Aristotle for the rest has not tried like Plato to describe such a state, but in respect of the constitution he merely points out that the best must rule. But this always takes place, let men do as they will, and hence he has not so very much to do with determining the forms of the constitution. By way of proving that the best must rule, Aristotle says this: “The best would suffer injustice if rated on an equality with the others inferior to them in virtue and political abilities, for a notable man is like a god amongst men.” Here Alexander is no doubt in Aristotle’s mind, as one who must rule as though he were a god, and over whom no one, and not even law, could maintain its supremacy. “For him there is no law, for he himself is law. Such a man could perhaps be turned out of the state, but not subjected to control any more than Jupiter. Nothing remains but, what is natural to all, quietly to submit to such an one, and to let men like this be absolutely and perpetually (ἀΐδιοι) kings in the states”[110] The Greek Democracy had then entirely fallen into decay, so that Aristotle could no longer ascribe to it any merit.
On the other side of the Philosophy of Mind, we have still Aristotle’s science of abstract thought, a Logic, to consider. For hundreds and thousands of years it was just as much honoured as it is despised now. Aristotle has been regarded as the originator of Logic: his logical works are the source of, and authority for the logical treatises of all times; which last were, in great measure, only special developments or deductions, and must have been dull, insipid, imperfect, and purely formal. And even in quite recent times, Kant has said that since the age of Aristotle, logic—like pure geometry since Euclid’s day—has been a complete and perfect science which has kept its place even down to the present day, without attaining to any further scientific improvements or alteration. Although logic is here mentioned for the first time, and in the whole of the history of Philosophy that is to come no other can be mentioned (for no other has existed, unless we count the negation of Scepticism), we cannot here speak more precisely of its content, but merely find room for its general characterization. The forms he gives to us come from Aristotle both in reference to the Notion and to the judgment and conclusion. As in natural history, animals, such as the unicorn, mammoth, beetle, mollusc, &c., are considered, and their nature described, so Aristotle is, so to speak, the describer of the nature of these spiritual forms of thought; but in this inference of the one from the other, Aristotle has only presented thought as defined in its finite application and aspect, and his logic is thus a natural history of finite thought. Because it is a knowledge and consciousness of the abstract activity of pure understanding, it is not a knowledge of this and that concrete fact, being pure form. This knowledge is in fact marvellous, and even more marvellous is the manner in which it is constituted: this logic is hence a work which does the greatest honour to the deep thought of its discoverer and to the power of his abstraction. For the greatest cohesive power in thought is found in separating it from what is material and thus securing it; and the strength shows itself almost more, if thus secured when it, amalgamated with matter, turns about in manifold ways and is seen to be capable of numberless alterations and applications. Aristotle also considers, in fact, not only the movement of thought, but likewise of thought in ordinary conception. The Logic of Aristotle is contained in five books, which are collected together under the name Ὀργανον.