rule which the statesman exercises over his fellow-citizens. And master and slave receive their name, not from any science or art which is possessed by either of them [as Plato imagined], but because they are of a certain character. (There might indeed be a science of another sort, which would teach the master how to give his orders and the slave how to execute them; this science would include cookery and other menial arts. And there might also be a science or art of slave-hunting, which would be a kind of war. But enough of this subject.)

In the opening of the Politics there are many indications of the strife of opinion and uncertainty of language which prevailed in the time of Aristotle. In the first page the writer strikes a note of hostility against Plato, which is repeated at intervals throughout the treatise. Yet the views of Aristotle and Plato respecting the kinds or degrees of governments are not essentially different; the opposition between them was exaggerated, if not invented, by their respective followers. From this almost verbal controversy, he passes on to consider the intentions of nature in the creation of society. But the word nature was ambiguous in ancient no less than in modern times, and was variously used to signify 1) the undeveloped or inchoate, 2) the final or perfect nature. The state and the family are both said to exist by nature; but the state in a higher sense than the family. . . . The distinction between men and animals is seen to be the gift of language by which the sphere of human nature is enlarged and rendered capable of good and evil. This distinction is here limited by Aristotle to that part of language which is concerned with our moral ideas. We should rather say that through language man attains to the expression of general and universal conceptions not only in morals, but in all things (cp. Met. 1. 6. § 2). The true method of enquiry, according to Aristotle, is the analysis of the whole into its parts; but he does not see that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and that the parts are changed by their relation to one another. As well might we suppose that we could analyse life into the chemical elements which are the conditions of life, or detect the mind in the

nerves which are its instruments, as imagine that the state was only a compound of families and villages.

Yet there is likewise in Aristotle's Politics a consciousness that the whole is prior to the parts, and that the synthetical method must be combined with the analytical. Though imperfectly expressed, the perfect image of the state in which' every means is an end, and the end the sum of the means,' is already present to his mind. The two aspects of the truth are placed side by side, but they are not yet harmonised or brought into relation with one another. Aristotle is thought to have been the first who based knowledge on experience, but ever and anon the ideal or poetical image which was always latent in Greek philosophy, though clothed in an unpoetical dress, and reduced to a skeleton, returns upon him. It would have been a surprise to himself, and still more to his school, if he could have recognised how nearly he approached in reality to some of those conceptions on which he was making war. For example, when he speaks of a whole prior to the parts, what does this mean but the idea of the state prior to the existence of it in fact? The conception of the perfect man whose single virtue exceeds that of all other men put together, and who therefore has a natural right to rule, is even more extravagant than the rule of philosophers in the Republic of Plato.

The accustomed' method of dividing the whole into its parts is logical rather than historical: that is to say, they are the parts into which it can be dissected, not the elements out of which it has grown. It is like the carving of some noble victim, according to the natural formation, where the joint is, not breaking any part, as a bad carver might.' (Phaedrus, 265 E.) But it is not the historical method which resolves institutions and facts into their antecedent elements. Aristotle does not investigate the origins of states, but only divides a genus into species or a larger whole or form into the lesser parts or unities of which it is made up, or shows how an existing state may be preserved or destroyed. We must not expect him to give an analysis of primitive society, such as would be found in a modern writer on anthropology. His observation and experience were almost confined to Hellas. The earliest forms of property and society were unknown to him.

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c. 5.

1) that of the master to the slave; 2) of the husband to the wife; 3) of the parent to the child :-What is and ought to be the character of each of these? There is also another element which we shall have to consider, the art of money-making, which is sometimes identified with household management. [But this is an error.]

Concerning the relation of master and slave, two views are entertained: 1) there is the doctrine [of Plato] that the rule of a master is a science [and therefore natural]; and that all kinds of rule are essentially the same: and there is the other doctrine, 2) that slavery is contrary to nature; and that the distinction between freemen and slaves is made by law only and not by nature, and is therefore unjust. [Before determining the questions which thus arise we must enquire into the nature of the slave.]

The art of acquiring property is a part of the art of managing a household, and like other arts requires instruments; property is a collection of such instruments, living or lifeless. The slave is a living instrument, and the lifeless instruments are used by him; he is the first of a series. He is an instrument of action, not of production, for he does not produce; he only lives and serves his master, and life is action. But he is also a possession [and therefore the agent of another]; for he is intended by nature to belong to his master, though separable from him. He may be defined, a human being who is a possession and likewise an instrument of action.'

But is there a slave by nature? There is: from the hour of their birth some are intended to command, others to obey; they work together, and the better the workman, the better the work. A ruling principle runs through the whole of nature and is discernible even in things without life, for example, in musical harmony. And in man there is a despotic rule which the soul exercises over the body, and a constitutional rule which the intellect exercises over the appetites. The higher principle has dominion whenever the soul and body are in their best state; the intention of nature is then fulfilled. The male rules and the female is ruled, for the good of both; and animals subjugated by man are better and better off than wild ones. For this rule of the superior by nature is the preservation of the subject or inferior. And the same principle