Part of
their hatred may be very fitly ascribed to anger; for in some cases
this is their motive to action: for it is often a cause which impels
them to act more powerfully than hatred, and they proceed with greater
obstinacy against those whom they attack, as this passion is not under
the direction of reason. Many persons also indulge this passion
through contempt; which occasioned the fall of the Pisistratidae and
many others. But hatred is more powerful than anger; for anger is
accompanied with grief, which prevents the entrance of reason; but
hatred is free from it. In short, whatever causes may be assigned as
the destruction of a pure oligarchy unmixed with any other government
and an extreme democracy, the same may be applied to a tyranny; for
these are divided tyrannies.
Kingdoms are seldom destroyed by any outward attack; for which reason
they are generally very stable; but they have many causes of
subversion within; of which two are the principal; one is when those
who are in power [1313a] excite a sedition, the other when they
endeavour to establish a tyranny by assuming greater power than the
law gives them. A kingdom, indeed, is not what we ever see erected in
our times, but rather monarchies and tyrannies; for a kingly
government is one that is voluntarily submitted to, and its supreme
power admitted upon great occasions: but where many are equal, and
there are none in any respect so much better than another as to be
qualified for the greatness and dignity of government over them, then
these equals will not willingly submit to be commanded; but if any one
assumes the government, either by force or fraud, this is a tyranny.
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