An answer might conceivably have been supplied, had Aristotle been enable to complete that sketch of an ideal State which was originally intended to form part of his _Politics_. But the philosopher evidently found that to do so was beyond his powers. If the seventh and eighth books of that treatise, which contain the fragmentary attempt in question, had originally occupied the place where they now stand in our manuscripts, it might have been supposed that Aristotle’s labours were interrupted by death. Modern criticism has shown, however, that they should follow immediately after the first three books, and that the author broke off, almost at the beginning of his ideal polity, to take up the much more congenial task of analysing and criticising the actually existing Hellenic constitutions. But the little that he has done proves him to have been profoundly unfitted for the task of a practical reformer. What few actual recommendations it contains are a compromise—somewhat in the spirit of Plato’s _Laws_—between the _Republic_ and real life. The rest is what he never fails to give us—a mass of details about matters of fact, and a summary of his speculative ethics, along with counsels of moderation in the spirit of his practical ethics; but not one practical principle of any value, not one remark to show that he understood what direction history was taking, or that he had mastered the elements of social reform as set forth in Plato’s works. The progressive specialisation of political functions; the necessity of a spiritual power; the formation of a trained standing army; the admission of women to public employments; the elevation of the whole race by artificial selection; the radical reform of religion; the reconstitution of education, both literary and scientific, the redistribution of property; the enactment of a new code; the use of public opinion as an instrument of moralisation;—these are the ideas which still agitate the minds of men, and they are also the ideas of the _Republic_, the _Statesman_, and the _Laws_. Aristotle, on the other hand, occupies himself chiefly with discussing how far a city should be built from the sea, whether it should be fortified; how its citizens should _not_ be employed; when people should _not_ marry; what children should _not_ be permitted to see; and what music they should _not_ be taught. Apart from his enthusiasm for philosophy, there is nothing generous, nothing large-minded, nothing inspiring. The territory of the city is to be self-sufficing, that it may be isolated from other States; the citizens are to keep aloof from all industrial occupations; science is put out of relation to the material well-being of mankind. It was, in short, to be a city where every gentleman should hold an idle fellowship; a city where Aristotle could live without molestation, and in the enjoyment of congenial friendships; just as the God of his system was a still higher