happiness is the supreme good, and that the supreme good is the
contemplation of thought by thought--thought being self-sufficing; which is
approximately the imitation of God which Plato recommended. Sometimes, on
the contrary, it is very practical and almost mediocre, as when he makes it
consist of a mean between the extremes, a just measure, a certain tact, art
rather than science, and practical science rather than conscience, which
will know how to distinguish which are the practices suitable for an honest
and a well-born man. It is only just to add that in detail and when after
all deductions he describes the just man, he invites us to contemplate
virtues which if not sublime are none the less remarkably lofty.

His very confused political philosophy (the volume containing it, according
to all appearance, having been composed, after his death, of passages and
fragments and different portions of his lectures) is specially a review of
the divergent political constitutions which existed throughout the Greek
world. The tendencies, for there are no conclusions, are still very
aristocratic, but less radically aristocratic than those of Plato.

THE AUTHORITY OF ARISTOTLE.--Aristotle, by reason of his
universality, also because he is clearer than his master, and again because
he dogmatises--not always, but very frequently--instead of discussing and
collating, had throughout both antiquity and the Middle Ages an authority
greater than that of Plato, an authority which became (except on matters of
faith) despotic and well-nigh sacrosanct. Since the sixteenth century he
has been relegated to his due rank--one which is still very distinguished,
and he has been regarded as among the geniuses of the widest range, if not
of the greatest power, that have appeared among men; even now he is very
far from having lost his importance. For some he is a transition between
the Greek genius--extremely subtle, but always poetic and always somewhat
oriental--and the Roman genius: more positive, more bald, more practical,