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[1293b]
[1]
Now the name of
aristocracy is indeed properly given to the constitution that we discussed in
our first discourses1 (for it is right to apply the name
‘aristocracy’—‘government of the
best’—only to the constitution of which the citizens are
best in virtue absolutely and not merely good men in relation to some arbitrary
standard, for under it alone the same person is a good man and a good citizen
absolutely, whereas those who are good under the other constitutions are good
relatively to their own form of constitution); nevertheless there are
also some constitutions that have differences both in comparison with
oligarchically governed states and with what is termed constitutional
government, inasmuch as in them they elect the officials not only by wealth but
also by goodness; this form of
constitution differs from both and is called aristocratic. For even in the
states that do not pay any public attention to virtue there are nevertheless
some men that are held in high esteem and are thought worthy of respect. Where
then the constitution takes in view wealth and virtue as well as the common
people, as for instance at Carthage, this is of the nature of an aristocracy; and so also
are the states, in which the constitution, like that of Sparta, takes in view two of these things
only, virtue and the common people, and there is a mingling of these two
factors, democracy and virtue. These then are two kinds of aristocracy beside
the first, which is the best constitution,
[20]
and a third kind is those instances of what is called
constitutional government that incline more in the direction of
oligarchy.It remains for us to speak about what is termed constitutional
government and also about tyranny. Though neither the former nor the
aristocracies spoken of just now are really deviations, we have classed them
thus because in actual truth they have all fallen away from the most correct
constitution, and consequently are counted with the deviation-forms, and those
are deviations from them, as we said in our remarks at the beginning.2
Tyranny is reasonably mentioned last because it is the least constitutional of
all governments, whereas our investigation is about constitutional
government.Having then stated the reason for
this mode of classification, we have now to set forth our view about
constitutional government. For its
meaning is clearer now that the characteristics of oligarchy and democracy have
been defined; since constitutional government is, to put it simply, a mixture of
oligarchy and democracy. But people customarily give the name of constitutional
government only to those among such mixed constitutions that incline towards
democracy, and entitle those that incline more towards oligarchy aristocracies,
because education and good birth go more with the wealthier classes, and also
the wealthy are thought to have already the things to get which wrongdoers
commit wrong; owing to which people apply the terms ‘gentry’
and ‘notabilities’ to the rich. Since therefore aristocracy means the assignment of the
highest place to the best of the citizens, oligarchies also are said to be drawn
rather from the gentry.
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