It is, moreover,
very-useful in such a state to do as Clisthenes did at Athens, when he
was desirous of increasing the power of the people, and as those did
who established the democracy in Cyrene; that is, to institute many
tribes and fraternities, and to make the religious rites of private
persons few, and those common; and every means is to be contrived to
associate and blend the people together as much as possible; and that
all former customs be broken through. Moreover, whatsoever is
practised in a tyranny seems adapted to a democracy of this species;
as, for instance, the licentiousness of the slaves, the women, and the
children; for this to a certain degree is useful in such a state; and
also to overlook every one's living as they choose; for many will
support such a government: for it is more agreeable to many to live
without any control than as prudence would direct.
CHAPTER V
It is also the business of the legislator and all those who would
support a government of this sort not to make it too great a work, or
too perfect; but to aim only to render it stable: for, let a state be
constituted ever so badly, there is no difficulty in its continuing a
few days: they should therefore endeavour to procure its safety by all
those ways which we have described in assigning the causes of the
preservation and destruction of governments; avoiding what is hurtful,
and by framing such laws, written and unwritten, as contain those
things which chiefly tend to the preservation of the state; nor to
suppose that that is useful either for a democratic or [1320a] an
oligarchic form of government which contributes to make them more
purely so, but what will contribute to their duration: but our
demagogues at present, to flatter the people, occasion frequent
confiscations in the courts; for which reason those who have the
welfare of the state really at heart should act directly opposite to
what they do, and enact a law to prevent forfeitures from being
divided amongst the people or paid into the treasury, but to have them
set apart for sacred uses: for those who are of a bad disposition
would not then be the less cautious, as their punishment would be the
same; and the community would not be so ready to condemn those whom
they sat in judgment on when they were to get nothing by it: they
should also take care that the causes which are brought before the
public should be as few as possible, and punish with the utmost
severity those who rashly brought an action against any one; for it is
not the commons but the nobles who are generally prosecuted: for in
all things the citizens of the same state ought to be affectionate to
each other, at least not to treat those who have the chief power in it
as their enemies.
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