y share between themselves, either as they can attain them
by force, or according to some common equality which there is amongst
them, as poverty, wealth, or something which they both partake of. There
must therefore necessarily be as many different forms of governments as
there are different ranks in the society, arising from the superiority
of some over others, and their different situations. And these seem
chiefly to be two, as they say, of the winds: namely, the north and
the south; and all the others are declinations from these. And thus in
politics, there is the government of the many and the government of
the few; or a democracy and an oligarchy: for an aristocracy may be
considered as a species of oligarchy, as being also a government of the
few; and what we call a free state may be considered as a democracy: as
in the winds they consider the west as part of the north, and the east
as part of the south: and thus it is in music, according to some, who
say there are only two species of it, the Doric and the Phrygian, and
all other species of composition they call after one of these names; and
many people are accustomed to consider the nature of government in the
same light; but it is both more convenient and more correspondent to
truth to distinguish governments as I have done, into two species: one,
of those which are established upon proper principles; of which there
may be one or two sorts: the other, which includes all the different
excesses of these; so that we may compare the best form of government to
the most harmonious piece of music; the oligarchic and despotic to the
more violent tunes; and the democratic to the soft and gentle airs.

CHAPTER IV

We ought not to define a democracy as some do, who say simply, that it
is a government where the supreme power is lodged in the people; for
even in oligarchies the supreme power is in the majority. Nor should
they define an oligarchy a government where the supreme power is in the
hands of a few: for let us suppose the number of a people to be thirteen
hundred, and that of these one thousand were rich, who would not permit
the three hundred poor to have any share in the government, although
they were free, and their equal in everything else; no one would say,
that this government was a democracy. In like manner, if the poor, when
few in number, should acquire the power over the rich, though more than
themselves, no one would say, that this was an oligarc