hers make the whole more
wholesome than a few of them would be.

But there is a difficulty attending this form of government, for it
seems, that the person who himself was capable of curing any one who
was then sick, must be the best judge whom to employ as a physician; but
such a one must be himself a physician; and the same holds true in every
other practice and art: and as a physician ought [1282a] to give an
account of his practice to a physician, so ought it to be in other arts:
those whose business is physic may be divided into three sorts, the
first of these is he who makes up the medicines; the second prescribes,
and is to the other as the architect is to the mason; the third is he
who understands the science, but never practises it: now these three
distinctions may be found in those who understand all other arts; nor
have we less opinion of their judgment who are only instructed in the
principles of the art than of those who practise it: and with respect
to elections the same method of proceeding seems right; for to elect a
proper person in any science is the business of those who are skilful
therein; as in geometry, of geometricians; in steering, of steersmen:
but if some individuals should know something of particular arts and
works, they do not know more than the professors of them: so that even
upon this principle neither the election of magistrates, nor the censure
of their conduct, should be entrusted to the many.

But probably all that has been here said may not be right; for, to
resume the argument I lately used, if the people are not very brutal
indeed, although we allow that each individual knows less of these
affairs than those who have given particular attention to them, yet when
they come together they will know them better, or at least not worse;
besides, in some particular arts it is not the workman only who is the
best judge; namely, in those the works of which are understood by those
who do not profess them: thus he who builds a house is not the only
judge of it, for the master of the family who inhabits it is a better;
thus also a steersman is a better judge of a tiller than he who made
it; and he who gives an entertainment than the cook. What has been said
seems a sufficient solution of this difficulty; but there is another
that follows: for it seems absurd that the power of the state should be
lodged with those who are but of indifferent morals, instead of those
who are of excellent charact