POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE

(Wang) #1

66 A RISTO TL E'S POLITICS.


ix T&W Whether the inference be true or false, it is difficult
to elicit from the words which have preceded the grounds for
maintaining that a polity should not be made UP of democracy
and monarchy. Strictly speaking they are only a more detailed
statement of this proposition, not an argument in support of it.
In the passage which follows (haw hrShhXn), Aristotle is looking
forward to the discussion of what he calls aohtrria, or ' constitutional
government,' which like the constitution of the Laws, falls short of
the ideal state, hut is in advance of most existing forms.
TOM~T~/S, ' a state similar to that in the Lams.'




    1. Tiu ;orcpou p,,equop;vou.
      Miscd constitutions are treated of in iv. cc. 7-9, but the promise
      seems hardly to be fulfillcd in that place.





    1. 6; xal mp; T$Y a2peuLu riu dpxdvrov rL &$ aipoTOv aipcrobp hi-
      KIY~UYOV. d pdp rrvs uuurijvar Bihovur KU~ pdrprar TZ, aAjOos, dsi mrh T$Y
      roirwu uip9juourar /3oiX?u~v.
      Cp. Mill's Representative Government, chap. ix (Should there
      be two stagcs of election ?), ' The comparatively small number of
      persons in whose hnncls, a! last, the election of a member of par-
      liament would rcside, could not but afford additional facilities to
      intrigue.' The double election of representatives is thought to be
      a safeguard against demc rrncy ; it is really a source of danger and
      suspicion, and Tveakcns the national interest in politics. It seems
      often to supersede itself. Thus the election of the President of
      the United States by Electoral Colleges has passed into a mere
      form of universal suffrage. The only case in which such elections
      succeed is where the electors have other important functions (like
      the American State Legislatures, to which the election of the
      Senate is entrusted), and therefore cannot be appointed under a
      pledge to vote for an individual.
      For the indefinite use of ~~~LK~V~UUOU cp. Thuc. i. 137, int&j i~ T+
      &#oh& plu $poi; &f+ 82 iu ATLKLU~L~Y a&u li dtro~op~&j +&To.
      7, I. ai p& i6torCu ai^61 $rhoud$ov Kai noh~rrriv.
      i8rb;njs is opposed both to philosophers and statesmen, as in
      Plato to Gqpwpybs (Laws 921 B) and to not~tjs (Phaedr. 258 D],
      and in Thucydides (ii. 48) to larpds. '&&a'' such as Phaleas



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