But, in proportion as artificial inequality produced by institutions became predominant over natural inequality, riches or power 21 were put before age, and aristocracy became elective.Finally, the transmission of the father's power along with his goods to his children, by creating patrician families, made government hereditary, and there came to be senators of twenty.
There are then three sorts of aristocracy ?natural, elective and hereditary.
The first is only for simple peoples; the third is the worst of all governments;the second is the best, and is aristocracy properly so called.
Besides the advantage that lies in the distinction between the two powers, it presents that of its members being chosen; for, in popular government, all the citizens are born magistrates; but here magistracy is confined to a few, who become such only by election.22 By this means uprightness, understanding, experience and all other claims to pre-eminence and public esteem become so many further guarantees of wise government.
Moreover, assemblies are more easily held, affairs better discussed and carried out with more order and diligence, and the credit of the State is better sustained abroad by venerable senators than by a multitude that is unknown or despised.
In a word, it is the best and most natural arrangement that the wisest should govern the many, when it is assured that they will govern for its profit, and not for their own.There is no need to multiply instruments, or get twenty thousand men to do what a hundred picked men can do even better.But it must not be forgotten that corporate interest here begins to direct the public power less under the regulation of the general will, and that a further inevitable propensity takes away from the laws part of the executive power.
If we are to speak of what is individually desirable, neither should the State be so small, nor a people so simple and upright, that the execution of the laws follows immediately from the public will, as it does in a good democracy.Nor should the nation be so great that the rulers have to scatter in order to govern it and are able to play the Sovereign each in his own department, and, beginning by making themselves independent, end by becoming masters.
But if aristocracy does not demand all the virtues needed by popular government, it demands others which are peculiar to itself; for instance, moderation on the side of the rich and contentment on that of the poor;for it seems that thorough-going equality would be out of place, as it was not found even at Sparta.
Furthermore, if this form of government carries with it a certain inequality of fortune, this is justifiable in order that as a rule the administration of public affairs may be entrusted to those who are most able to give them their whole time, but not, as Aristotle maintains, in order that the rich may always be put first.On the contrary, it is of importance that an opposite choice should occasionally teach the people that the deserts of men offer claims to pre-eminence more important than those of riches.6.MONARCHY So far, we have considered the prince as a moral and collective person, unified by the force of the laws, and the depositary in the State of the executive power.We have now to consider this power when it is gathered together into the hands of a natural person, a real man, who alone has the right to dispose of it in accordance with the laws.Such a person is called a monarch or king.
In contrast with other forms of administration, in which a collective being stands for an individual, in this form an individual stands for a collective being; so that the moral unity that constitutes the prince is at the same time a physical unity, and all the qualities, which in the other case are only with difficulty brought together by the law, are found naturally united.
Thus the will of the people, the will of the prince, the public force of the State, and the particular force of the government, all answer to a single motive power; all the springs of the machine are in the same hands, the whole moves towards the same end; there are no conflicting movements to cancel one another, and no kind of constitution can be imagined in which a less amount of effort produces a more considerable amount of action.
Archimedes, seated quietly on the bank and easily drawing a great vessel afloat, stands to my mind for a skilful monarch, governing vast states from his study, and moving everything while he seems himself unmoved.
But if no government is more vigorous than this, there is also none in which the particular will holds more sway and rules the rest more easily.
Everything moves towards the same end indeed, but this end is by no means that of the public happiness, and even the force of the administration constantly shows itself prejudicial to the State.
Kings desire to be absolute, and men are always crying out to them from afar that the best means of being so is to get themselves loved by their people.This precept is all very well, and even in some respects very true.
Unfortunately, it will always be derided at court.The power which comes of a people's love is no doubt the greatest; but it is precarious and conditional, and princes will never rest content with it.The best kings desire to be in a position to be wicked, if they please, without forfeiting their mastery:
