Let us see what results from this difference of scale. In the first place, Greek political thought although (as we shall see) it aimed at _universality_, at arriving at certain definite laws or conclusions about politics, never succeeded in divesting itself of a certain element of local or national individuality. When Plato and Thucydides think and write of 'the State' they are also thinking of the City--the same word, _polis_, serves indeed for the two--and not merely of the City, i. e., of any municipality, but of a particular city. There are elements in Greek political thought which, just because they owe their inspiration to Athens, can never be universalized. A treatise on education in which general psychological conclusions were intermingled with conclusions based on experience at some English school with a very unique tradition, would require to be carefully examined and applied with caution to the problems of adolescent life in Japan or Nigeria. Similarly, in so far as Greek political thought is Athenian or (to use a much disputed term in what I hold to be its proper sense) _national_, it is not truly political. The distinction that I am trying to draw is a difficult one and cannot be understood without a short digression about the nature of the study of politics. Politics is the study or activity of government, of the management of the public or common affairs of men. We need 'politicians', men who will devote themselves to meeting the demand for the management of our common affairs--we need them not because we are Englishmen, Irishmen, or Americans, but because we are human beings living together in society, and because our co-operative relations and activities require to be guided and controlled. Whether the 'politician' is a tyrant or a Minister of the people is not here to the point; the point is that he is the manager of what the Romans called _res publica_, the Latin for the good old English word 'Commonwealth'. Politics is therefore primarily concerned with the practical problems arising out of the fact that a number of different human beings are living together, and the more different they are and the smaller their greatest common measure, the more truly political do such problems become. The first business, of the politician or governor is, as Aristotle said, to see that men shall live (the twin problems of supply and defence), his second to see that they shall live well (in the first instance the problems of health and physical development and well-being). In the last analysis _pure politics_, as our great grandchildren may discover if ever the World-State becomes a reality, is mainly concerned with _administration_, administration of the affairs common to all in the interests of all.