Book III, 1278a–1281b

That1278a35 there are several kinds of citizen is clear from this, and that the citizen is above all someone who shares in honors, as Homer too wrote, “Like some dishonored migrant”; (Hom. Il. 9.648) (Hom. Il. 16.59) for someone who does not share in honors is like a resident foreigner. But there are places where this fact is concealed, in order to deceive those who live together40 there.

Whether we should regard as different or the same the virtue1278b1 by which a man is good and a citizen worthy is clear from what has been said: in one city the two are the same, in another different. And even in the former it is not every citizen, but the statesman who is sovereign, or capable of being sovereign, either by himself or with others, in the administration of5 public affairs.

Now that these matters have been defined, we must next consider whether we should posit one constitution or several; and if several, what they are, how many, and what their differences are. A constitution is an ordering of a city's offices, both the others and especially1278b10 the office sovereign over all. For everywhere the citizen body is sovereign in the city, and the citizen body is the constitution. I mean, for example, that in democracies the people are sovereign, while in oligarchies, on the contrary, the few are; and we say that the constitutions of these are different. We shall give the same account15 of the others too. First, then, we must establish for what purpose a city is constituted, and how many kinds of rule there are over human beings and their association in life. In our first discussions, in which we distinguished household management and mastery, it was also said that a human being is by nature a political animal.20 For this reason, even when they have no need of one another's help, people desire no less to live together. Yet the common advantage also brings them together, insofar as a share of living well falls to each. This, then, is above all the end, both for all in common and for each separately. But they also come together for the sake of life itself and25 maintain their political association. For perhaps there is some portion of the noble even in mere life itself, provided the hardships of life do not greatly outweigh it. It is clear that most people endure much suffering in their attachment to life, as though it possessed a certain well-being and30 natural sweetness.

Yet it is also easy to distinguish the modes of rule that we speak of; for we often define them in our external discussions as well. For mastery, although in truth the same thing is advantageous to the slave by nature and to the master by nature, nonetheless exercises rule1278b35 for the master's advantage, and only incidentally for the slave's; for if the slave perishes, mastery cannot be preserved. Rule over children and wife and the whole household, which we call household management, is either for the sake of the ruled or for something common to both. In40 itself it is for the ruled, as we see also in the other1279a1 arts,

such as medicine and physical training; but incidentally these might be for the practitioners themselves as well. For nothing prevents the trainer himself from sometimes being one of those in training, just as the helmsman is always one of the sailors. The trainer, then,1279a5 or helmsman looks to the good of the ruled, but when he himself becomes one of them, he shares incidentally in the benefit. For the one is a sailor, and the other, though a trainer, becomes one of those in training. For this reason, too, where political offices are constituted on the basis of the citizens' equality and10 similarity, they claim the right to rule in turn. Formerly, as is natural, they claimed the right to perform public service in turn, and to have someone look in return to their own good, just as they themselves, while ruling, had looked to his advantage. But now, because of the benefits from public resources and from office, they wish continuously15 to rule, as though holding office made them always healthy when they were sickly. For in that case too they would perhaps pursue office. It is clear, then, that all constitutions which look to the common advantage are correct according to the just without qualification; while all those which look only to the rulers' own advantage20 are defective and deviations from the correct constitutions. For they are forms of mastery, whereas the city is an association of free people.

With these matters defined, we must next examine constitutions: how many there are and what they are, and first those that are correct. For the deviations too will become1279a25 clear when these have been defined. Since constitution and citizen body signify the same thing, and the citizen body is what is sovereign in cities, and the sovereign must be either one person, a few, or the many, whenever the one, the few, or the many rule for the common advantage, such must be correct30 constitutions; but those directed to the private advantage of the one, the few, or the multitude are deviations. For either we must say that those who participate are not citizens, or they must share in the advantage. Among monarchies we customarily call the one that looks to the common advantage kingship; the rule of the few,35 but more than one, aristocracy, either because the best rule, or because it looks to what is best for the city and those who share in it. When the multitude takes part in public life for the common advantage, it is called by the name common to all constitutions, polity. (This happens reasonably enough: for one person40 or a few may excel in virtue, but it is already difficult for a larger number1279b1 to attain perfection in every virtue,

but especially in military virtue they can; for this arises in a multitude. Hence under this constitution the fighting element is sovereign, and those who possess arms share in it.) The deviations from the forms mentioned are1279b5 tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, and democracy from polity. For tyranny is monarchy directed to the advantage of the monarch, oligarchy to that of the wealthy, and democracy to the advantage of the poor. As for what benefits the community,10 none of them is directed toward it.

We must say at somewhat greater length what each of these constitutions is. For they also present certain difficulties, and someone who investigates each subject philosophically, and not merely with an eye to action, must neither overlook nor1279b15 leave anything out, but make clear the truth about each. Tyranny, then, is monarchy, as has been said, exercising mastery over the political association; oligarchy is when those who possess property are sovereign over the constitution, while democracy, on the contrary, is when those who do not possess a large amount of property, but are poor, are sovereign.20 The first difficulty concerns the definition. For if the majority were wealthy and sovereign in the city, and democracy is when the multitude is sovereign—and likewise, conversely, if somewhere the poor happened to be fewer than the wealthy, but stronger and sovereign over the constitution, while where a small25 number is sovereign people call it oligarchy—then the constitutions would not seem to have been well defined.

Yet even if someone combines fewness with wealth and multitude with poverty, and names the constitutions accordingly—oligarchy that in which the wealthy, being few in number, hold the offices, and democracy1279b30 that in which the poor, being many in number, do so—there is another difficulty. For what shall we call the constitutions just mentioned, the one in which the wealthy are more numerous and the one in which the poor are fewer, but each group is sovereign over the constitution, if indeed there is no other constitution besides those stated? The35 argument therefore seems to make clear that the sovereignty of few or many is incidental, the former to oligarchies and the latter to democracies, because everywhere the wealthy are few and the poor many. Hence the characteristics stated do not happen to be the causes of the difference. As for the difference between40 democracy and oligarchy, poverty and wealth1280a1 are what distinguish them,

and wherever people rule because of wealth, whether they are fewer or more numerous, this must be an oligarchy, and wherever the poor rule, a democracy. But as we said, it happens that the former are few and the latter many. For the wealthy are1280a5 few, while all share in freedom. On these grounds both lay claim to the constitution.

We must first grasp what limits they assign to oligarchy and democracy, and what the oligarchic and democratic conceptions of the just are. For all touch on something just, but1280a10 proceed only to a certain point, and do not state the whole of what is just in the authoritative sense. For example, the just seems to be equality, and it is, but not for everyone, only for equals. Inequality also seems to be just, and indeed it is, but not for everyone, only for unequals. They omit this qualification, for whom, and judge badly. The cause is15 that the judgment concerns themselves, and most people are poor judges of their own affairs. Thus, since the just is just for certain people, and is divided in the same way with regard to the things and the people concerned, as was said earlier in the Ethics, they agree about equality in the thing, but dispute equality in the people concerned. This is chiefly20 for the reason just given, that they judge badly about themselves; and further, because each side speaks of something just only up to a point, they suppose they are speaking of the just without qualification. For one side thinks that if they are unequal in some respect, such as wealth, they are unequal altogether; the other thinks that if they are equal in some respect, such as freedom, they are altogether25 equal.

But they do not speak of what is most authoritative. For if they associated and came together for the sake of possessions, they would share in the city in precisely the proportion in which they shared in the property. Thus the argument of the oligarchic party would seem to carry weight: it would not be just for someone who contributed one mina to share equally in the hundred minas with someone who1280a30 gave all the rest, whether in the original sum or in the gains from it. But they came together not for the sake of life alone, but rather of living well—for there would then be a city of slaves and of other animals too, but as things stand there is not, because they have no share in happiness or in a life of deliberate choice—nor for the sake of an alliance, so that35 no one might wrong them, nor for exchange and dealings with one another—for then the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians, and all who have treaties with one another, would be citizens of a single city. At any rate, they have agreements about imports, treaties against wrongdoing,40 and written terms of alliance. But offices for all concerning1280b1 these purposes have not been established in common;

rather, each has its own. Nor does either side concern itself with what sort of people the other ought to be, or with ensuring that none of those under the agreements will be unjust or possess any wickedness, but only with ensuring that they do not wrong1280b5 one another. Those who care about good government, however, examine political virtue and vice. This also makes it clear that the city which is truly so called, and not merely in name, must concern itself with virtue. Otherwise the association becomes an alliance, differing only in location from the other alliances, those of distant10 allies. And the law is an agreement and, as Lycophron the sophist said, a guarantor to one another of just claims, but not something capable of making the citizens good and just. That this is how matters stand is clear. For even if someone brought the territories together into one, so that the cities of Megara and15 Corinth touched at their walls, they would still not be one city; nor would they be if they established intermarriage with one another, although this is one of the forms of association peculiar to cities. Likewise, if some people lived separately, yet not so far apart that they could not associate, but had laws to prevent them from wronging one another in20 their exchanges—for example, if one were a carpenter, another a farmer, another a shoemaker, another something else of this kind, and they numbered ten thousand, but shared in nothing except such things as exchange and alliance—even then this would not yet be a city.

For what reason, precisely? Surely not because of a lack of proximity in their1280b25 association. For even if they came together while associating in this fashion, each nevertheless treating his own household as a city, and assisting one another only against those who wronged them, as though they had a defensive alliance, even so it would not seem a city to those who examine the matter precisely, if their dealings when together were the same as when apart. It is clear, then, that30 the city is not an association in a place, for the purpose of not wronging one another and of exchange. These things must indeed be present if there is to be a city, but even if they are all present there is not yet a city. Rather, it is an association of households and families in living well, for the sake of a complete and self-sufficient life.35 Yet this will not occur unless they inhabit one and the same place and intermarry. Hence marriage ties, phratries, sacrifices, and pastimes of shared life arose in cities. Such things are the work of friendship, for the choice to live together is friendship. The end of a city, then, is living well,40 and these things are for the sake of that end. Families and villages form a city through their1281a1 association in a complete and self-sufficient life,

and this, as we say, is to live happily and nobly. We must therefore hold that the political association exists for the sake of noble actions, not of living together. Hence those who contribute most to such an1281a5 association have a greater share in the city than those who are equal or superior in freedom and birth but inferior in political virtue, or those who surpass them in wealth but are surpassed in virtue. That all who dispute about constitutions have some part of the just10 in what they say is therefore clear from what has been said.

There is a difficulty about what should be sovereign in the city. It must be either the multitude, the wealthy, the decent, the one person best of all, or a tyrant. But all these possibilities appear to present difficulty. For what if the poor, because they are1281a15 more numerous, divide the possessions of the wealthy among themselves? Is this not unjust? “No, by Zeus, for the sovereign has justly decreed it.” What, then, should we call the extreme of injustice? And again, when everything has been taken, if the greater number divide the possessions of the smaller, it is clear that they destroy the city. Yet virtue does not destroy20 what possesses it, nor is the just destructive of a city. Thus it is clear that this law, too, cannot be just. Moreover, all the actions a tyrant has performed must also be just: for he uses force because he is stronger, just as the multitude does against the wealthy. But is it just for the fewer to rule25 —the wealthy? If, then, they too do these things, plundering and taking away the multitude's possessions, this is just; and so, therefore, is the other case. It is clear, then, that all these things are bad and unjust. But should the decent rule and be sovereign over everything? Then all the others must30 be without honor, not being honored with political offices. For we call offices honors, and if the same people always hold office, the others must be without honor. But is it better for the one most worthy person to rule? This is still more oligarchic, for those without honor are more numerous. But perhaps someone might say35 that it is bad for a human being, rather than law, to be sovereign at all, given the passions that arise in his soul. If, then, it is law, but oligarchic or democratic law, what difference will it make to the difficulties raised? For what was said before will happen just the same.

Let there be another discussion of the other matters.1281a40 But the claim that the multitude should be sovereign rather than the best, who are few, might seem to admit of a solution and to present some difficulty, yet perhaps also some truth. For the many, each of whom is1281b1 not a worthy man,

may nevertheless, when they come together, be better than those others, not individually but collectively, just as dinners to which many contribute are better than those provided at one person's expense. For, being many, each may possess a portion of virtue and practical wisdom,1281b5 and when they come together the multitude may become like a single human being, with many feet and hands and many senses, and likewise with regard to character and thought. Hence the many also judge works of music and of poets better: different parts are judged by different people, and the whole10 by all together. But worthy men differ from each of the many in this way, just as, they say, beautiful people differ from those who are not beautiful, and things painted through art from real things: what is dispersed separately is brought together into one. For taken separately, this person's eye may be more beautiful than the one in the painting, and15 in someone else, another feature.

Whether, then, this difference between the many and the few worthy people can hold of every people and every multitude is unclear. Perhaps, by Zeus, it is clear that for some it is impossible: for the same argument would also fit wild beasts, and indeed how do1281b20 some people differ, so to speak, from wild beasts? But nothing prevents what was said from being true of a certain multitude. For this reason one could also resolve through these considerations the difficulty stated earlier and the one following it: over what should the free people and the multitude of citizens be sovereign? These are those who neither25 are wealthy nor enjoy any reputation whatever for virtue. For it is not safe for them to share in the greatest offices: through injustice and lack of wisdom they must act unjustly in some matters and err in others. But to give them no share and let them participate in nothing is frightening: when many are poor and without honor,30 this city must be full of enemies. It remains, then, for them to share in deliberating and judging. For this reason Solon and some other lawgivers assign them the election of officeholders and the scrutiny of those who have held office, but do not permit them to hold office individually. For all,35 when they come together, have sufficient perception, and when mixed with the better people they benefit their cities, just as impure food mixed with pure makes the whole more useful than the small amount of pure food. But each separately is incomplete in judgment.

That1278a35 there are several kinds of citizen is clear from this. It is also clear that a citizen is above all someone who shares in public honors, as Homer wrote: “As if I were some dishonored newcomer.” (Hom. Il. 9.648) (Hom. Il. 16.59) Someone with no share in public honors is like a resident foreigner. But in some places this fact is kept hidden in order to deceive the people living together40 in the city.

Whether we should count as different or the same the virtue1278b1 that makes a man good and a citizen good is clear from what we've said. In some cities the good man and the good citizen are the same; in others they differ. Even where they are the same, not every citizen is such a man. Only the person active in politics who is, or can be, in charge, alone or with others, of managing5 public affairs is such a man.

Now that we've defined these things, we must consider the next question. Should we say that there is one constitution or several? If there are several, what are they, how many are there, and how do they differ? A constitution is a city's arrangement of its offices, especially1278b10 the office sovereign over all. Everywhere the city's citizen body is sovereign, and the citizen body is the constitution. I mean, for example, that in democracies the people are sovereign, while in oligarchies, by contrast, the few are. We say that these also have different constitutions. We will use the same argument15 for the others. First we must establish why a city is formed, and how many kinds of rule there are over human beings and their shared life. In our first discussions, where we defined household management and mastery, we also said that a human being is by nature a political animal.20 So even when people don't need one another's help, they still want to live together just as much. Still, the common advantage also brings them together, insofar as each gets a share in living well. This is above all their goal, both for all together and for each separately. But they also come together for life itself and25 maintain the political community for its sake. Perhaps there is some element of the noble even in simply being alive, as long as life's hardships aren't too overwhelming. Clearly, most people endure great suffering because they cling to life, as though it contained a certain well-being and30 a natural sweetness.

It's also easy to distinguish the kinds of rule we speak of. We often define them in our discussions for a wider audience too. In mastery, although the slave by nature and the master by nature really have the same advantage, the master still rules1278b35 for his own advantage, and only incidentally for the slave's. Mastery can't survive if the slave dies. Rule over children, a wife, and the whole household, which we call household management, is either for the advantage of the ruled or for an advantage shared by both. In40 itself it serves the ruled, as we see with other1279a1 skills,

such as medicine and physical training. Incidentally, it may also serve the practitioners themselves. Nothing prevents a trainer from sometimes being one of the people exercising himself, just as the helmsman is always one of the sailors. The trainer1279a5 or helmsman aims at the good of the people he directs. When he becomes one of them himself, he shares in the benefit incidentally. The one is a sailor, and the other, though a trainer, becomes one of the people exercising. That's why, when a constitution rests on citizens' equality and10 similarity, they claim the right to hold political office in turn. Originally, as is natural, they expected to serve in turn, and then to have someone else look after their good, just as they themselves had looked after his advantage when in office. But now, because of the benefits from public funds and from office, they want all the time15 to hold office, as if being in office kept them continually healthy when they were sickly. In that case too they would probably chase after offices. Clearly, then, all constitutions that aim at the common advantage are correct according to the just without qualification. Those that aim only at the rulers' own advantage20 are all faulty and departures from the correct constitutions. They exercise a master's rule, while the city is a community of free people.

Now that we've defined these things, the next step is to examine the constitutions: how many there are and what they are. We should first examine the correct ones. Their departures will also become1279a25 clear once these are defined. Constitution and citizen body mean the same thing, and the citizen body is what is sovereign in cities. The sovereign must be one person, a few, or the many. When the one, the few, or the many rule for the common advantage, these must be correct30 constitutions. Those that serve the private advantage of the one, the few, or the multitude are departures. Either we must say that those who share in the community aren't citizens, or they must share in its advantage. We usually call a monarchy that looks to the common advantage kingship. Rule by a few,35 but more than one, we call aristocracy, either because the best people rule or because it serves what is best for the city and its members. When the multitude takes part in public life for the common advantage, it is called polity, using the common name for all constitutions. (This is reasonable. One person can stand out40 in virtue, or a few can. But it's hard for a larger number1279b1 to reach perfection in every virtue,

though they can above all reach it in military virtue. This does arise in a multitude. That's why in this constitution the fighting force is sovereign, and those who possess weapons share in it.) The departures from the forms mentioned1279b5 are tyranny from kingship, oligarchy from aristocracy, and democracy from polity. Tyranny is monarchy for the advantage of the monarch. Oligarchy serves the advantage of the wealthy, and democracy the advantage of the poor. As for what benefits the community,10 none of them serves it.

We must say a little more about what each of these constitutions is. There are some problems here. For someone who examines each field philosophically, rather than looking only to practical action, it is appropriate not to overlook or1279b15 leave anything out, but to make clear the truth about each point. Tyranny, as we said, is monarchy that exercises a master's rule over the political community. Oligarchy is when those who own property are sovereign over the constitution. Democracy is the opposite: those who possess no great amount of property, but are poor, are sovereign.20 The first problem concerns the definition. Suppose the majority were wealthy and sovereign over the city, and democracy is when the multitude is sovereign. Or suppose somewhere the poor were fewer than the wealthy, but stronger and sovereign over the constitution, while, when a small25 number is sovereign, people call it oligarchy. Then the definitions of the constitutions wouldn't seem sound.

But even if someone combines wealth with fewness and poverty with large numbers, and names the constitutions accordingly—oligarchy where the wealthy hold office and are few, democracy1279b30 where the poor hold office and are many—there is another problem. What are we to call the constitutions just mentioned, where the wealthy are more numerous or the poor less numerous, but each group is sovereign over its constitution? This is a problem if there is no constitution apart from the ones mentioned. So the35 argument seems to make clear that having few or many sovereign is incidental, the first to oligarchies and the second to democracies. That's because the wealthy are few and the poor many everywhere. So the factors just mentioned don't account for the difference. As for the difference between40 democracy and oligarchy, poverty and wealth1280a1 are what distinguish them.

Wherever people rule because of wealth, whether they are fewer or more numerous, that constitution must be an oligarchy. Where the poor rule, it must be a democracy. But, as we said, one group happens to be few and the other many. Wealth is possessed1280a5 by few people, but all share in freedom. These are the grounds on which both groups dispute control of the constitution.

We must first grasp the limits people set for oligarchy and democracy, and what the just is in oligarchic and democratic terms. Everyone touches on something just, but1280a10 they go only so far and don't state the whole of what is just in the full sense. For example, the just is thought to be equality, and it is—but not for everyone, only for equals. Inequality too is thought to be just, and it is—but not for everyone, only for unequals. People leave out this qualification, “for whom,” and judge badly. The reason15 is that they are judging their own case. Most people are poor judges of their own affairs. The just is for certain people, and it is divided in the same way between the things distributed and the people receiving them, as we said earlier in the Ethics. They agree about equality in the things, but disagree about equality in the people. This is mainly20 for the reason just given: they judge their own affairs badly. It is also because both groups state something just up to a point, and think they are stating the just without qualification. One group thinks that if they are unequal in some respect, such as wealth, they are unequal in every respect. The other thinks that if they are equal in some respect, such as freedom, in every respect they are25 equal.

But they don't state the most important point. If people formed a community and came together for the sake of possessions, their share in the city would match their share in the property. The oligarchic argument would then seem valid. (It wouldn't be just for someone who contributed one mina to have an equal share of the hundred minas with someone who1280a30 provided all the rest, either of the original sum or of what it earned.) But people didn't come together merely to live, but rather to live well. Otherwise there could be a city of slaves or other animals. In fact there isn't, because they don't share in happiness or in a life guided by choice. Nor did people come together for an alliance, so that35 no one would wrong them, or for exchanges and dealings with one another. Otherwise the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians, and all people who have agreements with one another, would be citizens of a single city. They certainly have treaties about imports, agreements not to wrong one another,40 and written terms of alliance. But offices for all concerning1280b1 these purposes haven't been established in common.

Each has separate offices. Neither group is concerned about what sort of people the other should be, or that no one covered by the treaties should be unjust or have any wickedness. They care only that they don't wrong1280b5 one another. But those who care about good government examine political virtue and vice. This makes clear that a city truly deserving the name, and not just called a city for argument's sake, must concern itself with virtue. Otherwise the community becomes an alliance, differing only in location from other alliances of faraway10 allies. The law becomes an agreement and, as Lycophron the professional teacher said, a guarantee of the just to one another, but not something able to make citizens good and just. It's clear that this is so. Even if someone brought the territories together so that the cities of Megara and15 Corinth touched at their walls, they still wouldn't be one city. Not even if they gave their people the right to marry one another, though this is one of the forms of association specific to cities. Likewise, suppose some people lived separately, but not too far apart to associate, and had laws preventing them from wronging one another in20 their exchanges. One might be a carpenter, another a farmer, another a shoemaker, and another something similar. Suppose they numbered ten thousand, but shared nothing except things like exchange and alliance. Even then they wouldn't yet be a city.

Why exactly is this? It certainly isn't because of a lack of closeness in their1280b25 association. Suppose they came together while sharing in this way, but each treated his own household as a city. They helped one another only against wrongdoers, as though they had a defensive alliance. Even so, they wouldn't seem a city to someone looking closely if their dealings were the same together as apart. Clearly, then,30 a city isn't a community of place, formed to keep its members from wronging one another and to allow exchange. These things must be present for a city to exist. But even when all are present, that doesn't yet make a city. A city is a community of households and families in living well, for the sake of a complete and self-sufficient life.35 Still, this won't happen unless they live in one and the same place and marry one another. That's why cities developed ties by marriage, brotherhoods, sacrifices, and shared pastimes. These are the work of friendship. The choice to live together is friendship. So the goal of a city is living well,40 and these things serve that goal. Families and villages make a city through a1281a1 community of complete and self-sufficient life.

This, we say, is living happily and nobly. So we must hold that the political community exists for noble actions, not just for living together. That's why those who contribute most to1281a5 such a community have a greater share in the city. Their share exceeds that of people equal or superior in freedom and ancestry but inferior in political virtue. It also exceeds that of people who surpass them in wealth but fall below them in virtue. That all those who dispute about constitutions have some part of the just10 in what they say is clear from what we've said.

But there is a problem about what should be sovereign in the city. Should it be the multitude, the rich, the decent people, the single best person of all, or a tyrant? All these seem to involve difficulties. What if the poor, because they1281a15 are more numerous, divide up the property of the rich? Isn't that unjust? “After all, by Zeus, the sovereign body approved it as just.” Then what should we call the extreme of injustice? Again, after everything has been taken, if the majority divide up what belongs to the minority, clearly they destroy the city. But virtue doesn't destroy what20 has it, nor does the just destroy a city. So clearly this law too can't be just. Further, all the tyrant's actions would have to be just. He uses force because he is stronger, just as the multitude does against the rich. But is it just for the fewer to rule25 —the rich? Then if they do the same things, plundering and taking away the multitude's property, this is just—and so the other case is just too. Clearly, then, all these things are bad and not just. But should the decent people rule and be sovereign over everything? Then all the others must30 be without honor, since they aren't honored with political offices. We call offices honors, and if the same people always hold office, the others must be without honor. But is it better for the single best person to rule? This is still more oligarchic, since more people are without honor. Perhaps someone might35 say that it's bad for a human being, rather than law, to be sovereign at all, because his soul is subject to passions. But if it is law, and the law is oligarchic or democratic, what difference will that make to the problems raised? The results mentioned earlier will follow just the same.

We can leave the other questions for another discussion.1281a40 But the claim that the multitude should be sovereign rather than the few best people might seem to offer a solution. It also presents a problem, but perhaps contains some truth. The many, each of whom is1281b1 not a good man,

may nevertheless be better than those few when they come together—not individually but as a whole. It's like dinners to which everyone contributes being better than those paid for by one person. Since there are many, each can have a share of virtue and good judgment in practical matters.1281b5 When they come together, the multitude can become like a single person with many feet, many hands, and many senses, and likewise with character and understanding. That's also why the many judge works of music and poetry better. Different parts are judged by different people. The whole10 is judged by everyone together. But good men differ from each individual among the many in this way. Beautiful people are said to differ from those who aren't beautiful in the same way. So do figures painted with skill from real people. Features scattered separately are brought together into one. Taken separately, this person's eye may be finer than the painted eye, and15 someone else's other feature finer than its painted counterpart.

Whether this difference between the many and the few good people is possible for every people and every multitude is unclear. Perhaps, by Zeus, it's clear that for some it is impossible. The same argument would apply to wild animals; and indeed, how do1281b20 some people differ from wild animals, so to speak? But nothing prevents what we've said from being true of some multitude. So these points could resolve the problem raised earlier, and the next one: over what should free people and the multitude of citizens be sovereign? By these we mean people who are neither25 rich nor credited with any virtue. It's unsafe for them to share in the highest offices. Because of their injustice and lack of judgment, they must do wrong in some cases and make mistakes in others. But giving them no share or participation is dangerous. When there are many poor people without honor,30 the city must be full of enemies. What remains is for them to share in deliberating and judging. That's why Solon and some other lawgivers assign them the election of officeholders and the review of their conduct, but don't allow them to hold office individually. For all of them,35 when brought together, have adequate perception, and when mixed with better people they benefit cities. In the same way, impure food mixed with pure makes the whole more useful than the small amount of pure food alone. But each person separately is incomplete in his ability to judge.