Page:The Criterion - Volume 4.djvu/21

Rh pretexts—has been abundantly verified by history. He adds, with his usual insight, that the desire of gain is often not so much the wish to acquire wealth for itself as the envy that men feel of the larger share possessed—whether justly or unjustly—by others. Most modern communist propaganda is founded upon, or derives its appeal from, mere envy. When he adds (Chapter III.) that the carelessness of admitting to high office persons who are disloyal to the State may be among the predisposing causes of sedition, we are reminded of a favourite modern device—not unknown to the Government of India—of placating enemies, and of the case of a politician, who had done his best to hamper the State in a Great War, being permitted not long after to become its chief magistrate.

In dealing with revolutions in democracies, Aristotle makes the significant remark that their principal cause is the intemperate action of unscrupulous demagogues, who compel the propertied classes to combine in defence of their own interests (VIII., 5), and he reminds us that many practices which appear to be democratic are really the ruin of democracies. Unless the whole body of citizens by habit and education have absorbed the spirit of the polity, the wisest laws will be of no avail (VIII., 9).

Such being Aristotle’s views on some of the main problems of government, what would be his attitude, if were alive to-day, towards modern socialist or communistic schemes?

He would, of course, have rejected laissez-faire individualism, and would have insisted that the State has further and higher functions than the mere provision of internal and external security. He might even have approved of some of our legislation that is vaguely termed ‘socialistic’ (as we may infer from VII., 5). On doles and State