erest, restrains the people; but it is very difficult for this
corporation to restrain its own members as easily as it restrains the
populace. Public crimes can, no doubt, be punished, as it is in the
general interests of an aristocracy that this should be done; but, as a
rule, private misdeeds in the nobility will be overlooked. A corporation
of this sort can only curb itself in two ways--either by a great
political virtue, which leads the nobles to regard the people as their
equals and makes for the formation of large republic, or by the lesser
virtue of moderation, which enables them to conserve their power.

An aristocracy grows corrupt when the power of the nobles becomes
arbitrary. When the governing families observe the laws they form a
monarchy which has several monarchies; this is a very good thing in its
nature, because all these monarchies are bound together by the laws.
But when they no longer observe them, they form a despotic state which
has many despots.

The extreme corruption comes about when the nobility becomes hereditary;
it can no longer be moderate in the exercise of its powers. If the
nobles are small in number their power increases, but their surety
diminishes; if they are great in number, their power is less, but their
surety more certain, for power goes on increasing, and surety goes on
diminishing up to the despot whose power is as excessive as his peril. A
multitude of nobles in an hereditary aristocracy thus makes the
government less violent; but as they will have but little political
virtue, they will grow nonchalant, idle, and irresponsible, so that the
state at last will have no longer any force or resilience.

An aristocracy is able to maintain its force if its laws are such that
they make the nobility feel more the dangers and fatigues of government
than the pleasures of it, and if the state is in such a situation that
it has something to dread, and that its surety comes from within, and
its danger threatens from without. A certain confidence forms the glory
and the safety of a monarchy, but a republic lives on its perils. The
fear of the Persians kept the Greek states in strict obedience to
republican laws. Carthage and Rome intimidated and strengthened each
other. It is a strange thing, but democracies and aristocracies are like
water, which grows corrupt only when it is too long unmoved and
untroubled.

_III.--On the Monarchy_

Intermediary, subordinate, and dependent powers c