II.—On an Aristocracy
In an aristocracy the sovereign power is in the hands of a group of persons. It is they who make the laws and see that they are carried out, and the rest of the people are the subjects of the nobility. When there is a great number of nobles, a senate is necessary to regulate the affairs which the nobles themselves are too numerous to deal with, and to prepare those which they are able to decide on. In this case the aristocracy exists in the senate, the democracy in the noble class, and the people count for nothing.
The best aristocracy is that in which the popular party, which has no share of the power, is so small and so poor that the governing class has no reason for oppressing it. Thus when Antipater made a law at Athens that those who had not two thousand drachmas should be excluded from voting, he formed the best aristocracy possible—for this qualification was so slight that it excluded very few people, and no one who had any consideration in the city. Aristocratic families should belong to the people as much as possible. The more an aristocracy resembles a democracy, the more perfect it is. The most imperfect of all is that in which the lower classes are ground down by the upper classes.
An aristocracy has by itself more force than a democracy. The nobles form a corporation which, by its prerogative and for its particular interest, restrains the people; but it is very difficult for this corporation to restrain its own members as easily as it restrains the populace. Public crimes can, no doubt, be punished, as it is in the general interests of an aristocracy that this should be done; but, as a rule, private misdeeds in the nobility will be overlooked. A corporation of this sort can only curb itself in two ways—either by a great political virtue, which leads the nobles to regard the people as their equals and makes for the formation of large republic, or by the lesser virtue of moderation, which enables them to conserve their power.
An aristocracy grows corrupt when the power of the nobles becomes arbitrary. When the governing families observe the laws they form a monarchy which has several monarchies; this is a very good thing in its nature, because all these monarchies are bound together by the laws. But when they no longer observe them, they form a despotic state which has many despots.
The extreme corruption comes about when the nobility becomes hereditary; it can no longer be moderate in the exercise of its powers. If the nobles are small in number their power increases, but their surety diminishes; if they are great in number, their power is less, but their surety more certain, for power goes on increasing, and surety goes on diminishing up to the despot whose power is as excessive as his peril. A multitude of nobles in an hereditary aristocracy thus makes the government less violent; but as they will have but little political virtue, they will grow nonchalant, idle, and irresponsible, so that the state at last will have no longer any force or resilience.
An aristocracy is able to maintain its force if its laws are such that they make the nobility feel more the dangers and fatigues of government than the pleasures of it, and if the state is in such a situation that it has something to dread, and that its surety comes from within, and its danger threatens from without. A certain confidence forms the glory and the safety of a monarchy, but a republic lives on its perils. The fear of the Persians kept the Greek states in strict obedience to republican laws. Carthage and Rome intimidated and strengthened each other. It is a strange thing, but democracies and aristocracies are like water, which grows corrupt only when it is too long unmoved and untroubled.
III.—On the Monarchy
Intermediary, subordinate, and dependent powers constitute the nature of a monarchical government, in which a single man governs by means of fundamental laws. The most natural of intermediary, subordinate powers is that of a nobility. This is indeed an essential part of a monarchy, of which the maxim is: "No king, no nobility; no nobility, no king."
There are some persons in certain countries of Europe who wish to abolish all the rights of the nobility. They do not see that they want to do what the English parliament did in the seventeenth century. Abolish in a monarchy the prerogatives of the lords, of the clergy, of the gentry, and of the towns, and you will soon have either a purely popular government or a despotism.