If I recollect rightly,
Aristotle observes, that a democracy has many striking points of
resemblance with a tyranny. (When I wrote this, I quoted from memory,
after many years had elapsed from my reading the passage. A learned
friend has found it, and it is as follows:--
To ethos to auto, kai ampho despotika ton Beltionon, kai ta psephismata,
osper ekei ta epitagmata kai o demagogos kai o kolax, oi autoi kai
analogoi kai malista ekateroi par ekaterois ischuousin, oi men kolakes
para turannois, oi de demagogoi para tois demois tois toioutois.--
"The ethical character is the same; both exercise despotism over the
better class of citizens; and decrees are in the one, what ordinances
and arrets are in the other: the demagogue too, and the court favourite,
are not unfrequently the same identical men, and always bear a close
analogy; and these have the principal power, each in their respective
forms of government, favourites with the absolute monarch, and
demagogues with a people such as I have described."--Arist. Politic.
lib. iv. cap 4.)
Of this I am certain, that in a democracy, the majority of the citizens
is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority,
whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of polity, as they often
must; and that oppression of the minority will extend to far greater
numbers, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost
ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre.
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