A HISTORY

OF
PHILOSOPHY
VOLUME I

Greece and Rome

Frederick Gopleston, S.J.

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 POLITICS 355
the class of mechanics and artisans from the citizenship, for they
had not got the necessary leisure. Another reason is that manual
toil deliberates the soul and makes it unfit for true virtue. 1
6. Discussing various types of Constitution Aristotle divides
governments into those which aim at the common interest and
those which aim at their own private interest.2 Each of these
broad divisions has three subdivisions, so that there are three
good types of Constitution and three wrong or deviation-types of
Constitution. To the right form Kingship corresponds the
deviation-form Tyranny, to Aristocracy Oligarchy, and to Polity
Democracy, and in his treatment of the comparative merits of
the various Constitutions appears Aristotle's political sense. For
him the ideal is that one man should so transcend all the other
citizens individually and in the mass in respect of excellence that
he would be the natural monarch and ruler. But in point of fact
the perfect man does not appear, and, in general, pre-eminent
heroes are found only among primitive peoples. This being so,
aristocracy, i.e. the rule of many good men, is better than
monarchy. Aristocracy is the best form of government for a body
of people who can be ruled as freemen by men whose excellence
makes them capable of political command. However, Aristotle
recognises that even Aristocracy is perhaps too high an ideal for
the contemporary State, and so he advocates "Polity," in which
"there naturally exists a warlike multitude able to obey and to
rule in turn by a law which gives office to the well-to-do according
to their desert." 3 This is practically equivalent to rule by the
middle-class, and is more or less a half-way house between
Oligarchy and Democracy, since in a Polity it is indeed a multitude
that rules—in distinction from Oligarchy—yet it is not a property-
less mob, as in Democracy, for ability to serve as a warrior, i.e. as
a heavily-armed hoplite, presupposes a certain amount of property.
Aristotle is probably thinking—though he does not refer to i t —
of the Constitution at Athens in 411 B.C., when power rested with
the Five Thousand who possessed heavy armour and the system
of payment for attendance at meetings had been abolished. This
was the Constitution of Theramenes. 4 Aristotle admired this type
of Constitution, but his contention that the middle-class is the
most stable, since both rich and poor are more likely to trust
the middle-class than one another (so that the middle-class need

1 Pol., cf. 1277 a 33-1278 a 15, 1328 b 33-1329 a 21. • Pol., 1279 a 17-21.
8 Pol., 1288 a 12-15. ' Cf. Ath*n. Polit., 28 and 33.