is not easy to
obtain, and kings are not so superior to those they govern as Scylax
informs us they are in India, it is evident that for many reasons it is
necessary that all in their turns should both govern and be governed:
for it is just that those who are equal should have everything alike;
and it is difficult for a state to continue which is founded in
injustice; for all those in the country who are desirous of innovation
will apply themselves to those who are under the government of the rest,
and such will be their numbers in the state, that it will be impossible
for the magistrates to get the better of them. But that the governors
ought to excel the governed is beyond a doubt; the legislator therefore
ought to consider how this shall be, and how it may be contrived that
all shall have their equal share in the administration. Now, with
respect to this it will be first said, that nature herself has directed
us in our choice, laying down the selfsame thing when she has made some
young, others old: the first of whom it becomes to obey, the latter
to command; for no one when he is young is offended at his being under
government, or thinks himself too good for it; more especially when he
considers that he himself shall receive the same honours which he
pays when he shall arrive at a proper age. In some respects it must be
acknowledged that the governors and the governed are the same, in others
they are different; it is therefore necessary that their education
should be in [1333a] some respect the same, in others different: as they
say, that he will be a good governor who has first learnt to obey. Now
of governments, as we have already said, some are instituted for the
sake of him who commands; others for him who obeys: of the first sort is
that of the master over the servant; of the latter, that of freemen over
each other. Now some things which are commanded differ from others; not
in the business, but in the end proposed thereby: for which reason many
works, even of a servile nature, are not disgraceful for young freemen
to perform; for many things which are ordered to be done are not
honourable or dishonourable so much in their own nature as in the end
which is proposed, and the reason for which they are undertaken. Since
then we have determined, that the virtue of a good citizen and good
governor is the same as of a good man; and that every one before he
commands should have first obeyed, it is the business of the le