form of government you most
approve, by what discipline, moral and legal, we may be best able to
establish and maintain it.

XXXIX. Africanus replied: I think that we shall soon find an occasion
better adapted to the discussion you have proposed, respecting the
constitution and conservatism of states. As to the best form of
government, I think on this point I have sufficiently answered the
question of Laelius. For in answering him, I, in the first place,
specifically noticed the three simple forms of government--monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy; and the three vicious constitutions
contrary to them, into which they often degenerate; and I said that
none of these forms, taken separately, was absolutely good; but I
described as preferable to either of them that mixed government which
is composed of a proper amalgamation of these simple ingredients. If I
have since depicted our own Roman constitution as an example, it was
not in order to define the very best form of government, for that may
be understood without an example; but I wished, in the exhibition of a
mighty commonwealth actually in existence, to render distinct and
visible what reason and discourse would vainly attempt to display
without the assistance of experimental illustration. Yet, if you still
require me to describe the best form of government, independent of all
particular examples, we must consult that exactly proportioned and
graduated image of government which nature herself presents to her
investigators. Since you * * * this model of a city and people[328]
* * *

XL. * * * which I also am searching for, and which I am anxious to
arrive at.

_Laelius._ You mean the model that would be approved by the truly
accomplished politician?

_Scipio._ The same.

_Laelius._ You have plenty of fair patterns even now before you, if you
would but begin with yourself.

Then Scipio said: I wish I could find even one such, even in the entire
senate. For he is really a wise politician who, as we have often seen
in Africa, while seated on a huge and unsightly elephant, can guide and
rule the monster, and turn him whichever way he likes by a slight
admonition, without any actual exertion.

_Laelius._ I recollect, and when I was your lieutenant I often saw, one
of these drivers.

_Scipio._ Thus an Indian or Carthaginian regulates one of these huge
animals, and renders him docile and familiar with human manners. But
the genius which resides in the mind of man