Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good. (Politics Book1, 1252a1 ff.)

Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king, household, and master are the same, and they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a stateman or king, as if there were not differences between a great household and a small state.
The distinction which is made between the king and the statesman is as follows: When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when, according to the rules of political science, the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then he is called a statesman. But all this is a mistake, as will be evident to anyone who considers the matter according to the method which has hitherto guided us. As in other departments of science, so in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the simple elements or least parts of the whole. We must therefore look at the elements of which the state is composed, in order that we may see in what the different kinds of rule differ from one another, and whether any scientific result can be attained about each of them. (Politics Book1, 1252a9ff.)

He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them. In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely of male and female, that the race may continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of choice, but because in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be preserved. For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature lord and master, and that which can with its body give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence master and slave have the same interest. (Politics Book1, 1252a25ff.)

When several villages are united in a single complete community to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.
Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity. (Politics Book1, 1252b28ff.)

Further, a state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except homonymously, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by their function and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they are homonymous. The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to a whole. (Politics Book1, 1253a19)

Richard Kraut on Politics Book1

Notes on chapter 7 of Kraut's book Aristotle

Aristotle knows there were not always states: they GREW. Families became large households, which gathered to make villages, which gathered to make states. They did to live, but they stayed so to live well.

That development is inevitable.

Aristotle thinks that the state is a particular phase of a cycle which "starts" with primitive conditions of bare survival, peaks in the creation of the state, and meets its demise eventually, only to start again.

The state is the high point, because it is the only phase in which humans and human society can develop their full natural potential, their virtues.

The GROWTH of a thing indicates that it has a nature for Aristotle. He does not think a city has a soul, but he does think it grows, because it arises from a feature of our psychology, which is that we are social animals and a feature of our existence, which is that we are not self-sufficient for our own bare needs. Thus the city is a result of empirically verifiable aspects of humans.
One might ask whether this 'growth' is the same as the growth caused by the nutritive capacity of an individual soul or does it merely share the name 'growth'?

 The city-state is the best stage, not because it is the last stage, but because only in it can humans fully develop. Our desire to live is natural, and so is our desire to live well, to be excellent. When once we secure the means to live, we naturally want to be happy, to live well.

But cities are artefacts, made by humans: how can they be natural and "grow?" Aren't they built? Kraut says, P. 245, "there is no incompatibility in saying that something owes its existence both to a process of growth and to human beings." Consider domesticated species. Cities come from proto-cities, the villages, which come from proto-villages, the family units, etc. Thus they are different from the sort of artefact that is made each time "anew." A pot does not become a pot from being a cup.

Aristotle is here arguing against people like Callicles in Plato's Gorgias, who held that the life according to nature is not affected by any social influences. Civic laws are not natural, and cities are not either.

Aristotle is also arguing against the idea that what is natural is always the same.

Natural cannot mean "free from rational influence or habit," because our very urge to rationally control things is itself not the product of reason or habit. We just are rational and want to exercise our rationality: it is part of our nature.

Cities and laws are the results of growth, which means they are natural (physis="growth").

Nature for Aristotle refers to that which has within itself the origin of change, motion, and stability. Cities do so, for they grow from smaller social organizations.

Humans are naturally social, i.e. they avoid solitude by and large. Hence that is one meaning of "political animal." That is the primary impulse that leads to the formation of societal organizations, starting with the dyad for reproduction (EN 1162a17: there he says that the household is prior to and more necessary than the city). We have an inner drive to form couples, AND it is good for us. The intensity of our drive to do so is higher than the political drive, narrowly defined (see next paragraph).

But "political" animal has a narrower meaning: it refers to the desire to live in a certain sort of community, the one that will allow us to pursue our highest good. That is the state. Only free men are political in this way. Sexist and elitist, unforgivably so, but if you can keep from throwing the baby out with the bathwater, Aristotle still has good ideas. If you ignore this gross moral blindness, his thought can adjust surprisingly well to a nonsexist formulation, and perhaps to a nonelitist one as well.

Bees are political in that the drive which makes them organise into social units is the same one that leads humans to form the polis. They are not fully political, but because their drive is of the same kind as that which is in us, they can be called political.

Being political means more than just using what the city has on offer. One must also be active and participate in the political scene.

7.3 What does Aristotle mean by saying that the city is prior by nature to the household and to each of us (Politics Book1, 1253a19)? Particularly, doesn't he contradict what we see him saying a while ago in the Nicomachean Ethics, that the household is prior to the city?

Kraut thinks that in order to find what Aristotle means, we have to make use of all the things he says at and around 1253a19. He ultimately argues that the city is prior in the sense that the good of the city is a more important and honorable good than that of the household, the village, the couple, or the individual. A good citizen will consider the good of the city first, and then the smaller units, until he gets to his own good. That is the PRIORITY list for the good citizen, and that is what Aristotle means by prior here. A truly virtuous person's thinking and deliberation will be structured as follows: consult the interest of the state first, then the next largest unit, then the next largest, until she gets to herself. She will shape her life so that she can consult the communal good first, and so that her own good does not conflict, or conflicts as little as possible with, the communal good.

There are other senses of prior: viz. that used in the Nicomachean Ethics in the statement above.

If there is conflict between the good of the individual and that of the state, the state's good ought to win. That does not mean that that should happen in every social organization of a certain size: Aristotle is not blind to the fact that some "states" are mistaken about the good. They are administered not for the communal good, but for the good of a certain individual or element within them. In that case, a conflict between those in charge and an individual may not be a conflict between the communal good and the individual's good.

Aristotle is operating from general principles here: the good of ANY whole has priority over that of one of its parts.

If an individual human be separated from the polis, she does not necessarily die, as a separated hand does, but she cannot fulfill her highest function any longer. That is, she cannot be virtuously active to her full potential in the absence of the city. In that sense, the analogy with a hand is right: a severed hand cannot fulfill its function, and the fact that it is dead is rather beside the point in this case.

Some individual humans can become too powerful for the good of the state, and so Aristotle approves of ostracism, although he acknowledges its great potential for abuse.(1284b).

Aristotle also thinks that individuals are "of the state," which gets translated as "belong to the state." The point is that an individual is not free to decide to act in their own interests against the communal interest: the individual is bound to consult the interests of the state. That turns out to be, or ought to turn out to be, in the ultimate interest of the individual. The good of the individual consists in the good she does for the community, just as the good of a hand consists in the good it does for the body.

As to the unity of the body politic, Aristotle rejects Plato's efforts at unity via holding partners and property in common. He thinks that there will of necessity be diversity and unity, and unity is not to be pursued in every area.