The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

attention of the worker. But in small
states it is necessary to combine many offices in a few hands,
since the small number of citizens does not admit of many holding
office: for who will there be to succeed them? And yet small states
at times require the same offices and laws as large ones; the
difference is that the one want them often, the others only after
long intervals. Hence there is no reason why the care of many
offices should not be imposed on the same person, for they will not
interfere with each other. When the population is small, offices
should be like the spits which also serve to hold a lamp. We must
first ascertain how many magistrates are necessary in every state,
and also how many are not exactly necessary, but are nevertheless
useful, and then there will be no difficulty in seeing what offices
can be combined in one. We should also know over which matters
several local tribunals are to have jurisdiction, and in which
authority should be centralized: for example, should one person
keep order in the market and another in some other place, or should
the same person be responsible everywhere? Again, should offices be
divided according to the subjects with which they deal, or
according to the persons with whom they deal: I mean to say, should
one person see to good order in general, or one look after the
boys, another after the women, and so on? Further, under different
constitutions, should the magistrates be the same or different? For
example, in democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy, should
there be the same magistrates, although they are elected, not out
of equal or similar classes of citizen but differently under
different constitutions—in aristocracies, for example, they are
chosen from the educated, in oligarchies from the wealthy, and in
democracies from the free—or are there certain differences in the
offices answering to them as well, and may the same be suitable to
some, but different offices to others? For in some states it may be
convenient that the same office should have a more extensive, in
other states a narrower sphere. Special offices are peculiar to
certain forms of government: for example that of probuli, which is
not a democratic office, although a bule or council is. There must
be some body of men whose duty is to prepare measures for the
people in order that they may not be diverted from their business;
when these are few in number, the state inclines to an oligarchy:
or rather the probuli must always be few, and are therefore an
oligarchical element. But when both institutions exist in a state,
the probuli are a check on the council; for the counselors is a
democratic element, but the probuli are oligarchical. Even the
power of the council disappears when democracy has taken that
extreme form in which the people themselves are always meeting and
deliberating about everything. This is the case when the members of
the assembly receive abundant pay; for they have nothing to do and
are always holding assemblies and deciding everything for
themselves. A magistracy which controls the boys or the women, or
any similar office, is suited to an aristocracy rather than to a
democracy; for how can the magistrates prevent the wives of the
poor from going out of doors? Neither is it an oligarchical office;
for the wives of the oligarchs are too fine to be controlled.
    Enough of these matters. I will now inquire into appointments to
offices. The varieties depend on three terms, and the combinations
of these give all possible modes: first, who appoints? secondly,
from whom? and thirdly, how? Each of these three admits of three
varieties: (A) All the citizens, or (B) only some, appoint. Either
(1) the magistrates are chosen out of all or (2) out of some who
are distinguished either by a property qualification, or by birth,
or merit, or for some special reason, as at Megara only those were
eligible who had returned from exile and fought together against
the democracy. They may be appointed either (a) by vote or (b) by
lot. Again, these several varieties may be coupled, I mean that (C)
some officers may be elected by some, others by all, and (3) some
again out of some, and others out of all, and (c) some by vote and
others by lot. Each variety of these terms admits of four
modes.
    For either (A 1 a) all may appoint from all by vote, or (A 1 b)
all from all by lot, or (A 2 a) all from some by vote, or (A 2 b)
all from some by lot (and from all, either by sections, as, for
example, by