Politics   

to account, but they do not allow them to hold office singly. When
they meet together their perceptions are quite good enough, and
combined with the better class they are useful to the state (just as
impure food when mixed with what is pure sometimes makes the entire
mass more wholesome than a small quantity of the pure would be), but
each individual, left to himself, forms an imperfect judgment. On the
other hand, the popular form of government involves certain
difficulties. In the first place, it might be objected that he who can
judge of the healing of a sick man would be one who could himself heal
his disease, and make him whole- that is, in other words, the
physician; and so in all professions and arts. As, then, the physician
ought to be called to account by physicians, so ought men in general
to be called to account by their peers. But physicians are of three
kinds: there is the ordinary practitioner, and there is the physician
of the higher class, and thirdly the intelligent man who has studied
the art: in all arts there is such a class; and we attribute the power
of judging to them quite as much as to professors of the art.
Secondly, does not the same principle apply to elections? For a right
election can only be made by those who have knowledge; those who know
geometry, for example, will choose a geometrician rightly, and those
who know how to steer, a pilot; and, even if there be some occupations
and arts in which private persons share in the ability to choose, they
certainly cannot choose better than those who know. So that, according
to this argument, neither the election of magistrates, nor the calling
of them to account, should be entrusted to the many. Yet possibly
these objections are to a great extent met by our old answer, that if
the people are not utterly degraded, although individually they may be
worse judges than those who have special knowledge- as a body they are
as good or better. Moreover, there are some arts whose products are
not judged of solely, or best, by the artists themselves, namely those
arts whose products are recognized even by those who do not possess
the art; for example, the knowledge of the house is not limited to the
builder only; the user, or, in other words, the master, of the house
will be even a better judge than the builder, just as the pilot will
judge better of a rudder than the carpenter, and the guest will judge
better of a feast than the cook.
This difficulty seems now to be sufficiently answered, but there is
another akin to it. That inferior persons should have authority in
greater matters than the good would appear to be a strange thing, yet
the election and calling to account of the magistrates is the greatest
of all. And these, as I was saying, are functions which in some states
are assigned to the people, for the assembly is supreme in all such
matters. Yet persons of any age, and having but a small property
qualification, sit in the assembly and deliberate and judge, although
for the great officers of state, such as treasurers and generals, a
high qualification is required. This difficulty may be solved in the
same manner as the preceding, and the present practice of democracies
may be really defensible. For the power does not reside in the dicast,
or senator, or ecclesiast, but in the court, and the senate, and the
assembly, of which individual senators, or ecclesiasts, or dicasts,
are only parts or members. And for this reason the many may claim to
have a higher authority than the few; for the people, and the senate,
and the courts consist of many persons, and their property
collectively is greater than the property of one or of a few
individuals holding great offices. But enough of this.
The discussion of the first question shows nothing so clearly as that
laws, when good, should be supreme; and that the magistrate or
magistrates should regulate those matters only on which the laws are
unable to speak with precision owing to the difficulty of any general
principle embracing all particulars. But what are good laws has not
yet been clearly explained; the old difficulty remains. The goodness
or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the
constitutions of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must
be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government