MR. NEWMAN'S " POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE."* TRE academical world bad
been waiting long for Mr. Newman's work, when at the end of 1887 it was at length published. Thewaiting has not been in vain, for no more valuable contribution has been made for many years to classical learning than this. Even now, indeed, it is not complete. We have the introduction, occupying, with its seven appen- dices, the whole of the first volume ; an essay on what we may describe as the external history of the work, and another on the manuscripts ; the text of two books, with notes critical and exegetical ; and, finally, three appendices, one of them containing some critical remarks on the Latin translation of William of Moerbeke, the other two discussing the relation of the teaching of the Nicomachean. Ethics to the Politics, and the Carthaginian Constitution respectively. It will be seen that the text and annotation of three-fourths of the books are yet to come. If the same proportion of space is to be observed, two more volumes of equal size to the two now before ns will be re- quired. As a matter of fact, however, much of what has to be said about some of the later books has already been given in the introduction. Mr. Newman speaks of "a subsequent volume." We can only express the hope that nothing will interfere with the full completion of so admirable a work.
We have spoken of the book as a "contribution to classical learning." It is this, and more than this. Mr. Newman is fully in touch with modern thought. His introduction, which we venture to think only a scholar reared in the free political atmosphere of England could have written, is illustrated throughout by the experiences and speculations of many ages, and notably of our own. It is not too much to say that it will have at least as much interest and value for the statesman as it will for the scholar ; for it is the fact that, widely different as were the conditions of the problems which Aristotle, and Plato before him, had to consider, many questions presented themselves to them for which we have still to find an answer. The difference, indeed, lies on the surface. The huge populations with which Government has now to deal were beyond the ken of the Greek philosophers. The political science, as they conceived of it, was kept strictly within the limits of its first meaning ; it was the science that had to do with the well-being of a vrOAtc, a city. Even Athens, which would hardly come into the first class of English cities and towns, and which might have been added to London without producing any marked effect, seemed too large to some thinkers on politics. The maximum of size was fixed by con- siderations which seem strange to us. Unless all the citizens were known to each other, they could neither elect the right man to office, nor judge rightly between man and man. If the numbers of the community are too great, "where will a General be found capable of acting as its commander, or a herald capable of reaching it with his voice ? " The only modern States -which would satisfy the conditions of Aristotle are the small mountain cantons of Switzerland, where the
• The Polities of Aristotle. With an Introdneticm, Two Prefatory Essays, and Notes Critical and Explanatory, by W. L. Newman, M.A. '2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1887.
whole population can still meet in a General Assembly, or such a curious survival as the Republic of Andorra.
It is highly interesting for the student of modern politics, especially on their economical and social side, to bring up before his mind the ideal State as Aristotle imagined it. He has been wearying himself, perhaps, with the problems pre- sented by such facts as the East End of London or the dreary towns of the Black Country, and he seems to step into quite another world. Here is part of the picture as Mr. Newman has drawn it out :—
" We must imagine, then, a city at about the same distance from the sea as Athens, and perhaps (though this we are not distinctly told) linked like Athens by long walls to its port, a miniature Peirseu.s ; the city itself facing eastward like the centres of the worship of Aesculapius, Epidaurus and Cos and like Croton, whose healthiness was proverbial, for the sake, we are surprised to read, of a full exposure to the easterly winds, or else sheltered from the north wind, so that it may have a mild climate in winter ; not placed by the side of a river, like Sparta and many Roman cities, but including in its site one or more strong positions, and especially a conspicuous hill, perhaps scarped or precipitous like the Acropolis at Athens, on which such temples as the law of the State or the Delphic oracle did not relegate else- where might be grouped, so as to be visible from afar, and beside them the halls for the common meals of the priests and the chief magistrates. Like every Greek city, it was to have a central open-air gathering-place for converse and discussion—a kind of sensorium,' the like of which does not exist in modern cities. Immediately beneath the hill just described will lie an agora for the use of citizens only, kept sacred not only from all buying and selling, but from the very presence of cultivators, traders, and artisans ; and close beside it, as has already been noticed, not, as in the Athens of Aristotle's day, in the outskirts of the city, a gymnasium—the gymnasium of the older men, which is to be distinct and separate from the gymnasium for the younger men Each class would have, in fact, its appointed region: the citizens of full age would haunt the neighbourhood of the Acropolis, and the region near it ; the younger men would keep watch and ward upon the walls, where many of them would even take their meals, or else be in their own gymnasium, which would not, probably, be far from the walls ; the women would be at home, secluded somewhat more strictly than in democracies ; the boys would be at school or in their gymnasia, the peasants on their farms, the traders and artisans at their places of business in the port or in the commercial quarter of the city. The various classes of society were each of them to have room to live their own life ; the higher ones especially were not to be mixed up with or jostled by the lower."
Below this obvious difference comes another closely con- nected with it. In the politics of to-day, democratic ideas have become practically supreme ; but they had no place in the speculations of Greek philosophy. The word "democracy" was familiar to them ; but it meant a more or less extended oligarchy. All the Constitutions of the Greek States were founded on the fact of privilege; many of them excluded from any share in political power a majority of the adult population. Of this kind was Aristotle's ideal State. The "one man, one vote" formula would have seemed absolute nonsense to him. The business of governing seemed to him essentin3ly distinct from that of working or trading. Trade, of which, indeed, the philosophers had mostly a very mean opinion, the handicrafts, even agriculture (where we find a curious difference from the Roman ideal), were considered unworthy of the really good, the a7roaceioc eiiritZ;. Hence, as Mr. Newman puts it :— " It follows that a separate class or classes must exist in the State devoted to the discharge of the lower functions, and that the human beings employed for this purpose must be capable of nothing higher—otherwise there will be an infraction of justice, both wrong in itself and fatal to the harmony of the State. Aris- totle does not appear to point out, in what we have of the Politics, the measures by which he proposes to secure that natures shall not be pronounced to be fit only for necessary work, which better rearing or training, or more favourable circumstances might pos- sibly raise to the higher level. He seems also hardly conscious of the sadness of the view that the existence in adequate numbers of natures fit only for the lower functions is essential to the realisa- tion of the highest type of human society. If all men were capable of becoming men of full excellence (crwovaalot lorAias), the best State' could not exist. The attainment by the higher natures of their true level has its accompanying shadow ; it in- volves and implies the existence of lower natures who must remain beneath them. The State at its best breaks society into two sharply contrasted grades—those who can live for the highest ends and those who cannot ; the parting of the one from the other is the first and most indispensable step towards its realisation. It is of course true that the lower grade would, ex hypothesi, gain nothing by being called to the discharge of noble functions, and that it rises to a higher level of virtue and pleasure, when linked to the higher grade, than it could otherwise achieve. The relation of the classes discharging necessary functions to those discharging noble functions, as will readily be foreseen, can only be a dependent one. The latter fulfil the end of the State; they consequently are the State. The former exist within the State, because otherwise the latter could not exist; their existence is an unwelcome neces- sity. What numerical proportion these classes are to bear to the classes which form the State, we do not distinctly learn ; but no more of them must find a place in the State than is necessary for the purposes of the higher grade. Those of them who are slaves must be recruited from populations submissive enough to accept a dependent position without giving trouble."
Supplement this with Aristotle's theory of slavery, in which he postulates a class of 01;gei tolixoi, and we have a conception of society wholly strange to modern thought.
Still, remote as are the politics of Aristotle from anything possible now, they have not lost their interest. In the first place, he was not a mere dreamer. As Mr. Newman puts it :—
"One thing, however, is evident : the vision of an ideal State did not make Aristotle indifferent to the problems and difficulties of the actual State. The age which dreams of ideal States is often on the point of losing its interest in politics ; but this was far from being the case with Aristotle, who is perhaps all the more unwearied in suggesting practicable amendments of the actual State, because he has learnt from the study of the best State how rarely it can be realised. We even seem to gather from his lan- guage in the Politics that the main service which Political Science can practically render to the world is that of limited amelioration. It cannot make things right, but it can make them bearable."
It is doubtless on the Socialist side of modern thought that
Aristotle's speculations will be found chiefly to bear. The limitation of the size of the State was, indeed, made in the interests of what we may call Socialist legislation. The Greek philosopher had nothing of the laisser faire in his views ; indeed, he carried his regulating power of the State into details with which a modern lawgiver would not think of dealing. The age of marriage, the number of the family, the education of the children, were all to be subjects of State care. And he did not forget to make a limitation of the property which his ideal citizen may hold. "The ideal dis- tribution of property is that in which every citizen has enough for virtue and happiness, and none have more." The over-rich always aim at despotism; extreme poverty tends to a servile temper of mind. For a comprehensive and lucid summary of the philosopher's views on these points, we may refer our readers to Mr. Newman's introduction.
Of Mr. Newman's annotation we may say briefly that it is as complete an explanation and illustration as could be desired. The subject of his dealing with the text may be postponed till the appearance of his Concluding volume. He makes an important change in the order of the books, a radical measure which only an extreme necessity can justify; but as Books i. and ii. are the same in both arrangements, we are not immediately concerned with the matter.
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