end, and changes to force and violence. For the people, accuſtomed to live at the expence of others, and to place their hopes of a ſupport in the fortunes of their neighbours, if headed by a man of a great and enterprizing ſpirit, will then have recourſe to violence, and getting together, will murder, baniſh, and divide among themſelves the lands of their adverſaries, till, grown wild with rage, they again find a maſter and a monarch.
This is the rotation of governments, and this the order of nature, by which they are changed, transformed, and return to the ſame point of the circle.
Lycurgus obſerving that all this was founded on neceſſity and the laws of nature, concluded, that every form of government that is ſimple, by ſoon degenerating into that vice that is allied to it, and naturally attends it, mud be unſtable. For as ruſt is the natural bane of iron, and worms of wood, by which they are ſure to be deſtroyed, ſo there is a certain vice implanted by the hand of nature in every ſimple form of government, and by her ordained to accompany it. The vice of kingly government is monarchy; that of ariſtocracy, oligarchy; and of democracy, rage and violence; into which all of them, in proceſs of time, muſt neceſſarily degenerate. To avoid which Lycurgus united in one all the advantages of the bed governments, to the end that no branch of it, by ſwelling beyond its bounds, might degenerate into the vice that is congenial to it, and that, while each was mutually acted upon by oppoſite powers, no one part might outweigh the reſt. The Romans arrived at the ſame end by the ſame means.
Polybius, you perceive, my dear Sir, is more charitable in his repreſentation of human nature
