The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

not an
absolute claim. The rich claim because they have a greater share in
the land, and land is the common element of the state; also they
are generally more trustworthy in contracts. The free claim under
the same tide as the noble; for they are nearly akin. For the noble
are citizens in a truer sense than the ignoble, and good birth is
always valued in a man’s own home and country. Another reason is,
that those who are sprung from better ancestors are likely to be
better men, for nobility is excellence of race. Virtue, too, may be
truly said to have a claim, for justice has been acknowledged by us
to be a social virtue, and it implies all others. Again, the many
may urge their claim against the few; for, when taken collectively,
and compared with the few, they are stronger and richer and better.
But, what if the good, the rich, the noble, and the other classes
who make up a state, are all living together in the same city, Will
there, or will there not, be any doubt who shall rule? No doubt at
all in determining who ought to rule in each of the above-mentioned
forms of government. For states are characterized by differences in
their governing bodies-one of them has a government of the rich,
another of the virtuous, and so on. But a difficulty arises when
all these elements co-exist. How are we to decide? Suppose the
virtuous to be very few in number: may we consider their numbers in
relation to their duties, and ask whether they are enough to
administer the state, or so many as will make up a state?
Objections may be urged against all the aspirants to political
power. For those who found their claims on wealth or family might
be thought to have no basis of justice; on this principle, if any
one person were richer than all the rest, it is clear that he ought
to be ruler of them. In like manner he who is very distinguished by
his birth ought to have the superiority over all those who claim on
the ground that they are freeborn. In an aristocracy, or government
of the best, a like difficulty occurs about virtue; for if one
citizen be better than the other members of the government, however
good they may be, he too, upon the same principle of justice,
should rule over them. And if the people are to be supreme because
they are stronger than the few, then if one man, or more than one,
but not a majority, is stronger than the many, they ought to rule,
and not the many.
    All these considerations appear to show that none of the
principles on which men claim to rule and to hold all other men in
subjection to them are strictly right. To those who claim to be
masters of the government on the ground of their virtue or their
wealth, the many might fairly answer that they themselves are often
better and richer than the few—I do not say individually, but
collectively. And another ingenious objection which is sometimes
put forward may be met in a similar manner. Some persons doubt
whether the legislator who desires to make the justest laws ought
to legislate with a view to the good of the higher classes or of
the many, when the case which we have mentioned occurs. Now what is
just or right is to be interpreted in the sense of ‘what is equal’;
and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to be
considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the
common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in
governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of
government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing
to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue.
    If, however, there be some one person, or more than one,
although not enough to make up the full complement of a state,
whose virtue is so pre-eminent that the virtues or the political
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 capacity; and that for men
of pre-eminent virtue there is no law—they are themselves a law.
Any 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, when in the council of the beasts the latter
began