ll observe, first of all, that the only real check on democracy
is the division into classes. The second of the three proposals, though
ingenious, and receiving some light from the apathy to politics which
is often shown by the higher classes in a democracy, would have little
power in times of excitement and peril, when the precaution was most
needed. At such political crises, all the lower classes would vote
equally with the higher. The subtraction of half the persons chosen
at the first election by the chances of the lot would not raise the
character of the senators, and is open to the objection of uncertainty,
which necessarily attends this and similar schemes of double
representative government. Nor can the voters be expected to retain the
continuous political interest required for carrying out such a proposal
as Plato's. Who could select 180 persons of each class, fitted to be
senators? And whoever were chosen by the voter in the first instance,
his wishes might be neutralized by the action of the lot. Yet the scheme
of Plato is not really so extravagant as the actual constitution of
Athens, in which all the senators appear to have been elected by
lot (apo kuamou bouleutai), at least, after the revolution made by
Cleisthenes; for the constitution of the senate which was established
by Solon probably had some aristocratic features, though their precise
nature is unknown to us. The ancients knew that election by lot was
the most democratic of all modes of appointment, seeming to say in the
objectionable sense, that 'one man is as good as another.' Plato, who is
desirous of mingling different elements, makes a partial use of the lot,
which he applies to candidates already elected by vote. He attempts also
to devise a system of checks and balances such as he supposes to have
been intended by the ancient legislators. We are disposed to say to
him, as he himself says in a remarkable passage, that 'no man ever
legislates, but accidents of all sorts, which legislate for us in all
sorts of ways. The violence of war and the hard necessity of poverty are
constantly overturning governments and changing laws.' And yet, as he
adds, the true legislator is still required: he must co-operate with
circumstances. Many things which are ascribed to human foresight are
the result of chance. Ancient, and in a less degree modern political
constitutions, are never consistent with themselves, because they are
never framed on a single design,