Book 4
1293b
It remains for us to speak about what is termed constitutional government and also about tyranny. Though neither the former nor the aristocracies spoken of just now are really deviations, we have classed them thus because in actual truth they have all fallen away from the most correct constitution, and consequently are counted with the deviation-forms, and those are deviations from them, as we said in our remarks at the beginning.See 1279b 4 ff. Actual aristocracies are a falling-off from the Aristocracy and Polity is a decline from Monarchy and Aristocracy; but they are not deviations in the technical sense. Tyranny is reasonably mentioned last because it is the least constitutional of all governments, whereas our investigation is about constitutional government.
1293b
Having then stated the reason for this mode of classification, we have now to set forth our view about constitutional government. For its meaning is clearer now that the characteristics of oligarchy and democracy have been defined; since constitutional government is, to put it simply, a mixture of oligarchy and democracy. But people customarily give the name of constitutional government only to those among such mixed constitutions that incline towards democracy, and entitle those that incline more towards oligarchy aristocracies, because education and good birth go more with the wealthier classes, and also the wealthy are thought to have already the things to get which wrongdoers commit wrong; owing to which people apply the terms gentry and notabilities to the rich. Since therefore aristocracy means the assignment of the highest place to the best of the citizens, oligarchies also are said to be drawn rather from the gentry.
