasmuch as politics is a higher and more honorable art than
medicine; but physicians of the better class devote much attention to the study of the
human body.
[8]
The student of politics2 therefore as well as the psychologist must study the nature of the soul,
though he will do so as an aid to politics, and only so far as is requisite for the
objects of enquiry that he has in view: to pursue the subject in further detail would
doubtless be more laborious than is necessary for his purpose.
[9]
Now on the subject of psychology some of the teaching current in extraneous
discourses3 is satisfactory, and
may be adopted here: namely that the soul consists of two parts, one irrational and the
other capable of reason.4
[10]
（Whether these two parts are really distinct in
the sense that the parts of the body or of any other divisible whole are distinct, or
whether though distinguishable in thought as two they are inseparable in reality, like the
convex and concave sides of a curve, is a question of no importance for the matter in
hand.）
[11]
Of the irrational part of the soul again
one division appears to be common to all living things, and of a vegetative nature: I
refer to the part that causes nutrition and growth; for we must assume that a vital
faculty of this nature exists in all things that assimilate nourishment,
1 The context seems to disprove the alternative rendering ‘just as to cure eyes the oculist must have a general of the structure of the whole of the body as well.’ The illustration is a reminiscence of Plat. Charm. 156b-e, but does not follow that passage exactly.
2 πολιτικός means for Aristotle both “political scientist” and “statesman”: for him they are the same thing, since πολιτική is a practical science.
3 These ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι are also mentioned in 6.4.2 and six other places in Aristotle （see Ross on Aristot. Met. 1076a 28）. In Aristot. Pol. 1323a 22 they are appealed to for the tripartite classification of goods which in 8.2 above is ascribed to current opinion ‘of long standing and generally accepted by students of philosophy.’ The phrase therefore seems to denote arguments or doctrines （whether familiar in philosophic debates, for which see note on 5.6, or actually recorded in books）, that were not peculiar to the Peripatetic school; in some cases, as here, it may refer specially to the tenets of the Academy.
4 Literally “having a plan or principle.”
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 19, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1934.
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