both falling within the wide compass of Political Science. Each of these
groups falls into sub-groups which roughly correspond to the several
books in each work. The tendency to take up one by one the various
problems which had suggested themselves in the wide field obscures both
the unity of the subject-matter and its proper articulation. But it is
to be remembered that what is offered us is avowedly rather an enquiry
than an exposition of hard and fast doctrine.

Nevertheless each work aims at a relative completeness, and it is
important to observe the relation of each to the other. The distinction
is not that the one treats of Moral and the other of Political
Philosophy, nor again that the one deals with the moral activity of the
individual and the other with that of the State, nor once more that the
one gives us the theory of human conduct, while the other discusses its
application in practice, though not all of these misinterpretations are
equally erroneous. The clue to the right interpretation is given by
Aristotle himself, where in the last chapter of the _Ethics_ he is
paving the way for the _Politics_. In the _Ethics_ he has not confined
himself to the abstract or isolated individual, but has always thought
of him, or we might say, in his social and political context, with a
given nature due to race and heredity and in certain surroundings.
So viewing him he has studied the nature and formation of his
character--all that he can make himself or be made by others to be.
Especially he has investigated the various admirable forms of human
character and the mode of their production. But all this, though it
brings more clearly before us what goodness or virtue is, and how it is
to be reached, remains mere theory or talk. By itself it does not
enable us to become, or to help others to become, good. For this it is
necessary to bring into play the great force of the Political Community
or State, of which the main instrument is Law. Hence arises the demand