But we must remember that good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government.[1]
The mere establishment of a democracy is not
the only or the principal business of the legislator, or of those who wish to
create a state, for any state, however badly constituted, may last one, two, or
three days; a far greater difficulty is the preservation of it. The legislator should therefore endeavor to
have a firm foundation according to the principles already laid down concerning
the preservation and destruction of states; he should guard against the
destructive elements, and should make laws, whether written or unwritten, which
contain all the preservation of states.[2]
The conclusion is evident: that governments
which have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with
strict principles of justice, and are therefore true forms; but those which
regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms,
for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen.[3]
Aristotle, Politics, circa 350 BC
[1]
Aristotle, Politics, tr. Benjamin
Jowett in The Basic Works of Aristotle,
ed. Richard McKeon, intro. C.D.C. Reeve (New York: The Modern Library, 2001),
p. 1217 [Book IV, Chapter 8]. See also
Marsilius of Padua, The Defender of the
Peace, ed. and tr. Annabel Brett (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp.
69,70 [Discourse 1, Chapter, Section 6].
Unfortunately not all of Marsilius’s references to Aristotle here match
up with the translator’s references to Aristotle. Hence I am unable to locate
in Politics the statement: “There is
no profit if sentences are passed about what is just, but these are not carried
through.” Marsilius finished The
Defender of the Peace in the year 1324.
[2] Aristotle,
Politics in Ibid., pp. 1270,1271 [Book IV, Chapter 5]
[3] Ibid., p. 1185 [Book III, Chapter 6]
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