As virtue is necessary in a popular government, it is requisite also
in an aristocracy. True it is that in the latter it is not so absolutely
requisite.
The people, who in respect to the nobility are the same as the
subjects with regard to a monarch, are restrained by their laws. They
have, therefore, less occasion for virtue than the people in a
democracy. But how are the nobility to be restrained? They who are to
execute the laws against their colleagues will immediately perceive that
they are acting against themselves. Virtue is therefore necessary in
this body, from the very nature of the constitution.
An aristocratic government has an inherent vigour, unknown to
democracy. The nobles form a body, who by their prerogative, and for
their own particular interest, restrain the people; it is sufficient
that there are laws in being to see them executed.
But easy as it may be for the body of the nobles to restrain the
people, it is difficult to restrain themselves.
[8]
Such is the nature of this constitution, that it seems to subject the very
same persons to the power of the laws, and at the same time to exempt them.
Now such a body as this can restrain itself only in two ways; either
by a very eminent virtue, which puts the nobility in some measure on a
level with the people, and may be the means of forming a great republic;
or by an inferior virtue, which puts them at least upon a level with one
another, and upon this their preservation depends.
Moderation is therefore the very soul of this government; a
moderation, I mean, founded on virtue, not that which proceeds from
indolence and pusillanimity.
