Now, there are
some who hold office, and yet ought not to hold office, whom we
describe as ruling, but ruling unjustly. And the citizen was defined
by the fact of his holding some kind of rule or office- he who holds a
judicial or legislative office fulfills our definition of a citizen.
It is evident, therefore, that the citizens about whom the doubt has
arisen must be called citizens.
III
Whether they ought to be so or not is a question which is bound up
with the previous inquiry. For a parallel question is raised
respecting the state, whether a certain act is or is not an act of the
state; for example, in the transition from an oligarchy or a tyranny
to a democracy. In such cases persons refuse to fulfill their
contracts or any other obligations, on the ground that the tyrant, and
not the state, contracted them; they argue that some constitutions are
established by force, and not for the sake of the common good. But
this would apply equally to democracies, for they too may be founded
on violence, and then the acts of the democracy will be neither more
nor less acts of the state in question than those of an oligarchy or
of a tyranny. This question runs up into another: on what principle
shall we ever say that the state is the same, or different? It would
be a very superficial view which considered only the place and the
inhabitants (for the soil and the population may be separated, and
some of the inhabitants may live in one place and some in another).
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