the character of scientific laws, or rules which are true, not only in all known instances, but universally. But, on the other hand, most of the rules which have as yet been laid down are of a different sort, and, either because they are vague and indefinite, or because they are subject to many exceptions, or for other like reasons, nothing of the nature of a scientific law has been founded on them. It is however common to all studies to be imperfect and only half conclusive while they are in their infancy: many studies, especially among those which are based on comparisons, have before now progressed within the lapse of a few generations from a very lowly condition to the status of complete inductive sciences: and it is hard to see why the same good fortune should not at some future time fall to the lot of Comparative Politics. The classification of European political bodies, which is given in my second chapter, was suggested to me in its main outlines by a lecture which I heard delivered in Cambridge many years ago by my friend Sir John Seeley: the usefulness of some such classification was made clear to me some years later but yet long ago by a course of lectures which was given by another friend Professor Henry Sidgwick: and I have constructed the classification as it stands in the second chapter with the intention of making it serve as a framework both for what I have here written about the Greeks and their governments and for what I hope to write hereafter about other European peoples and governments. To both the gentlemen whom I have named I desire to express my hearty thanks for the help and guidance that their lectures have given me in my attempts to study Politics methodically. B. E. HAMMOND. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. _December 12, 1894._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE ARYAN RACES 1 II. A CLASSIFICATION OF EUROPEAN POLITICAL BODIES 8 III. GREEK POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. HEROIC MONARCHIES 23 IV. SPARTA 37 V. THE GREEK CITIES 57 VI. ARISTOTLE'S CLASSIFICATION OF POLITIES 99 VII. THE ACHÆAN LEAGUE 114 ERRATUM. Page 14, line 21, _for_ empires _read_ empire. CHAPTER I. THE ARYAN RACES.