This was
exemplified in the old times of the Athenians and the
Lacedaemonians; the Athenians everywhere put down the oligarchies, and
the Lacedaemonians the democracies.
I have now explained what are the chief causes of revolutions and
dissensions in states.
VIII
We have next to consider what means there are of preserving
constitutions in general, and in particular cases. In the first
place it is evident that if we know the causes which destroy
constitutions, we also know the causes which preserve them; for
opposites produce opposites, and destruction is the opposite of
preservation.
In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should
be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more
especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived
and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of
small expenses in time eats up a fortune. The expense does not take
place at once, and therefore is not observed; the mind is deceived, as
in the fallacy which says that 'if each part is little, then the whole
is little.' this is true in one way, but not in another, for the whole
and the all are not little, although they are made up of littles.
In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning
of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the
political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to
deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.
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