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Notes -
Good and interesting point.
It actually reminds me somewhat of the role of moderation in Socratic philosophy. The first precept of philosophy is moderation; the ability to make any progress in philosophy whatsover is contingent on the student's practice of moderation in respect to worldly things and appetites. However, it's not-very-Straussianly-hidden in Plato and particularly Xenophon that Socrates himself is wildly immoderate with respect to wisdom and to the love of the Good - that is, with respect to those things in which, pursued properly, there is no need for or value in moderation, because they are purely good. If the natural slave is one who cannot moderate his appetites, then one could read Socratic philosophy as recognizing that one is in a sense never entirely leaves that state, but becomes a slave of that to which it is appropriate for a man to be enslaved. Aristotle denies this because he's writing in the Politics, not the Metaphysics, and so is concerned with man as he contributes to the polis, but there are some hints of that elsewhere in Aristotle too, once we're no longer speaking of practical wisdom.
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