Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/81



City-State once realised, at the moment when the smaller units gave up their separate existence to become one powerful whole, a new era was entered on in which the possibilities of advance were boundless. A new species of community had been developed, with the germs lying hidden within it of such bloom and fruit as man had never yet dreamed of. The first members of the new community can hardly have realised this; but we, looking back into the ages, can see it, and the Greek philosophers, when they came to turn their thoughts upon the nature of the State they lived in, recognised it as a leading fact in the history of mankind. It may be as well, before we go further, to consider it for a moment in the light of their reflections, and to ask the fundamental question with which Aristotle enters on his discussion of the State, — In what way did this new kind of community essentially differ from those which preceded it?