Now any member of the assembly, taken
separately, is certainly inferior to the wise man. But the state is
made up of many individuals. And as a feast to which all the guests
contribute is better than a banquet furnished by a single man, so a
multitude is a better judge of many things than any individual.
Again, the many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like
the greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a
little. The individual is liable to be overcome by anger or by some
other passion, and then his judgment is necessarily perverted; but
it is hardly to be supposed that a great number of persons would all
get into a passion and go wrong at the same moment. Let us assume that
they are the freemen, and that they never act in violation of the law,
but fill up the gaps which the law is obliged to leave. Or, if such
virtue is scarcely attainable by the multitude, we need only suppose
that the majority are good men and good citizens, and ask which will
be the more incorruptible, the one good ruler, or the many who are all
good? Will not the many? But, you will say, there may be parties among
them, whereas the one man is not divided against himself. To which
we may answer that their character is as good as his. If we call the
rule of many men, who are all of them good, aristocracy, and the
rule of one man royalty, then aristocracy will be better for states
than royalty, whether the government is supported by force or not,
provided only that a number of men equal in virtue can be found.
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