ABSTRACT
When Aristotle made his standard classification of governments into monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies, with their normal and perverted forms, he was fortunate in combining both a fair practical classification of the governments he knew most about, with a logical principle. It was on the basis of eighteenth-century facts that Montesquieu drew the distinction between monarchy and despotism; and made these two, together with the republic, his three types of government. The facts of the present age have directed attention to parliamentary and other methods of controlling the central governing body; and along with this the historical stages of governmental organization have come more clearly to view In the range of governments the people have under consideration the variation in the technique provided for giving expression to the interests is very great. The chapter proposes to set some of the underlying similarities which exist in the process of government in states.
