democracy should be
combined.

How? Well for many years I have been saying it and I hope I may live for
many years longer to say it again. A healthy nation is one in which the
aristocracy is "_demophil_," that is a lover of the people, and where
the people is aristocratic in its leanings. Every people where the
aristocracy is aristocratic and where the democracy is democratic is a
people destined to perish promptly, because it does not understand what
a people is, it has not got beyond the stage of knowing what is a class
and perhaps not even as far as that.

Montesquieu praises highly the Athenians and the Romans for the
following reason. "At Rome, although the people had the right of
elevating plebeians to office, it could never bring itself to elect
them; and although at Athens, it could by the law of Aristides, choose
magistrates from all classes, it never happened according to Xenophon,
that the lower people demanded the election of rulers who could injure
its safety and its glory. The two instances are identical; only, as far
as Athens is concerned, it signifies nothing, for at Athens everything
was decided by plebiscite and in consequence the real rulers of Athens
were the orators, in whom the people trusted, who enforced their
decisions and really governed the city. At Rome the fact is of great
importance for it was the elected magistrates who governed."

Republican Rome was indeed a country aristocratically governed which
had, however, a democratic element in its constitution, and this
democratic element, up to the time of the civil wars, was itself
profoundly aristocratic, just as the aristocracy which was always open
to an accession of members from the plebs was profoundly "demophil."

The institution of patron and client, even in the state of degeneracy
which overtook it, is a phenomenon which I believe is well-nigh unique.
It shows to what extent two classes felt the social necessity, the
patriotic necessity of mutual support and of a recognition of an
identity of interest.

A nation whose people is aristocratic and whose aristocracy is
"demophil" is a healthy nation. Rome succeeded in the world because for
five hundred years she enjoyed this social health.

An aristocratic people and a people-loving aristocracy. I had long
believed the formula was of my own invention. I have just discovered,
and I am in no way surprised, that Aristotle was before me. He quotes
the oath which oligarchs take in certai