The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

weight, and relate to more important matters, than
written laws, and a man may be a safer ruler than the written law,
but not safer than the customary law.
    Again, it is by no means easy for one man to superintend many
things; he will have to appoint a number of subordinates, and what
difference does it make whether these subordinates always existed
or were appointed by him because he needed theme If, as I said
before, the good man has a right to rule because he is better,
still two good men are better than one: this is the old saying, two
going together, and the prayer of Agamemnon,
Would that I had ten such councillors!
    And at this day there are magistrates, for example judges, who
have authority to decide some matters which the law is unable to
determine, since no one doubts that the law would command and
decide in the best manner whatever it could. But some things can,
and other things cannot, be comprehended under the law, and this is
the origin of the nexted question whether the best law or the best
man should rule. For matters of detail about which men deliberate
cannot be included in legislation. Nor does any one deny that the
decision of such matters must be left to man, but it is argued that
there should be many judges, and not one only. For every ruler who
has been trained by the law judges well; and it would surely seem
strange that a person should see better with two eyes, or hear
better with two ears, or act better with two hands or feet, than
many with many; indeed, it is already the practice of kings to make
to themselves many eyes and ears and hands and feet. For they make
colleagues of those who are the friends of themselves and their
governments. They must be friends of the monarch and of his
government; if not his friends, they will not do what he wants; but
friendship implies likeness and equality; and, therefore, if he
thinks that his friends ought to rule, he must think that those who
are equal to himself and like himself ought to rule equally with
himself. These are the principal controversies relating to
monarchy.
XVII
    But may not all this be true in some cases and not in others?
for there is by nature both a justice and an advantage appropriate
to the rule of a master, another to kingly rule, another to
constitutional rule; but there is none naturally appropriate to
tyranny, or to any other perverted form of government; for these
come into being contrary to nature. Now, to judge at least from
what has been said, it is manifest that, where men are alike and
equal, it is neither expedient nor just that one man should be lord
of all, whether there are laws, or whether there are no laws, but
he himself is in the place of law. Neither should a good man be
lord over good men, nor a bad man over bad; nor, even if he excels
in virtue, should he have a right to rule, unless in a particular
case, at which I have already hinted, and to which I will once more
recur. But first of all, I must determine what natures are suited
for government by a king, and what for an aristocracy, and what for
a constitutional government.
    A people who are by nature capable of producing a race superior
in the virtue needed for political rule are fitted for kingly
government; and a people submitting to be ruled as freemen by men
whose virtue renders them capable of political command are adapted
for an aristocracy; while the people who are suited for
constitutional freedom are those among whom there naturally exists
a warlike multitude able to rule and to obey in turn by a law which
gives office to the well-to-do according to their desert. But when
a whole family or some individual, happens to be so pre-eminent in
virtue as to surpass all others, then it is just that they should
be the royal family and supreme over all, or that this one citizen
should be king of the whole nation. For, as I said before, to give
them authority is not only agreeable to that ground of right which
the founders of all states, whether aristocratical, or
oligarchical, or again democratical, are accustomed to put forward
(for these all recognize the claim of excellence, although not the
same excellence), but accords with the principle already laid down.
For surely it would not be right to kill, or ostracize, or exile
such a person, or require that he should take his turn in being
governed. The whole is naturally superior to the part, and he who
has this pre-eminence is in the relation of a whole to a part. But
if so, the only alternative is that he