following the example of the celebrated ‘Republic’ of Plato; but his object was to improve upon the conceptions of his master, whom he criticised with courtesy, but in a prosaic spirit. Plato’s “city” avowedly existed in dreamland, but Aristotle applied to it the tests of historical experience and everyday possibility. While accepting the idea of a city of contemplation, Aristotle determined that its institutions should be such as to approve themselves to practical commonsense. The contrast between the two philosophers in this matter is very striking—the one daring, creative, and full of the play of fancy; the other laborious, matter-of-fact, and scientific. It is not certain that Plato’s wild suggestions for a community of wives and property were meant to be taken seriously but Aristotle takes them so, and gives us the first arguments on record against Communism. He defends the institution of property as “natural,” and says that “it makes an unspeakable difference in the enjoyment of a thing to feel that it is your own.” All his remarks on this point are sagacious; but there is a singular spirit of conservatism shown in his saying (‘Pol.’ II. v. 16) that “if Plato’s notions had been good they would have been adopted long ago.” Instead of looking forward to a future of discovery and progress, Aristotle rather looked back, thinking that all perfection had been attained in the past.
In Books IV., VI, V. of his ‘Politics’ (see above, p. 119), Aristotle turns from the ideal to the actual, and lays down a theory of the different forms of government which are possible, the causes which give rise to
