[1287a]
[1]
Our
discussion has now reached the case of the king who acts in all matters
according to his own will, and we must examine this type of royalty. For the
so-called constitutional monarchy, as we said,1 is not a special kind of constitution
(since it is possible for a life-long generalship to exist under all
constitutions, for example under a democracy and an aristocracy, and many people
make one man sovereign over the administration, for instance there is a
government of this sort in Epidamnus,2 and also
at Opus3 to a certain smaller
extent); but we have now
to discuss what is called Absolute Monarchy, which is the monarchy under which
the king governs all men according to his own will. Some people think that it is
entirely contrary to nature for one person to be sovereign over all the citizens
where the state consists of men who are alike; for necessarily persons alike in
nature must in accordance with nature have the same principle of justice and the
same value, so that inasmuch as for persons who are unequal to have an equal
amount of food or clothing is harmful for their bodies, the same is the case
also in regard to honors; similarly
therefore it is wrong for those who are equal to have inequality, owing to which
it is just for no one person to govern or be governed more than another, and
therefore for everybody to govern and be governed alike in turn. And this
constitutes law for regulation is law. Therefore it is preferable for the law to
rule rather than any one of the citizens,
[20]
and according to this same principle, even if it be better for
certain men to govern, they must be appointed as guardians of the laws and in
subordination to them; for there must be some government, but it is clearly not
just, men say, for one person to be governor when all the citizens are alike.
It may be objected that any
case which the law appears to be unable to define, a human being also would be
unable to decide. But the law first specially educates the magistrates for the
purpose and then commissions them to decide and administer the matters that it
leaves over ‘according to the best of their judgement,’4 and
furthermore it allows them to introduce for themselves any amendment that
experience leads them to think better than the established code. He therefore
that recommends that the law shall govern seems to recommend that God and reason
alone shall govern, but he that would have man govern adds a wild animal also;
for appetite is like a wild animal, and also passion warps the rule even of the
best men. Therefore the law is wisdom without desire. And there seems to be no truth in the analogy which argues
from the arts5 that it is a bad thing to
doctor oneself by book, but preferable to employ the experts in the arts. For
they never act contrary to principle from motives of friendship, but earn their
fee when (for instance) they have cured their patients,
whereas holders of political office usually do many things out of spite and to
win favor; since when people suspect even the physicians of being in the
confidence of their enemies and of trying to make away with them for gain, in
that case they would sooner look up the treatment in the books.
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