Oligarchy or
democracy, although a departure from the most perfect form, may yet be
a good enough government, but if any one attempts to push the
principles of either to an extreme, he will begin by spoiling the
government and end by having none at all. Wherefore the legislator and
the statesman ought to know what democratical measures save and what
destroy a democracy, and what oligarchical measures save or destroy an
oligarchy. For neither the one nor the other can exist or continue
to exist unless both rich and poor are included in it. If equality
of property is introduced, the state must of necessity take another
form; for when by laws carried to excess one or other element in the
state is ruined, the constitution is ruined.
There is an error common both to oligarchies and to democracies:
in the latter the demagogues, when the multitude are above the law,
are always cutting the city in two by quarrels with the rich,
whereas they should always profess to be maintaining their cause; just
as in oligarchies the oligarchs should profess to maintaining the
cause of the people, and should take oaths the opposite of those which
they now take. For there are cities in which they swear- 'I will be an
enemy to the people, and will devise all the harm against them which I
can'; but they ought to exhibit and to entertain the very opposite
feeling; in the form of their oath there should be an express
declaration- 'I will do no wrong to the people.
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