Aristotle defined a polity as "an ordering or arrangement of a state in respect of its offices generally and especially of the supreme office[246]": and from this definition, as well as from his use of the word πολιτεία, it is clear that he regarded a polity as the form on which a whole government and not merely a part of a government was constructed. But nevertheless he recognised that a government consisting wholly of kingship or wholly of aristocracy was, at least among the Greeks, merely an ideal or perhaps an imaginary government, and was not within the range of practical politics[247]. And herein Greek history shows that he was right: for we never find in it a whole government composed solely of kingship or wholly of aristocracy. On the other hand we find that not only kingship and aristocracy, but also oligarchy and democracy, constantly occur as forms or principles on which a part of a government was constructed: for example the ancient Spartan constitution was in one part kingly, in another aristocratic, in another democratic; Solon's constitution contained elements both of democracy and of oligarchy; and even the mature Athenian democracy contained a trace of aristocracy in the selection of the ten generals for merit and not by chance. Hence it is clear that, while kingship, aristocracy, polity, democracy, oligarchy and tyranny were polities, and each of them was a form on which a whole government either real or ideal could be erected, four of them at least, kingship, aristocracy, democracy and oligarchy, were also forms on which a part of a government could be constructed, and which entered in very various combinations into the making of actual governments. [246] _Politics_ III. 6. 1. Welldon, p. 116. [247] In the _Politics_ (IV. 2. Bekker. Welldon, pp. 253, 254) Aristotle says that "speculation about the ideally best polity is nothing else than a discussion of kingship and aristocracy": and that "kingship must be a mere name and not a reality, unless it is justified by a vast superiority of the reigning king over his subjects":--a condition that can rarely if ever be fulfilled. See also Sidgwick, _Elements of Politics_, p. 579. From what has been said it will be seen that Aristotle's classification of polities was based much more on philosophic theory than on history and that, in some part at least of its extent, it is not a direct classification of actual and concrete governments.