I mean by this, that
it may happen, that although one form of government may be better than
another, yet there is no reason to prevent another from being
preferable thereunto in particular circumstances and for particular
purposes.
CHAPTER XII
After what has been said, it follows that we should now show what
particular form of government is most suitable for particular persons;
first laying this down as a general maxim, that that party which
desires to support the actual administration of the state ought always
to be superior to that which would alter it. Every city is made up of
quality and quantity: by quality I mean liberty, riches, education,
and family, and by quantity its relative populousness: now it may
happen that quality may exist in one of those parts of which the city
is composed, and quantity in another; thus the number of the ignoble
may be greater than the number of those of family, the number of the
poor than that of the rich; but not so that the quantity of the one
shall overbalance the quality of the other; those must be properly
adjusted to each other; for where the number of the poor exceeds the
proportion we have mentioned, there a democracy will rise up, and if
the husbandry should have more power than others, it will be a
democracy of husbandmen; and the democracy will be a particular
species according to that class of men which may happen to be most
numerous: thus, should these be the husbandmen, it will be of these,
and the best; if of mechanics and those who hire themselves out, the
worst possible: in the same manner it may be of any other set between
these two.
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