tiently at the least touch of authority
and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws,
written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.

Yes, he said, I know it too well.

Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of
which springs tyranny.

Glorious indeed, he said. But what is the next step?

The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; the same disease
magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy--the truth
being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction
in the opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons
and in vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government.

True.

The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to
pass into excess of slavery.

Yes, the natural order.

And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most
aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of
liberty?

As we might expect.

That, however, was not, as I believe, your question-you rather desired
to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in oligarchy and
democracy, and is the ruin of both?

Just so, he replied.

Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle spendthrifts, of
whom the more courageous are the-leaders and the more timid the
followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless,
and others having stings.

A very just comparison.

These two classes are the plagues of every city in which they are
generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good
physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to
keep them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in;
and if they have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and
their cells cut out as speedily as possible.

Yes, by all means, he said.

Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing, let us
imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes;
for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the
democratic than there were in the oligarchical State.

That is true.

And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified.

How so?

Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and driven from
office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas in
a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the
keener sort spe