"The study of politics is a form of natural history. Thomas Hobbes loathed Aristotle’s politics, and in Leviathan followed Plato in modeling politics on geometry; but he admired Aristotle’s biology. One consequence of that “biological” style is important, not only because it was at odds with Hobbes’s—and Plato’s—hankering after political geometry. Aristotle claimed that political analysis should aim only “at as much precision as the subject matter permits.” Political wisdom cannot aspire to the precision of geometry, and must not pretend to. Aboriculture suggests an analogy: most trees grow best in firm soil with a moderate water supply; a few thrive with their roots in mud and water."
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Sources
Alan Ryan, On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012), Ch. 3 : Aristotle: Politics Is Not Philosophy
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes
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Thomas Hobbes
1588 – 1679
englischer Mathematiker, Staatstheoretiker und Philosoph
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