1529, "science of government," from
politic (adj.), modeled on Aristotle's
ta politika "affairs of state," the name of his book on governing and governments, which was in Eng. 1450 as
"Polettiques.""Politicks is the science of good sense, applied to public affairs, and, as those are forever changing, what is wisdom to-day would be folly and perhaps, ruin to-morrow. Politicks is not a science so properly as a business. It cannot have fixed principles, from which a wise man would never swerve, unless the inconstancy of men's view of interest and the capriciousness of the tempers could be fixed." [Fisher Ames (1758–1808)]
Meaning "a person's political allegiances or opinions" is from 1769.
Political animal transl. Gk.
politikon zoon (Aristotle,
Politics, I.ii.9) "an animal intended to live in a city; a social animal."
Politically correct first attested 1970; abbreviation
P.C. is from 1986.
[pol-i-tiks] 
) 
he's playing politics. [Mid-1800s]