STRANGER: The division made no difference when we were looking for the

perfect State, as we showed before. But now that this has been separated

off, and, as we said, the others alone are left for us, the principle of

law and the absence of law will bisect them all.

YOUNG SOCRATES: That would seem to follow, from what has been said.

STRANGER: Then monarchy, when bound by good prescriptions or laws,

is the best of all the six, and when lawless is the most bitter and

oppressive to the subject.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: The government of the few, which is intermediate between that

of the one and many, is also intermediate in good and evil; but the

government of the many is in every respect weak and unable to do either

any great good or any great evil, when compared with the others, because

the offices are too minutely subdivided and too many hold them. And this

therefore is the worst of all lawful governments, and the best of all

lawless ones. If they are all without the restraints of law, democracy

is the form in which to live is best; if they are well ordered, then

this is the last which you should choose, as royalty, the first form, is

the best, with the exception of the seventh, for that excels them all,

and is among States what God is among men.

YOUNG SOCRATES: You are quite right, and we should choose that above

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Statesman