Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/283

IX as to the best methods by which it could be anticipated. I can only say a word here of the way in which he explains it in general, leaving the reader to study it in detail, and to refer to it as he goes on his way through Greek history; but I shall also note the two chief preventives for the disease suggested by the Politics as a whole, as they presented themselves to Aristotle in the light of all Greek experience up to his own time.

The real origin and fountain-head of all stasis, says Aristotle, is to be found in a want of proportion in the respective claims of the two great interests by which most States are divided. In other words, it was an imperfect sense of political justice that sowed the seeds of the disease. Where the many, for example, are equal in one thing, i.e. are all equally free and privileged under the law, they will think themselves equal in all other respects; they will claim to be equal in ability, in virtue, in dignity, and in wealth. Hence a want of justice and proportion in their aims, leading to contempt of moral goodness and of intellectual worth, or more often perhaps to harsh treatment of old families and confiscation of their property. This is naturally resented, and stasis follows. And in the same way the few, being unequal to the rest in one thing, i.e. most often in wealth, think themselves entitled to be superior in all things; they believe that they alone are the good, the noble, the valiant. Here, again, we have the sense of justice warped, followed by unfair dealing towards the many; and the resentment against this injustice will surely lead to stasis.