There is a principle which Tocqueville never wearies of explaining,
and which has been subsumed by Mr. Herbert Spencer under that
general law common to all organic bodies which we call the
Instability of the Homogeneous. The various manifestations of this
law, as shown in the normal, regular revolutions and evolutions of
the different forms of government, (8) are expounded with great
clearness by Polybius, who claimed for his theory, in the
Thucydidean spirit, that it is a [Greek text which cannot be
reproduced], not a mere [Greek text which cannot be reproduced],
and that a knowledge of it will enable the impartial observer (9)
to discover at any time what period of its constitutional evolution
any particular state has already reached and into what form it will
be next differentiated, though possibly the exact time of the
changes may be more or less uncertain. (10)
Now in this necessarily incomplete account of the laws of political
revolutions as expounded by Polybius enough perhaps has been said
to show what is his true position in the rational development of
the 'Idea' which I have called the Philosophy of History, because
it is the unifying of history.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78