state, the state is understood in the light of its most perfect form,
when the good after which all societies are seeking is realised in its
perfection. Hence for Aristotle as for Plato, the natural state or the
state as such is the ideal state, and the ideal state is the
starting-point of political inquiry.

In accordance with the same line of thought, imperfect states,
although called perversions, are regarded by Aristotle as the result
rather of misconception and ignorance than of perverse will. They all
represent, he says, some kind of justice. Oligarchs and democrats go
wrong in their conception of the good. They have come short of the
perfect state through misunderstanding of the end or through ignorance
of the proper means to the end. But if they are states at all, they
embody some common conception of the good, some common aspirations of
all their members.

The Greek doctrine that the essence of the state consists in community
of purpose is the counterpart of the notion often held in modern times
that the essence of the state is force. The existence of force is for
Plato and Aristotle a sign not of the state but of the state's
failure. It comes from the struggle between conflicting misconceptions
of the good. In so far as men conceive the good rightly they are
united. The state represents their common agreement, force their
failure to make that agreement complete. The cure, therefore, of
political ills is knowledge of the good life, and the statesman is he
who has such knowledge, for that alone can give men what they are
always seeking.

If the state is the organisation of men seeking a common good, power
and political position must be given to those who can forward this