ABSTRACT
Governments may be almost infinite in their variety. Up to the nineteenth century, the regime under which all the citizens constituted the legislature was called a democracy. At the other extreme, the government of one man was called monarchy. In between lay aristocracy, or government by a small number of the citizens. Aristocracy and monarchy are institutions which receive a degree of theoretical admiration from Rousseau, which is more than counterbalanced by his condemnation of them in practice. As the membership of an aristocracy increases in proportion to the whole population, it comes to assume many of the features of a democracy, while a shrinkage in the membership of a democracy marks the reverse tendency. Pure democracy is suited only to ‘a people of gods’ and to very small States; ‘elective aristocracy’, on the other hand, is suited to States of moderate size and to men who fall short of superhuman virtue.
