STRANGER: Democracy alone, whether rigidly observing the laws or not,

and whether the multitude rule over the men of property with their

consent or against their consent, always in ordinary language has the

same name.

YOUNG SOCRATES: True.

STRANGER: But do you suppose that any form of government which is

defined by these characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of

poverty or wealth, of voluntary or compulsory submission, of written law

or the absence of law, can be a right one?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?

STRANGER: Reflect; and follow me.

YOUNG SOCRATES: In what direction?

STRANGER: Shall we abide by what we said at first, or shall we retract

our words?

YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?

STRANGER: If I am not mistaken, we said that royal power was a science?

YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.

Statesman