other books; it is still more difficult to see why he should attempt to do so. If his narrative is, as is often the case, taken nearly verbatim from some other writer, there is no reason to suppose that he has not fully considered the trustworthiness of the account he uses. These authorities were doubtless in many cases contemporary, or nearly so, with the events that they describe; some of them certainly were. Of course, if Aristotle had written a full Constitutional History of Athens based entirely on original documents, as he could have done, had he wished it, it would have been much more useful to us; but that is not what he professes to do. That it was a constitutional history at all gave it a value all its own. We perhaps, in these days, hardly realize what a step it was in historical method to write a book of this kind. There were plenty of historians of Attica; Aristotle did not desire to add to them. They were, as we can see from their remains, usually very voluminous; about five books were generally occupied with the legendary history; the stories of gods and heroes, which formed the staple of historians from the days of Hecatæus, were narrated in full detail. These Aristotle passes by without a word; he excludes, moreover, all that was not essential to constitutional development. Hence the battles of Salamis and Marathon are only referred to as fixing a date. To show the great superiority of his conception and treatment of history not only to that of almost all ancient historians but of most modern ones, it is only necessary to compare his account of the development of the Archonship with the popular narratives of the same thing. If we keep before our minds that what Aristotle wished was not to tell new facts, but to draw attention to certain well-known events and put them in their proper light, explaining their historical importance, we can easily understand his use of his authorities. The popular story was in its way true; where it is misleading he corrects it; he warns his readers to reject many of the foolish stories circulated; where it is deficient he supplements it by giving original authorities; as a rule he is content to repeat it and abbreviate it. His method is shown well in the account of the aristocratic revolutions at the end of the Peloponnesian war. There were very many accounts of them; they had been described by eye-witnesses and actors; he therefore gives little or no account of the more striking events, but adds full quotations from original documents which explain the constitutional points at issue, and show the motives and theories by which the reformers were influenced, and inciVOL. XXXII.-NO. LXIV.

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dentally corrects a false impression on some constitutional matters which would be caused by Xenophon's narrative of the same events.

It seems to us, in fact, that the plan of the work shows as much as anything we possess of his the great superiority of Aristotle's intellect. It consists of two parts: the first a narrative of the development of the Constitution down to the year 403; the second an account of it at the time when the work was written. Some writers have expressed surprise that the narrative is so simple; the author has not attempted to compare the Constitution with others. To us that appears a singular merit. The book was written avowedly as an introduction and companion to the Politics; in the Politics we possess to some extent the comparison of different states; were the book completed we should have it more fully. But, as he tells us at the end of the Ethics and in the Politics (and it is a lesson most of his critics and most contemporary politicians still have to learn), the comparative study of politics must be founded on an acquaintance with the historical development of each state; it is no use making collections of isolated laws taken from different and dissimilar constitutions. Each state is a whole with a life of its own; this must be carefully studied before any comparison with other states can be made. In order to help such a study he wrote his collections of Constitutions. To have incorporated the comparisons in the account of each would have been useless: he would have been repeating what he meant to say at length in the Politics. It has been supposed that difference of treatment is a sign that the work is spurious; we consider it a sign that it is genuine. Aristotle valued his time too much to write two books saying the same thing.

As a test of authenticity the relation to the Politics is of great importance. If it is possible to point out serious historical discrepancies between the two, or if the authors hold different opinions on political questions, we shall undoubtedly have to acknowledge that the required evidence of spuriousness is forthcoming. The discrepancies that have so far been brought forward are not serious; the most important is the direct contradiction between the account of Draco in the Politics and that given in this new work. They cannot well have been written by the same author; in drawing any conclusions from this we must, however, remember that the passage in the Politics is one that has been long suspected by critics, and the passage in the Constitution is one which for other reasons is not improbably a later addition. Apart from this

one passage the two works agree thoroughly; the writer shows the same attitude towards the democracy that Aristotle does; like him, he distrusts and dislikes it; he displays the philosopher's superiority to it which is so characteristic of all the Socratic school; like them, he sees the great Athenian statesmen in Solon, Nicias, and Theramenes; like them, he supports the moderate aristocratic party against the strong democrats and the violent reactionaries. His attitude towards the democracy is, however, never bigoted; he recognizes its merits, he does not grudge it praise, and his ideal state would include large democratic elements. There is no reason to see in this the effect of the popular excitement at the time of the death of Alexander. This appreciation of the merits of both democracy and aristocracy, which causes him to aim at uniting in his polity the advantages of both, is one of the strongest characteristics of Aristotle's method; he desires in politics as elsewhere to assimilate in his philosophy all that is good in the more one-sided opinions of other thinkers. The truth, as he often reminds us, must include all the half-truths which are the cause of so much error. His distrust of extreme democracy does not prevent him from doing full justice to the many elements of good government which are the peculiar advantage of a generous distribution of political power.

We consider that this work, though different in plan, shows substantial agreement with the Politics, and that the design and conception is thoroughly characteristic of the powerful intellect of Aristotle. There was probably no other man living at the time to whom this could be due: the author is as much superior in his conception of historical science to his contemporaries and his successors, as Aristotle was in his logical and scientific work. We are justified in putting him in the first class of Greek historians with Thucydides and Polybius; immensely inferior as he is to the former in literary ability, it is with them that he must be classed.

Excellence of plan is, however, not incompatible with a certain imperfection of execution. It is a question how far this work must be accepted as an authority where it differs from other received accounts. The question arises concerning a limited number of passages which contain matter so novel as to be almost incredible. The most serious are the accounts of the Draconian Constitution and the ruse by which Themistocles helped in the overthrow of Areopagus. The first of these cannot be accepted as a true account, for it is inconsistent with all we know about the early history of Athens, and is inconsistent with much in this work itself.

The second causes an insuperable confusion in chronology. The chronology of the work is in fact a very serious difficulty. The author has taken great trouble with it: he has carefully dated every event, but in many cases the dates given are most surprising; it appears, for instance, as if the battle of Marathon is placed in the year 491 or 492, instead of 490. Some of these difficulties may possibly be due to a textual corruption, and in the case of the two most serious we are inclined to believe that they are later insertions; not because of their historical inaccuracy alone, but because one is never quoted by any ancient writer, and the other only by one. This could scarcely happen had they been found in all texts. In a few other passages we are inclined to suppose that there is a serious lacuna. It is still too soon to express a decided opinion on the more complicated questions of chronology. It must, however, be remembered that faultlessness is not a characteristic of any of Aristotle's writings; superior as he was to other writers in his historical feeling, it is still possible to point out in the Politics places in which he seems to have gone astray.

It is noticeable that the difficulties are confined entirely to the first part. The second statistical description of the State is, so far as we can test it by inscriptions, singularly accurate. A good deal of it is sketchy, and there is at times some confusion in the arrangement; but this seems, as we have already said, to be due to haste and want of completion. Making allowance for these shortcomings in both parts, it still remains true that this is not only by far the most valuable work on Athens that we possess, but that with the exception of the first twenty chapters of Thucydides, there is no ancient history which contains in this short compass such an admirable survey of a prolonged and difficult subject; whether it is, as we believe, a work of Aristotle himself, or only due to his influence, it shows the extraordinary power which he had of seeing and distinguishing what was important, and how far above any writer for the next two thousand years, he was in his understanding of the right method of approaching historical questions.

In conclusion, we must say a few words about the edition published by the British Museum. Of the palæographical work we have already spoken; and the admirable facsimile, though we believe rather more difficult to read than the original, is of great value to scholars. Mr. Kenyon's edition we have found of very great service. He has boldly, and we think rightly, instead of simply attempting to issue a correct

text, added full illustrations and comment. The best praise for his work is, that it has been found by all, what it is intended to be, a very useful help to farther illustration. It is, we think, to be regretted that the sheets before publication were not read over by some practised critic: a certain number of blunders, which, though of no serious importance, are undoubtedly a blemish on the text, would then have been easily removed. The conditions which prevented this may possibly have been imposed by the authorities of the Museum. The triple work of describing the original manuscript, settling the text, and writing historical notes is more than could be satisfactorily done by one man. Much credit is due to Mr. Kenyon for having achieved so much. A certain laxity in the use of prepositions and a few grammatical slips will gladly be pardoned by all who have profited by the great trouble he has taken to prepare the way for discussion of more important matters. The only point on which we are disposed to seriously disagree with him is, that he has not separated the critical from the epexegetical notes, so that it is often easy to overlook the fact that the text as printed is not the reading of the manuscript. This is a serious fault. A few of the historical notes and the parallels adduced from general history are not, it seems to us, very much to the point; and the introduction is perhaps rather too popular. These defects, however, are far outweighed by the real excellence of most of the work.

ART. VII.-THE COLONIAL EPISCOPATE.

1. Jubilee Report of the Council for Colonial Bishoprics. (London, 1891.)

2. Some Account of the Legal Development of the Colonial Episcopate. By Lord BLACHFORD. (London, 1883.)

AMID the many signs of revived Church life for which our branch of the great Catholic Church has to be thankful, not one is more remarkable than that to which the report named at the head of this article bears witness. Slowly, step by step, the Church of England seems to have learned her duties and responsibilities, and undertaken to discharge them. For a time the shock necessarily produced by such a revolution as the Reformation compelled her earnest sons to concentrate their thoughts and efforts upon maintaining their posi