Page:Back to the Republic.djvu/40

 to be God, or some superhuman spirit, or an idea.

Most writers on political science since the time of Aristotle have followed his classification of forms of government, and modern writers on political science in the main still follow blindly the incorrect classification of forms of government suggested by Aristotle, although the founding of this republic made necessary a revision in order to make a correct classification. It was reserved for the founders of this republic, the framers of the Constitution of the United States, to arrest the erratic swing of the pendulum of government and to point it to the golden mean, which made necessary a revision of the classification of Aristotle by striking out aristocracy, which is an essence of autocracy, and substituting republic, which is the mean that is golden, as follows:

REPUBLIC AUTOCRACY— ARISTOCRACY —DEMOCRACY This makes the correct classification of forms of government.

All through the realm of nature and of human activity we find examples of the trinity classification above described—the two extremes and the golden mean. A few of the more striking classifications of this character are cited below in order to emphasize this fundamental truth and to