not even the faintest awareness of the complete transformation that he was effecting in the world.
The whole discussion is concerned with City States, and there is no prevision of their
obsolescence. Greece, owing to its division into independent cities, was a laboratory of political
experiment; but nothing to which these experiments were relevant existed from Aristotle's time
until the rise of the Italian cities in the Middle Ages. In many ways, the experience to which
Aristotle appeals is more relevant to the comparatively modern world than to any that existed for
fifteen hundred years after the book was written.
There are many pleasant incidental remarks, some of which may be noted before we embark upon
political theory. We are told that Euripides, when he was staying at the court of Archelaus, King
of Macedon, was accused of halitosis by a certain Decamnichus. To soothe his fury, the king gave
him permission to scourge Decamnichus, which he did. Decamnichus, after waiting many years,
joined in a successful plot to kill the king; but by this time Euripides was dead. We are told that
children should be conceived in winter, when the wind is in the north; that there must be a careful
avoidance of indecency, because "shameful words lead to shameful acts," and that obscenity is
never to be tolerated except in temples, where the law permits even ribaldry. People should not
marry too young, because, if they do, the children will be weak and female, the wives will become
wanton, and the husbands stunted in their growth. The right age for marriage is thirty-seven in
men, eighteen in women.
We learn how Thales, being taunted with his poverty, bought up all the olive-presses on the
instalment plan, and was then able to charge monopoly rates for their use. This he did to show that
philosophers can make money, and, if they remain poor, it is because they have something more
important than wealth to think about. All this, however, is by the way; it is time to come to more
serious matters.
The book begins by pointing out the importance of the State; it is the highest kind of community,
and aims at the highest good. In order of time, the family comes first; it is built on the two
fundamental relations of man and woman, master and slave, both of which are natural. Several
families combined make a village; several villages, a State, provided the combination is nearly
large enough to be self-