But when the citizens at large
administer the state for the common interest, the government is called
by the generic name- a constitution. And there is a reason for this
use of language. One man or a few may excel in virtue; but as the
number increases it becomes more difficult for them to attain
perfection in every kind of virtue, though they may in military
virtue, for this is found in the masses. Hence in a constitutional
government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who
possess arms are the citizens.
Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows: of
royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional
government, democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has
in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the
interest of the wealthy; democracy, of the needy: none of them the
common good of all.
VIII
But there are difficulties about these forms of government, and it
will therefore be necessary to state a little more at length the
nature of each of them. For he who would make a philosophical study of
the various sciences, and does not regard practice only, ought not
to overlook or omit anything, but to set forth the truth in every
particular. Tyranny, as I was saying, is monarchy exercising the
rule of a master over the political society; oligarchy is when men
of property have the government in their hands; democracy, the
opposite, when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the
rulers.
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