ful, were, from their object being good, beneficial to the
commonwealth. From which we may draw this inference, that where the body
of the people is still sound, tumults and other like disorders do
little hurt, but that where it has become corrupted, laws, however well
devised, are of no advantage, unless imposed by some one whose paramount
authority causes them to be observed until the community be once more
restored to a sound and healthy condition.

Whether this has ever happened I know not, nor whether it ever can
happen. For we see, as I have said a little way back, that a city which
owing to its pervading corruption has once begun to decline, if it is
to recover at all, must be saved not by the excellence of the people
collectively, but of some one man then living among them, on whose death
it at once relapses into its former plight; as happened with Thebes,
in which the virtue of Epaminondas made it possible while he lived to
preserve the form of a free Government, but which fell again on his
death into its old disorders; the reason being that hardly any ruler
lives so long as to have time to accustom to right methods a city which
has long been accustomed to wrong. Wherefore, unless things be put on a
sound footing by some one ruler who lives to a very advanced age, or by
two virtuous rulers succeeding one another, the city upon their death
at once falls back into ruin; or, if it be preserved, must be so by
incurring great risks, and at the cost of much blood. For the corruption
I speak of, is wholly incompatible with a free government, because it
results from an inequality which pervades the State and can only be
removed by employing unusual and very violent remedies, such as few are
willing or know how to employ, as in another place I shall more fully
explain.

CHAPTER XVIII.--_How a Free Government existing in a corrupt City may be
preserved, or not existing may be created._

I think it neither out of place, nor inconsistent with what has been
said above, to consider whether a free government existing in a corrupt
city can be maintained, or, not existing, can be introduced. And on this
head I say that it is very difficult to bring about either of these
results, and next to impossible to lay down rules as to how it may be
done; because the measures to be taken must vary with the degree of
corruption which prevails.

Nevertheless, since it is well to reason things out, I will not pass
this matter by, but