But a
difficulty arises when all these elements co-exist. How are we to
decide? Suppose the virtuous to be very few in number: may we consider
their numbers in relation to their duties, and ask whether they are
enough to administer the state, or so many as will make up a state?
Objections may be urged against all the aspirants to political
power. For those who found their claims on wealth or family might be
thought to have no basis of justice; on this principle, if any one
person were richer than all the rest, it is clear that he ought to
be ruler of them. In like manner he who is very distinguished by his
birth ought to have the superiority over all those who claim on the
ground that they are freeborn. In an aristocracy, or government of the
best, a like difficulty occurs about virtue; for if one citizen be
better than the other members of the government, however good they may
be, he too, upon the same principle of justice, should rule over them.
And if the people are to be supreme because they are stronger than the
few, then if one man, or more than one, but not a majority, is
stronger than the many, they ought to rule, and not the many.
All these considerations appear to show that none of the
principles on which men claim to rule and to hold all other men in
subjection to them are strictly right.
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