, but that men must bring these into proper
restraint, if they are desirous of either. He supposes an inward harmony,
the preservation of which is pleasure, while its disturbance is pain; and
as pleasure is always dependent on the activity from which it springs, the
more this activity is elevated the purer the pleasure becomes.

Virtue he considered the fitness of the soul for the operations that are
proper to it; and it manifests itself by means of its inward harmony,
beauty, and health. Different phases of virtue are distinguishable so far
as the soul is not pure spirit, but just as the spirit should rule both
the other elements of the soul, so also should wisdom, as the inner
development of the spirit, rule the other virtues.

Politics he considered an inseparable part of ethics, and the state as the
copy of a well-regulated individual life: from the three different
activities of the soul he deduced the three main elements of the state,
likening the working class to the appetitive element of the soul, both of
which equally require to be kept under control; the military order, which
answered, in his idea, to the emotive element, ought to develop itself in
thorough dependence on the reason; and from that the governing order,
answering to the rational faculty, must proceed. The right of passing from
a subordinate to a dominant position must depend on the individual
capacity and ability for raising itself. But from the difficulties of
realizing his theories, he renounces this absolute separation of ranks in
his book on Laws, limits the power of the governors, attempts to reconcile
freedom with unity and reason, and to mingle monarchy with democracy.

With respect to his theology, he appears to have agreed entirely with
Socrates.

_Aristotle_ was born at Stageira, B.C. 384. His father, Nicomachus, was
physician to Amyntas II., king of Macedon. At the age of seventeen he went
to Athens, in hopes to become a pupil of Plato; but Plato was in Sicily,
and did not return for three years, which time Aristotle applied to severe
study, and to cultivating the friendship of Heraclides Ponticus. When
Plato returned, he soon distinguished him above all his other pupils. He
remained at Athens twenty years, maintaining, however, his connexion with
Macedonia; but on the death of Plato, B.C. 347, which happened while
Aristotle was absent in Macedonia on an embassy, he quitted Athens,
thinking, perhaps, that travelling was necessary to c