Besides, different judges may be joined together; I mean those who are
chosen out of the whole people or part of them or both; so that all
three may sit together in the same court, and this either by vote,
lot, or both. And thus much for the different sorts of judges. Of
these appointments that which admits all the community to be judges in
all causes is most suitable to a democracy; the second, which appoints
that certain persons shall judge all causes, to an oligarchy; the
third, which appoints the whole community to be judges in some causes,
but particular persons in others, to an aristocracy or free state.
BOOK V
CHAPTER I
We have now gone through those particulars we proposed to speak of; it
remains that we next consider from what causes and how alterations in
government arise, and of what nature they are, and to what the
destruction of each state is owing; and also to what form any form of
polity is most likely to shift into, and what are the means to be used
for the general preservation of governments, as well as what are
applicable to any particular state; and also of the remedies which are
to be applied either to all in general, or to any one considered
separately, when they are in a state of corruption: and here we ought
first to lay down this principle, that there are many governments, all
of which approve of what is just and what is analogically equal; and
yet have failed from attaining thereunto, as we have already
mentioned; thus democracies have arisen from supposing that those who
are equal in one thing are so in every other circumstance; as, because
they are equal in liberty, they are equal in everything else; and
oligarchies, from supposing that those who are unequal in one thing
are unequal in all; that when men are so in point of fortune, that
inequality extends to everything else.
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