Areopagiticus

​And it is natural that we both act and suffer in this way; for nothing can go aright for those who have not taken counsel well concerning their entire administration, but even if they succeed in some of their actions either through fortune or through the virtue of some man, after a short interval they find themselves in the same difficulties again. And anyone might recognize this from what has happened to us.

​For when the whole of Greece had fallen under our city’s power, both after the naval battle of Conon and after the generalship of Timotheus, we were unable to retain our good fortune for any length of time, but quickly brought it to naught and dissolved it. For we neither possess nor rightly seek a constitution that would handle affairs correctly.

​And yet, we all know that prosperity comes and remains, not with those who have surrounded themselves with the finest and largest walls, nor with those who have gathered in the same place with the greatest number of men, but with those who administer their own city in the best and most temperate manner.

​For the soul of a city is nothing other than its constitution, having as much power as intellect does in a body. For this is what deliberates on all matters, both preserving advantages and escaping misfortunes. To this, both the laws, the orators, and private citizens must conform, and each must act in accordance with whatever kind of constitution they possess.

​Although this constitution has been corrupted, we care nothing for it, nor do we consider how we might restore it; instead, sitting in our workshops, we denounce the established order, saying that never under a democracy have we been worse governed, yet in our actions and the thoughts we hold, we cherish this present constitution more than the one left behind by our ancestors. It is on behalf of this ancestral constitution that I am about to deliver my speech and have registered my request to speak.

​For I find that this alone could become both a turning away of future dangers and a deliverance from present evils, if we should be willing to recover that democracy which Solon, who proved to be the most devoted to the people, established by law, and which Cleisthenes, having expelled the tyrants and brought back the people, set up again from its foundations.

​We could find no constitution more democratic than that, nor more advantageous to the city. And here is the greatest proof: those who employed it, having achieved many noble deeds and won renown among all mankind, received the leadership from the Greeks with their willing consent; whereas those who lusted after the present one, being hated by all and suffering many terrible hardships, came within a hair’s breadth of falling into the ultimate calamities.

​And yet, how can one praise or cherish this constitution, which was previously the cause of so many evils, and is now degenerating for the worse with each passing year? And how can one help but fear lest, with such deterioration taking place, we should end up running aground on even harsher situations than those of former times?

​But so that you may make your choice and judgment of them not merely from hearing a summary, but with accurate knowledge, it is your task to show yourselves attentive to what is said by me, while I, as briefly as I can, will try to discuss both of these constitutions before you.

​For those who administered the city at that time established a constitution which was not one called by the most common and mildest name while appearing otherwise in practice to those who encountered it, nor one which trained the citizens in such a manner as to regard self-indulgence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, insolence of speech as equality before the law, and the license to do anything as happiness, but rather, by hating and punishing such men, it made all the citizens better and more temperate.