its amendment, may in the course of events arrive at perfection. It is
certain, however, that such States can never be reformed without
great risk; for, as a rule, men will accept no new law altering the
institutions of their State, unless the necessity for such a change be
demonstrated; and since this necessity cannot arise without danger,
the State may easily be overthrown before the new order of things is
established. In proof whereof we may instance the republic of Florence,
which was reformed in the year 1502, in consequence of the affair of
Arezzo, but was ruined in 1512, in consequence of the affair of Prato.

Desiring, therefore, to discuss the nature of the government of Rome,
and to ascertain the accidental circumstances which brought it to its
perfection, I say, as has been said before by many who have written of
Governments, that of these there are three forms, known by the names
Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, and that those who give its
institutions to a State have recourse to one or other of these three,
according as it suits their purpose. Other, and, as many have thought,
wiser teachers, will have it, that there are altogether six forms
of government, three of them utterly bad, the other three good in
themselves, but so readily corrupted that they too are apt to become
hurtful. The good are the three above named; the bad, three others
dependent upon these, and each so like that to which it is related,
that it is easy to pass imperceptibly from the one to the other. For a
Monarchy readily becomes a Tyranny, an Aristocracy an Oligarchy, while a
Democracy tends to degenerate into Anarchy. So that if the founder of a
State should establish any one of these three forms of Government, he
establishes it for a short time only, since no precaution he may take
can prevent it from sliding into its contrary, by reason of the close
resemblance which, in this case, the virtue bears to the vice.