.i“ * ^ / . . . . . ` `~

“And in addition to these points, those who have an excess of fortune’s goods, strength, wealth, friends, and the like, are not willing to be governed and do not know how to be […] while those who are excessively in need of these things are too humble. Hence the latter class do not know how to govern but know how to submit to government of a servile kind, while the former class do not know how to submit to any government, and only know how to govern in the manner of a master. The result is a state consisting of slaves and masters, not of free men, and of one class envious and another contemptuous of their fellows. This condition of affairs is very far removed from friendliness, and from political partnership –for friendliness is an element of partnership, since men are not willing to be partners with their enemies even on a journey. But surely the ideal of the state is to consist as much as possible of persons that are equal and alike, and therefore the middle-class state will necessarily be best constituted in respect of those elements of which we say that the state is by nature composed.”