A TREATISE ON GOVERNMENT

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF

ARISTOTLE

BY WILLIAM ELLIS, A.M.

LONDON &.TORONTO PUBLISHED BY J M DENT & SONS LTD.
&.IN NEW YORK BY E. P. DUTTON &. CO

FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION 1912 REPRINTED 1919, 1923, 1928




INTRODUCTION


The Politics of Aristotle is the second part of a treatise of which
the Ethics is the first part. It looks back to the Ethics as the
Ethics looks forward to the Politics. For Aristotle did not separate,
as we are inclined to do, the spheres of the statesman and the
moralist. In the Ethics he has described the character necessary for
the good life, but that life is for him essentially to be lived in
society, and when in the last chapters of the Ethics he comes to the
practical application of his inquiries, that finds expression not in
moral exhortations addressed to the individual but in a description of
the legislative opportunities of the statesman. It is the legislator's
task to frame a society which shall make the good life possible.