First, then, let us try to enumerate whatever worthy utterances have proceeded from men of the past upon any aspect of the subject, and then, referring to our collections of _Constitutional Histories_, let us seek to arrive at a theory as to what sorts of things preserve and destroy each particular form of government, and see for what reasons some are well, some ill, managed. Succeeding in this, we may, perhaps, the better learn both what is the best form of government, and what arrangements, laws, and customs are best suited to each form.--Aristotle. Man is a political animal.--_Id._ The State is prior to the individual.--_Id._ Without friends no one would choose to live, although he possessed all other blessings.--_Id._ If happiness be self-determination in accordance with worth, we must conclude that it will be in accordance with the supreme worth, which will be the worth of the noblest part of us. This part, whatever it may be, whether intellect (νοῦς) or something else, that which by nature evidently rules and guides us and has insight into things beautiful and divine, whether it be itself divine, or the divinest part of us, is that whose self-determination, in accordance with its proper worth, will be the perfect happiness. That this consists in the vision of divine things has already been said.... This, indeed, is the supreme self-determination, for the reason that intellect is the highest part of us, and that with which it deals is the highest of the knowable.... But a life of this sort would be something higher than the human; for he who lived it would not be living as man, but as the subject of something divine.... If, then, intellect is something divine in relation to man, the life lived according to it must be divine in relation to human life. Instead, then, of following those who advise us, as being human, to set our thoughts upon human things, and, as being mortals, to set them on mortal things, it is our duty, as far as may be, to act as immortal beings, and do all we can to live in accordance with the supreme part of us.--Aristotle.