hey would permit the management of all other
public affairs to remain in their hands; but afterwards, when they
endeavoured to restrain some fresh alterations that were making, they
found that they could do nothing, for the whole form of government was
altered into a dynasty of those who first introduced the innovations. In
short, all governments are liable to be destroyed either from within or
from without; from without when they have for their neighbour a state
whose policy is contrary to theirs, and indeed if it has great power the
same thing will happen if it is not their neighbour; of which both
the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians are a proof; for the one,
when conquerors everywhere destroyed the oligarchies; the other the
democracies. These are the chief causes of revolutions and dissensions
in governments.

CHAPTER VIII

We are now to consider upon what the preservation of governments in
general and of each state in particular depends; and, in the first
place, it is evident that if we are right in the causes we have assigned
for their destruction, we know also the means of their preservation; for
things contrary produce contraries: but destruction and preservation are
contrary to each other. In well-tempered governments it requires as much
care as anything whatsoever, that nothing be done contrary to law: and
this ought chiefly to be attended to in matters of small consequence;
for an illegality that approaches insensibly, approaches secretly, as in
a family small expenses continually repeated consume a man's income;
for the understanding is deceived thereby, as by this false argument; if
every part is little, then the whole is little: now, this in one sense
is true, in another is false, for the whole and all the parts together
are large, though made up of small parts. The first therefore of
anything is what the state ought to guard against. In the next place,
no credit ought to be given to those who endeavour to deceive the people
with false pretences; for they will be [1308a] confuted by facts. The
different ways in which they will attempt to do this have been already
mentioned. You may often perceive both aristocracies and oligarchies
continuing firm, not from the stability of their forms of government,
but from the wise conduct of the magistrates, both towards those who
have a part in the management of public affairs, and those also who
have not: towards those who have not, by never injuring them; a