"The causes of ... [the city's] destruction may be reduced to two. One was the change that took place in the course of time in ideas, resulting from the natural development of the human mind, and which, in effacing ancient beliefs, at the same time caused the social edifice to crumble, which these beliefs had built, and could alone sustain. The other was a class of men who found themselves placed outside this city organization, and who suffered from it. These men had an interest in destroying it, and made war upon it continually. When, therefore, the beliefs, on which this social regime was founded, became weakened, and the interests of the majority of men were at war with it, the system fell. No city escaped this law of transformation; Sparta no more than Athens, Rome no more than Greece. We have seen that the men of Greece and those of Italy had originally the same beliefs, and that the same series of institutions was developed among both; and we shall now see that all these cities passed through similar revolutions."