Like the ancients in general, he had no idea of the gradual perfectibility of man or of the education of the human race.

His ideal was not to be attained in the course of ages, but was to spring in full armour from the head of the legislator.

When good laws had been given, he thought only of the manner in which they were likely to be corrupted, or of how they might be filled up in detail or restored in accordance with their original spirit.

He appears not to have reflected upon the full meaning of his own words, 'In the brief space of human life, nothing great can be accomplished'; or again, as he afterwards says in the Laws, 'Infinite time is the maker of cities.' The order of constitutions which is adopted by him represents an order of thought rather than a succession of time, and may be considered as the first attempt to frame a philosophy of history.
The first of these declining States is timocracy, or the government of soldiers and lovers of honour, which answers to the Spartan State; this is a government of force, in which education is not inspired by the Muses, but imposed by the law, and in which all the finer elements of organization have disappeared.

The philosopher himself has lost the love of truth, and the soldier, who is of a simpler and honester nature, rules in his stead.