force of the laws in one, and the uplifted sword of
the tyrant in the other, regulates and curbs everything. In a democracy,
however, everything depends upon the political virtues of the people.
When a democracy loses its patriotism, its frugality, and its passion
for equality, it is soon destroyed by avarice and ambition.

The principle of democracy grows corrupt, not only when a people loses
its spirit of equality, but when this spirit of equality becomes
excessive, and each man wishes to be the equal of those whom he has
chosen to rule over him. Great successes, and especially those to which
the people have largely contributed, give it so much pride that it is no
longer possible to direct it. Thus it was that the victory over the
Persians corrupted the republic of Athens; thus it was that the victory
over the Athenians ruined the republic of Syracuse. There are two
excesses which a democracy must avoid: the spirit of inequality, which
leads to an aristocracy or to the government by one man; and the spirit
of excessive equality, which ends in despotism.

_II.--On an Aristocracy_

In an aristocracy the sovereign power is in the hands of a group of
persons. It is they who make the laws and see that they are carried out,
and the rest of the people are the subjects of the nobility. When there
is a great number of nobles, a senate is necessary to regulate the
affairs which the nobles themselves are too numerous to deal with, and
to prepare those which they are able to decide on. In this case the
aristocracy exists in the senate, the democracy in the noble class, and
the people count for nothing.

The best aristocracy is that in which the popular party, which has no
share of the power, is so small and so poor that the governing class has
no reason for oppressing it. Thus when Antipater made a law at Athens
that those who had not two thousand drachmas should be excluded from
voting, he formed the best aristocracy possible--for this qualification
was so slight that it excluded very few people, and no one who had any
consideration in the city. Aristocratic families should belong to the
people as much as possible. The more an aristocracy resembles a
democracy, the more perfect it is. The most imperfect of all is that in
which the lower classes are ground down by the upper classes.

An aristocracy has by itself more force than a democracy. The nobles
form a corporation which, by its prerogative and for its particular
int