In the Republic of Plato, Socrates treats of revolutions, but not
well, for he mentions no cause of change which peculiarly affects
the first, or perfect state. He only says that the cause is that
nothing is abiding, but all things change in a certain cycle; and that
the origin of the change consists in those numbers 'of which 4 and
3, married with 5, furnish two harmonies' (he means when the number of
this figure becomes solid); he conceives that nature at certain
times produces bad men who will not submit to education; in which
latter particular he may very likely be not far wrong, for there may
well be some men who cannot be educated and made virtuous. But why
is such a cause of change peculiar to his ideal state, and not
rather common to all states, nay, to everything which comes into being
at all? And is it by the agency of time, which, as he declares,
makes all things change, that things which did not begin together,
change together? For example, if something has come into being the day
before the completion of the cycle, will it change with things that
came into being before? Further, why should the perfect state change
into the Spartan? For governments more often take an opposite form
than one akin to them. The same remark is applicable to the other
changes; he says that the Spartan constitution changes into an
oligarchy, and this into a democracy, and this again into a tyranny.
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