Areopagiticus

And yet we all know that success does not visit and abide with those who have built around themselves the finest and the strongest walls,[*](Cf. Thucydides vii. 77: a)/ndres ga\r po/lis, kai\ ou) tei/xh ou)de\ nh=es a)ndrw=n kenai/. Also Alcaeus fr. 28, 29 L.C.L., and Sir William Jones, What Constitutes a State.) nor with those who have collected the greatest population in one place, but rather with those who most nobly and wisely govern their state.

For the soul of a state is nothing else than its polity,[*](Cf. Isoc. 12.138; Aristot. Pol. 1295a40; Dem. 24.210.) having as much power over it as does the mind over the body; for it is this which deliberates upon all questions, seeking to preserve what is good and to ward off what is disastrous; and it is this which of necessity assimilates to its own nature the laws, the public orators and the private citizens; and all the members of the state must fare well or ill according to the kind of polity under which they live.

And yet we are quite indifferent to the fact that our polity has been corrupted, nor do we even consider how we may redeem it. It is true that we sit around in our shops[*](In the market-place, especially the barber shops.) denouncing the present order and complaining that never under a democracy have we been worse governed, but in our actions and in the sentiments which we hold regarding it we show that we are better satisfied with our present democracy than with that which was handed down to us by our forefathers. It is in favor of the democracy of our forefathers that I intend to speak, and this is the subject on which I gave notice that I would address you.

For I find that the one way—the only possible way—which can avert future perils from us and deliver us from our present ills is that we should be willing to restore that earlier democracy which was instituted by Solon, who proved himself above all others the friend of the people, and which was re-established by Cleisthenes, who drove out the tyrants and brought the people back into power—