In Everything, It Is No Easy Task

The First Essential Responsibility Of The State Is Control Of The Market-place: There Must Be Some Official Charged With The Duty Of Seeing That Honest Dealing And Good Order Prevail. For One Of The Well-nigh Essential Activities Of All States Is The Buying And Selling Of Goods To Meet Their Mutual Basic Needs; This Is The Quickest Way To Self-sufficiency, Which Seems To Be What Moves Men To Combine Under A Single Constitution.

Even When Laws Have Been Written Down, They Ought Not Always To Remain Unaltered.

Xenophanes States That The Fire In Lipara Once Failed For Sixteen Years, But Returned In The Seventeenth Year. They Say That The Lava-stream In Etna Is Neither Flaming Nor Continuous, But Returns Only After An Interval Of Many Years.

The Right Constitutions, Three In Number- Kingship, Aristocracy, And Polity- And The Deviations From These, Likewise Three In Number - Tyranny From Kingship, Oligarchy From Aristocracy, Democracy From Polity.

Anyone, Without Any Great Penetration, May Distinguish The Dispositions Consequent On Wealth; For Its Possessors Are Insolent And Overbearing, From Being Tainted In A Certain Way By The Getting Of Their Wealth. For They Are Affected As Though They Possessed Every Good; Since Wealth Is A Sort Of Standard Of The Worth Of Other Things; Whence Every Thing Seems To Be Purchasable By It.