104: Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



citizens who enjoy civil rights also enjoy political rights. Two 

 great Greek thinkers, Plato and Aristotle, have left us lists of 

 forms of government, classified as "normal" and " corrupt," 

 and in each case democracy takes rank as a corrupt form. In 

 Aristotle's view, democracy is the rule of the poor for their 

 own advantage — an anticipation, by the way, of a rather 

 widely-held modern opinion. Later writers, however, have 

 given it a more favourable position. 



Eeference has already been made to Greek democracy as 

 exemplified at Athens. It must be carefully remembered that 

 the Greek political communities were small, and possessed a 

 large slave population. The inhabitants of a single town con- 

 stituted a State. Foreigners and slaves were not counted as 

 citizens, and therefore could take no part in legislation or in 

 the administration of justice. In Greece, then, democracy was 

 exhibited on a limited scale, and under conditions totally 

 unlike those of a modern democratic State. Modern state- 

 craft has set itself a problem of formidable complexity. 

 "Whether it succeeds or fails the aim is undoubtedly high. 



What does history teach as to the merits of a purely 

 democratic government ? It is sometimes charged against 

 democracy that it is necessarily fatal to individual develop- 

 ment, to robustness and originality of thought, to spontaneity 

 of action. Its tendency, we are told, is to level down. Such 

 ,was not the case at Athens. Professor Freeman says on this 

 point, " Pure democracy — the government of a whole people 

 and not of a part only — is a form of government which 

 works up the faculties of man to a higher pitch than any 

 other ; it is the form of government which gives the freest 

 scope to the inborn genius of the whole community and of 

 every member of it. . . The democracy of Athens raised a 

 greater number of human beings to a higher level than any 

 government before or since ; it gave freer play than any 

 government before or since to the personal gifts of the fore- 

 most of mankind." This is high praise. There is but one 

 drawback to it : it is that democracy at Athens appears to 

 have been too forcmg, and therefore lacked the quality of 

 durability. But, however this may be, there is little room for 

 doubting that a strong admixture of the democratic spirit in 

 a government is necessary if a people is to achieve the highest 

 results. 



If we turn from Greece to Italy, tliere too we find the 

 independent city the leading political idea, but Eome, by 

 means of concessions to allies and subjects, was nearer be- 

 coming a nation in the modern sense than Greece. The 

 history of the long struggle at Eome between the aristocracy 

 and democracy is highly instructive from every point of view, 

 chiefly from the close parallel it presents to what has taken 



