The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [232]
Chapter 13
1. We may classify governments into three forms: monarchy, aristocracy and constitutional government,
2. And recognise three corresponding forms to which each tends: tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.
3. It is obvious which of the three is worst. If monarchy is not a mere name, it must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king;
4. So tyranny, as the opposite of such virtue, is the worst of governments, and is thus necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form.
5. Oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, supposed to mean ‘rule by the best’. It simply means rule by a clique, who alone are free.
6. And therefore democracy, with all its imperfections, is the most tolerable of the three.
7. What is the best constitution for most states, and the best life for most men,
8. Neither assuming a standard of virtue which is above the ordinary, nor ideals which are an aspiration only?
9. We must answer having regard to the life which the majority are able to share, and to the form of government which states can realistically attain;
10. For the end of community is the happiness of the members, and that happiness must be attainable.
11. The happy life is the life according to virtue lived without impediment, and that virtue is a mean, or middle path.
12. Then the life which is lived along a mean attainable by everyone, must be the best.
13. And the same principles of virtue and vice are characteristic of cities and of constitutions;
14. For the constitution is, so to speak, the life of the city.
15. Those constituting the mean of a society are those neither too rich nor too poor to be interested in the benefit of all,
16. But who wish the whole to be in harmony with itself. This is the middle section of society.
17. The legislator should always include the middle class in his government:
18. If he makes his laws oligarchical, to the middle class let him look; if he makes them democratical, he should equally by his laws try to attach this class to the state.
19. There only can the government ever be stable where the middle class exceeds one or both of the others,
20. And in that case there will be no fear that the rich will unite with the poor against the government.
21. For neither of them will ever be willing to serve the other,
22. And if they look for some form of government more suitable to both, they will find none better than this,
23. For the rich and the poor will never consent to rule in turn, because they mistrust one another.
24. The arbiter is always the one trusted, and he who is in the middle is an arbiter.
25. The more perfect the admixture of the political elements, the more stable and lasting will the constitution be.
26. Many even of those who desire to form aristocratical governments make a mistake,
27. Not only in giving too much power to the rich, but in attempting to overreach the people.
28. There comes a time when out of a false good there arises a true evil,
29. Since the encroachments of the rich are more destructive to the constitution than those of the people.
Chapter 14
1. Those who would duly enquire about the best form of a state ought first to determine which is the best kind of life for people;
2. While this remains uncertain the best form of the state must also be uncertain,
3. For, in the natural order of things, those may be expected to lead the best life who are governed in the best manner that their circumstances admit.
4. We ought therefore to ascertain which is generally the best kind of life,
5. And whether the same life is or is not best for the state and for individuals alike.
6. What is the best life? No one will dispute the propriety of that partition of goods which separates them into three classes,
7. Namely, external goods, goods of the body and goods of the mind; or deny that the happy man must have all three.
8. For no one would maintain that he is happy who has little courage or temperance or justice or prudence,
9. Who is afraid of every insect which flutters past, who