of their parents were citizens, that is to say, if
either their father or mother; and this method is
better suited to this state than any other: and
thus the demagogues have usually managed. They
ought, however, to take care, and do this no longer
than the common people are superior to the nobles
and those of the middle rank, and then stop; for,
if they proceed still further, they will make the state
disorderly, and the nobles will ill brook the power
of the common people, and be full of resentment against
it; which was the cause of an insurrection at Cyrene:
for a little evil is overlooked, but when it becomes
a great one it strikes the eye. It is, moreover,
very-useful in such a state to do as Clisthenes did
at Athens, when he was desirous of increasing the
power of the people, and as those did who established
the democracy in Cyrene; that is, to institute many
tribes and fraternities, and to make the religious
rites of private persons few, and those common; and
every means is to be contrived to associate and blend
the people together as much as possible; and that
all former customs be broken through. Moreover,
whatsoever is practised in a tyranny seems adapted
to a democracy of this species; as, for instance,
the licentiousness of the slaves, the women, and the
children; for this to a certain degree is useful in
such a state; and also to overlook every one’s
living as they choose; for many will support such
a government: for it is more agreeable to many
to live without any control than as prudence would
direct.
CHAPTER V
It is also the business of the legislator and all
those who would support a government of this sort
not to make it too great a work, or too perfect; but
to aim only to render it stable: for, let a state
be constituted ever so badly, there is no difficulty
in its continuing a few days: they should therefore
endeavour to procure its safety by all those ways
which we have described in assigning the causes of
the preservation and destruction of governments; avoiding
what is hurtful, and by framing such laws, written
and unwritten, as contain those things which chiefly
tend to the preservation of the state; nor to suppose
that that is useful either for a democratic or [1320a]
an oligarchic form of government which contributes
to make them more purely so, but what will contribute
to their duration: but our demagogues at present,
to flatter the people, occasion frequent confiscations
in the courts; for which reason those who have the
welfare of the state really at heart should act directly
opposite to what they do, and enact a law to prevent
forfeitures from being divided amongst the people
or paid into the treasury, but to have them set apart
for sacred uses: for those who are of a bad disposition
would not then be the less cautious, as their punishment
would be the same; and the community would not be
so ready to condemn those whom they sat in judgment
Copyrights
Politics: A Treatise on Government from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
