[183] We think, however, that Mr. Edwin Wallace has overstated the case, when he makes Aristotle say that ‘democracy is not unlikely with the spread of population to become the ultimate form of government; and may be anticipated without dread by considering that the _collective_ voice of a people is as likely to be sound in state administration as in criticisms on art,’ pp. 57-8. In the first place, the expressions of opinion which are brought together in Mr. Wallace’s summary are separated in the original text by a considerable interval—an important circumstance when we are dealing with so inconsistent a writer; then what Aristotle says about the collective wisdom of the people, besides being advanced with extreme hesitation, is not a reassurance against any danger to be dreaded from their supremacy, but an answer to the argument that the few had a natural right to political power from their greater wealth and better education; the whole question being, in this connexion, one of political justice, not of political expediency; finally, not only is ‘ultimate form of government’ a very strong rendering of the Greek words, but what Aristotle says on the subject in his third book is virtually retracted in the fifth, where oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny are regarded as succeeding each other in any order indifferently, and Plato (or the Platonic Socrates) is censured for assuming a constant sequence of revolutions. The explanation of this change seems to be that when Aristotle wrote his third book he was only acquainted with the history of Athens and a few other of the greater states, but that subsequently a vast collection of facts bearing on the subject came to his knowledge, showing that each form of government embraced more varieties and admitted of more mutations than he had been originally aware of; and this led to a complete recast of his opinions. [184] Many of the topics noted are not only trite enough, but have no possible bearing on the subject under which they stand. For instance, in discussing judicial eloquence Aristotle goes into the motives for committing crime; among these are pleasurable feelings of every kind, including the remembrance of past trouble. Even the hero of a spasmodic tragedy would hardly have committed an offence for the purpose of procuring himself this form of experience. [185] _Poet._, xv., p. 1454, a, 20. [186] Μάτην ἄρ’ εἰς γυναῖκας ἐξ ἀνδρῶν ψόγος Ψάλλει κενὸν τόξευμα καὶ κακῶς λέγει. αἱ δ’ εἴσ’ ἀμείνους ἀρσένων, ἐγὼ λέγω. Euripides, _Frag._ 512. (Didot.) [187] _Poet._, xiii., p. 1453, a, 8. [188] _Pol._, VIII., vii., p. 1342, a, 10. [189] Zeller, p. 780.