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The ideal state of which Aristotle sketched an
outline (Politics, iv. v.) is not set either in time or in place.]
and exhibits its gradual deterioration, through the successive
stages of timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and despotism. He
explains this deterioration as primarily caused by a degeneration of
the race, due to laxity and errors in the State regulation of
marriages, and the consequent birth of biologically inferior
individuals.
The theories of Plato are only the most illustrious example of the
tendency characteristic of Greek philosophical thinkers to idealise
the immutable as possessing a higher value than that which varies.
This affected all their social speculations. They believed in the
ideal of an absolute order in society, from which, when it is once
established, any deviation must be for the worse. Aristotle,
considering the subject from a practical point of view, laid down
that changes in an established social order are undesirable, and
should be as few and slight as possible. [Footnote: Politics, ii.


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