BOOK
VIII.
OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE PRINCIPLES
OF THE THREE GOVERNMENTS
OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE PRINCIPLES
OF THE THREE GOVERNMENTS
1. General Idea of this Book. The corruption of this government
generally begins with that of the principles.
2.
Of the corruption of the Principles of Democracy. The principle
of democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is extinct,
but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, and when
each citizen would fain be upon a level with those whom he has chosen
to command him. Then the people, incapable of bearing the very power they
have delegated, want to manage everything themselves, to debate for the
senate, to execute for the magistrate, and to decide for the judges.
.
.When this is the case, virtue can no longer subsist in the republic.
The people are desirous of exercising the functions of the magistrates,
who cease toi be revered. The deliberations of the senate are slighted;
all respect is then laid aside for the senators, and consequently for
old age. If there is no more respect for old age, there will be none presently
for parents; deference to husbands will be likewise thrown off, and submission
to masters. This license will soon become general, and the trouble of
command be as fatiguing as that of obedience. Wives, children, slaves
will shake off all subjection. No longer will there be any such thing
as manners, order, or virtue.
.
.We find in Xenophon's Banquet a very lively description
of a republic in which the people abused their equality. Each guest gives
in his turn the reason why he is satisfied. "Content I am,"
says Chamides, "because of my poverty. When I was rich, I was obliged
to pay my court to informers, knowing I was more liable to be hurt by
them than capable of doing them harm. The republic constantly demanded
some new tax of me; and I could not decline paying. Since I have grown
poor, I have acquired authority; nobody threatens me; I rather threaten
others. I can go or stay where I please. The rich already rise from their
seats and give me the way. I am a king, I was before a slave: I paid taxes
to the republic, now it maintains me: I am no longer afraid of losing:
but I hope to acquire."
.
.The people fall into this misfortune when those in whom they confide,
desirous of concealing their own corruption, endevour to corrupt them.
To disguise their own ambition, they speak to them only of the grandeur
of the state; to conceal their own avarice, they incessantly flatter theirs.
.
.The corruption will increase among the corruptors, and likewise
among those who are already corrupted. The people will divide the public
money among themselves, and, having added the administration of affairs
to their indolence, will be for blending their poverty with the amusements
of luxury. But with their indolence and luxury, nothing but the public
treasure will be able to satisfy their demands.
.
.We must not be surprised to see their suffrages given for money.
It is impossible to make great largesses to the people without great exhortation:
and to compass this, the state must be subverted. The greater the advantages
they seem to derive from their liberty, the nearer they approach towards
the critical moment of losing it. Petty tyrants arise who have all the
vices of a single tyrant. The small remains of liberty soon become insupportable;
a single tyrant starts up, and the people are stripped of everything,
even of the profits of their corruption.
.
.Democracy has, therefore, two excesses to avoid−the spirit of
inequality, which leads to aristocracy or manarchy, and the spirit of
extreme equality, which leads to despotic power, as the latter is completed
by conquest.
.
.True it is that those who corrupted the Greek republics did not
always become tyrants. This was because they had a greater passion for
eloquence than for the military art. Besides there reigned an implacable
hatred in the breasts of the Greeks against those who subverted a republican
government; and for this reason anarchy degenerated into annihilation,
instead of being changed into tyranny.
.
.But Syracuse being situated in the midst of a great number of
petty states, whose government had been changed from oligarchy to tyranny,¹
and being governed by a senate² scarcely ever mentioned in history, underwent
such miseries as are the consequence of a more than ordinary corruption.
This city, ever a prey to licentiousness,³ or oppression, equally labouring
under the sudden and alternate succession of liberty and servitude, and
notwithstanding her external strength, constantly determined to a revolution
by the least foreign power−this city, I say, had in her bosom an immense
multitude of people, whose fate it was to have always this cruel alternative,
either of choosing a tyrant to govern them, or of acting the tyrant themselves.
.
.
3.
Of the Spirit of extreme Equality. As distant as heaven is from
earth, so is the true spirit of equality from that of extreme equality.
The former does not imply that everyone should command, or that no one
should be commanded, but that we obey or command our equals. It endeavours
not to shake off the authority of a master, but that its masters should
be none but its equals.
.
.In the state of nature, indeed, all men are born equal, but they
cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they
recover it only by the protection of the laws.
.
.Such is the difference between a well-regulated democracy and
one that is not so, that in the former men are equal only as citizens,
but in the latter they are equal alsoi as magistrates, as senators, as
judges, as fathers, as husbands, or as masters.
.
.The natural place of virtue is near to liberty; but it is not
nearer to excessive liberty than to servitude.
4.
Particular Cause of the Corruption of the People. Great success,
especially when chiefly owing to the people, intoxicates them to such
a degree that it is impossible to contain them within bounds. Jealous
of their magistrates, they soon become jealous likewise of the magistracy;
enemies to those who govern, they soon.
prove enemies also to the constitution..
Thus it was that the victory over the
Persians
in the straights of Salamis corrupted the republic of Athens;
and
thus
