His government may be described as a democracy of magistrates elected by the people.

He never troubles himself about the political consistency of his scheme.

He does indeed say that the greater part of the good of this world arises, not from equality, but from proportion, which he calls the judgment of Zeus (compare Aristotle's Distributive Justice), but he hardly makes any attempt to carry out the principle in practice.

There is no attempt to proportion representation to merit; nor is there any body in his commonwealth which represents the life either of a class or of the whole state.

The manner of appointing magistrates is taken chiefly from the old democratic constitution of Athens, of which it retains some of the worst features, such as the use of the lot, while by doing away with the political character of the popular assembly the mainspring of the machine is taken out.