BOOK V OF EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE POWER CHAPTER XIII OF THE ARISTOCRATICAL CHARACTER Intolerance of aristocracy - dependent for its success upon the ignorance of the multitude. - Precautions necessary for its support. - Different kinds of aristocracy. - Aristocracy of the Romans: its virtues - its vises. Aristocratical distribution of property - regulations by which it is maintained - avarice it engenders. - Argument against innovation from the present happy establishment of affairs considered. - Conclusion. ARISTOCRACY, in its proper signification, is neither less nor more than a scheme for rendering more permanent and visible, by the interference of political institution, the inequality of mankind. Aristocracy, like monarchy, is founded in falsehood, the offspring of art foreign to the real nature of things, and must therefore, like monarchy, be supported by artifice and false pretenses. Its empire however...