Aristotle seems to suspect that this ideal enslavement of woman is a rare achievement for man, and that as often as not the sceptre is with the tongue rather than with the arm. As if to give the male an indispensable advantage, he advises him to defer marriage till the vicinity of thirty-seven, and then to marry a lass of some twenty years. A girl who is rounding the twenties is usually the equal of a man of thirty, but may perhaps be managed by a seasoned warrior of thirty-seven. What attracts Aristotle to this matrimonial mathematics is the consideration that two such disparate persons will lose their reproductive power and passions at approximately the same time. “If the man is still able to beget children while the woman is unable to bear them, or vice versa, quarrels and differences will arise . . . . Since the time of generation is commonly limited within the age of seventy years in the man, and fifty in the woman, the commencement of their union should conform to these periods. The union of male and female when too young is bad for the creation of children; in all animals the off-spring of the young are small and ill-developed, and generally female.” Health is more important than love. Further, “it conduces to temperance not to marry too soon; for women who marry early are apt to be wanton; and in men too the bodily frame is stunted if they marry while they are growing.”79 These matters should not be left to youthful caprice, they should be under state supervision and controclass="underline" the state should determine the minimum and maximum ages of marriage for each sex, the best seasons for conception, and the rate of increase in population. If the natural rate of increase is too high, the cruel practice of infanticide may be replaced by abortion; and “let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun.”80 There is an ideal number of population for every state, varying with its position and resources. “A state when composed of too few is not, as a state should be, self-sufficing; while if it has too many . . . it becomes a nation and not a state, and is almost incapable of constitutional government,” or of ethnic or political unity.81 Anything in excess of a population of 10,000 is undesirable.
Education, too, should be in the hands of the state. “That which most contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of education to the form of government . . . . The citizen should be moulded to the form of government under which he lives.”82 By state control of schools we might divert men from industry and trade to agriculture; and we might train men, while keeping property private, to open their possessions to discriminately common use. “Among good men, with respect to the use of property, the proverb will hold, that ‘friends should have all things in common.’”83 But above all, the growing citizen must be taught obedience to law, else a state is impossible. “It has been well said that ‘he who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.’ . . . The good citizen should be capable of both.” And only a state system of schools can achieve social unity amid ethnic heterogeneity; the state is a plurality which must be made into a unity and a community by education.84 Let youth be taught, too, the great boon it has in the state, the unappreciated security which comes of social organization, the freedom that comes of law. “Man, when perfected, is the best of animals; but when isolated he is the worst of all; for injustice is more dangerous when armed, and man is equipped at birth with the weapon of intelligence, and with qualities of character which he may use for the vilest ends. Wherefore if he have not virtue he is the most unholy and savage of animals, full of gluttony and lust.” And only social control can give him virtue. Through speech man evolved society; through society, intelligence; through intelligence, order; and through order, civilization. In such an ordered state the individual has a thousand opportunities and avenues of development open to him which a solitary life would never give. “To live alone;” then, “one must be either an animal or a god.”85
Hence revolution is almost always unwise; it may achieve some good, but at the cost of many evils, the chief of which is the disturbance, and perhaps the dissolution, of that social order and structure on which every political good depends. The direct consequences of revolutionary innovations may be calculable and salutary; but the indirect are generally incalculable, and not seldom disastrous. “They who take only a few points into account find it easy to pronounce judgment”; and a man can make up his mind quickly if he has only a little to make up. “Young men are easily deceived, for they are quick to hope.” The suppression of long-established habits brings the overthrow of innovating governments because the old habits persist among the people; characters are not so easily changed as laws. If a constitution is to be permanent, all the parts of a society must desire it to be maintained. Therefore a ruler who would avoid revolution should prevent extremes of poverty and wealth,—“a condition which is most often the result of war”; he should (like the English) encourage colonization as an outlet for a dangerously congested population; and he should foster and practice religion. An autocratic ruler particularly “should appear to be earnest in the worship of the gods; for if men think that a ruler is religious and reveres the gods, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands, and are less disposed to conspire against him, since they believe that the gods themselves are fighting on his side.”86
3. DEMOCRACY AND ARISTOCRACY
With such safeguards in religion, in education, and in the ordering of family life, almost any of the traditional forms of government will serve. All forms have good and bad commingled in them, and are severally adapted to various conditions. Theoretically, the ideal form of government would be the centralization of all political power in the one best man. Homer is right: “Bad is the lordship of many; let one be your ruler and master.” For such a man law would be rather an instrument than a limit: “for men of eminent ability there is no law—they are themselves a law.” Anyone would be ridiculous who should attempt to make laws for them; they would probably retort what, in the fable of Antisthenes, the lions said to the hares when, in the council of beasts, the latter began haranguing and claiming equality for all—“Where are your claws?”87
But in practice, monarchy is usually the worst form of government, for great strength and great virtue are not near allied. Hence the best practicable polity is aristocracy, the rule of the informed and capable few. Government is too complex a thing to have its issues decided by number, when lesser issues are reserved for knowledge and ability. “As the physician ought to be judged by the physician, so ought men in general to be judged by their peers . . . . Now does not this same principle apply to elections? For a right election can only be made by those who have knowledge: a geometrician, e.g., will choose rightly in matters of geometry; or a pilot in matters of navigation. . . .88 So that neither the election of magistrates nor the calling of them to account should be entrusted to the many.”
The difficulty with hereditary aristocracy is that it has no permanent economic base; the eternal recurrence of the nouveaux riches puts political office sooner or later at the disposal of the highest bidder. “It is surely a bad thing that the greatest offices . . . should be bought. The law which permits this abuse makes wealth of more account than ability, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honorable, the other citizens are sure to follow their example” (the “prestige imitation” of modern social psychology); “and where ability has not the first place there is no real aristocracy.”89