Polybius remarks,[360] that the best form of government is that which is composed of a due admixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. He affirms that his assertion may not only be proved from reason, but from the evidence of fact, and cites the Spartan constitution in proof, which was modelled upon that very plan by Lycurgus. He adds too, that to perpetuate the duration of his government,[361] he united the peculiar excellencies of all the best governments in one form, that neither of the three parts, by swelling beyond its just bounds, might ever be able to deviate into its original inborn defects: but that whilst each power was mutually drawn back by the opposite attraction of the other two, neither power might ever preponderate, but the balance of government continue suspended in its true æquipoise. From the observance of this nice adjustment of the balance of government, he foretells the duration or fall of all mixed governments in general. He adds, that as all government arises originally from the people; so all mutations in government proceed primarily from the people also. For when once a state has struggled through many and great difficulties, and emerged at last to freedom and wealth, men begin to sink gradually into luxury, and to grow more dissolute in their morals. The seeds of ambition will spring up, and prompt them to be more fond of contending for superiority in the magistracy, and carrying their point, in whatever they had set their hearts upon, than is consistent with the welfare of the community: when once these evils are got to a head in a country so circumstanced, the change must necessarily be for the worse; because the principle of such change will rise from the gratification, or disappointment of the ambition of the chief citizens, with respect to honours and preferments; and from that insolence and luxury arising from wealth, by which the morals of the private people will be totally corrupted. Thus the change in government will be primarily effected by the people. For when the people are galled by the rapine and oppression of those in power, arising from a principle of avarice; and corrupted, and elated with an undue opinion of their own weight, by the flatteries of the disappointed, which proceed from a principle of ambition, they raise those furious commotions in the state, which unhinge all government. These commotions first reduce it to a state of anarchy, which at last terminates in absolute monarchy and tyranny.