Thus we find in the weather, the soil, and the animal constitution the most favorable conditions are sometimes suddenly converted by their excess into the contrary, and this fact is especially observable in political governments; and this excessive liberty soon brings the people collectively and individually to an excessive servitude.

For, as I said, this extreme liberty easily introduces the reign of tyranny, the severest of all unjust slaveries.
In fact, from the midst of this unbridled and capricious populace, they elect some one as a leader in opposition to their afflicted and expelled nobles: some new chief, forsooth, audacious and impure, often insolently persecuting those who have deserved well of the State, and ready to gratify the populace at his neighbor's expense as well as his own.

Then, since the private condition is naturally exposed to fears and alarms, the people invest him with many powers, and these are continued in his hands.

Such men, like Pisistratus of Athens, will soon find an excuse for surrounding themselves with body-guards, and they will conclude by becoming tyrants over the very persons who raised them to dignity.

If such despots perish by the vengeance of the better citizens, as is generally the case, the constitution is re-established; but if they fall by the hands of bold insurgents, then the same faction succeeds them, which is only another species of tyranny.