The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

the only members of
the ruling class who are compelled to go to the Heliaea when an
election takes place, and the office of the single archon was
another oligarchical feature. Everywhere inequality is a cause of
revolution, but an inequality in which there is no proportion—for
instance, a perpetual monarchy among equals; and always it is the
desire of equality which rises in rebellion.
    Now equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the
first I mean sameness or equality in number or size; by the second,
equality of ratios. For example, the excess of three over two is
numerically equal to the excess of two over one; whereas four
exceeds two in the same ratio in which two exceeds one, for two is
the same part of four that one is of two, namely, the half. As I
was saying before, men agree that justice in the abstract is
proportion, but they differ in that some think that if they are
equal in any respect they are equal absolutely, others that if they
are unequal in any respect they should be unequal in all. Hence
there are two principal forms of government, democracy and
oligarchy; for good birth and virtue are rare, but wealth and
numbers are more common. In what city shall we find a hundred
persons of good birth and of virtue? whereas the rich everywhere
abound. That a state should be ordered, simply and wholly,
according to either kind of equality, is not a good thing; the
proof is the fact that such forms of government never last. They
are originally based on a mistake, and, as they begin badly, cannot
fall to end badly. The inference is that both kinds of equality
should be employed; numerical in some cases, and proportionate in
others.
    Still democracy appears to be safer and less liable to
revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double
danger of the oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with
the people; but in democracies there is only the danger of a
quarrel with the oligarchs. No dissension worth mentioning arises
among the people themselves. And we may further remark that a
government which is composed of the middle class more nearly
approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of
the imperfect forms of government.
II
    In considering how dissensions and poltical revolutions arise,
we must first of all ascertain the beginnings and causes of them
which affect constitutions generally. They may be said to be three
in number; and we have now to give an outline of each. We want to
know (1) what is the feeling? (2) what are the motives of those who
make them? (3) whence arise political disturbances and quarrels?
The universal and chief cause of this revolutionary feeling has
been already mentioned; viz., the desire of equality, when men
think that they are equal to others who have more than themselves;
or, again, the desire of inequality and superiority, when
conceiving themselves to be superior they think that they have not
more but the same or less than their inferiors; pretensions which
may and may not be just. Inferiors revolt in order that they may be
equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of
mind which creates revolutions. The motives for making them are the
desire of gain and honor, or the fear of dishonor and loss; the
authors of them want to divert punishment or dishonor from
themselves or their friends. The causes and reasons of revolutions,
whereby men are themselves affected in the way described, and about
the things which I have mentioned, viewed in one way may be
regarded as seven, and in another as more than seven. Two of them
have been already noticed; but they act in a different manner, for
men are excited against one another by the love of gain and
honor—not, as in the case which I have just supposed, in order to
obtain them for themselves, but at seeing others, justly or
unjustly, engrossing them. Other causes are insolence, fear,
excessive predominance, contempt, disproportionate increase in some
part of the state; causes of another sort are election intrigues,
carelessness, neglect about trifles, dissimilarity of elements.
III
    What share insolence and avarice have in creating revolutions,
and how they work, is plain enough. When the magistrates are
insolent and grasping they conspire against one another and also
against the constitution from which they derive their power, making
their gains either at the expense of individuals or of the public.
It is evident, again, what an influence honor exerts and how it