nd out, although sometimes
they are not put together; in other cases men do not use the knowledge
which they have." Aristotle in his Constitutions had made a study of one
hundred and fifty-eight constitutions of the states of his day, and the
fruits of that study are seen in the continual reference to concrete
political experience, which makes the Politics in some respects a
critical history of the workings of the institutions of the Greek city
state. In Books IV., V., and VI. the ideal state seems far away, and
we find a dispassionate survey of imperfect states, the best ways of
preserving them, and an analysis of the causes of their instability.
It is as though Aristotle were saying: "I have shown you the proper and
normal type of constitution, but if you will not have it and insist on
living under a perverted form, you may as well know how to make the best
of it." In this way the Politics, though it defines the state in the
light of its ideal, discusses states and institutions as they are.
Ostensibly it is merely a continuation of the Ethics, but it comes to
treat political questions from a purely political standpoint.

This combination of idealism and respect for the teachings of experience
constitutes in some ways the strength and value of the Politics, but it
also makes it harder to follow. The large nation states to which we are
accustomed make it difficult for us to think that the state could be
constructed and modelled to express the good life. We can appreciate
Aristotle's critical analysis of constitutions, but find it hard to take
seriously his advice to the legislator. Moreover, the idealism and the
empiricism of the Politics are never really reconciled by Aristotle
himself.

It may help to an understanding of the Politics if something is said on
those two points.

We are accustomed since the growth of the historical method to the
belief that states are "not made but grow," and are apt to be impatient
with the belief which Aristotle and Plato show in the powers of the
lawgiver. But however true the maxim may be of the modern nation state,
it was not true of the much smaller and more self-conscious Greek city.
When Aristotle talks of the legislator, he is not talking in the
air. Students of the Academy had been actually called on to give new
constitutions to Greek states. For the Greeks the constitution was not
merely as it is so often with us, a matter of political machinery. It
was regarded as a way of