ARISTOTLE TO AUGUSTINE outstanding excellence, then monarchy is the best constitution But such a case is very rare, and the risk of miscarriage is great: for monarchy corrupts into tyranny, which is the worst of all constitutions Aristocracy, in theory, is the next best constitution after monarchy, but in practice Aristotle preferred a kind of constitutional democracy, for what he called ‘polity’ is a state in which rich and poor respect each others’ rights, and in which the best-qualiWed citizens rule with the consent of all the citizens (4 1293b30 V.) The corruption of this is what Aristotle calls ‘democracy’, namely, anarchic mob rule Bad as democracy is, it is in Aristotle’s view the least bad of the perverse forms of government At the present time we are familiar with the division of government into three branches: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary The essentials of this system is spelt out by Aristotle, though he distributes the powers in a somewhat diVerent way from, say, the US constitution All constitutions, he tells us, have three elements: the deliberative, the oYcial, and the judicial The deliberative element has authority in matters of war and peace, in making and unmaking alliances; it passes laws, controls the carrying out of judicial sentences, and audits the accounts of oYcers The oYcial element deals with the appointment of ministers and civil servants, ranging from priests through ambassadors to the regulators of female aVairs The judicial element consists of the courts of civil and criminal law (4 12 1296b13–1301a12) Two elements of Aristotle’s political teaching aVected political institutions for many centuries: his justiWcation of slavery and his condemnation of usury Some people, Aristotle tells us, think that the rule of masters over slaves is contrary to nature, and is therefore unjust They are quite wrong: a slave is someone who is by nature not his own but another man’s property Slavery is one example of a general truth, that from their birth some people are marked out for rule and others to be ruled (1 1253b20–3; 1254b22–4) In practice much slavery is unjust, Aristotle agrees There is a custom that the spoils of war belong to the victors, and this includes the right to make slaves of the vanquished But many wars are unjust, and victories in such wars entail no right to enslave the defeated Some people, however, are so inferior and brutish that it is better for them to be under the rule of a kindly master than to be left to their own devices Slaves, for Aristotle, are living tools—and on this basis he is willing to grant that if non-living tools 85