The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

ascertain what differences
there are in the constitutions of states, and in how many ways they
are combined. The same political insight will enable a man to know
which laws are the best, and which are suited to different
constitutions; for the laws are, and ought to be, relative to the
constitution, and not the constitution to the laws. A constitution
is the organization of offices in a state, and determines what is
to be the governing body, and what is the end of each community.
But laws are not to be confounded with the principles of the
constitution; they are the rules according to which the magistrates
should administer the state, and proceed against offenders. So that
we must know the varieties, and the number of varieties, of each
form of government, if only with a view to making laws. For the
same laws cannot be equally suited to all oligarchies or to all
democracies, since there is certainly more than one form both of
democracy and of oligarchy.
II
    In our original discussion about governments we divided them
into three true forms: kingly rule, aristocracy, and constitutional
government, and three corresponding perversions—tyranny, oligarchy,
and democracy. Of kingly rule and of aristocracy, we have already
spoken, for the inquiry into the perfect state is the same thing
with the discussion of the two forms thus named, since both imply a
principle of virtue provided with external means. We have already
determined in what aristocracy and kingly rule differ from one
another, and when the latter should be established. In what follows
we have to describe the so-called constitutional government, which
bears the common name of all constitutions, and the other forms,
tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy.
    It is obvious which of the three perversions is the worst, and
which is the next in badness. That which is the perversion of the
first and most divine is necessarily the worst. And just as a royal
rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great
personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of
governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a
well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long
way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the
three.
    A writer who preceded me has already made these distinctions,
but his point of view is not the same as mine. For he lays down the
principle that when all the constitutions are good (the oligarchy
and the rest being virtuous), democracy is the worst, but the best
when all are bad. Whereas we maintain that they are in any case
defective, and that one oligarchy is not to be accounted better
than another, but only less bad.
    Not to pursue this question further at present, let us begin by
determining (1) how many varieties of constitution there are (since
of democracy and oligarchy there are several): (2) what
constitution is the most generally acceptable, and what is eligible
in the next degree after the perfect state; and besides this what
other there is which is aristocratical and well-constituted, and at
the same time adapted to states in general; (3) of the other forms
of government to whom each is suited. For democracy may meet the
needs of some better than oligarchy, and conversely. In the next
place (4) we have to consider in what manner a man ought to proceed
who desires to establish some one among these various forms,
whether of democracy or of oligarchy; and lastly, (5) having
briefly discussed these subjects to the best of our power, we will
endeavor to ascertain the modes of ruin and preservation both of
constitutions generally and of each separately, and to what causes
they are to be attributed.
III
    The reason why there are many forms of government is that every
state contains many elements. In the first place we see that all
states are made up of families, and in the multitude of citizen
there must be some rich and some poor, and some in a middle
condition; the rich are heavy-armed, and the poor not. Of the
common people, some are husbandmen, and some traders, and some
artisans. There are also among the notables differences of wealth
and property—for example, in the number of horses which they keep,
for they cannot afford to keep them unless they are rich. And
therefore in old times the cities whose strength lay in their
cavalry were oligarchies, and they used cavalry in wars against
their neighbors; as was the practice of the Eretrians and
Chalcidians, and also of the Magnesians on the