your opinion, for I have often heard you say so. But I do not the less desire, if it is not giving you too much trouble, to hear which you consider the best of these three forms of commonwealths. For it may be of some use in considering[1] * * *
XXXI. * * * And each commonwealth corresponds to the nature and will of him who governs it. Therefore, in no other constitution than that in which the people exercise sovereign power has liberty any sure abode, than which there certainly is no more desirable blessing. And if it be not equally established for every one, it is not even liberty at all. And how can there be this character of equality, I do not say under a monarchy, where slavery is least disguised or doubtful, but even in those constitutions in which the people are free indeed in words, for they give their suffrages, they elect officers, they are canvassed and solicited for magistracies; but yet they only grant those things which they are obliged to grant whether they will or not, and which are not really in their free power, though others ask them for them? For they are not themselves admitted to the government, to the exercise of public authority, or to offices of select judges, which are permitted to those only of ancient families and large fortunes. But in a free people, as among the Rhodians and Athenians, there is no citizen who[2] * * *
XXXII. * * * No sooner is one man, or several, elevated by wealth and power, than they say that * * * arise from their pride and arrogance, when the idle and the timid give way, and bow down to the insolence of riches. But if the people knew how to maintain its rights, then they say that nothing could be more glorious and prosperous than democracy; inasmuch as they themselves would be the sovereign dispensers of laws, judgments, war, peace, public treaties, and, finally, of the fortune and life of each individual citizen; and this condition of things is the only one which, in their opinion, can be really called a commonwealth, that is to say, a constitution of the people. It is on this principle that, according to them, a people often vindicates its liberty from the domination of kings and
