The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

will be an enemy to the people, and will devise all the
harm against them which I can’; but they ought to exhibit and to
entertain the very opposite feeling; in the form of their oath
there should be an express declaration—‘I will do no wrong to the
people.’
    But of all the things which I have mentioned that which most
contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of
education to the form of government, and yet in our own day this
principle is universally neglected. The best laws, though
sanctioned by every citizen of the state, will be of no avail
unless the young are trained by habit and education in the spirit
of the constitution, if the laws are democratical, democratically
or oligarchically, if the laws are oligarchical. For there may be a
want of self-discipline in states as well as in individuals. Now,
to have been educated in the spirit of the constitution is not to
perform the actions in which oligarchs or democrats delight, but
those by which the existence of an oligarchy or of a democracy is
made possible. Whereas among ourselves the sons of the ruling class
in an oligarchy live in luxury, but the sons of the poor are
hardened by exercise and toil, and hence they are both more
inclined and better able to make a revolution. And in democracies
of the more extreme type there has arisen a false idea of freedom
which is contradictory to the true interests of the state. For two
principles are characteristic of democracy, the government of the
majority and freedom. Men think that what is just is equal; and
that equality is the supremacy of the popular will; and that
freedom means the doing what a man likes. In such democracies every
one lives as he pleases, or in the words of Euripides, ‘according
to his fancy.’ But this is all wrong; men should not think it
slavery to live according to the rule of the constitution; for it
is their salvation.
    I have now discussed generally the causes of the revolution and
destruction of states, and the means of their preservation and
continuance.
X
    I have still to speak of monarchy, and the causes of its
destruction and preservation. What I have said already respecting
forms of constitutional government applies almost equally to royal
and to tyrannical rule. For royal rule is of the nature of an
aristocracy, and a tyranny is a compound of oligarchy and democracy
in their most extreme forms; it is therefore most injurious to its
subjects, being made up of two evil forms of government, and having
the perversions and errors of both. These two forms of monarchy are
contrary in their very origin. The appointment of a king is the
resource of the better classes against the people, and he is
elected by them out of their own number, because either he himself
or his family excel in virtue and virtuous actions; whereas a
tyrant is chosen from the people to be their protector against the
notables, and in order to prevent them from being injured. History
shows that almost all tyrants have been demagogues who gained the
favor of the people by their accusation of the notables. At any
rate this was the manner in which the tyrannies arose in the days
when cities had increased in power. Others which were older
originated in the ambition of kings wanting to overstep the limits
of their hereditary power and become despots. Others again grew out
of the class which were chosen to be chief magistrates; for in
ancient times the people who elected them gave the magistrates,
whether civil or religious, a long tenure. Others arose out of the
custom which oligarchies had of making some individual supreme over
the highest offices. In any of these ways an ambitious man had no
difficulty, if he desired, in creating a tyranny, since he had the
power in his hands already, either as king or as one of the
officers of state. Thus Pheidon at Argos and several others were
originally kings, and ended by becoming tyrants; Phalaris, on the
other hand, and the Ionian tyrants, acquired the tyranny by holding
great offices. Whereas Panaetius at Leontini, Cypselus at Corinth,
Peisistratus at Athens, Dionysius at Syracuse, and several others
who afterwards became tyrants, were at first demagogues.
    And so, as I was saying, royalty ranks with aristocracy, for it
is based upon merit, whether of the individual or of his family, or
on benefits conferred, or on these claims with power added to them.
For all who have obtained this honor have benefited, or had in
their power to benefit, states and