ious natures. Now, there are two causes which occasion there being so
many democracies; one of which is that which we have already mentioned;
namely, there being different sorts of people; for in one country the
majority are husbandmen, in another mechanics, and hired servants; if
the first of these is added to the second, and the third to both of
them, the democracy will not only differ in the particular of better or
worse, but in this, that it will be no longer the same government; the
other is that which we will now speak of. The different things which are
connected with democracies and seem to make part of these states, do,
from their being joined to them, render them different from others: this
attending a few, that more, and another all. It is necessary that he who
would found any state which he may happen to approve of, or correct one,
should be acquainted with all these particulars. All founders of states
endeavour to comprehend within their own plan everything of nearly the
same kind with it; but in doing this they err, in the manner I have
already described in treating of the preservation and destruction of
governments. I will now speak of these first principles and manners, and
whatever else a democratical state requires.

CHAPTER II

Now the foundation of a democratical state is liberty, and people have
been accustomed to say this as if here only liberty was to be found; for
they affirm that this is the end proposed by every democracy. But one
part of liberty is to govern and be governed alternately; for, according
to democratical justice, equality is measured by numbers, and not by
worth: and this being just, it is necessary that the supreme power
should be vested in the people at large; and that what the majority
determine should be final: so that in a democracy the poor ought to have
more power than the rich, as being the greater number; for this is one
mark of liberty which all framers of a democracy lay down as a criterion
of that state; another is, to live as every one likes; for this, they
say, is a right which liberty gives, since he is a slave who must live
as he likes not. This, then, is another criterion of a democracy. Hence
arises the claim to be under no command whatsoever to any one, upon any
account, any otherwise than by rotation, and that just as far only as
that person is, in his turn, under his also. This also is conducive to
that equality which liberty demands. These things being