But in any case the monarchy of Alexander is quite foreign to anything contemplated in the theories or in the reflections of Aristotle. The Greek theorist, even such as he was, could not adjust this new and mighty phenomenon to the laws of Greek human nature. I shall presently show how other great men of that day manifested the same purblindness; but I note it here specially in the case of Aristotle's _Politics_, because it has not been brought out with sufficient emphasis by modern historians. The one man who made Plato and Aristotle the subjects of exhaustive studies, George Grote, did not live to complete his account of Aristotle's theories on the State, and relegated his masterly account of Plato and Xenophon into a separate book, long difficult to procure, and more so to master[130:1]. [Sidenote: Mortality of even perfect constitutions.] [Sidenote: Contrast of Greek and modern anticipations.] All these theorists, though in close contact with politicians, were themselves outside the sphere of practical affairs, whether from choice or compulsion. As they looked upon the changing phases of society which make up that complicated and various whole called Greek history, they were led to one general conclusion. No State, however perfectly framed, however accurately balanced, was intended by Nature to last for ever. Polities, like individuals, had their youth, development, and decay, and would in the lapse of time give way to newer growths. In this we find one of the most curious contrasts between the buoyant, hopeful Greek and the weary, saddened modern. The former had no hope of the permanent and indefinite improvement of the human race; the latter adopts it almost as an historical axiom. Each modern State hopes to escape the errors and misfortunes which have ruined its predecessors, and makes its preparations for a long futurity. The Greeks were fuller in their experience or fainter in their hope; they would have regarded our expectations as chimerical, and our anticipations as contradicted by all the past records of human affairs. FOOTNOTES: [110:1] The tract _de Repub. Athen._ handed down to us among Xenophon's works, is now, by general agreement, assigned to some author who lived earlier, and wrote it before the close of the Peloponnesian war. It does not, therefore, express the individual opinion of Xenophon, though it is an attack upon the Athenian democracy by a determined and bitter aristocrat. Upon the details, cf. my _Gk. Lit._ ii. p. 47. [111:1] G. G. iii. pp. 221 _sq._ [113:1] [Greek: ônêtê mallon ê oikeios.] [114:1] Cf. on this point Polybius, xi. 13, whom I have quoted in my _Greek Life and Thought_, p. 416. [116:1] Cf. the excellent summary in Holm iii. 54-7. [116:2] Cf. Holm iii. 96 _sqq._ [118:1] That is, the Restoration of its legitimate democracy. Cf. my _History of Greek Literature_, part ii. cap. v. [118:2] Roughly speaking, 400-340 B.C.