He admits that democracy may be considered as a form of government ("... if democracy be a real form of government...."), and he admits too that "... multitudes, of which each individual is but an ordinary person, when they meet together, may very likely be better than the few good, if regarded not individually but collectively.... Hence the many are better judges than a single man of music and poetry; for some understand one part, and some another, and among them they understand the whole. [Observe that he is still speaking of a democracy in which slaves and artisans are not citizens.] Doubtless too democracy is the most tolerable of perverted governments, and Plato has already made these distinctions, but his point of view is not the same as mine. For he lays down the principle that of all good constitutions democracy is the worst, but the best of bad ones." But still Aristotle cannot help thinking that democracy is a sociological mistake "... It must be admitted that we cannot raise to the rank of citizens all those, even the most useful, who are necessary to the existence of the State."
Democracy has this drawback that it cannot constitutionally retain within itself and encourage eminent men. In a democracy "if there be some one person or more than one, although not enough to make up the whole complement of a State, whose virtue is so pre-eminent that the virtues or the capacity of all the rest admit of no comparison with his or theirs, he or they can be no longer regarded as part of a State; for justice will not be done to the superior, if he is reckoned only as the equal of those who are so far inferior to him in virtue and in political capacity. Such an one may truly be deemed a God among men. Hence we see that legislation is necessarily concerned only with those who are equal in birth and in power; and that for men of pre-eminent virtue there is no law—they are themselves a law. Anyone would be ridiculous who attempted to make laws for them: they would probably retort what, in the fable of Antisthenes, the lions said to the hares—'where are your claws?'—when in the council of the beasts the latter began haranguing and claiming equality for all. And for this reason democratic States have instituted ostracism; equality is above all things their aim, and therefore they ostracise and banish from the city for a time those who seem to predominate too much through their wealth, or the number of their friends, or through any other political influence. Mythology tells us that the Argonauts left Heracles behind for a similar reason; the ship Argo would not take him because she feared that he would have been too much for the rest of the crew."
Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, asked Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, one of the seven sages of Greece, for advice on the art of government. Periander made no reply but proceeded to bring a field of corn to a level by cutting off the tallest ears. "This is a policy not only expedient for tyrants or in practice confined to them, but equally necessary in oligarchies and democracies. Ostracism is a measure of the same kind, which acts by disabling and banishing the most prominent citizens."
This is what we may call a constitutional necessity for the democracy.
To be quite honest, it is not always obliged to cut off the ears of corn. It has a simpler method. It can systematically prevent any man who betrays any superiority whatsoever, either of birth, fortune, virtue or talent, from obtaining any authority or social responsibility. It can "send to Coventry." I have often pointed out that under the first democracy Louis XVI was guillotined for having wished to leave the country, while under the third democracy his great-nephews were exiled for wishing to remain in it. Ostracism is, in these instances, still feeling its way, and its action is contradictory because it has not made up its mind. This will continue till it has been reduced to a science, when it will contrive to level, by one method or another, every individual eminence, great and small, that dares to vary by the merest fraction from the regulation standards. This is ostracism, and ostracism, so to speak, is a physiological organ of democracy. Democracy by using it mutilates the nation, without it democracy would mutilate itself.
Aristotle often tries to solve the problem of the eminent man. "Good men," he says, "differ from any individual of the many, as the beautiful are said to differ from those who are not beautiful, and works of art from realities, because in them the scattered elements are combined.... Whether this principle can apply to every democracy and to all bodies of men is not clear.... But there may be bodies of men about whom our statement is nevertheless true. And if so, the difficulty which has been already raised—viz., what power should be assigned to the mass of freemen and citizens—is solved. There is still a danger in allowing them to share the great offices of State, for their folly will lead them into error and their dishonesty into crime. But there is a danger also in not letting them share, for a State in which many poor men are excluded from office will necessarily be full of enemies. The only way of escape is to assign to them some deliberative and judicial functions.... But each individual left to himself, forms an imperfect judgment."
It is not only the eminent man that is the thorn in the flesh of democracies, but every form of superiority, whether individual or collective, which exists outside the State and the Government.
If we recollect that Aristotle coupled extreme democracy with tyranny, it will be interesting to recall his summary of the "ancient prescriptions for the preservation of a tyranny...." "The tyrant should lop off those who are too high; he must put to death men of spirit: he must not allow common meals, clubs, education and the like; he must be upon his guard against anything which is likely to inspire either courage or confidence among his subjects; he must prohibit literary assemblies or other meetings for discussion, and he must take every means to prevent people from knowing one another (for acquaintance begets mutual confidence)." Aristotle's conclusions are subjectively aristocratic: "In the perfect State there would be great doubts about the use of ostracism, not when applied to excess in strength, wealth, popularity or the like, but when used against some one who is pre-eminent in virtue. What is to be done with him? Mankind will not say that such an one is to be expelled and exiled; on the other hand he ought not to be a subject, that would be as if men should claim to rule over Zeus on the principle of rotation of office. The only alternative is that all should joyfully obey such a rule, according to what seems to be the order of nature, and that men like him should be kings in their State for life." But when he speaks objectively, Aristotle comes to another conclusion, which we shall have occasion to mention later on.
Among moderns, Rousseau declared that he was not a democrat, and he was right, because by democracy he meant the Athenian system of direct government, of which he did not for an instant approve. In the "Social Contract" he has drawn up a most detailed scheme, which, in spite of some contradictions and obscure passages, is an exact description of democracy as we understand the word; but still we cannot tell if he is actually a democrat, because we do not know what he means by "citizens," whether he means everybody or only one class, though that a numerous one. Rousseau has written more fully than anyone else, not so much of the influence of democracy on morals, as of the coincidence between democracy and good morals. Equality, frugality and simplicity can all be found, according to Rousseau, in States where there is neither royalty nor aristocracy nor plutocracy. As I understand it, his meaning is that the same virtue which makes certain nations love equality, frugality and simplicity is also productive of a form of government which excludes aristocracy, plutocracy and royalty. If you have simplicity, frugality and equality, you will probably live in a republic that is democratic or virtually democratic. This is, I think, the clearest and most impartial summary that we can make of Rousseau's doctrine, which, though set forth in rigid formulæ, is still extremely vague.
In this he is a far more faithful follower of Montesquieu than he will allow. All that I have quoted is to be found literally in Montesquieu's chapters on democracy. Even his famous saying, "the ruling principle of democracy is virtue," means, when he uses it in one sense, no more than that it is the synthesis of these three perfections, equality, simplicity and frugality. For Montesquieu sometimes uses "virtue" in a narrow, and sometimes in a broad sense, sometimes in the sense of political and civic virtue or patriotism, sometimes in the sense of virtue properly speaking (simplicity, frugality, thrift, equality). In this latter case he and Rousseau are absolutely agreed.