461 



DEMI-LUNE. 



DEMOCRACY. 



462 



hand is a modern restoration. Demeter is sometimes represented 

 (especially on gems and vases) as an enraged deity, with torch 

 in hand and flying drapery searching after the lost Persephone. 

 Sometimes, again, escorting her daughter on her annual journey to or 

 from Erebus. Among other of the less familiar events in her story, 

 which appear to have often engaged the skill of the Greek sculptors 

 and vase-painters, was her connection with the mystic lacemis, who is 

 represented sometimes as a child at her breast, sometimes as a boy 



[Demeter, from the BritUh MnMtun.] 



betide her. A colossal bust crowned with a basket, which is believed 

 to have been a portion of the great statue of Demeter, was, in 1801, 

 brought from the site of the chief temple of the goddess on the Acro- 

 polis of Eleusis, and deposited in the public library of Cambridge 

 University ; but it has been by some supposed to have rather formed a 

 portion of a canephorus or cistophorus. The great temple of Demeter 

 at Eleusis was the largest in all Greece, and was designed by Ictinus, 

 the architect of the Parthenon. Very little is now left of it ; its area 

 forming the centre of the modern village. [ELECSIS, in GEOO. Drv.] 



DEMI-LUNE. [RAVELIN.] 



DEMISEMIQ0AVER, a musical character, formed by adding three 

 hooks to the stem of a crotchet, Ex. 



and in length, or duration, is equal to ^ of a semibreve. [SEMIBREVE.] 

 DEMOCRACY (Sriuwparla) a word taken from the Greek language, 

 like aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, -and other political terms. 



The third book of Herodotus (chap. 80-82) contains what wo may 

 consider as the views of the oldest extant Greek historian on the 

 merit* and defect* of the three respective forms of government as 

 they are called, democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy. It would be 

 difficult to extract from the chapters referred to an exact definition o) 

 democracy, but still we learn from them what were considered to be 

 ntittk; fi rs t t complete political equality (iMnpMi secondly, the 

 election of magistrates by lot (<AV) (which, coupled with the first 

 condition, implies that public offices must be accessible to all) ; 

 thirdly, responsibility or accountability in public functionaries (ip 

 i/iri/uroi), which implies a short term of office and liability to be 

 ejected from it ; fourthly, the decision by the community at large of 

 all public matters (TO Pov\tvfuiTa wdma it TO Koivbv ava^if'peu'). 



It is unnecessary to mention the merits and defects of a democracy 

 as pointed out in the above chapters, the defects being only certain 



consequences supposed to flow from, and the merits certain advantages 

 incident to, a democratical institution, and neither being essentially 

 larts of the fundamental notion of a democracy. 



In forming a notion of a democracy as conceived by the Greeks, and 

 indeed in forming any exact notion of a .pure democracy, it is neces- 

 sary to consider a small community, such as a single town with a little 

 ierritory , and to view such a community as an independent sovereignty. 

 The institutions which in modern times have approached most nearly 

 to the form of a pure democracy are some of the Swiss cantons. The 

 boroughs of England, as existing in their supposed original purity, 

 and as partly restored to that supposed original purity, by the 

 Municipal Corporation Act, may help to explain the notion of a demo- 

 cracy, though they are wanting in the necessary element of possessing 

 sovereignty. Further, to conceive correctly of a Greek democracy and 

 of some of the democracies of the North American Union, it must be 

 remembered that the whole community in such States consisted and 

 consists of two great divisions, freemen and slaves, of whom the latter 

 form no part of the political system. 



In most Greek communities we find two marked divisions of the 

 freemen, the " few " (oAfyoi) or "rich " (Swarol, ir\ouirioi), and the 

 " many " (of iroAAo), 6 &rjpot) or " not rich " (Siroooi), between whomafierce 

 contest for political superiority was maintained. This contest would 

 often end in the expulsion of the " few," and the division of their lands 

 and property among the " many ; " sometimes in the expulsion of the 

 leaders of the " many," and the political subjugation of the rest. Thus 

 the same state would at one time be called a democracy, at another an 

 oligarchy, according as one or the other party possessed the political 

 superiority; a circumstance which evidently tended to confuse all 

 exact notions of the meaning of the respective terms used to denote 

 the respective kinds of polities. Under the circumstances described, 

 what was called an oligarchy might perhaps be appropriately so called ; 

 what was called a democracy was not appropriately so called, even 

 according to the notions entertained by the Greeks themselves of a 

 democracy ; for such so-called democracy was only a fraction of the 

 community that had obtained a victory over another fraction of the 

 community, less numerous and individually more wealthy: for the 

 " few " and the " rich " were necessarily united in idea ; it being, as 

 Aristotle remarks, incident to the " rich " to be ,the " few," and the 

 rest to be the " many.'* 



Aristotle felt the difficulty of defining what a democracy is. He 

 observes (' Politik.' iv. 4) that neither an oligarchy nor a democracy 

 must be defined simply with reference to the number of those com- 

 posing the respective bodies : if a considerable majority, he says, are 

 rich, and exclude the remaining body of freemen, who are poor, from 

 political rights, this is not a democracy. Nor, on the contrary, if the 

 poor, being few, should exclude the rich, being more numerous, from 

 all political power, would this be an oligarchy. Indeed such a sup- 

 position as the latter is impossible in a sovereign community, except 

 during a short period of revolutionary change. 



Aristotle, after some preliminary remarks, concludes by defining a 

 democracy to be, when the freemen and those not the rich, being the 

 majority possess the sovereign power ; and an oligarchy, when the rich 

 and those of noble birth, being few, are in possession of the sovereign 

 power. This definition of an oligarchy necessarily implies that the 

 majority are excluded from participating in the sovereign power. It 

 might be inferred, on the other hand, that in this definition of a demo- 

 cracy the few are excluded from the sovereign power; and such in 

 this passage should be the meaning of the author, if he is consistent 

 with himself. In another passage (iv. 4), where he is speaking of the 

 different kinds of democracy, he speaks of the first kind as characterised 

 by equality (KOT& TO tray) : and by this equality he understands " the 

 not rich having no more political power than the rich, neither body 

 being supreme, but both equal, and all participating equally in political 

 power." Such in fact approached very near the exact notion of a pure 

 democracy, or at least a democracy as pure as we have any example of; 

 for women, persons of unsound mind, males not adult, and slaves, are 

 excluded from political power even in democracies. 



A pure democracy, then, is where every male citizen, with the ex- 

 ceptions above mentioned, forms an equal and integral part of the 

 sovereign body ; or, as Aristotle expresses it, the democracy is " monarch, 

 one compounded of many." This is the fundamental notion of a 

 democracy : every other institution incident to or existing in a demo- 

 cracy, is either a necessary consequence from this notion or a positive 

 law enacted by the universal sovereign. 



If the democracy consider a constitution [CONSTITUTION] to be 

 useful for carrying into effect the will of the sovereign, such constitu- 

 tion, when made by the expressed will of the majority, whatever may 

 be the terms of such constitution, does not affect the principle of the 

 democracy. Such constitution can be altered or destroyed by the 

 same power that made it. If a representative body is necessary for 

 effecting the purposes of the sovereign, such body may be elected and 

 invested with any powers by the sovereign body, always provided that 

 the representative body is responsible to the sovereign whose creature 

 it is. Whatever institutions are created, and whatever powers are 

 delegated by the sovereign many, the principle of pure democracy 

 still exists so long as every individual and every body of individuals 

 who exercise delegated power are responsible to the sovereign body by 

 whom the power is delegated. Hence if property be made a qualifi- 



