Book 5
1307b
And constitutions of all formsare broken up some times from movements initiating from within themselves, but sometimes from outside, when there is an opposite form of constitution either near by or a long way off yet possessed of power. This used to happen in the days of the Athenians and the Spartans; the Athenians used to put down oligarchies everywhere and the Spartans democracies.
1307b
We have then approximately stated the causes that give rise to revolutions in the constitutions of states and to party factions.
1307b
The next thing to speak about is security both in general and for each form of constitution separately. First then it is clear that if we know the causes by which constitutions are destroyed we also know the causes by which they are preserved; for opposites create opposites, and destruction is the opposite of security. In well-blended constitutions therefore, if care must be taken to prevent men from committing any other breach of the law, most of all must a small breach be guarded against, for transgression of the law creeps in unnoticed, just as a small expenditure occurring often ruins men’s estates; for the expense is not noticed because it does not come all at once, for the mind is led astray by the repeated small outlays, just like the sophistic puzzle, if each is little, then all are alittle.This is the soritesfallacy; add to one stone another, and another, and another—when do they make a heap ( σωρός)? and take away stone after stone—when do they cease to be a heap? Horace’s ratio ruentis acerui (Hor. Ep. 2.47. This is true in one way but in another it is not; for the whole or total is not little, but made up of little parts. One thing therefore that we must guard against is this beginning; and the next point is that we must not put faith in the arguments strung together for the sake of tricking the multitude,
