ree forms of government, which I
mentioned at the beginning of this discussion--monarchy, the rule of the
few, and the rule of the many.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: If we divide each of these we shall have six, from which the
true one may be distinguished as a seventh.

YOUNG SOCRATES: How would you make the division?

STRANGER: Monarchy divides into royalty and tyranny; the rule of the
few into aristocracy, which has an auspicious name, and oligarchy; and
democracy or the rule of the many, which before was one, must now be
divided.

YOUNG SOCRATES: On what principle of division?

STRANGER: On the same principle as before, although the name is now
discovered to have a twofold meaning. For the distinction of ruling with
law or without law, applies to this as well as to the rest.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.

STRANGER: The division made no difference when we were looking for the
perfect State, as we showed before. But now that this has been separated
off, and, as we said, the others alone are left for us, the principle of
law and the absence of law will bisect them all.

YOUNG SOCRATES: That would seem to follow, from what has been said.

STRANGER: Then monarchy, when bound by good prescriptions or laws,
is the best of all the six, and when lawless is the most bitter and
oppressive to the subject.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: The government of the few, which is intermediate between that
of the one and many, is also intermediate in good and evil; but the
government of the many is in every respect weak and unable to do either
any great good or any great evil, when compared with the others, because
the offices are too minutely subdivided and too many hold them. And this
therefore is the worst of all lawful governments, and the best of all
lawless ones. If they are all without the restraints of law, democracy
is the form in which to live is best; if they are well ordered, then
this is the last which you should choose, as royalty, the first form, is
the best, with the exception of the seventh, for that excels them all,
and is among States what God is among men.

YOUNG SOCRATES: You are quite right, and we should choose that above
all.

STRANGER: The members of all these States, with the exception of the
one which has knowledge, may be set aside as being not Statesmen but
partisans,--upholders of the most monstrous idols, and themselves idols;
and, being the greatest imitators and magicians, they are also