society of the time: Aristotle with his laborious investigations into the municipal pathology of his day and his detailed prescriptions for the betterment of his fellow-provincials and their institutions--what have we to do with all this in an age of world problems and conflicts and of not merely continent-wide but international ideas and projects of organization? The first duty of any one who seeks to interest the modern reader in Greek political discussion is to be perfectly frank and lucid about its limitations. He need have no cause to be afraid that, when these have been written off from his prospectus, there will be too little of value remaining. These limitations can be summarized under two main heads. They arise, firstly, from a _difference of scale_, and secondly, from a _difference of outlook_, between ancient and modern political thought. The difference of scale leaps to the eye at once, although its consequences are not all of them so obvious. Ancient Greece was, for political purposes, a congeries of sovereign states, generally centring round the urban metropolis of a rural district smaller than that of an average English county. The material upon which Greek political thought worked was, therefore, from our modern point of view not only small-scale but almost Lilliputian. This can best be appreciated when we consider how many gradations of scale are interposed in the modern world between the government of a town or district of the size of fifth-century Athens and the government of our own sovereign state, the British Commonwealth. Athens was far smaller than Leeds, Johannesburg, or Chicago: yet to be Mayor of any of these is not to fill a position of commanding responsibility, as political responsibility is understood in the large-scale world of to-day. The American State, the South African province and Dominion and (for certain purposes) the English County stand between the giant municipality and the sovereign parliament. To a British Premier passing from a coal strike which reacts upon the trade of the entire world to an Imperial Conference engaged in tracing out an agreed line of policy on the Pacific Question, the problems of a Pericles, or even of an Alexander, would seem but child's play.