If 4 (7). 10. 1329 a 40–b 35 is genuine, Aristotle here pauses in the inquiry which he has been pressing forward so fast, and proceeds to justify the step which he has just taken in distributing the population into distinct γένη, by showing that the idea of such a distribution is not an invention of his own or a notion which dates from yesterday, but one which may be traced back to an immemorial past. So far there is nothing in the contents of this passage which need raise a doubt of its genuineness. Aristotle well knew the value of an appeal to antiquity. He says in the Rhetoric (2. 9. 1387 a 16 sqq.) that men more willingly accept the ancient than the new, and regard the ancient as nearly allied to the natural. He appeals in the Nicomachean Ethics (8. 11. 1160 a 25 sq.) to the purpose of ancient festivals in order to show what is the purpose of festivals generally, and in the Politics (5 (8). 3. 1337 b 29 sqq.: 1338 a 34 sq.) he seeks to discover what were the aims of those who originally introduced music into education, in order to show its true educational use (cp. also Eth. Nic. 1. 8. 1098 b 17). Besides, in this very chapter he explains—herein, it would seem, adopting a doctrine of Democritus (Philodemus de Musica, 4. col. 36. 29 sqq.: Kemke p. 108)—that the things which are earliest discovered are those which are necessary to man; thus the early date of the arrangements here referred to proves their necessity.

The Greeks were probably far more open-handed in their use of property than the Romans of the Republic. Polybius, at any rate, after describing the munificence of Scipio, adds (32. 12)—‘now an act of this kind would be not unreasonably thought noble everywhere, but at Rome it was positively marvellous, for there no one of his free will gives any one anything whatever belonging to him.’ Not every rich Athenian, indeed, like Cimon, threw his fields and gardens open to the passer-by, and allowed all men freely to take of their produce, or kept open house, or gave the garments from the backs of his slaves to poor men whom he met in the streets—far from it—but many gave dowries to the daughters of impoverished citizens, or paid funeral expenses, or ransomed captives, or subscribed to ἔρανοι for the relief of friends in distress. Aristotle would probably find as much to amend in the methods of the private charity of his day as he did in those of its public charity (8 (6). 5. 1320 a 29 sqq.): still he gives high praise to the liberality with which the Spartans treated each other, and the rich of Tarentum treated the poor (1320 b 9 sqq.: 2. 5. 1263 a 30 sqq.). He demands, however, of his ideal proprietor far more than this.

The first of the two volumes which I now publish is an introductory volume designed to throw light on the political teaching of Aristotle. I have sought to view his political teaching in connexion not only with the central principles of his philosophical system, but also with the results of earlier speculation. I have endeavoured to discover how it came to be what it is, and especially to trace its relation to the political teaching of Plato, and to ask how far the paths followed by the two inquirers lay together, how far and at what points they diverged. It is only thus that we can learn how much came to Aristotle by inheritance and how much is in a more especial sense his own. If the investigation of these questions has often carried me beyond the limits of the Politics, I have sought in recapitulating and illustrating Aristotle's political teaching to follow as far as possible in the track of its inquiries. It will be seen, however, that I have dealt in my First Volume with some books of the Politics at far greater length than with others. Thus, while I have analysed with some fulness the contents of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Books (in the order which I have adopted) and have also had much to say with regard to the inquiries of the First, I have dwelt but little on the Second Book and have given only a short summary of the contents of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth.