No one then denies, that it is necessary that there should be some
person to decide those cases which cannot come under the cognisance of
a written law: but we say, that it is better to have many than one;
for though every one who decides according to the principles of the law
decides justly; yet surely it seems absurd to suppose, that one person
can see better with two eyes, and hear better with two ears, or do
better with two hands and two feet, than many can do with many: for we
see that absolute monarchs now furnish themselves with many eyes and
ears and hands and feet; for they entrust those who are friends to
them and their government with part of their power; for if they are not
friends to the monarch, they will not do what he chooses; but if they
are friends to him, they are friends also to his government: but a
friend is an equal and like his friend: if then he thinks that such
should govern, he thinks that his equal also should govern. These are
nearly the objections which are usually made to a kingly power.
CHAPTER XVII
Probably what we have said may be true of some persons, but not of
others; for some men are by nature formed to be under the government of
a master; others, of a king; others, to be the citizens of a free state,
just and useful; but a tyranny is not according to nature, nor the other
perverted forms of government; for they are contrary to it. But it
is evident from what has been said, that among equals it is neither
advantageous nor [1288a] right that one person should be lord over all
where there are no established laws, but his will is the law; or where
there are; nor is it right that one who is good should have it over
those who are good; or one who is not good over those who are not good;
nor one who is superior to the rest in worth, except in a particular
manner, which shall be described, though indeed it has been already
mentioned. But let us next determine what people are best qualified
for a kingly government, what for an aristocratic, and what for a
democratic. And, first, for a kingly; and it should be those who are
accustomed by nature to submit the civil government of themselves to a
family eminent for virtue: for an aristocracy, those who are naturally
framed to bear the rule of free men, whose superior virtue makes them
worthy of the management of others: for a free state, a war-like people,
formed by nature both to govern and be governed by laws which admit the
poorest citizen to share the honours of the commonwealth according
to his worth. But whenever a whole family or any one of another shall
happen so far to excel in virtue as to exceed all other persons in the
community, then it is right that the kingly power should be in them, or
if it is an individual who does so, that he should be king and lord of
all; for this, as we have just mentioned, is not only correspondent
to that principle of right which all founders of all states, whether