[1287a] [loeb_section_11] [loeb_subsection_1] Our discussion has now reached the case of the king who acts in all matters according to his own will, and we must examine this type of royalty. For the so-called constitutional monarchy, as we said,See 10.3. is not a special kind of constitution (since it is possible for a life-long generalship to exist under all constitutions, for example under a democracy and an aristocracy, and many people make one man sovereign over the administration, for instance there is a government of this sort in Epidamnus, Durazzo, on the Adriatic. and also at OpusChief town of Locri, near the Straits of Euboea to a certain smaller extent); [loeb_subsection_2] but we have now to discuss what is called Absolute Monarchy, which is the monarchy under which the king governs all men according to his own will. Some people think that it is entirely contrary to nature for one person to be sovereign over all the citizens where the state consists of men who are alike; for necessarily persons alike in nature must in accordance with nature have the same principle of justice and the same value, so that inasmuch as for persons who are unequal to have an equal amount of food or clothing is harmful for their bodies, the same is the case also in regard to honors; [loeb_subsection_3] similarly therefore it is wrong for those who are equal to have inequality, owing to which it is just for no one person to govern or be governed more than another, and therefore for everybody to govern and be governed alike in turn. And this constitutes law for regulation is law. Therefore it is preferable for the law to rule rather than any one of the citizens,and according to this same principle, even if it be better for certain men to govern, they must be appointed as guardians of the laws and in subordination to them; for there must be some government, but it is clearly not just, men say, for one person to be governor when all the citizens are alike. [loeb_subsection_4] It may be objected that any case which the law appears to be unable to define, a human being also would be unable to decide. But the law first specially educates the magistrates for the purpose and then commissions them to decide and administer the matters that it leaves over according to the best of their judgement,This formula came in the oath taken by the dicasts at Athens. and furthermore it allows them to introduce for themselves any amendment that experience leads them to think better than the established code. He therefore that recommends that the law shall govern seems to recommend that God and reason alone shall govern, but he that would have man govern adds a wild animal also; for appetite is like a wild animal, and also passion warps the rule even of the best men. Therefore the law is wisdom without desire. [loeb_subsection_5] And there seems to be no truth in the analogy which argues from the artsi.e. the practical sciences, of which medicine is taken as an example. that it is a bad thing to doctor oneself by book, but preferable to employ the experts in the arts. For they never act contrary to principle from motives of friendship, but earn their fee when (for instance) they have cured their patients, whereas holders of political office usually do many things out of spite and to win favor; since when people suspect even the physicians of being in the confidence of their enemies and of trying to make away with them for gain, in that case they would sooner look up the treatment in the books.
[1287b] [loeb_subsection_6] Yet certainly physicians themselves call in other physicians to treat them when they are ill, and gymnastic trainers put themselves under other trainers when they are doing exercises, believing that they are unable to judge truly because they are judging about their own cases and when they are under the influence of feeling. Hence it is clear that when men seek for what is just they seek for what is impartial; forPerhaps this should be and. the law is that which is impartial. Again, customary lawsi.e. the rules of duty and of manners that are customary but not embodied in legislation: cf. 1319b 40 the laws both written and unwritten. are more sovereign and deal with more sovereign matters than written laws, so that if a human ruler is less liable to error than written laws, yet he is not less liable to error than the laws of custom. [loeb_subsection_7] But also it is certainly not easy for the single ruler to oversee a multitude of things; it will therefore be necessary for the officials appointed by him to be numerous; so that what difference does it make whether this has been the arrangement immediately from the outset or the single ruler appoints them in this manner? Again, a thing that has also been said before, if the virtuous man justly deserves to rule because he is better, yet two good men are better than one: for that is the meaning of the line Hom. Il. 10.224: The passage goes on καί τε πρὸ ὃ τοῦ ἐνόησεν ὅππως κέρδος ἔῃ, then one discerneth Before the other how advantage lieth. When two together go— and of the prayer of Agamemnon Hom. Il. 2.372. May ten such fellow-councillors be mine. And even now the magistrates, like the Athenian dicast, have power to judge certain cases about which the law is unable to give a clear declaration, since nobody disputes that in matters about which it can do so the law would be the best ruler and judge. [loeb_subsection_8] But since, although some things can be covered by the laws,other things cannot, it is the latter that cause doubt and raise the question whether it is preferable for the best law to rule or the best man. For to lay down a law about things that are subjects for deliberation is an impossibility. Therefore men do not deny that it must be for a human being to judge about such matters, but they say that it ought not to be a single human being only but a number. For the individual official judges well when he has been instructed by the law, [loeb_subsection_9] and it would doubtless seem curious if a person saw better when judging with two eyes and two organs of hearing and acting with two feet and hands than many persons with many, since even as it is monarchs make many eyes and ears and hands and feet their own, for they adopt persons that are friendly to their rule and to themselves as their fellow-rulers. Although therefore if these assistants are not friendly they will not act in conformity with the monarch’s policy, if they are friends of him and of his rule, well, a friend is one’s equal and like, so that if the monarch thinks that his friends ought to rule he thinks that people who are equal to and like himself ought to rule like himself.
This then more or less is the case advanced by those who argue against kingship.
[loeb_subsection_10] But perhaps, although this is a true account of the matter in some cases, it does not apply in others. For there is such a thing as being naturally fitted to be controlled by a master, and in another case, to be governed by a king, and in another, for citizenship, and this is just and expedient; but there is no such thing as natural fitness for tyranny, nor for any other of the forms of government that are divergences, for these come about against nature.