Now, in general, a citizen is one who both shares in the government
and also in his turn submits to be governed; [1284a] their condition,
it is true, is different in different states: the best is that in
which a man is enabled to choose and to persevere in a course of
virtue during his whole life, both in his public and private state.
But should there be one person, or a very few, eminent for an uncommon
degree of virtue, though not enough to make up a civil state, so that
the virtue of the many, or their political abilities, should be too
inferior to come in comparison with theirs, if more than one; or if
but one, with his only; such are not to be considered as part of the
city; for it would be doing them injustice to rate them on a level
with those who are so far their inferiors in virtue and political
abilities, that they appear to them like a god amongst men. From
whence it is evident, that a system of laws must be calculated for
those who are equal to each other in nature and power. Such men,
therefore, are not the object of law; for they are themselves a law:
and it would be ridiculous in any one to endeavour to include them in
the penalties of a law: for probably they might say what Antisthenes
tells us the lions did to the hares when they demanded to be admitted
to an equal share with them in the government. And it is on this
account that democratic states have established the ostracism; for an
equality seems the principal object of their government.
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