In this book Scipio asserts the superiority of an active over a speculative career; and after analyzing and comparing the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic forms of government, gives a preference to the first; although his idea of a perfect constitution would be one compounded of three kinds in due proportion.
There are a few chasms in the earlier part of the second book, and the latter part of it is wholly lost.

In it Scipio was led on to give an account of the rise and progress of the Roman Constitution, from which he passed on to the examination of the great moral obligations which are the foundations of all political union.
Of the remaining books we have only a few disjointed fragments, with the exception, as has been before mentioned, of the dream of Scipio in the sixth.
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