emphatically asserting its own special character. The democracy should be as little democratic, the tyrant as little tyrannous, the oligarchy as little exclusive and overhearing as possible,—so that in each case some approach might be made to the golden “mean,” which is the true cause of political stability.
In his high appreciation of the “Constitution,” or well-mixed government, Aristotle may be thought to have had an unconscious anticipation of the guarded liberties, and of the combination of order with progress, which are the blessing and the pride of England. But in one respect he totally fails to come up to the grandeur of the modern conception; for, as said before, he thinks of arrangements for a city and not for a nation, and he has no idea of those representative institutions by which political freedom of action on a large scale may be provided. As his views for each state were limited, so also he did not take sufficient thought of international relations. For one moment he seemed to have caught a glimpse of possibilities which he might have followed out into important conclusions; for he says (‘Pol.’ VII. vii. 3) that “owing to the happy moderation of the climate of Greece, the Hellenic race possess a combination of the best qualities which fall to the lot of the human species, being both high-spirited and intellectual; and if they could all together form one political state, the Greeks might govern the world.” He drops out this isolated thought, but does not pursue it. At the moment when he was writing, the Hellenic race was in the utmost danger; it was, in fact, doomed to fall from its high position into political extinc-
