Inspired by
Machiavelli's
Discorsi
,
Spinoza
concludes
in his Political Treatise (posthumous and last work written against the
barbarians
who devastated Amsterdam in 1672 and lynched its republican leaders to impose the monarchy) that the best of political systems
is not democracy
( in which the whole multitude rules), but one who is led by the best men of the republic,
optimates
, he writes, in Latin.
And he insists on the idea that such men
must necessarily be elect
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