ARIOSO. 



ARISTO'CK 



BUM* and Oromasdes, under which tho name uocvira iu Greek author* 

 (tor example, Plutarch. ' De Ude et CWr.' p. 660, ed. 8toph.> In tht> 

 Sanecrit paraphroM of portion u{ On- Zend-Avesta by Neriosengh, the 

 name Ahur-Mawlao u interpreted " the king of great wisdom." Thi* 

 interpretation is adopted by M. Eugene Burnout, ' Commentaire iur le 

 Yofnai ruL i. p 7J. Ac., and Dr. H. Brockhau., in hi. ' HeUigen 

 Sohriften Zoroaster*,' Leipaig, 1840. 



The two individual being*, Urmuid and Ahriman were, according to 

 the ' Zend-Aveata,' the offspring of Zeruane- Akerene, the indefinite and 

 impenooal divine substance and oauee of all exigence. Both were 

 primarily equal in intellect and power ; but Onnuzd was, from the 

 beginning, pure, good, and luminoiu; while Ahriman was dark and 

 ' and bent on destruction and mischief. Onnuzd is repre- 



w the creator of the world : Ahriman constantly counteract* 

 the ilssstmi of hi* goodness. Ormusd created the six Amshatpands, or 

 minutrnng angeU of good : Ahriman, in opposition, created the six 

 Deere*, to be subeerrient to his evil purposes. " I produced a place of 

 delight," says Onmud, who relate* the matter to the holy Zoroaster; 

 " fur had 1 not, the whole inhabited world would have gone to 

 Airyana-vaejo," (wo nirgends geschaffen was eine Moglichkeit ; ) "l.ut 

 this which I created first was not the best. The second was by 

 the man-ruining Agra-maingua," This second creation was full of 

 death, where there are great snakes, ten winter months, and only 

 two summer months. They create hi turns different and opposed 

 [lima of delight and suffering, but they all appear to have refer- 

 ence to known existing countries. In the one division is found un- 

 belief, labour, and poverty; in the other, beautiful towns, with 

 banners, and full of houses. This is from the first chapter of tint 

 ' Vendidad.' The subsequent chapters contain further conversations, 

 with moral precepts and directions for prayers, by which " praising the 

 highest purity," the Deevas are to be expelled, adding, " Long sleep, 

 men, is not fitting for you. Turn towards the three good things, good 

 thinking, speaking, and acting ; and from the three bad things, evil 

 thinking, speaking, and acting." Thus Onnuzd is always taking the 

 lead by pure and good productions, and Ahriman follows, sowing the 

 seeds of natural and moral evil in the new creations. Uithra, who is 

 of a later introduction, was the mediator between Onnuzd and his 

 creatures. The struggle of the two deities will, according to the 

 doctrine of Zoroaster, continue during 12,000 years, after the lapse of 

 which Onnuzd will defeat his opponent. Ahriman himself will then 

 become a convert to truth and goodness, and a new world, happier and 

 better than the present, will be created. Plutarch gives similar 

 detail*, but fixes the period of contest at 3000 years. 



The Persian doctrine of the two opposite principles was known to 

 Aristotle, who, according to Diogenes Laertius (' De Yit, Fhilos. 

 Procem.' 2), distinguished them OB iyaBiis taifuar and Ktutbt Sat/utv. 



The most ancient foreign authors that have given some interesting 

 detail* regarding the doctrine of Zoroaster are the Armenian chro- 

 niclers of the fifth century, especially Elismus and Eanac. See Elisteus'* 

 ' History of Vartan,' Ac., translated by C. F. Neumann, London, 1830, 

 4to, and an extract from the Chronicle of Eanac, in the appendix to 

 P. Aucber's ' Grammar, Armenian and English,' Venice, 1810, Svo, 

 p. 198, *a; X. Anquetil du Perron, the ' Zend-Avesta;' but his trans- 

 lation, though valuable at the time, has been found too loose and too 

 often incorrect to allow of the true doctrines of the ancient Persian 

 faith to be drawn from it Westergaard ha* published the text of the 

 ' Zsnd-A vesta,' Copenhagen, 1854 ; and Dr. F. Spiegel, a translation in 

 German of the ' Vendidad,' which is a portion of it, in Leipzig, 1852. 



AKIO'MO, in musk (an Italian adjective, airy), used to signify ' in 

 the manner of an ah-,' as contradistinguished from recitative. When 

 applied to instrumental music, it denotes a sustained, a vocal ct vl. . 1 1 

 is sometime*, but improperly, used substantively. 



AKISTO'CRACY, according to iU etymology, means a government 

 of the is* or ma* tmUatt (Ifurru). This name, which, like optimal* 

 in Latin, was applied to the educated and wealthy das* in the state, 

 soon lost it* moral and obtained a purely ]>olitical sense : so that aris- 

 tocracy came to mean merely a government of a /or, the rich being 

 always the minority of a nation. When the sovereign power doe* not 

 belong to one person, it is shared by a number of persons either greater 

 or less than half the community : if this number is less than half, the 

 government is called an arista-nary ; if it is greater than half, the 

 government is called a iiemcra<y. Since however women and children 

 have in all 



have in all ages and countries (except in case* of hereditary succession) 

 been excluded from the exercise of the sovereign power, the number of 

 persons enumerated in estimating the form of the government is con- 

 fined to the adult males, and does not compreli individual of 

 the society, like a census of population. Thus, if a nation contains 

 3,000,000 souls, of which 800,000 are adult males, if the sovereign 

 power i* lodged in a body consisting of 500 or 600 persons, the govern- 

 mat is an aristocracy; if It is lodged hi a body consisting of 400,000 

 psrwni, the government is a democracy, though this number i* con- 

 siderably ! than half the entire population. It is also to be remarked, 

 that where there i* a class of subjects or slaves who are excluded from 

 all political right* and all share in the sovereignty, the numbers of 

 the dominant community are alone taken into the account in deter- 

 Us* the name w* an to give to the form of the government Thus, 

 Athens at UM time of th* Peloponnesian war had conquered number 

 of hiilir<*nt communities in the islands of the JBgean Sea and on 



the coasts of Asia Minor and Thrace, which were reduced to different 

 decree* of subjection, but were all substantially dependent on tin- 

 Athenians. Nevertheless, a* every adult male Athenian citizen had a 

 share in the sovereign power, the government of Athens was called, not 

 an aristocracy, but a democracy. Again, the Athenians had a class of 

 slaves, four or five time* more numerous than the whole body 

 zens, of all ages and sexes ; yet a* a majority of the citizens possessed 

 the sovereign power, the government was called a democracy. In like 

 manner, the government of South Carolina in the United States of 

 America is called a democracy, because every adult freeman, who is a 

 native or has obtained the rights of citizenship by residence, ha* 

 in tl;.' election of members of the legislative assembly, although th 

 number of the slaves in that state exceeds that of the free population. 



An arittocracy therefore may be defined to be a form of government 

 in which the sovereign power i* divided among a number of person* 

 leas than half the adult males of the entire community v. hi i > there is 

 not a class of subjects or slaves, or the dominant community where 

 there is a class of subject* or slaves. 



Lord Brougham, in his ' Political Philosophy,' vol. ii., give* a some- 

 what different definition. He says, " Where th< m :my 

 state ia in the hands of a portion of the community, anil that j*>rtii>n is 

 so constituted that the rest of the people cannot gain admitt-u 

 can only gain admittance with the consent of the select body, the 

 government is an aristocracy ; where the people at large exert i 

 supreme power it is a democracy. Nor does it moke any diHi-rem-i- in 

 these forma of government, that the ruling body exercises its power l.y 

 delegation to individuals or to smaller bodies. Thus, a government 

 would be aristocratic in which the select body elected a chief to whom 

 a portion or even the whole of its power should be intrusted." He 

 illustrate)) this by historical examples, and it is perhaps more in accord- 

 ance with the general acceptation of the word than the ]n 

 definition. England can scarcely be termed an aristocratic ; 

 though far leas than the half of its adult* have any acknowloilg.il 

 powor. 



Sometimes the word aristocracy is used to signify, not a form of 

 government, but a class of persons hi a state. In thin .- n-v it is 

 applied not merely to the persons composing the sovereign body in a 

 state of which the government is arUtocratical, but to a class or poli- 

 tical party in any state, whatever be the form of its government. 

 When there is a privileged order of persons in a community having a 

 title or civil dignity, and when no person, not belonging to this body, 

 is admitted to shore in the sovereign power, this class is often called 

 the aristocracy, and the aristocratic party or class ; and all persons not 

 belonging to it are called the popular party, or, for shortness, the 

 people. Under these circumstances many rich persons would not 

 belong to the aristocratic class ; but if a change takes place in the con- 

 stitution of the state, by which the disabilities of the popular order 

 are removed, and the rich obtain a large share of the sovereign ; 

 then the rich In-come the aristocratic class, a* opposed to the middle, 

 ranks and the poor. This may be illustrated by the history of Fl. 

 in which state the ttMli jmpolani, or popular nobles (a* they were 

 called), at one time were opposed to the aristocratic party, but by a 

 change in the constitution became themselves the chiefs of the aristo- 

 cratic, and the enemies of the popular party. In England, at the 

 present time, aristocracy, a* the name of a class, is generally applied to 

 the nVA, as opposed to the rest of the community : sometime*, how- 

 ever, it is used in a narrower sense, and is restricted to the nobility, or 

 members of the peerage. 



The wonl aristocracy, when used in this last sense, may be applied 

 to an order of persons in states of any form of government. Thus, the 

 privileged orders in France from the reign of Louis XIV. to th. 

 iution of 1780, have often been called the aristocracy, although the 

 government was during tli.-it time purely monarchical; so a cuss of 

 persons has by many historians been termed the aristocracy in aristo- 

 cratical republics, as Venice and Rome before the admission of the 

 plebeians to eu.ua! political rights ; and in deuiocratical republics, a* 

 Athens, Rome in later times, and France during a part of her revolu- 

 tion. It would therefore be an error if any person were to infer from 

 the existence of on aristocracy (that in, an aristocratical class) in a 

 state, that the form of government is therefore aristocratical, though 

 in fact that might happen to be the case. 



The use of the word ariitorrary to signify a data oj jtrrtotu never 

 occurs in the Greek writers, with whom It originated, nor (as far as we 

 are aware) is it ever employed by Machiavulli and the revivers of 

 political science since the middle ages: among modern writers of all 

 part* of Europe this acceptation has, however, now become frequent 

 and established. 



The word ofiyarcky is likewise of Greek origin, and it ineaiiK, accord- 

 ing to iu etymology, a government of a /r. By the Greek historian* 

 it is used as synonymous with aristocracy, nnr did it convey any 

 offensive meaning ; among modern nation*, however, it generally has 

 an opprobrious foroe, and when used, it commonly implies that the 

 writer or speaker disapproves of the government or dialikes the class 

 of persons to which he applies that name. 



There is scarcely any political term which has a more vagi" 

 fluctuating sense than arittocrary ; and tho historical or } 

 student should be careful to watch with attention the variations in its 

 meaning : observing, first, whether it means a form of government or a 



