Again, revolutions
arise when an individual who is great, and might be greater, wants
to rule alone, as, at Lacedaemon, Pausanias, who was general in the
Persian War, or like Hanno at Carthage.
Constitutional governments and aristocracies are commonly overthrown
owing to some deviation from justice in the constitution itself; the
cause of the downfall is, in the former, the ill-mingling of the two
elements, democracy and oligarchy; in the latter, of the three
elements, democracy, oligarchy, and virtue, but especially democracy
and oligarchy. For to combine these is the endeavor of
constitutional governments; and most of the so-called aristocracies
have a like aim, but differ from polities in the mode of
combination; hence some of them are more and some less permanent.
Those which incline more to oligarchy are called aristocracies, and
those which incline to democracy constitutional governments. And
therefore the latter are the safer of the two; for the greater the
number, the greater the strength, and when men are equal they are
contented. But the rich, if the constitution gives them power, are apt
to be insolent and avaricious; and, in general, whichever way the
constitution inclines, in that direction it changes as either party
gains strength, a constitutional government becoming a democracy, an
aristocracy an oligarchy.
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