Note (return) — Chapter IV

Aristotle, writing under the conditions of the ancient world, laid it down that a community whose population extended to a hundred thousand would no more be a State than would one whose population was confined to ten.[95] He based his argument on measurable facts as to the human senses and the human memory. The territory of a State must be 'visible as a whole' by one eye, and the assembly attended by all the full citizens must be able to hear one voice—which must be that of an actual man and not of the legendary Stentor. The governing officials must be able to remember the faces and characters of all their fellow citizens.[96] He did not ignore the fact that nearly all the world's surface as he knew it was occupied by States enormously larger than his rule allowed. But he denied that the great barbarian monarchies were in the truest sense 'States' at all.