to a study of politics. Any discussion of Aristotelian political science would therefore be incomplete without extended attention to the teaching of the ethical treatises and the relationship of that teaching to the Politics (Strauss and Cropsey 121-122).
Political science studies the good for man and for the state. Determining what is the good for man, however, is not a mathematically solvable question. For one thing, political science examines this question by examining human action, and human action cannot be determined or predicted with mathematical certitude. Aristotle discusses the difference between ethics and mathematics, and they differ because mathematics starts from general principles and argues to conclusions, while ethics begins with the conclusions in the form of actual moral judgments of human beings. Ethics of necessity must assume that there are natural tendencies in human beings which can be discerned and that, if followed, can lead to a moral structure of harmony and proportion by recogniz
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