When I was reading for my degree at Oxford, I thought that the ‘Politics’ of Aristotle would be likely to interest me more than his ‘Rhetoric,’ which was then usually taken into the Schools with the inevitable and sacramental ‘Ethics.’ Few people read it in those days, and my desire to take it up was treated rather as a harmless eccentricity, in the spirit of the words ‘Tiens, tu aimes ton mari; c'est bizarre, pourtant ce n'est pas défendu.’ This was in the year 1850, and I never returned to my old subject of study, after passing my examination, until, a few months ago, it occurred to me to read the book once again, and to see how it struck me after many years passed in politics and administration.