honoured is purſued, and what is diſhonoured is neglected. Inſtead then of ambitious men, they will become lovers of gain. The rich they praiſe and admire, and bring into the magiſtracy, but the poor man they deſpiſe. They then make laws, marking out the boundary of the conſtitution, and regulating the quantity of oligarchic power, according to the quantity of wealth; more to the more wealthy, and leſs to the leſs: ſo that he who hath not the valuation ſettled by law is to have no ſhare in the government. What think you of this conſtitution? If we ſhould appoint pilots according to their valuation, but never entruſt a ſhip with a poor man, though better ſkilled in his art, we ſhould make very bad navigation.—Again, ſuch a city is not one, but of neceſſity two; one, conſiſting of the poor, and the other of the rich, dwelling in one place, and always plotting againſt one another. They are, moreover, incapable to wage war, becauſe of the neceſſity they are under, either of employing the armed multitude, and of dreading them more than the enemy, or to appear in battle, truely oligarchic, and at the ſame time be unwilling to advance money for the public ſervice, through a natural diſpoſition of covetouſneſs.
In ſuch a government almoſt all are poor, except the governors; and where there are poor, there are ſomewhere concealed thieves, and purſe-cutters, and ſacrilegious perſons, and workers of all other evils: theſe the magiſtracy with diligence and force reſtrains: theſe are drones in a city with dangerous ſtings.
This is oligarchy. Now let us confider the man who reſembles it. The change from the ambitious to the oligarchic man is chiefly in this man-
