Book III.
Chap. 4.aristocracy. True it is, that in the latter it is not so absolutely requisite.
The people, who in respect to the nobility are the same as the subjects with regard to the monarch, are restrained by their laws. They have therefore less occasion for virtue than the people in a democracy. But how are the nobility to be restrained? Those who are to execute the laws against their collegues, will immediately perceive they are acting against themselves. Virtue is therefore necessary in this body by the very nature of the constitution.
An aristocratical government has within itself a certain strength which a democracy has not. The nobles form a body, who by their prerogative and through particular interest, restrain the people; it is sufficient here that there are laws in being to fee them executed.
But as easy as it is for the body of the nobles to contain the people within bounds, so difficult is it to contain themselves[1]. Such is the nature of this constitution, that it seems to subject the very same persons to the power of the laws, and at the same time to exempt them.
Now such a body as this can restrain itself only two ways; either by a very eminent virtue, which puts the nobility in some measure on a level with the people, and may be the means of forming a great republic; or by an inferior virtue, which puts them at least upon a level with one another, and on this their preservation depends.
- ↑ Public crimes may be punished, because it is here a common concern; but private crimes will go unpunished, because it is a common interest not to punish them.
