For the distinction of ruling with
law or without law, applies to this as well as to the rest.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: The division made no difference when we were looking for the
perfect State, as we showed before. But now that this has been separated
off, and, as we said, the others alone are left for us, the principle of
law and the absence of law will bisect them all.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That would seem to follow, from what has been said.
STRANGER: Then monarchy, when bound by good prescriptions or laws, is the
best of all the six, and when lawless is the most bitter and oppressive to
the subject.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: The government of the few, which is intermediate between that of
the one and many, is also intermediate in good and evil; but the government
of the many is in every respect weak and unable to do either any great good
or any great evil, when compared with the others, because the offices are
too minutely subdivided and too many hold them. And this therefore is the
worst of all lawful governments, and the best of all lawless ones. If they
are all without the restraints of law, democracy is the form in which to
live is best; if they are well ordered, then this is the last which you
should choose, as royalty, the first form, is the best, with the exception
of the seventh, for that excels them all, and is among States what God is
among men.
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