This chapter continues and concludes the theme of its predecessor. It discusses, inter alia, the character of those in power, their relationship with the ruled, and the nature and purpose of education – which, if it is to promote stability, must be calculated to produce people who favour and fit in with the constitution in question. But perhaps the shrewdest sections are directed against extremists of whatever persuasion: only by incorporating elements of opposing constitutions can a given constitution survive. A democracy, for instance, which adopts rigorous and thoroughgoing democratic measures is more likely to be destroyed by violent reaction from the rich than one which pays some attention to their interests: overtaut bows snap. The advice Aristotle gives in this chapter, as in many another, is calm and sensible: stability depends on the ‘middle way’; cf. IV xi–xii.
1309a33 There are three essentials for the holders of the sovereign offices: goodwill towards the established constitution, tremendous capability for the work involved in the office, and in each constitution the kind of virtue and notions of justice that are calculated to suit the particular constitution in question. (Justice is not the same in every constitution, so that differences in notions of justice are inevitable.)1 But there is a question here: when all these qualities are not to be found in the same person, how is the choice to be made? If one man is fit to be a general, but is a low fellow and without goodwill towards the constitution, while another is just and has that goodwill, how is one to choose between them? It seems that we must look to two points: what quality do all men have in abundance, and what quality do they all have less of? In the case of generalship, we must regard experience more than virtue, as men possess the skill of a general less abundantly than integrity.2 It is the other way round in the case of an office which involves stewardship and safe custody of goods: this requires virtue above the average but no knowledge that is not to be found among all men. And another question might be asked: if both goodwill towards the constitution and capability are present, what need is there of virtue? Will not these two of themselves bring about good results? As against that it may be said that men may possess these two qualities and still be morally incapable;3 and if in spite of knowing,4 and having goodwill towards themselves, they nevertheless fail to serve their own interests, is there anything to prevent some of them being incapable of serving the common interes too?
1309b14 In general, all those legal provisions which we say are advantageous to the constitution in each case, all these are constitutional safeguards, including that oft-mentioned and most important principle – to ensure that the number of those who wish the constitution to be maintained is greater than that of those who do not. Moreover, there is one thing that must not be overlooked, though it is at present overlooked in constitutions that deviate – the principle of the middle way. Many steps thought of as democratic lead to the fall of a democracy, and the corresponding thing happens in oligarchies. Some people, believing that this virtue is a single one,5 push it to extremes. They fail to realize that a nose which deviates from the perfect straightness by being either hooked or snub is still a fine nose and looks good as well; but if the process is carried to excess,6 first it will lose the proportion which belongs to this part of the body, and finally it will not look like a nose at all, because of the extreme to which either the hook or the snub has been pushed at the expense of its opposite; and this is true of other parts of the body also. So it is with constitutions: both oligarchy and democracy may be tolerably good, though they diverge from the best arrangement; but if one carries either of them to excess, the constitution will first become worse and finally not a constitution at all. Therefore both the lawgiver and the statesman must know what kinds of democratic measures preserve and what kinds undermine democracy, and what kinds of oligarchical measures do the same for oligarchy. For it is not possible for either oligarchy or democracy to exist and continue to exist without both the wealthy and the mass of the people. If the distinction between them is abolished by the levelling of possessions, the resulting constitution will of necessity be a different one; that is to say, constitutions are themselves destroyed by the destruction of that very distinction, through legislation carried to excess.
1310a2 These mistakes are made both in democracy and in oligarchy. In democracies they are made by the demagogues, whenever the mass of the people has sovereign power over the laws: they make one state into two by their attacks on the rich. Yet they ought, for the sake of stability, to behave in just the opposite way, and always appear to be speaking on behalf of the rich. So too in oligarchies its members should always appear to speak on behalf of the people; and the oath which they take should be the very reverse of that which is in fact taken by them today – for in some oligarchies today their oath is: ‘I will be hostile to the people and do all I can against them.’ Both their assumptions and their ostensible conduct ought to be the opposite of this, and the declaration they ought to take on oath is: ‘I will do no wrong to the people.’
1310a12 But of all the safeguards that we hear spoken of as helping to maintain constitutional stability, the most important, but today universally neglected, is education for the way of living that belongs to the constitution in each case. It is useless to have the most beneficial laws, fully agreed upon by all who are members of the constitution, if they are not going to be trained and have their habits formed in the spirit of that constitution – in a democratic spirit, that is, if the laws are democratic, but oligarchically if they are oligarchic; for as one individual may be morally incapable,3 so may a whole state. Now to have been educated for the constitution does not mean simply doing the things that members of an oligarchy or democratically minded people enjoy doing, but doing what will enable them to live as oligarchs or as democrats, as the case may be.
1310a22 However, what actually happens is that in oligarchies the sons of the rulers enjoy ease and comfort, and the sons of the poor, being trained and inured to toil, are both more willing and better able to introduce innovations. And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as the most democratically run. The reason for this lies in the failure properly to define liberty. For there are two marks by which democracy is thought to be defined: ‘sovereignty of the majority’ and ‘liberty’. ‘Just’ is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is regarded as sovereign; and liberty is seen in terms of doing what one wants. So in such a democracy each lives as he likes and for his ‘fancy of the moment’, as Euripides says.7 This is bad. It ought not to be regarded as slavery to live according to the constitution, but rather as self-preservation.
The sources of change and destruction of constitutions, as well as the means of preserving and maintaining them, are for the most part as I have described.