honour; in time of war he fights with a small part of his resources,
and usually keeps his money and loses the victory.
Next comes democracy and the democratic man, out of oligarchy and the
oligarchical man. Insatiable avarice is the ruling passion of an
oligarchy; and they encourage expensive habits in order that they may
gain by the ruin of extravagant youth. Thus men of family often lose
their property or rights of citizenship; but they remain in the city,
full of hatred against the new owners of their estates and ripe for
revolution. The usurer with stooping walk pretends not to see them; he
passes by, and leaves his sting—that is, his money—in some other
victim; and many a man has to pay the parent or principal sum
multiplied into a family of children, and is reduced into a state of
dronage by him. The only way of diminishing the evil is either to limit
a man in his use of his property, or to insist that he shall lend at
his own risk. But the ruling class do not want remedies; they care only
for money, and are as careless of virtue as the poorest of the
citizens. Now there are occasions on which the governors and the
governed meet together,—at festivals, on a journey, voyaging or
fighting. The sturdy pauper finds that in the hour of danger he is not
despised; he sees the rich man puffing and panting, and draws the
conclusion which he privately imparts to his companions,—‘that our
people are not good for much;’ and as a sickly frame is made ill by a
mere touch from without, or sometimes without external impulse is ready
to fall to pieces of itself, so from the least cause, or with none at
all, the city falls ill and fights a battle for life or death. And
democracy comes into power when the poor are the victors, killing some
and exiling some, and giving equal shares in the government to all the
rest.