he first appearance of a most
valuable form of historical criticism.

To the development of Dialectic, as to God, intervals of time are of no
account. From Plato and Aristotle we pass direct to Polybius.

The progress of thought from the philosopher of the Academe to the
Arcadian historian may be best illustrated by a comparison of the method
by which each of the three writers, whom I have selected as the highest
expressions of the rationalism of his respective age, attained to his
ideal state: for the latter conception may be in a measure regarded as
representing the most spiritual principle which they could discern in
history.

Now, Plato created his on a priori principles: Aristotle formed his by an
analysis of existing constitutions; Polybius found his realised for him
in the actual world of fact. Aristotle criticised the deductive
speculations of Plato by means of inductive negative instances, but
Polybius will not take the 'Cloud City' of the Republic into account at
all. He compares it to an athlete who has never run on 'Constitution
Hill,' to a statue so beautiful that it is entirely removed from the
ordinary conditions of humanity, and consequently from the canons of
criticism.

The Roman state had attained in his eyes, by means of the mutual
counteraction of three opposing forces, {190} that stable equilibrium in
politics which was the ideal of all the theoretical writers of antiquity.
And in connection with this point it will be convenient to notice here
how much truth there is contained in the accusation so often brought
against the ancients that they knew nothing of the idea of Progress, for
the meaning of many of their speculations will be hidden from us if we do
not try and comprehend first what their aim was, and secondly why it was
so.

Now, like all wide generalities, this statement is at least inaccurate.
The prayer of Plato's ideal city--[Greek], might be written as a text
over the door of the last Temple to Humanity raised by the disciples of
Fourier and Saint Simon, but it is certainly true that their ideal
principle was order and permanence, not indefinite progress. For,
setting aside the artistic prejudices which would have led the Greeks to
reject this idea of unlimited improvement, we may note that the modern
conception of progress rests partly on the new enthusiasm and worship of
humanity, partly on the splendid hopes of material improvements in
civilisation which applied science has