"if there be
some one person or more than one, although not enough to make up the
whole complement of a State, whose virtue is so pre-eminent that the
virtues or the capacity of all the rest admit of no comparison with his
or theirs, he or they can be no longer regarded as part of a State; for
justice will not be done to the superior, if he is reckoned only as the
equal of those who are so far inferior to him in virtue and in political
capacity. Such an one may truly be deemed a God among men. Hence we see
that legislation is necessarily concerned only with those who are equal
in birth and in power; and that for men of pre-eminent virtue there is
no law--they are themselves a law. Anyone would be ridiculous who
attempted to make laws for them: they would probably retort what, in the
fable of Antisthenes, the lions said to the hares--'where are your
claws?'--when in the council of the beasts the latter began haranguing
and claiming equality for all. And for this reason democratic States
have instituted ostracism; equality is above all things their aim, and
therefore they ostracise and banish from the city for a time those who
seem to predominate too much through their wealth, or the number of
their friends, or through any other political influence. Mythology tells
us that the Argonauts left Heracles behind for a similar reason; the
ship Argo would not take him because she feared that he would have been
too much for the rest of the crew."

Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, asked Periander, the tyrant of
Corinth, one of the seven sages of Greece, for advice on the art of
government. Periander made no reply but proceeded to bring a field of
corn to a level by cutting off the tallest ears. "This is a policy not
only expedient for tyrants or in practice confined to them, but equally
necessary in oligarchies and democracies. Ostracism is a measure of the
same kind, which acts by disabling and banishing the most prominent
citizens."

This is what we may call a constitutional necessity for the democracy.

To be quite honest, it is not always obliged to cut off the ears of
corn. It has a simpler method. It can systematically prevent any man who
betrays any superiority whatsoever, either of birth, fortune, virtue or
talent, from obtaining any authority or social responsibility. It can
"send to Coventry." I have often pointed out that under the first
democracy Louis XVI was guillotined for having wished to leave the
country,