[1] "Power relates itself to both good and evil. Happiness, however, is the proper and perfect good of man. Hence, any happiness would more consist in the good use of power, which is by way of virtue, than in the power itself."

[4] "Law is a certain ordination of reason for the common good from the legitimate authority and promulgated."

[9] "For when Thales left his house in order to consider the stars, he fell into a ditch; bewailing on seeing this, a certain old woman said to him, "You indeed, O Thales, since those things before your very feed you cannot see, what things in heaven do you think to know?" Anaxagoras, however, when he was rich and noble, left his paternal goods and dedicated himself to the speculation of natural things, not caring about political things, hence was reprehended as negligent, and said to him, "do you have no care of your fatherland?" He answered, "My fatherland is of great concern to me, I contemplate the heavens." Ibid., #1192, p. 326. The philosopher's true father land, in other words, is not his native land but the cosmos. We have already here intimations of the Stoic idea of the brotherhood of all man and of Augustine's City of God.

[10] "Since happiness is an operation according to virtue, it reasonably follows, that it is the operation following the very best virtue. Happiness is the best among all human goods, since it is the end of all. And since the better operation is of the better potency, it follows that the very highest operation in man is the operation of this power, which is the highest in man. And this, according to the truth of reality is the intellect." Ibid., #2080, L. X, l., x, p. 542.

[11] "Among all the operations of virtue, the most delightful is the contemplation of wisdom, as is manifest to and granted by all." Ibid., #2090, L. X, l. x, p. 543.

[13] "The contemplation of the truth is an interior operation not proceeding to the exterior. And this the more someone is able to exist alone in speculating the truth, the more he will be perfect in wisdom. Because as such a one knows more things, the less he needs to be instructed and helped by others....

"We do not imply that society does not help contemplation, since as we said in the Eight Book, two persons simultaneously living together are better able to think and act. And therefore, he (Aristotle) adds, that it is better to be a wise man who has cooperators in the consideration of the truth, since sometimes one sees what it does not occur to the other, even though he be wiser....

"... For nothing accrues to a man from the contemplation of the truth except the speculation of truth itself. But from exterior operations, man always acquires something exterior to himself, for example, honor or benefit from others, which the wise man does not acquire from his contemplation, except accidentally, namely insofar as he teaches the contemplated truth to others, which teaching is an external act." Ibid., #2095-97, p. 544.

[14] "It is clear in political actions that there is not leisure in them; but beyond this very civil conversation, man wishes to acquire something else, for instance, power and honors or because in them is not found the ultimate end.... It is more fitting that someone wishes to acquire happiness by civil interchange for himself or someone else, so that the sort of happiness that one wishes to acquire by means of political life may be other than the political life itself. Thus, through the political life we seek that other life existing from it. This is speculative happiness, to which the whole of political life seems to be ordered." Ibid., #2101, p. 546.

[16] "Man should incline to immortality in so far as he can, and according to his whole capacity to live according to his intellect, which is the highest of those things which are in man, who indeed is immortal and divine. Although this highest element is small in size because it is incorporeal and most simple, and consequently lacks magnitude, nevertheless it exceeds very much, by the quantity of its power and preciousness, all those things which are in man." Aquinas, ibid., L. X., l. xi, #2107, pp. 546-47.

[18] "If some power is the highest good, it follows that it should be a most perfect power. Human power, however, is most imperfect. For it is rooted in the wills and opinions of men, in which there is the maximum inconstancy. And so much the more is power esteemed, so much the more does it depend on the many. This dependency, however, also pertains to its weakness, since what depends on the many can be destroyed in a multiplicity of ways. Therefore, the highest good of men is not to be found in worldly power."

[59] "The end of the human law is the temporal tranquillity of the polity, to which end the law accomplishes its purpose by prohibiting exterior acts which can perturb the peaceful status of the city. The end of the divine law, however, is to lead men to the end of eternal happiness; which end indeed is inhibited by every sort of sin, and not only by exterior acts, but also by interior acts. And thus that which suffices to prohibit sin and inflict punishment, is not sufficient for the perfection of the divine law; but it is necessary that the law make man totally fit to participate in eternal happiness."

How does the role played by party organizations in the selection of leaders square with the democratic concept of people? When a presidential election takes place, the nation designates not the man whom they think to be the most qualified in an absolute sense but the man whom they think to be the best or the better qualified among a very small number of already designated candidates. The choice of the electors is narrowly restricted by the antecedent choices of the parties. Critics of democracy revel in describing the people as a captive sovereign caught in a narrow circle drawn by organizations and committees in which private persons play the leading parts.

Yet it cannot be taken for granted without further inquiry that political parties are private organizations. Rather, the truth seems to be that, in some cases and to some extent, they act as organs of the people, so that a preliminary choice made by parties may have the character of a choice by the people. The problem is to determine under what conditions and to what extent parties act as organs of the people.

A first condition concerns their historical significance. It happens that through the operation of routine-mindedness, obstinacy, inertia, etc., a nominating organization retains, as an irrational legacy of the past, an importance disproportionate to the actual weight of the ideas and interests that it represents. A party may become a sort of rotten borough. It also happens that under the impact of transient circumstances the influence of a party grows far beyond its significance in terms of lasting reality or falls far below it. When none of these accidents happens, when there is a proportion between the power of a party and the historical substance that it expresses, its nominations are genuinely, though not unqualifiedly, acts of the people. A clear example is supplied by the Conservative and Labor parties in Britain today. These great organizations participate so deeply in the community life of the British that men chosen by them are, in a very deep sense, choices of the people. The vote of the majority decides whether the prime minister will be Mr. Churchill or Mr. Attlee; but, even prior to their re-election as members of parliament, it can be said that the people have designated these men as leaders of the government and the opposition.

In order that parties should assume the character of organs of the people, it is essential that they be widely open and allow for a continual stream of influence from without. A party which is so anxious to preserve the purity and strict discipline of its members as to remain voluntarily a minority or even a small minority and which is governed by a small group of leaders never exposed to the risks of election has no part to play in a democracy; it has all the essential features of an organization calculated to foster oligarchy.

Concerning the number of parties -- a question devoid of glamour but not of importance, for the sound operation and the very survival of democracy may depend on such trivial issues -- let it first be stated that democracy excludes absolutely the one-party system. If this system occasionally seems compatible with some amount of democratic control, it is so only to the extent that competition inside the party brings about effects similar to those normally expected of duality or plurality of party organizations.

The recent trials of democracy in several great countries, especially Germany and France, called attention to the danger inherent in a multiplicity of parties. The Anglo-Saxon two-party system has demonstrated its value as a factor of clarity and stability in government. One of the recognized reasons why proportional representation causes precarious and weak governments is that it favors the multiplication of parties. However, it must be granted that there is something non-democratic about the extreme restriction imposed upon the elector's choice by the operation of only a few parties. Suppose that each of the existent parties identifies itself with some major trend in the nation's history, that it is widely open to influences from without, and that it is provided with a sound internal organization. Even under such favorable circumstances the operation of the party system, and especially that of the two-party system, implies that the choice of the people is, to a considerable extent, restricted by private influences -- this is, plainly, a non-democratic feature.

We are, thus, led to examine a problem of great amplitude, viz., whether democracy can tolerate the operation of non-democratic principles and possibly benefit by it. This question is commonly answered in the affirmative in so far as it applies to modern democratic monarchies. Although the king of Great Britain and the Scandinavian kings may do little governing, they certainly play a very important part in the political life of their kingdoms. No matter how democratically inclined they may feel, these hereditary presidents of democracies, by the very fact that they are designated not by election but by birth, are non-democratic characters. Yet few supporters of democracy would wish monarchy to be suppressed in these countries. The almost unanimous opinion is that, under the circumstances, monarchy is useful in several respects -- that it is useful, in particular, for the protection of democracy. It is easy to see that by accident (but such accidents are frequent) a non-democratic principle may serve democracy by holding in check forces fatal to it. One recognized drawback of democratic institutions is that they may occasion sharp strife among parties or factions. When people are sufficiently exhausted by such strife, the situation is ripe for the one-party system and dictatorship. Accordingly, one major need of democracy is protection against the destructive effects of domestic conflicts. That such protection, under definite circumstances, should be best procured by such a non-democratic factor as a hereditary monarch is perfectly intelligible.

The same reasoning applies to the non-democratic features of the party system. Let it be granted that even under the best circumstances the restrictions imposed upon the elector's choice by the antecedent choice of the party are, to some extent, non-democratic. This does not necessarily mean that such practice is harmful to democracy. It may help democracy if it holds in check forces designed to harm it.

True, the problem with which we are concerned here is not peculiar to democracy. Any regime, in order to work well or merely to survive, needs or may need the operation of principles distinct from, and opposed to, its own idea. Ancient monarchies were kept in existence through extensive concessions to the aristocratic principle, and, in modern times, association with rather radical democracy is the only thing which proved capable of assuring the survival of monarchy. At this point it is pertinent to refer to the theory of the mixed regime, worked out, among others, by Aristotle and, with greater clarity, by Thomas Aquinas. The best regime cannot be any simple regime, such as monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy; it is a regime in which several forms are combined in such a way as to promote the various aspects of the common good, to each of which each political form is related in special fashion.^{12} Modern democracies can be described as mixed regimes with a predominance of the democratic element (at least according to constitutional law; for, so far as actual practice is concerned, the oligarchic element predominates in some of them).

{12} "Some, indeed, say that the best constitution is a combination of all existing forms, and they praise the Lacedemonian because it is made up of oligarchy, monarchy, and democracy, the king forming the monarchy, and the council of elders the oligarchy, while the democratic element is represented by the Ephors: for the Ephors are selected from the people." Thomas Aquinas Sum. theol. i-ii. 105. 1,