156 A RZS TO TU'S POLITICS.
very moderate democracy: or if we combine politically actiye
yfopyoi, &bavuor, 6rcs with a feebk or declining oligarchy, the
result sill be an extreme democracy : and so on.
It is hardly necessary to remark that the illustration taken from
the animals is the reverse of the fact. The differences in animals
are not made by the combination of different types, but hy the
adaptation of one type to different circumstances. Nor is there in
the constitution of states any such infinite variety of combinations
as the illustration from the animals would lead us to suppose;
(one kind of husbandmen with another of serfs and so on). Sor
does -4ristotle attempt to follow out in detail the idea which lhij
image suggests.
- 9-1 7. The eight or more classes cannot be clearly discriminated. The
sixth class is \Tanting, but seems to be represented by the jutlicinl
and deliberative classes in 5 14, yet both reappear as a ninth class
in § 17. hristotle is arguing that Plato's enumeration of the
elements of a state is imperfect-there must be soldiers to protect
he citizens, there must be judges to decide their disputes, there
must be statesmen to guide them (although it is possible that the
same persons may belong to more than one class). ' Then at nny
rate there must be soldiers' ($ 15). This rather lame coiicludon
seems to be only a repetition of a part of the premisses. At this
point the miter looses the thread of his discourse and, omitting the
sixth, passes on from the fifth class ~b apor;oXcp+v in 8 IO to 3
seventh class of rich men (8 IS), and to an eighth class of ma,$j-
trates ($ 16). A somewhat different enumeration of the cl3SSes,
consisting in all of six, is made in vii. 8. $5 7-9,
- I 1-1 4. 8ir;irep iv T,; noXirri9 u,r.X.
The criticism of Aristotle on Plato (Rep. ii. 369) in this passage,
to use an expression of his own, is Irat8aproj8qs hiw. Piato, do
was a poet as well as a philosopher, in a fanciful manner builcl5
up the state; Aristotle, taking the pleasant fiction literally and
detaching a few words from their context, accuses Plato of making
necessity, and not the good, the first principle of the state, as
the entire aim of the work were not the search after justice.
There is also an amEguity in the word dvayrtaia of which Arktotif
