The mixed constitution is practicable in a state
where the middle class is strong, as only the middle class can mediate
between the rich and the poor. The mixed constitution will be stable
if it represents the actual balance of power between different classes
in the state. When we come to Aristotle's analysis of existing
constitutions, we find that while he regards them as imperfect
approximations to the ideal, he also thinks of them as the result of
the struggle between classes. Democracy, he explains, is the
government not of the many but of the poor; oligarchy a government not
of the few but of the rich. And each class is thought of, not as
trying to express an ideal, but as struggling to acquire power or
maintain its position. If ever the class existed in unredeemed
nakedness, it was in the Greek cities of the fourth century, and its
existence is abundantly recognised by Aristotle. His account of the
causes of revolutions in Book V. shows how far were the existing
states of Greece from the ideal with which he starts. His analysis of
the facts forces him to look upon them as the scene of struggling
factions. The causes of revolutions are not described as primarily
changes in the conception of the common good, but changes in the
military or economic power of the several classes in the state. The
aim which he sets before oligarchs or democracies is not the good
life, but simple stability or permanence of the existing constitution.
With this spirit of realism which pervades Books IV.
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