they are impossible. Finally we are told that, if Plato's plans were good, someone would have
thought of them sooner. * I do not agree with Plato, but if anything could make me do so, it
would be Aristotle's arguments against him.
As we have seen in connection with slavery, Aristotle is no believer in equality. Granted,
however, the subjection of slaves and women, it still remains a question whether all citizens
should be politically equal. Some men, he says, think this desirable, on the ground that all
revolutions turn on the regulation of property. He rejects this argument, maintaining that the
greatest crimes are due to excess rather than want; no man becomes a tyrant in order to avoid
feeling the cold.
A government is good when it aims at the good of the whole community, bad when it cares only
for itself. There are three kinds of government that are good: monarchy, aristocracy, and
constitutional government (or polity); there are three that are bad: tyranny, oligarchy, and
democracy. There are also many mixed intermediate forms. It will be observed that the good
and bad governments are defined by the ethical qualities of the holders of power, not by the
form of the constitution. This, however, is only partly true. An aristocracy is a rule of men of
virtue, an oligarchy is a rule of the rich, and Aristotle does not consider virtue and wealth
strictly synonymous. What he holds, in accordance with the doctrine of the golden mean, is that
a moderate competence is most likely to be associated with virtue: "Mankind do not acquire or
preserve virtue by the help of external goods, but external goods by the help of virtue, and
happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who
are most highly cultivated in their mind and in their character, and have only a moderate share
of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are
deficient in higher qualities" ( 1323a and b). There is therefore a difference between the rule of
the best (aristocracy) and of the richest (oligarchy), since the best are likely to have only
moderate fortunes. There is also a difference between democracy
* Cf. The Noodle's Oration in Sydney Smith: "If the proposal be sound, would the Saxon
have passed it by? Would the Dine have ignored it? Would it have escaped the wisdom of
the Norman?" (I quote from memory.)