Unchanged..............................

      Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.  Aristocracy ruins itself by limiting too narrowly the circle within which power is confined;  oligarchy ruins itself by the incautious scramble for immediate wealth.  In either case the end is revolution. . . .
     But even democracy ruins itself by excess—of democracy.  Its basic principle is the equal right of all to hold office and determine public policy.  This is at first glance a delightful arrangement; it becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and wisest courses. . . . Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride;  every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course.  The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy;  the crowd so loves flattery, it is so "hungry for honey," that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the "protector of the people" rises to supreme power. . . .
     . . ."Like man, like state"; "governments vary as the characters of men vary; . . . states are made out of the human natures which are in them", the state is what it is because its citizens are what they are.  Therefore we need not expect to have better states until we have better men; till then all changes will leave every essential thing unchanged.

-Will Durant, once again quoting Plato in The Story of Philosophy