His political works are two in number—the _De Republica_[856] and _De Legibus_; both are imperfect. The remains of the former are only fragmentary; of the latter, three out of six books are extant, and those not entire. Nevertheless, sufficient of both remains to enable us to form some estimate of their philosophical character. Although he does not profess originality, but confesses that they are imitations of the two treatises of Plato, which bear the same name, still they are more inductive than any of his other treatises. His purpose is, like that of Plato, to give in the one an ideal republic, and in the other a sketch of a model legislation; but the novelty of the treatment consists in their principles being derived from the Roman constitution and the Roman laws. The questions which he proposes to answer are, what is the best government and the best code: but the limits within which he confines himself are the institutions of his country. In the Republic he first discusses, like the Greek philosophers, the merits and demerits of the three pure forms of government; and upon the whole decides in favour of monarchy[857] as the best. With Aristotle[858] he agrees that all the pure forms are liable to degenerate,[859] and comes to the conclusion that the idea of a perfect polity is a combination of all three.[860] In order to prove and illustrate his theory, he investigates, though it must be confessed in a meager and imperfect manner, the constitutional history of Rome, and discovers the monarchical element in the consulship, the aristocratic in the senate, and the popular in the assembly of the people and the tribunitial authority. The Romans continued jealously to preserve the shadow of their constitution even after they had surrendered the substance. Nominally, the titles and offices of the old republic never perished—the Emperor was in name nothing more than (Imperator) the commander-in-chief of the armies of the republic, but in him all power centred: he was absolute, autocratic, the chief of a military despotism.[861] Cicero, as the treatise _De Legibus_ plainly shows, saw, with approbation, that this state of things was rapidly coming to pass; that the people were not fitted to be trusted with liberty, and yet that they would be contented with its semblance and name.