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There are three senses which it bears in this treatise: the first

(in which it is here employed) is its strict etymological

signfication "The science of Society," and this includes

everything which can bear at all upon the well-being of Man in

his social capacity, "Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago

libelli." It is in this view that it is fairly denominated most

commanding and inclusive.

The second sense (in which it occurs next, just below) is "Moral

Philosophy." Aristotle explains the term in this sense in the

Rhetoric (1 2) [Greek: hae peri ta aethae pragmateia aen dikaion

esti prosagoreuen politikaen]. He has principally in view in this

treatise the moral training of the Individual, the branch of the

Science of Society which we call Ethics Proper, bearing the same

relation to the larger Science as the hewing and squaring of the

stones to the building of the Temple, or the drill of the Recruit

to the manoeuvres of the field. Greek Philosophy viewed men

principally as constituent parts of a [Greek: polis], considering

this function to be the real End of each, and this state as that

in which the Individual attained his highest and most complete

development.