The term “democracy” is used by Aristotle sometimes in a larger sense, so as to include several forms of government, which, notwithstanding their common character, were distinguished from each other by peculiar features; at other times in a narrower, to denote a form essentially vicious, which stands in the same relation to the happy temperament to which he gives the name of polity, as oligarchy to aristocracy, or tyranny to royalty. We shall not confine ourselves to the technical language of his system, but will endeavour to define the notion of democracy, as the word was commonly understood by the Greeks, so as to separate the essence of the thing from the various accidents which have sometimes been confounded with it by writers who have treated Greek history as a vehicle for conveying their views on questions of modern politics, which never arose in the Greek republics. It must not be forgotten, that the body to which the terms oligarchy and democracy refer formed a comparatively small part of the population in most Greek states, since it did not include either slaves or resident free foreigners. The sovereign power resided wholly in the native freemen; and whether it was exercised by a part or by all of them, was the question which determined the nature of the government. When the barrier had been thrown down, by which all political rights were made the inheritance of certain families,--since every freeman, even when actually excluded from them by the want of sufficient property, was by law capable of acquiring them,--democracy might be said to have begun. It was advancing, as the legal condition of their enjoyment was brought within the reach of a more numerous class; but it could not be considered as complete, so long as any freeman was debarred from them by poverty. Since, however, the sovereignty included several attributes which might be separated, the character of the constitution depended on the way in which these were distributed. It was considered as partaking more of democracy than of oligarchy, when the most important of them were shared by all freemen without distinction, though a part was still appropriated to a number limited either by birth or fortune. Thus where the legislative, or, as it was anciently termed, the deliberative, branch of the sovereignty was lodged in an assembly open to every freeman, and where no other qualification than free birth was required for judicial functions, and for the election of magistrates, there the government was called democratical, though the highest offices of the state might be reserved to a privileged class. But a finished democracy, that which fully satisfied the Greek notion, was one in which every attribute of sovereignty might be shared, without respect to rank or property, by every freeman.