The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

mechanics or traders
or laborers. Besides, people of this class can readily come to the
assembly, because they are continually moving about in the city and
in the agora; whereas husbandmen are scattered over the country and
do not meet, or equally feel the want of assembling together. Where
the territory also happens to extend to a distance from the city,
there is no difficulty in making an excellent democracy or
constitutional government; for the people are compelled to settle
in the country, and even if there is a town population the assembly
ought not to meet, in democracies, when the country people cannot
come. We have thus explained how the first and best form of
democracy should be constituted; it is clear that the other or
inferior sorts will deviate in a regular order, and the population
which is excluded will at each stage be of a lower kind.
    The last form of democracy, that in which all share alike, is
one which cannot be borne by all states, and will not last long
unless well regulated by laws and customs. The more general causes
which tend to destroy this or other kinds of government have been
pretty fully considered. In order to constitute such a democracy
and strengthen the people, the leaders have been in the habit
including as many as they can, and making citizens not only of
those who are legitimate, but even of the illegitimate, and of
those who have only one parent a citizen, whether father or mother;
for nothing of this sort comes amiss to such a democracy. This is
the way in which demagogues proceed. Whereas the right thing would
be to make no more additions when the number of the commonalty
exceeds that of the notables and of the middle class—beyond this
not to go. When in excess of this point, the constitution becomes
disorderly, and the notables grow excited and impatient of the
democracy, as in the insurrection at Cyrene; for no notice is taken
of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.
Measures like those which Cleisthenes passed when he wanted to
increase the power of the democracy at Athens, or such as were
taken by the founders of popular government at Cyrene, are useful
in the extreme form of democracy. Fresh tribes and brotherhoods
should be established; the private rites of families should be
restricted and converted into public ones; in short, every
contrivance should be adopted which will mingle the citizens with
one another and get rid of old connections. Again, the measures
which are taken by tyrants appear all of them to be democratic;
such, for instance, as the license permitted to slaves (which may
be to a certain extent advantageous) and also that of women and
children, and the aflowing everybody to live as he likes. Such a
government will have many supporters, for most persons would rather
live in a disorderly than in a sober manner.
V
    The mere establishment of a democracy is not the only or
principal business of the legislator, or of those who wish to
create such a state, for any state, however badly constituted, may
last one, two, or three days; a far greater difficulty is the
preservation of it. The legislator should therefore endeavor to
have a firm foundation according to the principles already laid
down concerning the preservation and destruction of states; he
should guard against the destructive elements, and should make
laws, whether written or unwritten, which will contain all the
preservatives of states. He must not think the truly democratical
or oligarchical measure to be that which will give the greatest
amount of democracy or oligarchy, but that which will make them
last longest. The demagogues of our own day often get property
confiscated in the law-courts in order to please the people. But
those who have the welfare of the state at heart should counteract
them, and make a law that the property of the condemned should not
be public and go into the treasury but be sacred. Thus offenders
will be as much afraid, for they will be punished all the same, and
the people, having nothing to gain, will not be so ready to condemn
the accused. Care should also be taken that state trials are as few
as possible, and heavy penalties should be inflicted on those who
bring groundless accusations; for it is the practice to indict, not
members of the popular party, but the notables, although the
citizens ought to be all attached to the constitution as well, or
at any rate should not regard their rulers as enemies.
    Now, since in the last and worst form of