argues, can be none other than contemplation, the Vision of the Divine (θεωρία). Results which have moved the world followed logically from this doctrine. Whereas Plato had made provision for a small and select body of super-civic men, and so paved the way for religious monasticism and asceticism, Aristotle maintains that in every civilized man, as such, there is a super-civic part, in fact, a superhuman and divine part, for the complete realization of which all the other parts, and the State wherein they find expression, are but means. Here we have, in embryo, the whole of Dante's theory of the relation of Church and State, a theory which lies at the basis of all modern political effort, however little the fact may be recognized. Here, indeed, we have the whole framework of the _Divine Comedy_; here too we have the doctrine of the Beatific Vision, which for ages shaped and, to a large extent, still shapes, the life of Christendom. Well might Dante claim Aristotle as his master (see p. 153)! Well might the great doctors of the Church speak of him as "_The_ Philosopher," and as the "Forerunner of Christ in Things Natural." In vain did Peter Ramus and Luther and Bruno and Bacon depreciate or anathematize him! He is more powerful to-day in thought and life than at any time for the last twenty-two centuries. It may be asked how far, and in what form, Aristotle conceives the divine life to be possible for man on earth. He answers that, though it cannot be perfectly or continuously realized here, it is in some degree and for certain times attainable (see p. 161). In so far as it is a social life, it is the life of friendship or spiritual love (φιλία), to which he has devoted almost two books of his _Ethics_, books which give us a loftier idea of his personal purity and worth than any other of his extant writings. He insists that friendship is the supreme blessing (see p. 166), and that "whatever a man's being is, or whatever he chooses to live for, in that he wishes to spend his life in the company of his friends." It is even said that Aristotle, while teaching in the Lyceum, gathered about him a knot of noble youths and earnest students, and formed them into a kind of community, with a view to leading a truly spiritual social life. CHAPTER IV ARISTOTLE'S PEDAGOGICAL STATE Nature is the beginning of everything.--Aristotle. Life is more than meat, and the body than raiment.--Jesus.