CHAPTER II.

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

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FROM this brief sketch of the early institutions of man, we pass on to consider the forms of organization which societies of men assumed at a later period. In the earlier times the progress was not so much voluntary and caused by reflection as the result of the laws of man's condition and of the accidents which might befall him. Now he becomes in a greater degree the master of his condition, he criticises and analyses, he seeks a better constitution, he shapes his own governments in a degree, he resists grievances and plans changes. Divisions of society into classes, ranks or castes, have begun to exist perhaps before the "political animal" is made aware of his power, but henceforth nature alone does not build up governments for him; he now builds with the help of, or it may be against, nature.

It is our plan here to attempt with the help of political theorists and historians to classify and describe the various forms of government and to give such illustrations of each of them as may show how they express themselves in the states where they have been organized.

Divisions of ernments.

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A very early division of governments made by the Greeks into monarchies, oligarchies and democracies appears in Herodotus (iii., § 80-83) where he introduces the Persian princes, after the slaughter of the magi, as deliberating, like a school of philosophers, on the best form for their country. The same distinction is made Aristotle's divisions. by Æschines (vs. Ctes., § 3, vs. Timarch., § 2),

and no doubt was current and familiar. Aristotle in the Politics accepts this division, as in Polit., iii., chap. 5, § 1, where he says that "the government and constitution being

identical and the government being the supreme master of the state, it must needs be that this master be an individual, or a minority, or the mass of the citizens." But Aristotle goes on to draw a distinction between governments where the ruler or rulers govern for the general interest, and those where they govern for their own interest. Thus there arise six forms, three pure, and three corrupt or diverted from their true end. The names given to the forms where the common interest is aimed at, are royalty, aristocracy and republic (πOMτeía); those given to the forms in which the ruling power aims at its own interest are tyranny, oligarchy and demagogy. The oligarchy has for its object the special interest of the rich, the demagogy that of the poor, the tyrannis that of the one ruler; and none of them, the welfare of the community. In this passage Aristotle calls the degenerate form derived from the republic demagogy, but rarely makes use of this term. (Comp. vi. or iv., § 2, 1, 2). Plato's division of governments is on another plan. As the government depends on the character of the people, there are as many kinds as there are different characters of men. To the men of best tempered character the aristocracy answers. Next to this in a descending scale comes the timocracy of which Sparta and Crete were specimens, corresponding to the man of ambitious and contentious spirit. Below this and growing out of it is the oligarchy founded on advantages of wealth, and similar to the avaricious man in spirit. Democracy is the next step downward and is represented by the man of unrestrained desires. Farthest off from the perfect commonwealth is tyranny, which grows out of the license of unrestrained freedom, and is supported by and leads to all kinds of crimes. Both in this view of the connection of politics, and in Aristotle's classification of the original forms and the corresponding degenerate ones, we find the true principle that governments must change with a change in the character of those who constitute a society, and in their relative conditions of life. (Plat., Repub., viii., 547 onw.)

Plato's divisions.

Polybius.

Polybius has given us in his sixth book a theory of the forms and transitions of politics suggested possibly by the passage of Plato's Republic just now referred to. In the infancy of society, as he teaches us (vi., 5 onw.), it is necessary that he who stands foremost in bodily strength and physical courage should have sway. This he calls monarchy. Monarchy is succeeded by royalty (Baoiλeía), when the ruler follows the rules of justice; and, instead of courage and brute strength, reason has the predominance. It has permanence, "because men believe that not only the rulers but their descendants, brought up by them, will have the same aims and character. And if at any time the people become disaffected towards the posterity of these monarchs, they will make a choice afterwards of kings and rulers no longer according to qualities of strength or courage, but with reference to superiority of sentiments and reason; while the race of kings, placed in the midst of pleasures and luxuries, will degenerate until they become tyrants, instead of kings, and this degenerate form of government by a single man is at last overthrown not by the worst class of society but by the best, the most manly, magnanimous and courageous. This is the origin of aristocracy. For the people, returning favor to those who overthrew the monarchs, make them their leaders, and commit to them their affairs. They, on their part, at first regard nothing to be more important than the public interest; but their children, "being without the experience of misfortune, and altogether without the experience of political equality and freedom, addicting themselves, some of them, to avarice and covetousness, others to drunkenness and immoderate feasts, others to indulgence with women and boys, change the aristocracy into an oligarchy," and speedily cause their own subversion, as the tyrants did before them. "The people now, having put these to death, do not dare any more to set a king over themselves, through fear of the injustice of the early monarchs, nor to entrust public affairs to a number of persons; so that, their only hope that is left unimpaired being in themselves, they

make the government a democracy instead of an oligarchy. So long as any of those who had had experience of what prominent position and sway were, remain alive, they are content with the existing constitution and value most highly freedom and liberty of speech. But when the democratic institutions are handed down to new generations, they cease, through the force of habit, to value as before the public liberties, and seek to have more than the masses. Especially do those who are the wealthier fall into this spirit. Then comes on a strife for power, together with bribery and corruption of the common people; by their eagerness for distinction they make the people greedy of gifts and ready to take bribes; and thus the democracy is dissolved, and gives place to violence and the law of force (xeiрократía). For the common people having become used to devour the goods of others, and to depend for their living on their neighbors' property, if they can find a high-spirited and audacious man for their leader, since they are shut out from the prizes to be gained under the existing form of government, will make use of the law of force in its full measure, and in their assemblies will decree death, exile, divisions of land, until becoming savage again, they again find a despot and a monarch. This is the revolution of politics, this the natural arrangement, according to which forms of government change, pass over into others, and again come back to their old condition."

We will make, at present, no criticism on this cycle of changes, which, if it were in accordance with a necessary law, would afford a most hopeless prospect to the world,except that the genesis of tyranny is contradicted, as far as Greek history is concerned, by facts with which Polybius must have been familiar. The earlier tyrannies were not the sequel of the basileia or moderate and just monarchy, but sprang out of the strife of aristocratic factions; and those of later Greek times were caused by aspiring men who kept troops in their pay. The leading ideas of Polybius, the three simple forms and their degenerate copies, and the necessity of changes

arising from moral and social changes, had been established in Greek thinking long before he flourished.

forms.

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Besides this classification, another had considerable currency Simple and mixed among the later Greeks and the Romans, that into simple and mixed forms of government. Plato shows, in an interesting passage of the Laws (iii., 691692), that the mingling of institutions had occurred to his mind. The early kings, he says, through cupidity, sought to be superior to law, violated their oaths, and destroyed their own authority. The legislature of Sparta endeavored to temper this power of one man by mingling other elements with it. First, providentially, the line of kings was divided into two reigning together, and thus the royal power was moderated and contracted. Then the wisdom of old age in the gerusia was mingled with the self-willed strength of a royal family. Finally, the power of the ephori was put as a bit into the mouth of the vehement and impetuous sovereignty. Thus royalty among the Lacedæmonians, becoming mixed with the proper elements, and reaching the due measure, saved itself, and became the cause of safety to other states. Here Plato may have looked on the senate as representing an aristocracy, and the ephors as representing the people; or, perhaps, he only goes so far as to regard these institutions as checks like the double line of kings, without having any distinct notion of a mixed government.*

* It is worth while to compare these opinions of Plato with the severe criticism that Aristotle passes on the institutions of Sparta. The remissness of the laws in regard to the women (which Plato also notices, in the Laws), the consequent unrestrained love of wealth, the inequality of estates, the institutions of the ephori, the puerility of their election, the far from perfect organization of the gerusia, some characteristics of the kingly power, the common repasts, the evils attending the naval service, the undue development of the warspirit, the management of the finances-each of these points has a black mark put upon it. Sparta had greatly declined before Aristotle wrote, and perhaps he was not the man to give due weight to