Apart from the transcendent merits of Alexander as a general, some authors give him credit for grand and beneficent views on the subject of imperial government and for intentions highly favorable to the improvement of mankind. I see no ground for adopting this opinion. As far as we can venture to anticipate what would have been Alexander’s future, we see nothing in prospect except years of ever repeated aggression and conquest, not to be concluded till he had traversed and subjugated all the inhabited globe. The acquisition of universal dominion--conceived not metaphorically but literally, and conceived with greater facility in consequence of the imperfect geographical knowledge of the time--was the master-passion of his soul. “You are a man like all of us, Alexander, except that you abandon your home,” said the naked Indian to him, “like a medlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions; enduring hardship yourself and inflicting hardship on others.” Now, how an empire thus boundless and heterogeneous, such as no prince as has yet ever realized, could have been administered with any superior advantages to subjects, it would be difficult to show. The mere task of acquiring and maintaining, of keeping satraps and tribute-gatherers in authority as well as in subordination, of suppressing resistances ever liable to recur in regions distant by months of march, would occupy the whole life of a world conquerer, without leaving any leisure for the improvements suited to peace and stability--if we give him credit for such purposes in theory. In respect of intelligence and combining genius, Alexander was Hellenic to the full; in respect of disposition and purpose, no one could be less Hellenic. The acts attesting his Oriental violence of impulse, unmeasured self-will, and exaction of reverence above the limits of humanity, have been recounted. To describe him as a son of Hellas, imbued with the political maxims of Aristotle, and bent on the systematic diffusion of Hellenic culture for the improvement of mankind is in my judgement an estimate of his character contrary to the evidence. Alexander is indeed said to have invited suggestions from Aristotle as to the best mode of colonizing; but his temper altered so much after a few years of Asiatic conquest, that he came not only to lose all deference for Aristotle’s advice, but even to hate him bitterly. Instead of “Hellenizing” Asia, he was tending to “Asiatize” Macedonia and Hellas. His temper and character as modified by a few years of conquest rendered him quite unfit to follow the course recommended by Aristotle toward the Greeks--quite as unfit as any of the Persian kings, or as the French Emperor Napoleon, to endure that partial frustration, compromise, and smart from personal criticism, which is inseparable from the position of a limited chief.