At Sparta
every one is eligible, and the body of the people, having a share in
the highest office, want the constitution to be permanent. But in
Crete the Cosmi are elected out of certain families, and not out of
the whole people, and the elders out of those who have been Cosmi.
The same criticism may be made about the Cretan, which has been
already made about the Lacedaemonian elders. Their irresponsibility
and life tenure is too great a privilege, and their arbitrary power of
acting upon their own judgment, and dispensing with written law, is
dangerous. It is no proof of the goodness of the institution that
the people are not discontented at being excluded from it. For there
is no profit to be made out of the office as out of the Ephoralty,
since, unlike the Ephors, the Cosmi, being in an island, are removed
from temptation.
The remedy by which they correct the evil of this institution is
an extraordinary one, suited rather to a close oligarchy than to a
constitutional state. For the Cosmi are often expelled by a conspiracy
of their own colleagues, or of private individuals; and they are
allowed also to resign before their term of office has expired. Surely
all matters of this kind are better regulated by law than by the
will of man, which is a very unsafe rule. Worst of all is the
suspension of the office of Cosmi, a device to which the nobles
often have recourse when they will not submit to justice.
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