POLITICUS (Statesman) by Plato - Complete text

Page 47

Str. And, after monarchy, next in order comes the government of the few?

Y. Soc. Of course.

Str. Is not the third form of government the rule of the multitude, which is called by the name of democracy?

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. And do not these three expand in a manner into five, producing out of themselves two other names

Y. Soc. What are they?

Y. Soc. What are they?

Str. There is a criterion of voluntary and involuntary, poverty and riches, law and the absence of law, which men now - a - days apply to them; the two first they subdivide accordingly, and ascribe to monarchy two forms and two corresponding names, royalty and tyranny.

Y. Soc. Very true.

Str. And the government of the few they distinguish by the names of aristocracy and oligarchy.

Y. Soc. Certainly.

Str. Democracy alone, whether rigidly observing the laws or not, and whether the multitude rule over the men of property with their consent or against their consent, always in ordinary language has the same name.

Y. Soc. True.

Str. But do you suppose that any form of government which is defined by these characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of poverty or wealth, of voluntary or compulsory submission, of written law or the absence of law, can be a right one?

Y. Soc. Why not?

Str. Reflect; and follow me.

Y. Soc. In what direction?

Str. Shall we abide by what we said at first, or shall we retract our words?

Y. Soc. To what do you refer?

Str. If I am not mistaken, we said that royal power was a science?

Y. Soc. Yes.

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