Project Gutenberg #6762
Politics: A Treatise on Government
Aristotle
350 BCEAristotle's treatise on constitutions and civic life, prepared introduction plus book-and-chapter sections from Project Gutenberg plaintext.
Project Gutenberg #6762 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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AI Summary
Chapter 54 — Book IV, Chapter X Central question What is tyranny, and why is it a constitutional form? Main argument Aristotle treats tyranny as the corruption of monarchy and examines it in the same systematic...
It now remains to treat of a tyranny; not that there is [1295a] much
to be said on that subject, but as it makes part of our plan, since
we enumerated it amongst our different sorts of governments. In the
beginning of this work we inquired into the nature of kingly government,
and entered into a particular examination of what was most properly
called so, and whether it was advantageous to a state or not, and what
it should be, and how established; and we divided a tyranny into two
pieces when we were upon this subject, because there is something
analogous between this and a kingly government, for they are both of
them established by law; for among some of the barbarians they elect a
monarch with absolute power, and formerly among the Greeks there were
some such, whom they called sesumnetes. Now these differ from each
other; for some possess only kingly power regulated by law, and
rule those who voluntarily submit to their government; others rule
despotically according to their own will. There is a third species of
tyranny, most properly so called, which is the very opposite to kingly
power; for this is the government of one who rules over his equals and
superiors without being accountable for his conduct, and whose object is
his own advantage, and not the advantage of those he governs; for which
reason he rules by compulsion, for no freemen will ever willingly submit
to such a government. These are the different species of tyrannies,
their principles, and their causes.