Book 4
1294a
And it seems an impossibility for a city governed not by the aristocracy but by the base to have well-ordered government, and similarly also for a city that has not a well-ordered government to be governed aristocratically. But to have good laws enacted but not obey them does not constitute well-ordered government. Hence one form of good government must be understood to consist in the laws enacted being obeyed, and another form in the laws which the citizens keep being well enacted (for it is possible to obey badly enacted laws). And for laws to be well enacted is possible in two ways: they must either be the best laws possible for the given people or the best absolutely. But aristocracy in the fullest sense seems to consist in the distribution of the honors according to virtue; for virtue is the defining factor of aristocracy, as wealth is of oligarchy, and freedom of democracy (while the principle that a decision of the majority is supreme is found in them all: for in both oligarchy and aristocracy and democracies whatever the larger part of those who have a share in the government decides is supreme). In most statesi.e. in most states that are considered aristocracies. then the name of aristocracy is given to that form of constitutional government,i.e. the more oligarchical form, 1293b 36. for the combination aims only at the well-off and the poor, wealth and freedom (since in almost the largest number of states the rich seem to occupy the place of the gentry); butas there are three things that claim equal participationin the constitution, freedom, wealth and virtue (for the fourth, what is called nobility, accompanies the two latter—nobility means ancient wealth and virtue), it is manifest that the mixture of the two factors, the rich and the poor,Loosely put for wealth and free birth. ought to be termed constitutional government, while the mixture of the three factors deserves the name of aristocracy most of all the various forms of aristocracy beside the true and best form.
