0206 On the Republic – Marcus Tullius Cicero (1)

On the Republic

Volume one

1) God gives man an impulse to do good and a desire to protect the collective good, a power that outweighs any temptation to entertain and ease.

(2) A republic is the property of the public. The so-called public does not refer to any form of human gathering, no matter what form they are gathered together, but to a form of group settlement that is combined by legal permission and common interests. The root cause of people coming together is not so much because of vulnerability as it is from the innate desire of human beings to form a collective. Because our species is not made up of individual individuals or lone wanderers.

3) When a person is given supreme authority, we call it a king, and the government of that kind of society is called a monarchy. When an elected group is given supreme authority, that society can be said to be ruled by the nobility. All societies in which the whole people are sovereign are called democratic societies.

(4) In a monarchy, the other masses play a negligible role in the legislation and debate of society; under aristocratic rule, it is difficult for the masses of the people to enjoy freedom because they are deprived of all opportunities to participate in discussions and decision-making; and when the government is completely under the control of the people themselves (no matter how restrained and orderly), equality between them is itself unequal, because it has no distinction of value.

5) Money, fame and property, once separated from correct judgment and excellent talents in the life of the individual and in guiding others, will slide into the abyss of utter depravity and incomparable arrogance.

(6) In a country ruled by values, where the ruler of others is not controlled by greed, the leader possesses all the virtues that he proclaims and promotes to his citizens, and never applies to others laws that he cannot obey.

(7) So-called equality is the greatest injustice; for equality itself is the greatest inequality when people of the highest and lowest ranks (who would exist in any country) are accorded the same respect. This will not happen in countries ruled by the best elites.

8) The king's rule is victorious over benevolence, the aristocratic rule is victorious over justice, and democratic rule is victorious over freedom.

(9) A country should have members with the highest authority of the crown; other powers should be distributed to the aristocratic class; and there should be matters left to the masses for their determination and satisfaction of their expectations. First, this form of government has an element of universal equality without which free people cannot last. Secondly, it is stable, because, although the three primitive forms of government mentioned above are extremely prone to degeneration and collapse, and although these single forms of government often transform each other, they rarely occur in a political structure that represents a complex and a wise mixed form.

Volume II

(1) The monarchy itself is not to be blamed; I still think that it is much superior to the other two forms of unipolity (if I can allow myself to endorse either form of corporeal polity), but only if it remains unchanged in its proper form. To remain in its proper form, it requires that one's permanent power, combined justice and wisdom be able to control the security, equal rights and peace of the community.

2) When the fate of a people depends on the goodness and benevolence of a certain individual, it cannot be guaranteed.

3) Different sounds must maintain a certain accent, just as the fixed tone, although produced from the control of different pitches, can produce a pleasant and pleasant sound, and the same is true of a country, by adjusting the proportions between the highest, lowest and middle classes, just like adjusting the pitch, and finally reaching the fixed tone. What the musicians call fixed in singing is called harmony in the administration of the state; it constitutes the tightest and most effective bond of security; and without justice, this harmony cannot exist at all.

Volume III

(1) When a certain person controls a country by virtue of his wealth or origin or other advantages, it is an oligarchic group, but its members are called ruling nobles. If the people have supreme power and everything is decided by the people, it is called freedom, despite the fact that this is an indulgence. But when there is fear between individuals and between classes, then, because no one can rely on their own strength, an agreement is formed between the people and the powerful minority.

2) No country would be so stupid as to be conquered noblely rather than ruled evilly.

(3) Justice in the political sense is not real justice, but a kind of prudence; justice in the natural sense is indeed justice, but at the same time it is stupid.

Volume IV

(1) The establishment of cooperative relations among citizens to live happily and decently is the fundamental goal of building a society, and the state must also achieve this goal for mankind with the help of its system and its laws on the other.

Volume V

(1) There can be no good life without a good nation; there is no greater well-being than an orderly nation.

Volume VI

1) A person's true self is his soul, not the form that can be identified with his fingers. Remember that you are a god, if the god is a person with life, senses, memories and vision, a person who controls, rules, and supports the body in which he places himself, just as the supreme God rules the whole universe.

2) Only an object that moves on its own will never stop, because it will never lose contact with itself. Moreover, for all objects that move on their own, this is the source and fundamental driving force of motion.