`To see a commentary note, click on a blue square. To see the Latin text, click on a green square.

Chapter viii

Are the causes of the republic’s preservation the contrary of those that corrupt it?

NOUGH has been said about the destruction of the commonwealth, now the subject is its preservation. The causes of the former are diseases, but those of the latter are remedy and medicine. Therefore, just as the physician considers the health of the body as well as its disease, so the student of politics should describe and assign not only its plagues, but also its preservative causes. Hence the words in the text are these: If we grasp those things which are pernicious and harmful to the forms of administering the republic, clearly those which are salubrious for them are likewise familiar to us. For the causes that produce contrary results are contraries, and destruction and downfall are contraries to health. From these words I gather that the principles of preservation and destruction are opposite to each other and incompatible. The first argument is sought from contrariety of effects, for contrary effects have contrary causes, dissolution and preservation of the republic are contrary effects, therefore the dissolution and the preservation of the republic have contrary causes. The proposition of this syllogism is an axiom in the Topics. The assumption is proven, since dissolution is a kind of death and passing-away, but preservation is the life and, as it were, health of the commonwealth. And there is a quarrel and an incompatibility between death and life, passing-away and health. Furthermore, causes having contrary ends are contrary, causes that are preservative and corruptive for the republic have contrary ends, therefore the causes preserving and corrupting the republic are mutually contrary. The major premise is agreed, since diversity of ends argues an incompatibility of causes. The minor is proven, since the end of prevative causes is the commonwealth’s happiness, but that of corruptive ones is its misery. Add to these the similarities in nature and medicine, namely that the situation regarding the commonwealth is like that in nature in medicine: in nature the causes of death are contrary to the causes of health, and in medicine the causes of disease are contrary to the causes of heath, therefore in the commonwealth the principles of dissolution and preservation are mutually contradictory. Finally, this is clear and obvious from an induction of all causes and their comparison. For if these are compared with those, that is, the preservative with the corruptive, their opposition will be patent. But you will say that the same medicine or diet sometimes helps, but sometimes harms the same body: so why should not the same cause do this very thing to the commonwealth? Furthermore, we see that the commonwealth is sometimes corrupted by war, sometimes preserved by it. The same cause, therefore, a single cause for both effects. Nor is it true that contrary effects always have contrary causes, for the sun hardens mud but melts wax. But all these things you infer are trifles, for even if each one were to be conceded, they do not harm my case, since the same cause can often help and hurt the same thing in different respects, in one respect per se, and in another accidentally and by happenstance. But if effects in their own right are compared with their causes (as is being done in this context), it is necessary that contrary causes have contrary effects. What you say about the sun is nothing, since this is not what we are disputing. For here we are inquiring whether incompatible causes produce contrary effects in the same commonwealth. But you are showing that the same causes different effects in different things, such as mud and wax, which indeed I scarcely deny. For this difference exists in the subject, not the cause.
2. Now follows in the text a second proposition, from which a second question also arises, which is whether a prompt remedy should be applied to the smallest evils that arise in the commonwealth. Hidden and and unseen blemishes often grow into a leprosy of the whole body. This indeed, mites of evils can be transformed into a huge mass. Grains of poison sometimes destroy life, and so the smallest evils do the commonwealth. Therefore in evils it is the toxicity, not the weight, the contagiousness, not the magnitude, the peril that arises from these, not their appearance, that must be considered. Therefore this is not the least among the preservative causes of the commonwealth which the Philosopher gives us here, which warns us that the motes of evils in administrating the commonwealth are not to be neglected. Aristotle proves the same by comparisons. He says that just in the way that petty expenses (as often happens) bankrupt a household, no matter how great, so petty transgressions of laws and institutions, should they be heaped up, sever the sinews of the commonwealth, and though change in these trifling things is not immediately visible, yet these monsters creep along, and coming, as it were, from their little lairs they first cast their fires and their poisons in the corners of the commonwealth, then in its citadels. Therefore if the magistrate is to be cautious in any matter, in this one he should be most vigilant and provident, lest he be deceived by their small character and give an ear to that clever and canny sophistry, Forgive, Caesar, for this is small, forgive it again, for it is small, forgive this small thing yet a third time. Thus the whole is minimal since its parts are minimal, or rather the whole is criminal because its parts are criminal. For as a great heap consists of tiny grains, a monstrous felony is built out of many petty offenses. This is also clear in the comparison of a man going astray and desperately in love. For just as a small digression at the beginning of his journey becomes a great deviation by end, so a trifling transgression of the law, if neglected, finally becomes the bane of the commonwealth. Let Scaevola, who wields the censor’s staff, therefore be on his guard, for otherwise, as in love-matters Pamphyli proceed gradually and step by step from a dramatic salutation to a kiss, and then to other naughty acts, so from points and shadows of evils, these thing plunge into an ocean of crimes, by whose pestilential vapor the whole commonwealth becomes infected and finally wastes away. A ship, albeit great, is sometimes sunk by little grains of sand, so tell me the reason why the commonwealth should not be shattered by the smallest evils? So let this be one among the other useful and wholesome precepts for preserving the republic, that a prompt remedy should be applied to the smallest evils arising in the commonwealth.
3. Now then, I pass to the second cause of preserving the commonwealth, which advises that arch-sophists and flatters be entirely banished from the republic. For with their foxy wits and doggish flattery these gentlemen deceive the people, since the ignorant are very frequently captivated by insidious sophistries and find-sounding words. For the pauper, it is a fine-seeming thing that he incurs no penalty for not attending the senate, but this is a trick, for by this pretext the rich man steals the government for himself. Therefore here the Philosopher gives us the remedy, that leading men must conduct themselves aright both towards those outside the republic and towards those who sit at the helm of the commonwealth. For in this way feeble and infirm republics often become great and enduring. For when men live in that condition in which they are affected by no injuries, no losses, no insults, it cannot be doubted but they will favor the commonwealth as much as they do themselves and their kinsman. Therefore the Philosopher thinks it will be well advised if a number of men rule, if there be many popular institutions. For, as nutrition taken into the individual parts of the body preserve the whole, so the republic is rendered much happier if benefits are conferred upon all its citizens. By failing in this thing oligarchy is often transformed into popular power, and monarchy into tyranny. Yet it is to be observed that great honors are not to be conferred upon private citizens for a long time, since they who hold magistracies briefly cannot undertake such great evil as those who hold it for a great amount of time. As his fourth axiom for preserving the republic the Philosopher prescribes that both the magistrates who keep watch in the commonwealth’s lookout-posts and citizens involved in their own dealings should fear gales and storms. For, just as the carelessness of the magistrate is ruin for citizens, so a vigilant fear will be a great protection for the republic. For when they are afraid the enemy does not easily invade, he does not of a sudden overwhelm and confound men who are watchful. For those who are fearful always have the sphere of the republic in their eyes, they see the plots of their enemy, not only at a distance, but also close at hand.
4. The fifth cause of preservation is that the dissent of nobles should be curtailed by severe laws, so that, being free and immune from contention, they not be incited to faction, that growing evils be pulled up by the hand of the magistrate before they can strike root. But I hasten to the sixth cause, since I have spoken copiously enough about this one already. As his sixth, the Philosopher proposes an accounting and proportion for lessening and increasing men’s estates. For it has already been said that the power of the few and the polity are occasionally altered by the disparity of estates. The remedy of this evil is that there be a proportion of estates in respect to citizens’ enhanced and lessened resources, and that the rewards and prizes of the commonwealth be awarded with respect to this proportion. The seventh cause is akin to this one, namely that the magistrates not suffer any men in the commonwealth to accumulate unreasonable wealth, honors, or popular support. For this often puffs little men up, for we rarely bear prosperity and good fortune with a calm mind. Therefore when honors are conferred, it is safer to bestow small ones for a long while than great ones for a brief time. But if it happens that many are heaped on a single individual, either they should be gradually taken away, or the man thus excelling should be impeded by being sent on business outside the nation or on embassies. For by these means either his power will be lessened, or if he resists, a legitimate occasion for taking them away will be offered. Better to remove a member than that whole whole should perish. As his eighth, Aristotle requires that a grave censor and a vigilant guardian of morals should be had in any commonwealth, who with lynx-like eyes might keep a particular watch on those do not live in a manner suitable for the republic. For nobody in the commonwealth should be a dead weight, nobody should be conspicuously criminal. Therefore the wicked are to be forced to undergo censure, they are to be compelled to give an account of their life. Cows are lazy without the prod, slackers without the whip, bad citizens very rarely do their duty and office without the censor’s rod. Therefore, should there be no discipline in the administration of the commonwealth, a dangerous license of citizens and morals will arise from their idleness. But this idleness occurs the most when you see a great part of the republic rejoicing and waxing fierce because of the fair wind of fortune. The prime remedy for this evil is to commit the business of the commonwealth and its government to the opposing party. If you do not do this, the idle grasshoppers will eat the fruit, and the busy ants will go a-starving.
5. Among the rest, the ninth preservative cause is most useful and necessary, namely that the greatest precaution be taken lest honors be given and granted to most shameful money-grubbing. For dignities devoted to gain are meretricious, honors enhanced by profit are ignominious, since magistrates are created in the republic to honor the commonwealth, not to be a burden upon it, not to oppress citizens, but to bear kind succor to the oppressed. But, oh Christ, where is this integrity? Where is this love of virtue? Who fears the leprosy of Naam’s slave? Who scrutinizes the skin of the corrupt judge? But enough has been said of this thing elsewhere, I come to the tenth precept, in which there is a warning lest the public treasury be pillaged. But that this not be done, the Philosopher prescribes that money be deposited in the treasury by wards, tribes and boroughs, with the citizen body looking on, and that public accountings both of monies and of offices be frequently demanded. For otherwise vultures’ talons will tenaciously grip their prey, and unjustly snatch for private use that which belongs to the public. Therefore in every commonwealth are to be appointed bursars and treasurers who are right honest men, who live devoted to the common good rather than to their personal gain. Another precept follows which pertains the most to democracy and the power of the few, and its gist and import is this, that in democracy the wealthy should be favored and spared, and the needy in the power of the few, for otherwise it is to be feared lest sedition will eventually arise from their excited envy. But if you want to decrease and curtail the resources of the wealthy, it is to politic to compel them to produce plays, dances, and similar works to be performed for the people, in which a certain prestige is acquired, and by the employment of which the commonwealth can sometimes enjoy recreation. The final axiom is that, for the benefit of the republic, property be handed down by right of inheritance and not by bequest. For in this way the finger of nature designates the heir, the quality of justice appoints the possessor, as all men worship nature, and good men justice. Aristotle adds this too, that nobody should possess multiple inheritances at the same time. Thomas explains this was said about the power of the few, since if paupers no less than the opulent are able to greet Plutus, that wealth-god, they will be more tranquil by this show of equality, and tolerate the government of the prosperous more peaceably.

THE DISTINCTION OF THE QUESTION

OBJECTIONS TO THE FIRST QUESTION

6. OBJECTION In the polity preservative causes are not contrary to corruptive ones, therefore this question does not hold absolutely in every constitution of the republic. The antecedent is clear, since the polity itself consists of contrary parts, namely of oligarchy and democracy. Hence the cause that preserves the one part corrupts the other, but the same cause is not contrary to itself. Therefore a constitution exists in which these causes are not contrary unless you call them contrary to themselves.
RESPONSE Oligarchy and democracy can be considered in to ways, either disjunctly, and thus they are contrary forms of the constitution, or conjointly and mixed in the polity, and thus they are not contrary. For as elements in a mixture form a temperament, so in one polity these two make a single form of the commonwealth. Therefore I respond that in the polity a cause which preserves one part does not corrupt another, nor is contrary to itself.
OBJECTION The fear of citizens is a cause of rebellion, therefore it is not a cause of preservation, as is defended here. The antecedent is clear, since men hate what they fear. The reasoning holds, since the same thing is not the causes of contraries, as is taught at the beginning of this chapter.
RESPONSE Fear is either servile, and thus is a cause of sedition, or reverent (as the fear of sons for their father, of subjects for their prince), and thus is a cause of loving and preserving the commonwealth. Other commentators reply that in this context “fear" signifies that fear by which we are troubled by future evils, by which the republic can be wounded.

AN OBJECTION TO THE SECOND QUESTION

7. OBJECTION Of necessity, evils must be tolerated in the commonwealth, therefore to apply a prompt remedy to the slightest of evils is not such a necessary thing as is required here. The antecedent is agreed, since it is impossible but that evils occur (for Man’s nature is corrupt), and if Jupiter should cast his thunderbolt as often as men sin, he should soon run out of weapons. Furthermore, the prudent magistrate must wink at many trifling things, and many evils are to be kept hidden. Therefore we should not be troubled by the slightest ones. Finally, many things are to be conceded to nature’s infirmity: hence usury, brothels, bigamy, and six hundred evils are tolerated. What it would be for eagles to be concerned with mice, lions with flies, so it would be for magistrates to be concerned over petty things. Socrates’ laws should seem like cobwebs, in which the smallest things would catch and hang, but heavier ones would easily glide through them.
RESPONSE These are words, for albeit evils are of necessity to be tolerated, yet it does not follow but that the beginnings of evil are to be removed with all our zeal and exertion. For this reason we are often obliged to tolerate faults of the republic, since we did not attempt to remove their first causes. I admit that we must often wink and that evils are to be kept hidden, and I add this too, that a great deal is to be conceded to the infirmity of nature. But these things do not prove that a prompt remedy is not to be applied. For although prudence may on occasion bid us wink at evils committed, yet prudence (that foresees future things) commands us to check the first beginnings of evils and to apply remedy, and this is not to snatch at flies and mice, but to pull up the occasions and roots of the greatest felonies.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST PRESERVATIVE CAUSES

8. OBJECTION When we fear the power of the wealthy it is impolitic to compel them to produce dancing, plays and spectacles for the people so their resources will be diminished, hence this thing is ill-prescribed. The antecedent is clear, first, since it is more honorable that some men abounding in wealth should live to for the splendor and ornament of the commonwealth, and then since plays, dances and spectacles are defined in the text as very useless things, upon which it is indecorous to lavish money.
RESPONSE It is to be noted here that there is a manifest contradiction of the commentators regarding this part of the text. For Argyrophilus thus explains it that Aristotle appears to forbid plays, dancing, and other delights of that kind altogether. But Lambinus (whom I am following) produces a quite contrary view, as those who read him may see. Therefore I reply that it is well-advised and politic that the power and wealth of the nobles we fear are reduced either by embassies (as stated above), or by the responsibility of producing plays. For although the glory of the commonwealth requires that men abounding in wealth should live for the ornamentation of the commonwealth, yet when their power tends towards peril, this stratagem (by which they may be rendered weaker) is not to be neglected. Furthermore, even if these things are called most useless if you consider the quality of justice, they are nevertheless useful if you consider the ornamentation of the commonwealth, in which not everything is done out of necessity, but many things also for the sake of dignity and decorum.
OBJECTION Unity of religion or piety is a great preservative cause of the commonwealth, but it is omitted here by Aristotle, therefore he did not rightly dispute about these causes. The major premise is proven, since religion is the fear of God, by which citizens are most greatly constrained in their duty.
RESPONSE What is necessarily understood is not absent, and that this cause is necessarily understood is agreed because of this, that previously Aristotle has often disputed about priests and religious men. Certainly even the pagans had a certain form of religion, but they became futile in their thoughts and were made fools. Oh would that we Christians would strive for unity, for unhappy experience teaches that nothing distracts minds toward sedition more than for them to waver in their religion, driven by the spirit of contradiction!

THE CHAPTER’S DOUBTFUL QUESTIONS
Is it safer to concede small honors for a long time than great ones for a short space?
Are plays and dances to be permitted in the commonwealth?

9. The seventh cause of the republic’s preservation is that nobody should increase in wealth and be elevated in honors beyond a commensurate and convenient limit. But, lest this occur, the Philosopher prescribes that small honors should be conferred for a long time more than great ones for a brief while. Small honors are trifling duties, but great ones are the august duties and offices of the commonwealth. The first doubtful question is posited in the comparison of these things, for the Philosopher proves that in the commonwealthit is far better advised that small honors be conceded for a long time than great ones for a brief space. Five reasons can be assigned: from a comparison, from human nature, from circumstances, from similarities, and from an example. From a comparison, since in small yet longer-lived honors there is slight cause for dread, but in great albeit most short-lived ones there is dreadful arrogance. For if those who enjoy petty offices wax proud they can be put in their place with ease, but should those seated on the supreme benches of the republic grow puffed up, they cannot be overcome without placing the republic in danger. The same is proven from human nature, since we are usually incited to the highest pinnacle of things by the force of our nature, and we suffer and sustain a right serious fall. Therefore while we are on high we fear a slip, but and if we see that this glory is destined to endure but a short while, justly or unjustly we strive to cling to it, but we do not suffer such an eclipse of our name regarding small honors. Therefore it is better to have small honors conceded and given out for a long time than great ones for a short while. From circumstances, since those endowed with great honors for a brief time, bent on retaining them, seek help from the place, the time, the wealthy, and the resources of their friends, so that, made superior in strength, they may, as it were, with a single blow compel men to favor them willy-nilly. But small albeit long-lived honors do not have these helps and circumstances. From similarities, since, just as very acute diseases and pains extinguish life more quickly than lingering but mild ones, so there are in within great honors limited by short spaces of time a certain madness by which the commonwealth itself is shattered. This is also agreed from examples, since nobody can deny that Caesar’s short dictatorship wounded Rome more perilously than Cato’s perpetual consulship.
10. Another doubt now follows, whether plays and dances to be permitted in the commonwealth. I am aware that in connection with the Ethics I once disputed about these matters parenthetically, but since the question offers itself in a timely way, it will not be beside the point to demonstrate this same thing in a few words. I am therefore of the opinion that, as long as certain circumstances are applied, these things should be tolerated and permitted, not because they are useful per se and in their own right, but because in their moderate use is apparent the splendor of companionship (not the least of the virtues). Plays, therefore, are not empty stage-fables and enticements to venery, but witty comedies and grand tragedies, in which are discerned the express image of life and manners. In this context, dances are not to be understood as lascivious physical motions made in in gyrations, by which Venus is enflamed, about which the orator said no sober man dances, but as decorous physical motion in accordance with number, order, and the harmony of the virtues, expressed to the life, in which holy David himself once took delight. Spectacles are certain crowed displays of the commonwealth, such as running a foot-race in in the presence of grandees, tilting with the lance, and showing off novel, lavish and wonderful things. That these things are permissible I prove thus. They are neither dishonest nor indecorous, therefore they are permissible. Again, honest recreation is permissible in the commonwealth, honest recreation exists in these things, therefore they are permissible. Furthermore, it is permissible for many things to be done splendidly, many things to be done magnificently in the commonwealth, these are of that kind, therefore these are permissible. Next, mortals cannot live long without a vacation from their pursuits, cares and occupations, therefore some things must be devised for their refreshment; things better invented by art, approved by authority, celebrated with order cannot be conceived, therefore they are to be permitted. Also, these are mediums of virtues (namely affability and companionship), therefore they are to be tolerated. Then too, in them we are able to learn the manners of men as they are represented, observe the fine inventions of learned men, perceive the hoariness of olden times, splendidly arrange our voice, face, and gesture, excite various affects and passions, and acquire and procure fame. Since therefore so many commodities derive from these, it appears they are not only to be tolerated but even justly approved. Also, in antiquity they flourished in every excellently-regulated republic, therefore they are permissible. Concerning this matter, examples cannot be found wanting. For Rome, Athens, Sparta, Carthage and a thousand other cities speak in their behalf, in which special magistrates were appointed for this reason. Finally, to these can be added the reason given in the text, namely that in this way powerful men whom the city fears, obliged to produce these things, are weakened and rendered more sedate.

AN OBJECTION TO THE FIRST DOUBTFUL QUESTION

11. OBJECTION Protracted time in the holding of small honors harms the republic no less than doesbrevity in the holding of great, therefore it is no safer to concede the small for long than to grant the great for a short time. The antecedent is proven, since the contagion of sedition creeps abroad for a long time before turning into a plague, a long time is conceded for small honors, but a short one for great. Furthermore, we see that monarchies the supreme honors are perpetual, but the middling ones limited to a short duration, which certainly would not occur in the best constitution of the republic, were the teachings of the Philosopher true. For if it is perilous to concede great honors for a brief space of time, it would be much the most perilous to concede them in perpetuity.
RESPONSE The contagion of sedition sometimes creeps slower, sometimes faster. It is indeed slow in small honors, since the powers and the material are lacking. But in great ones, even if destined to be short-lived, it is swift and violent, since the powers and the material are at hand. The reason added about supreme honors in monarchy can easily be turned to the contrary sense, for (says the Philosopher) danger does not exist in the perpetuity of the greatest honors, which satisfies men of the highest degree, but rather in their brevity, by which ambitious men are wounded. This reasoning, therefore, does not follow: the brief employment of honor works harm, therefore it perpetuity works more harm, since shortness and length here are not like greater and less, but are understood as contrary and incompatible things, whose logic is contrary. Therefore the argument is stood on its head in this way, if great honors briefly held work harm, therefore perpetual honors are harmless.

AN OBJECTION TO THE SECOND DOUBTFUL QUESTION

12. OBJECTION Plays, dancing and spectacles are called useless things in the text, therefore they are not permissible. Furthermore, they often corrupt morals, waste money, and divert citizens’ minds from needful things to trifles, therefore they are to be forbidden. Then too, it is monstrous to see men dressed in female clothing theatrically pretending to be women, and people shamelessly dancing about in gyrations with them. Also, in the primitive light of the Church the Fathers forbade these same thing, defining them as nothing other than rising from the table to play at games, which is expressly forbidden by God’s Word, therefore so is that. Finally, there are six hundred other and better ways of recreating ourselves, such as singing hymns, reading moral stories, and raising songbirds, like St. Ambrose.
RESPONSE I answer each of these arguments in turn. First, therefore, I maintain that plays, dancing, and spectacles are useless with respect to what are customarily regarded as the most important things in the commonwealth. In the second argument I deny the antecedent, for these things (in the way I have previously defined them) do not corrupt morals, but correct them, and draw citizens’ minds, not to empty trifles, but to useful ideas of life. To the third I say that it is neither indecorous nor impious for men to play women’s roles in the theater. Therefore, the taint of sin is not in the costume, but in the mind. The other part of the argument urges that dancing belongs to Venus, not to Diana and virtue [some contradiction to this premise seems omitted in the text]. Concerning the fourth argument, my opinion is this: that the Fathers only forbade profane and pagan spectacles, which were superstitious celebrated in the name of Jupiter, Apollo, and other idols, but to perform the honorable and praiseworthy things of which I am now speaking is not to rise from the table to play at games. In the final argument, I imagine I hear very severe Stoics speaking, who defined virtue as freedom from all perturbation. I indeed acknowledge that singing hymns is pious and delightful, but let these gentlemen tell me if they always sing hymns and psalms, but never eat? Do they never go to dinner? Indeed do they never visit Corinth, like Demosthenes? Why say more? The name of the Lord should be praised in plays and dancing, as says the prophet-king.

Chapter ix

Are devotion to the republic, power and justice necessary for the prince’s office?
Should love of virtue or the commonwealth be considered in the selection of the commander of the army, rather than knowledge of military affairs?

INCE princes and supreme magistrates hold the scepters and spheres of republics, it is necessary that, in addition to the preservative causes of the commonwealth that have now been set forth, a certain protection and ornamentation of the republic derive from them. Supreme magistrates exist, by whose hand and power the pivot or sphere of the entire commonwealth is turned to the good or the bad, since the supreme power is theirs. Speaking now of these men, the Philosopher requires three things which it most befits magistrates to have, namely devotion to the constitution they possess; power, with which to preside over others; and virtue, by which they may serve as examples of life for their citizens. In the first shines love, honor in the second, and the splendor of honesty in the third. In the two former are contained will and ability, in the third goodwill and good ability. And not only will and ability, but goodwill and good ability pertain to the just administration of the republic. Therefore these things are necessary in the supreme administrators of the republic. But that these may be treated individually, I shall first speak of princes’ devotion, then of their power, and finally of their virtue. Devotion is the benevolent, constant and faithful affection of mind bestowed upon beloved thing or person, so that we have good hopes for its object no less than for ourselves. I demand this in the chief men of the commonwealth, since, if they are not devoted to the republic over which they preside, they will undoubtedly not exert the effort to ensure it is preserved in a happy condition. For it is tedious and an annoyance for us to protect that to which we are not devoted. Furthermore, how can it be that fathers are not devoted to their sons? And the governors of the republic are fathers, therefore governors of the republic are devoted to the commonwealth. It is also well known that tyrants destroy their commonwealths out of hatred, therefore it behooves genuine princes to be devoted to the same. Then too, just as physicians ought to remove the diseases of the body, so princes should abolish the evils of the commonwealth, which cannot be done without a favorable disposition. Also, supreme men are the very lights and heart of the commonwealth, it is therefore from them that splendor and love should flow into the commonwealth. For, just as life comes from the heart, if there is accord, so the citizens’ health comes from their magistrates, if there is devotion. What? Can a man hate himself? But if the prince is not devoted to the commonwealth, he hates himself, therefore the prince will always be devoted for the commonwealth. The major premise is agreed, for nobody seeks his own destruction. The minor is clear, since the prince is nothing other than the commonwealth personified. Finally, that Athenian king Codrus, that Spartan king Lycurgus, Scaevola, Curtius and countless other noble men have shown this, each and every one of whom did not hesitate tø die for his nation. Here I shall speak nothing of Moses, that best leader and magistrate, who wished his most holy name to be expunged and erased from the book of life, rather than have the people perish.
2. The second thing that Aristotle here requires in governors of the republic is power over affairs, which is nothing other than government over the commonwealth, justly acquired. Therefore, just as the preservation of the republic is sought out of love, so the action and execution of justice is sought by power. For we have good hopes for it out of devotion, but bear it aid only by government. But, as it is a small thing to love someone if you cannot act on his behalf, so it is a small thing to have devotion for the republic if you cannot help it. Tell me the quality of princes without the scepter, what quality are supreme men without government. In them, therefore, power is necessary, I mean power over the laws, power over citizens, power with which to promote good men, remove bad ones, and handle and define great matters. For princes are living laws, not ideas; they are supreme magistrates, not statues. The third thing requisite in princes is virtue or justice (as the text has it), appropriate to the republic in which they live. For, as the Philosopher says here, if the same righteousness does not square with all the forms of administering the republic, it is necessary that justice also differs. For these men and those will understand what is just in different ways, not because the character and essence of justice is changed, but because its mode and existence are altered, as I have taught in commenting on the Ethics. That this is necessary I prove thus. True honor is not without virtue, principal men have true honor, therefore leading men must cultivate virtue. Furthermore, their corrupt morals infect the entire commonwealth. It is therefore needful that they outshine others in virtue. Also, how can they justly reprehend and correct others when they hear what Cato says: It is shameful for a teacher when he is convicted by his own reproach? Finally, our ancestors once extolled the virtues, not men, to the most exalted responsibilities in the republic. Why, therefore, should this order grow obsolete nowadays?
3. Now follows in the text another question, put incidentally, namely whether in the selection of a commander of the army knowledge of affairs ought to be considered rather than love of virtue or the commonwealth. This is Philosopher’s opinion: In entrusting military government, experience of military affairs rather than virtue is usually considered. For good generals are rarer than good men. What? Did he just now demand virtue in supreme magistrates so earnestly, and now neglects it in a general? Here it must be appreciated that a distinction of virtue is to be applied. For there is one virtue, moral, which makes a good man, and another, civil, which makes him a devoted citizen or magistrate: as is said earlier, the former is virtue of the mind, the second is virtue of office. Therefore then the Philosopher says that knowledge of military affairs should be considered in the selection of a commander of the army rather than virtue, he does not absolutely subordinate virtue to military knowledge, but, speaking comparatively, says this is more requisite in war. Yet is to be hoped that commanders imitate Themistocles and Scipio both in their military discipline and in integrity of their lives, that is, that they strive to conquer and subdue not only the enemy but also themselves, so that they accomplish great deeds and shun misdeeds in their lives. But if the storm of war has arisen and matters come to the point that we must choose either a man suitable for managing military affairs, although a reprobate, or a man well and justly disposed toward the republic but ignorant of military affairs, then in this case we must have regard for virtue of office rather than virtue of mind, since an Antony, albeit a devotee of Cleopatra, is preferable to a hapless Cato who adores justice alone, not because the Cato is not the better man, but because the Antony is deemed far more skilled in military affairs. All these things come down to this, that a lion should be put in charge of martial matters, not a rabbit.
4. But if it is a treasurer rather than a general who is to be appointed, then the Philosopher requires more virtue than science. For military science is requisite in a commander, but probity and conscience in a treasure. Why am I delaying? I shall treat the thing in points. In the election, that virtue is most requisite by which the task undertaken can better be performed, the general’s task is better accomplished by military science than virtue, therefore in the election of a general military science is more requisite than virtue. Furthermore, absent military science, victory cannot be gained, but it can be in the absence of an innocent life, therefore the former is wanted in the election of a commander. Also, a man can be a good citizen even if moral virtues are lacking, therefore a man can be a stout commander even if he should lack integrity of life. Furthermore, as the lion is brave yet rapacious, so someone can be a skilled commander and a bad man. Sulla was a noble general but proud, Coriolanus was a noble general but a hothead, Antony was a noble general but intemperate, Alexander was a most noble general but cruel. Therefore, albeit it is indeed to be hoped that generals’ lives correspond to their deeds in battle, yet in their election knowledge of war should be considered rather than the manner of their lives. But at this point somebody may say that virtue is not at all required in the administration of the republic, since, if a man possesses competence for administering and benevolence towards that form of the republic, nothing further appears wanted. For what can be required for administering the commonwealth beyond will and ability? Aristotle meets this objection in the text. For he says that it should be thus in both the administration of the commonwealth and in the government of himself, but it often happens that a man who both loves himself and has the ability to perform the office, out of a defect of virtue may nevertheless follow his desires and live shamefully. Thus, although the magistrate must have both have the will and the ability with respect to the republic, yet if his virtue is defective he will easily go astray and rule less justly and earnestly. For, just as the potential to bear fruit is of little avail in a fruitless plant, thus in the supreme magistrate little value is placed on his potential to govern the republic if he is without virtue. For the seed and intention lie in potential, but the fruit and perfection reside in behavior. Therefore will is insufficient, ability is insufficient, unless work and action follow upon the behavior of virtue. Would that princes, supreme men and magistrates mark here that they nothing else than wandering, lightless stars, flowering plants without fruit!
5. But so much for these matters, now follows the other part of the chapter in which stand certain lessons for preserving the republic depending on these three things of which I have now spoken. Of these, the first is like an oracular response, namely that that party in the commonwealth which supports the present form of the republic and hopes for its safety should be superior, and that party that strives for revolution should be inferior. For thus the power of the magistrate will be greater and sounder, thus the administration of the commonwealth will be more enduring. As a second precept the Philosopher requires a singular prudence on the part of the magistrate, so that under any constitution of the republic he may observe and examine the mean. For excess is pernicious, and therefore those who imagine that the republic can be preserved in a popular constitution if everything is transacted by plebiscite are dreaming. Likewise, under oligarchy they are deceived who, ignorant of the mean, draw all things into the power of the wealthy. For assuredly (even if those constitutions of the republic are faulty, if we consider the best form of the commonwealth) within them a certain mediocrity does not escape the attention of prudent men, and those who deviate from this are shamefully mistaken and in their ignorance administer a violent convulsion to the condition of the republic. This the Philosopher proves by a comparison. For just as snub noses, bent backwards, may deviate from ideal straightness but not lose their attractiveness, so these faults of the republic, namely popular power and the power of the wealthy (if they do not tend to extremes) preserve a mediocrity. But, just as very hooked and aquiline noses are unsightly, so these fanged constitutions (if such I may call them) are monstrous and intolerable. The third less is that legislators and statesmen must understand the things by which each form of the commonwealth is preserved. Hence the Philosopher justly criticizes the ancient customs of magistrates in some oligarchies and democracies, in which different parties swear impossible, malevolent oaths and scheme each other’s ruin, tit for tat. For since neither form of administration can exist without the wealthy and the poor, it is impossible but that it will be shaken and collapse, if the opportunity is granted for these sworn injuries, that is, if the wealthy swear the destruction of the common people, and the common people take an oath for the ruination of the wealthy. The remedy for this evil is the love and gratification of all men. The final precept is that from the cradle citizens be instilled with the discipline of the republic and the observation of its laws. For thus raised, they they will comply with their ancestors’ decrees without any murmuring and trouble. Therefore magistrates should have no greater concern than the education of all the citizens, but most of all that of the leading citizens, in whom shines the light of the commonwealth. But I have spoken copiously of this issue in commenting on the Ethics, and will speak of it again in connection with Book VII of the Politics. But I cannot pass by this one thing in silence, that Aristotle appears to rebuke magistrates in an oligarchy who permit the sons of the wealthy to be raised more softly and effeminately, but bid paupers’ sons to be oppressed and freighted down with all manner of labor. What the Philosopher once said about oligarchic magistrates, would that it were not possible to say about the magistrates of republics in our century! Assuredly the coddling of leading men is a most pestilential bane of the commonwealth, since if the fountains are infected, it is necessary that the rivers be polluted.

THE DISTINCTION OF THE QUESTION

 

OBJECTIONS TO THE FIRST QUESTION

6. OBJECTION In the supreme magistrate, more things than devotion, power and virtue are requisite, therefore the Philosopher did not dispute accurately about these things. The antecedent is proven, as prudence is very much required in every magistrate, since without prudence nobody deserves the name of magistrate.
RESPONSE Prudence (as Aquinas understands it) is subsumed under the word “power," for power is threefold: of nature, consisting in strength; of reason, in prudence; civil, in the friendship of many men. The first is not requisite in supreme men, but the two latter kinds are required.
OBJECTION Devotion to oligarchy is evil, therefore it is not required that the magistrate be devoted to the constitution under every constitution of the republic. The antecedent is proven, since oligarchy is a fault of the commonwealth, to be devoted to a fault of the republic is an evil, therefore devotion to oligarchy is evil.
RESPONSE First, it is denied that oligarchy is simply a fault of the republic. For although it is opposed to simple aristocracy, yet in respect to the mixed constitution it is not deemed altogether evil. Otherwise, I also respond that bad princes should be devoted to bad forms of the republic, if they wish to preserve them for long.
OBJECTION Power is an imperious thing, full of ambition, therefore to concede it to supreme men is perilous. The antecedent is proven, since power is the key to the republic, in which is placed the safety or destruction of the commonwealth.
RESPONSE Even if bad men abuse power, it still does not follow but that it is necessary for good and studious men. For just as the former tend to the republic’s destruction when this power is granted them, so the good tend to its salvation.

AN OBJECTION TO THE SECOND QUESTION

OBJECTION It is perilous to commit the army to a general who is neither devoted to the nation nor a devotee of virtue, but in the text the Philosopher posits that this is to be done, therefore in this context he is prescribing that which is perilous. The major objection is clear, since, should he not be devoted to his nation, with this opportunity given him he can readily overthrow it, should he not cultivate virtue and be unable to govern himself or others, as is also subsequently proven in the text.
RESPONSE These words of Aristotle strike many commentators as somewhat obscure. For he says, If any man is suitable for commanding an army, but is a reprobate and not well disposed towards the form of the administration, for the command of the army he is nevertheless to be preferred to a good but unskilled man. Here it is to be noted that the Philosopher is not to be understood as if he were saying that that man is to be placed over an army who is not at all devoted to his nation, or cultivates virtue at all, but that he is giving this precept here comparatively, that the man who is skilled and practiced in military affairs is to be preferred to those who are ignorant and inexpert, even if he does not greatly favor the present administration of the commonwealth.

Chapter x

Are kingship and tyranny rightly distinguished?

HE final part of this Book discusses the causes of preservation and corruption of republics in which only a single man presides and rules. This portion is distributed into three chapters, the first of which contains the causes that overthrow tyranny and monarchy, the second the causes of their preservation, and the third Plato’s errors concerning causes. In this first chapter of this treatment are discussed two things, an advertisement and a comparison. The advertisement is of the things about which he proposes to speak subsequently, and the comparison consists in the distinction of kingship and tyranny. This is the advertisement: It remains for me to discuss monarchy, the things that are wont to cause it to perish, and by which it is preserved. To this the Philosopher adds that whatever he said previously about aristocracy, oligarchy and democracy can now be said about kingship and tyranny. For monarchy is very similar to aristocracy, and tyranny consists of the extremes of popular power and the power of the rich. As demonstrated above, it is therefore the worst of them all, since it grows out of two bad forms of the republic, and them the worst, and contains all their deviations and crimes rolled up, as it were, in a ball. A comparison follows this advertisement, which embraces the differences of kingship and tyranny. Kingship and tyranny differ in seven respects, namely of their origin, material, form, end, prerogative, protection, action, and means of government. From the text I gather this distinction regarding origin. Kingship is created as a refuge for good men and a protection against their injury at the hands of the people, and the king himself is appointed from good men because of his excellence of virtue, accomplishments, birth, benefits or power, which is discerned in all these things. Thus some kings once were created, because in war they had removed the yoke of servitude from the necks of their companions, like Codrus; others because they freed their fellow citizens, like Cyrus; others who expanded their borders, like the kings of the Spartans, Macedonians, Molossians, and Romans. But tyranny is appointed out of the people and multitude to stand against nobles and illustrious men, that is, lest the people suffer injury at their hands. And indeed the majority of tyrants have arisen from petty champions of the people, by falsely accusing and slandering the nobility. Thus Panaetius at Leontini, Cypselus at Corinth, Peisistratus at Athens, Dionysius at Syracuse. Why waste many words? Thus Philo at Argos, Phalaris at Agrigentum, Richard III of England erupted as tyrants. So kingship and tyranny differ in the manner of their origin.
2. The two also differ in their material, for the king’s object is peace and justice, but tyranny seeks sedition, lust and injustice. The third thing in which they differ is their form, for the king is defined as society’s protector, for his duty is to protect the well-to-do from injuries of the commons, and the commons from the insults of magnates. But the tyrant, having no regard for common usefulness, consults for his own advantage rather than that of his subjects, and arranges everything to suit his own lust. They also differ in end, for the king’s goal is honesty, but that of the tyrant is pleasure and the devastation of the commonwealth. They differ in protection, for the king’s bodyguard consists of citizens, but the tyrant’s of aliens. They differ in prerogative, for the government of the king is adorned by heroic virtues, but the tyrant’s administration by ill-acquired wealth. They differ in means of government, since kingship possesses countless goods by which it can honorably perform its office, but tyranny contains all the evils of democracy and oligarchy: of oligarchy, since it sets up wealth as its object, because it seeks its own protection and fattening, because it trusts the people in no thing, because it deprives the citizenry of its arms, afflicts it with oppressions, banishes it from the city, and furiously does everything according to its own whim; democracy, since it holds leading men in loathing, covertly destroys the nobility, and sometimes openly drives it into exile, and bids its adversaries be accused, condemned, and killed. Hence the advice of Periander, which he gave Thrasybulus about lopping off the taller poppies’ heads. For it is the property (as they say) of tyranny to destroy the noblest, most ancient and excellent families either by force or treachery.
3. With this distinction between kingship and tyranny made, it follows that I must first speak, along with Aristotle, about monarchy’s alteration, and then about its preservation. Regarding its alteration two things need to be considered: causes and means. The causes are either common or proper: there are five common ones, injustice, fear, contempt, gain, and ambition; the proper ones are the opposite of the preservative causes, of which I shall dispute later. The means are two: internal, such as tyranny or sedition, and external, such as war and enemy invasion. Causes are called common, since the principles of overthrowing kingship and the power of optimates is the same, and those of overturning tyranny are likewise the same as those of popular power and the power of the few. For, just as kingship and aristocracy consist of the good, so tyranny and the final species of popular power and that of the few consist of the worst men and laws. But let us return to these five causes. The first is injustice, which (as the Philosopher teaches here) is employed either in injury or in acts of pillage. Injury is inflicted either on a man’s name by insult, or on his body by rape or battery. Why linger on this? We do not suffer insult, the reputation of our name is tender, which should neither be troubled nor touched. But if it should feel the pestilential tooth and sting of a malicious man, immediately wrath blazes forth, and by swift motion is driven to seek revenge. Hence Harmodius killed the sons of Peisistratus, who were ruling Athens as tyrants, since they visited shame and disgrace upon his sister. Deservedly that monster of tyranny and lust Periander suffered an assault and conspiracy against his life, since while in his cups he asked his Alexis whether she was or was not pregnant by himself. Philip, king of Macedon, was assassinated by his bodyguard Pausanias because he did not exact vengeance for an injury committed against Pausanias by Attalus. Here I shall say nothing about Amyntas, Euagoras, Archelaus, and the many others most plainly discussed as examples by the Philosopher in the text, for the purpose, as I think, that kings might understand nothing undoes great governments more quickly than injury, nothing destroys them more swiftly than insult.
4. The second cause of kingship’s overthrow is fear. Hence that saying, fear is the worst guard of a long life. Artabanus serves as an illustration of this thing, who, fearing an accusation touching Darius, attacked and killed Xerxes. The third cause is contempt and turpitude of life, which engenders loathing of the king’s person. Thus Arbactus the Mede drove Sardanapalus from throne to tomb for weaving at the loom with his whores. Cyrus also overcame Astyages, since he observed that he and his soldiers were corrupted and, as it were, melted by leisure and luxury. The fourth cause is gain and a greedy thirst for money or avarice. Inflamed by this passion and ardor, Mithridates was driven to employ force of arms against Ariobarzanes. The final causes is ambition, of which I have frequently spoken. Because of this men bold and overconfident by nature often harm the commonwealth. For they dared every crime, so that they might somehow become well known and famous. Nero burned Rome to gain a name, Herostatus set Diana’s temple afire to acquire a reputation, but fame attended by ignominy is the worst kind. The Philosopher says that few men are of this number and nature, and they should grasp one thing as definite and unshakable, which is that the jig is up for them if the desired result does not follow upon their shameful attempt. But assuredly I am afriad lest men like Brutus and Cassius are alive today, who, caring nothing for their safety, dare wound their Caesars in the senate. Possibly they are of Dion’s persuasion (as is described in the text), who is reputed to have said as he attacked Dionysius with a small band of men, it is something to get this far, if I can get no further. It is a baleful ill omen when such men are alive in the republic, who, caring nothing for their lives, dare such great crimes and attempt such great felonies. So commonwealth’s Arguses and Mercuries cannot be too cautious and prudent, whose duty is not only to ward off vultures, but also to strangle their chicks in the nest.
5. With these things set forth about the causes of overthrowing the kingdom, next are handled the corruptive causes of tyranny. These causes are two, external and domestic. The external is when some republic hostile to the tyranny and far more powerful threatens it. Here it is to be noted that tyranny is opposed by the popular constitution, the power of the few, aristocracy and kingship. But, you will ask, how can popular power and the power of the few be its contraries, when tyranny is composed of them, existing as the final species? It must be said that these constitutions are opposed to it, not per se and in their own right, but by accident and happenstance, as potter is opposed to potter. But kingship and the government of optimates are incompatible and opposed to tyranny per se, since they tend to different and opposite ends. There exists a second internal cause, namely sedition, when tyrants dissent among themselves, as the examples of Gelo, Thrasybulus, Dionysius and Dion cited in the text manifestly declare. But here someone will ask what are the causes that tyranny is attacked by conspiracies. Aristotle replies that they are two in particular, hatred and contempt, to which he adds anger, but anger is a part of hatred, by which furious emotions are stirred in the mind. For in anger there is no place for reason, especially if it is provoked by insult or injury. Hence the sons of Peisistratus were once expelled from Athens. But hatred is considered a far more violent passion of the mind, since it perpetually burns against men such as Phalaris (that is, against cruel and brutal tyrants). As far as contempt goes, this arises since nearly all tyrants live wanton and pleasure-seeking lives. For by lapsing headlong into all manner of lust, they expose themselves to contempt, and offer many opportunities for conspirators. Just as hatred and contempt are proper causes for the overthrow of tyranny, so kingship has its deaths and, as it were, its final dooms. For it perishes in two ways, either by an outside cause, when a stronger enemy invades, or by an inside and domestic one, and that twofold: either when partners in kingship or the king’s friends fall out among themselves, or when kings themselves rule tyrannically and contrary to the laws. But if kingship should devolve on some man in accordance with the right of nature and succession, then we must fear lest it sometimes fail when incompetent, negligible men are endowed with the royal honor, for, just as prudence conserves it, so folly and ignorance drive the ship of the republic onto the sandbanks. And these words are about the causes and ways by which kingdoms and tyrannies are overthrown.

THE DISTINCTION OF THE QUESTION

 

6. OBJECTION Tyranny is not the worst of all administrations, therefore in the text it is wrongly concluded to be such. The antecedent is clear, since nature does not bend and incline Man to the worst, but nature bends and inclines Man to the end of tyranny, namely to private and personal good, therefore tyranny is not to the worst of all administrations.
RESPONSE Although every man would prefer good for himself more than for another, and this in accordance with nature, there is still a monster of a man, not a man, who shuns society and makes no account of common utility. For our parents claim a part of our origin, as does our nation. So the man devoted only to himself lives contrary to nature, which made him in his mother’s womb to be a social animal and a partaker of community. Therefore nature does not favor tyranny, which brings everything to non-being, void and violence.
OBJECTION The causes of alteration enumerated here have been treated before, therefore in this context the Philosopher is trifling. The antecedent is proven, since he has already demonstrated that injustice, fear, contempt &c. are causes of overthrowing other forms of the republic.
RESPONSE These causes you cite are called common, not proper. Furthermore, the proper causes of various alterations can be effected in one way or another, as ambition destroys the people’s democracy, and ambition ruins the king’s monarchy.
OBJECTION The greatest cause of overthrowing the kingdom is flattery of the king, but this causes is not included among the others, therefore the causes of alteration are inaccurately demonstrated. The antecedent is agreed, since nothing corrupts princes more than flattery, nothing deceives them more perilously than the flatterer, who sings naught but pleasing tunes in their ears.
RESPONSE He previously disputed about this cause quite copiously, therefore there was need to bring it up here. Also, even in this context he did not neglect it, since at the beginning of this chapter he says that kings are often made tyrants by empty-headed and ingratiating leaders of the people.
OBJECTION The Philosopher teaches that popular power and the power of the few are the opposites of tyranny, therefore it cannot be composed of the same, as he contends here. The antecedent is in the text. The reasoning is proven, since nothing is composed of contraries.
RESPONSE Those two extreme species of democracy and oligarchy are said to be opposed, not because they are incompatible with tyranny simply and absolutely, but because they impede it, like potter striving against potter.

THE CHAPTER’S DOUBTFUL QUESTION
Can tyranny be long-lived?
Should a king laboring under public disrepute be deposed?

7. Among all the forms and faults of the commonwealth, tyranny is inexpressibly the most unjust. I have already spoken copiously about the reasons in the text, yet I wish to repeat them in a few words, since they suit my purpose. Of all the forms, tyranny is the furthest removed from the pursuit of the common good, therefore it is the most unjust among them all. The antecedent is agreed, since in democracy the good of the multitude is sought, in oligarchy the good of the wealthy, but in tyranny the good of only a single man. Furthermore, tyranny is the most contrary to nature and violent, since it wounds men free by nature with the yoke of servitude. Therefore it is the worst of them all. Also, tyranny attracts to itself the bilge of all the evils in the republic, since it comprehends within itself all the crimes of popular power and the power of the few. Therefore it is pernicious beyond the rest. Finally, it eradicates the greatest goods of the commonwealth, such as peace, virtue, order, law, and nobility. Therefore it is intolerable. Each of these things can serve me for an argument, so I can prove that tyranny cannot be long-lived. For if it departs the most from the pursuit of the common good, it cannot long endure, since the health of the commonwealth is situated in the pursuit of virtue, but its ruination in the offscourings of evils. Furthermore, that which is violent and contrary to nature cannot exist for long, it has been proven that tyranny is violent and contrary to nation, therefore it cannot long flourish. Then too, the more the evils the more violently they fall, for, just as copious gusts of hot air are swept aloft and, set afire by their violent motion, break out in flames which quickly appear and quickly vanish, so tyrants borne on high and elated with their swollen mind are agitated by the Furies of their crimes, which cannot burn for long. But just as clouds burst and broken by lightning vanish, so ships of republics, shattered by the rage of tyrants, perish. Next, if you take away peace, virtue, order, law, and nobility, how can a government exist for long? For just as a house collapses when its pillars fall, so with these things removed, which are like the protections of the commonwealth, of necessity the entire government will weaken. Finally other arguments can be added from a comparison, a similarity, and an example. From a comparison, since tyranny possesses all the causes of its death which each and every form and Fury of the republic possessed individually, therefore it cannot be long-lived. From a similarity with the natural body: for just at that body cannot long live in which there is the worst mixture and maladjustment of the humors, so tyranny, into which pours the bilge-water and offscourings of all evils, cannot endure for long, according to the example of Dionysius, Phalaris, Nero, and the many others who lost life and scepter by a premature death. For that saying is true, Few kings and tyrants go down to Ceres’ son-in-law without bloodshed and woundings, and with a clean death.
8. A second doubt is whether a king laboring under public disrepute should be deposed. As is clear in the text, Dionysius the younger, because of his conspicuous drunkenness, Sardanapalus, because of the softness of his mind, Periander, the ruler of Ambracia for the sake of a crime of which we dare not speak its name, and a large number of others because of the infamy of their name suffered the universal eclipse of their life, reputation, and government. The Philosopher says, Many attacks have been made on monarchs because they have deprived somebody of his chastity. And again, Some of the princes’ friends, because of their scorn for this life, and elsewhere, says he, While they live lustfully and wantonly, they offer many opportunities for an attack to those who desire to attack them. Assuredly I wonder why these examples are adduced by certain men, as if they proved that it is permissible to depose princes justly endowed with the royal scepter because of their disgraceful lives. Is this to consult for the welfare of the republic? Is this to exercise foresight for the safety of citizens? Is this how the king’s name is adored? Is this how God is worshipped, embodied in the royal person? Indeed this is assuredly not permissible. Therefore I respond that these examples are de facto, not de jure, and pertain to the tyrant but not the king. Yet I acknowledge that royal majesty is very much obscured by a sordid life. But, just as misfortunes indeed weaken happiness, but do not altogether ruin it, so the misdeeds of the king’s life darken his royal splendor, yet do not snuff out the office of king. Therefore a king laboring under public disrepute should not be deposed. And I briefly prove this thus. The entire safety of the commonwealth consists in the king’s person and office, therefore he should not be robbed of his scepter because of his life’s turpitude. Furthermore, change of a bad law is perilous, therefore change of a king is far more so. Indeed, a pernicious law is often tolerated, therefore a bad king is all the more to be permitted to rule. Then too, since the faults belong to infirmity rather than the responsibility, to the man rather than the office, therefore the office ought to remain untouched, even if the man often lives with dangerous effect. Also, as a plant is not to be uprooted although it bear some rotten branches and does not always give fruit, so kings should not be wholly obliterated, although they have some blemishes on their life and name. Next, few kings lack a bad reputation, for envy said to be their companion, slander their shadow. But what window will be opened to every wrongdoing and madness, if kings are to be deposed out of envy? Finally, neither law, custom, nor ancestral examples ordain that kings should lose their scepters for the sake of their lives’ blemishes, and therefore this appears impermissible. For although we read of some men who, under the pretext of avenging the crimes they say are widespread among kings, have committed this felony, yet I call these man patricides and traitors, not righteous citizens.

OBJECTION TO THE FIRST DOUBTFUL QUESTION

9. OBJECTION In the next chapter many precepts and means of preserving tyranny are given by the Philosopher, therefore it appears capable of being long-lived, for otherwise means of its preservation are assigned in vain. Furthermore, antiquity teaches that tyranny long flourished at Athens, Sparta, and Rome. It is therefore agreed that it can be long-lived. Also, who does not see that the tyranny of the Turks has lasted a very long time? Finally, just as the mid-region of the air remains most cold forever, although this onslaught of cold is violent and unnatural, so tyrannical administration can long endure, albeit it was acquired by slaughter and blood. For if its poppy-heads are lopped off, the commonwealth’s feet cannot resist.
RESPONSE The first part of the argument does not follow. For although many means of preserving tyranny are assigned, yet they are bad and weak. For just as medicines are gulped down in vain after a death-dealing wound has been received, because death will ensue, so precepts for preserving tyranny (the republic’s greatest wound) are given in vain, since, having arisen with a violent movement, as soon as it takes a fall it will be rent apart. The other part of the argument proves nothing, for in those republics which are mentioned tyranny has had no anchor. Regarding the empire of the Turks, it must be said that with respect to the nature of barbarians and slaves, it is not tyrannical. For just as there is a natural relation between master and slave, thus, if you consider the servile population under that government, the master-like administration of the Turks does not appear unjust or contrary to the nature of the slave who cheerfully submits to it.

OPPOSITION TO THE SECOND DOUBTFUL QUESTION

10. OBJECTION He who destroys his realm is worthy to be deprived of his kingship, a king suffering under public infamy destroys his kingdom, therefore a king suffering under public infamy is worthy to be deprived of his kingship. The major premise is agreed, because he is unworthy of honor who by the unworthiness of his life scorns honor. The minor is proven, since a king suffering under public infamy imperils the entire commonwealth by the example of his crime, as Sardanapalus, that monster of lust, allured all his people to softness of mind; Nero, that prodigy of cruelty, to savagery; Julian the Apostate, towards heresy and paganism. Furthermore, Scripture teaches us that many men forfeited their kingdoms because of their life’s impiety.
RESPONSE It must indeed be admitted that the spirit of good or evil is very quickly transferred and transfused from prince to people. But this does not argue that he is to be deprived of his kingdom, since the king’s turpitude does not destroy the kingdom, as you say, nor does he allure his people to foulness of life against their will. For sin is voluntary, and a people should direct itself, not according to the faults of its prince, but according to the laws of the commonwealth. So let Sardanapalus, Nero and Julian be dissolute, tyrannical, heretical. The people can still be chaste, merciful and pious, if it conforms itself to divine laws rather than mortal manners. The things you add from Scripture do not have the force of law, since universal law is not drawn from examples. Otherwise Solomon would have been rightly deprived of his realm no less than was Saul.

Chapter xi

Does it behoove kings to close universities and forbid schools for the Arts?

am of a doubtful mind whether it is better to write more about the preservation of tyranny, or wholly to keep my silence about a thing so vile and perilous. I must speak, if I am to follow Aristotle, but I am afraid lest, beneath his mask and cloak, Machiavelli may have a laugh. For this is the source whence he imbibed his poison, whence he derived his fundamentals and principles. So what am I to do? If I write, he will criticize; if I refrain, he will triumph. But I shall write. For, as physicians give precepts about poison, that it may either be avoided by being understood, or, tempered by antidotes, it may prevail for the expulsion of a more pestilential virus, so students of politics may philosophize about tyranny, so that it may be altogether destroyed, or, being mixed with other forms of administration, may lose the powers and onslaughts of sedition. Therefore if you wonder why in this context the Philosopher disputes about the preservative causes of tyranny so amply, carefully and copiously, I reply that he does not do so because he favors it, but that we might more swiftly escape tyrants’ wiles, their sophistries and secrets laid bare to the life. For Aristotle does not hope that tyranny will be preserved, but teaches the arts and methods of its preservation, the ones that men like Nero use. If you employ these same to the commonwealth’s harm, you are abusing the Philosopher, who did not urge this. If, forewarned about them, you have a more vigilant care for the commonwealth, you savor of Aristotle’s wisdom, for this is what he urged.
2 . But I apply myself to Aristotle’s text, in which he discourses more fully about the causes that preserve kingship and tyranny, first speaking generally about the both of them, and then specifically about tyranny. The general rule is this, that these two kinds of administration are preserved by their opposites, for opposite causes produce opposite effects. For it the things I have demonstrated above corrupt these forms, it is necessary that their contraries preserve and protect them. For example, hatred shatters kingship, love preserves it. But regarding the species of kingship, the cause of its preservation is moderation in government, that is, when princes do not burn with an unquenchable thirst for honors, but live content within their limits. For the more humble the things they are permitted to govern, the safer and longer their government endures. For this reason kings flourished among the Molossians for many a generation. They say that the Spartan king Theopompus, the son of Nicander, established the ephors as counterweights to kings, and by this means somewhat diminished the royal authority. Afterwards, questioned by his wife if he were not ashamed to bequeath less power to his sons than he had inherited from his father, he replied, Perhaps I am leaving them lesser power, my wife, but I am leaving them power that is stronger and more enduring. For great governments are subject to great calamities, and Jove’s lightning often strikes lofty things. Better to live on a little, and the king content with what he possesses is preserved for a very long time.
3. It now remains for me to explain the preservative causes of tyranny. I indeed do so unwillingly, but, in imitation of the Philosopher, I aver I shall do this with the intention that the scorpion’s young may seem to have been strangled as soon as they were hatched. For I know that the plagues and boils of the Plague cannot be lanced without risk. For, as a pestilent pus and contagious vapor flows from those, wherewith the vital spirits are infected, so when this wound (none graver in the commonwealth) is laid bare, I fear lest dangerous men take this fetid vapor into their heart along with the air they breathe. But to the business. There are two means of preserving tyranny, one of which is cruel and Persian, the other sophistic and filled with dissimulation: the former works by murder, blood and oppression, the latter by fraud, hypocrisy and perfidy; the former brings on lions and cannibals in Act I, Scene i, but the other hides the sword beneath the robe, the lightning beneath the cloud; in the former cruel feasts take place with no limit to crime, in the latter they occur under a show of virtue; the former exists only among barbarians, but (oh the sorrow!) the latter among Christians. For nowadays kingdoms are not reckoned to be safe unless gangs of foxes set the people’s crop and harvest afire with their torches. Phalaris, Nero, Periander, and raging Hercules lament their fates in the first tragedy, as do Mithridates, Tigranes, Caesar, and countless others in the second. The first tragedy, which belongs to barbarians, contains thirteen Furies, fierce and wild, whose horrible and accursed words, in imitation of the Philosopher, I shall recite here in their number and order.
4. The first of these, all fiery as if coming into the theater straight from Hell, announces this law: Noble and wise men are to have their heads lopped off, like the taller poppies. For the dead do not bite, buried powers work no harm, the powerful do not harm when oppressed. So if cedars grow to be lofty, let them be hewn down, for the longer the live the more harm they will do. But see what you are doing. For just as a building collapses when its pillars are removed, thus government falls with its nobles exterminated. The second of these dark sisters is a trifle milder, albeit violent, for she speaks thus: Fraternities and banquets are to be wholly forbidden in the commonwealth. And why so? Surely lest concord among citizens, which is inimical to tyranny, be nourished in this way. But beware, for without concord neither a house nor a commonwealth can long endure. The third Megaera is wilder, having conceived a deadly hatred of Minerva, and she casts bolts of lightning against the citadels of the Muses. Let the schools be destroyed, she says, let the Muses be destroyed. Let honorable education, discipline and wisdom be destroyed. Let Athens be destroyed, in which the manners of young men are rendered effeminate: their strength is broken, futile questions are raised, new fantasies about goat’s wool are discussed, great monstrosities of very trifling opinions are minted about God, about the Faith, about the commonwealth. Is that what you say, you horrible witch? You want to destroy the schools? You want to destroy the Muses? You want to destroy our sacred houses and Arts? I cannot suffer your frightfulness with patience, and although you wear the head of a Medusa, I shall not cease speaking against you and your deadly utterance.
5. So let this be our question, whether it is right for kings to destroy universities and forbid schools of the Arts. You say they may, but I say that it is not fitting, and prove it thus by points. Universities and Arts are wisdom’s lights and fountains, from which the splendor and savor of virtues flow to all parts of the republic, and therefore it will not be permitted to destroy them. The antecedent is agreed, since the universities are, as it were, the Muses’ heavenly orbs, and the Arts the stars fixed therein. But unless the orbs have their motion, the stars their light, what life will there be in things, what influence? Furthermore, what the eyes are in the body, so the universities and the Arts are in the commonwealth, it is not permitted to gouge out the eyes, therefore it will not be permitted to do away with universities and the Arts. The proposition is obvious since, just as the eyes illuminate all the members of the body, so universities shed light on all the parts of the republic. The assumption is proven, since, just as nature forbids us to rip out the eyes, so justice forbids us to do away with Athens and the Muses. Next, to destroy universities is contrary to the law of nature and reason, therefore it is not permitted to destroy them. The antecedent is clear from this, that nature shuns confusion and reason shuns ignorance, yet, should universities and the Arts be taken away, these two things follow out of necessity. For what understanding of things can there be without art, what order without the gown, what administration of the commonwealth without learning and wisdom? Then too, one should not destroy the things which are honorable, good and necessary in the republic, universities and schools of the Arts are honorable, good, and necessary in the republic,therefore it is impermissible to destroy them. They are honorable because they breed true honor in the republic, they are good because they breed honesty of life, they are necessary because they breed order and amity among citizens. Add to this that kings should continually aim at the good and the preservation of the commonwealth, which they surely do not appear to do if they destroy universities. For what begets license of manners, confusion of affairs, the barbarity of the common people, and the tyranny of the prince more than the shipwreck and catastrophe of belles lettres? Also, savage tyrants do this thing, therefore it will not be permissible to just sovereigns. The antecedent is clear, since one upon a time butchers wholly obliterated Athens (the pride of all Greece, its star and its light): thus Julian, that murderous apostate, destroyed the Christians’ academies and enjoined silence on its professors of the Arts. Thus in Hungary and other notable parts of the world conquered by Mohammed, universities, schools and Arts lie oppressed by ferocity. For these monsters of cruelty understand that Pallas and tyranny, the love of art and the fury of Mars, the light of wisdom and ignorance, the pursuit of virtue and the loathing of the commonwealth cannot coexist.
6. Here many another argument offers itself by which this case could be defended, but it would be endless to write all that I could wish about such a great matter. Yet I shall add a few things, if I be not troublesome, namely arguments from time, from testimony, and from an example. From time, since all ages of men have given their approval to universities and the Arts, therefore it is impermissible to abolish them. It cannot be doubted concerning the antecedent, since it is agreed (if the histories are to be trusted) that since the time of the Flood all the sciences have been engraved on columns of stone for posterity. It is agreed that God has given the sun, the moon and the other lights of heaven as signs of the times. Therefore it is probable that Man’s first age honored astronomy. It is agreed that Adam’s son Tubal invented music. It is agreed that the Chaldees were most learned in every art, which would not have been possible had they not learned the Arts from their ancestors. It would be superfluous to review other ages of the world in their order, so I shall say nothing here about Moses and the other governors of the children of Israel, who were imbued with every science of the Chalices and the Egyptians. I shall say nothing here of Samuel and the other prophets who had their colleges and universities at Raham and Gilead. I shall say nothing here about Paul, who, by often disputing in the school of a certain philosopher named Tyrannus, appearsto have approved the venerable name of university at Athens, not to have held it in contempt. I shall say nothing of Constantine, Theodosius and other august emperors who did so much propagate schools, colleges, and universities for their magnificent construction of Christ’s church. I shall say nothing of our right blessed founders, who in England (that fortunate island) erected two of the noblest academies in the world, Oxford and Cambridge, in which learned and wise men shine shine not unlike stars (as the Prophet says), and shed their rays into all the world’s climes and regions. Christ grant that they shine forever and, oh Christ, never suffer an eclipse. Grant, I pray, oh Savior of all, that in them this saying is not heard, let the schools be destroyed, let the universities be destroys. For our benefit spare Elizabeth, who favors them, spare their patrons, who cherish them beneath their wings, raise up many a Wykeham, a Waynflete, a White, who may enhance these places to the glory of Your name. They are consecrated to You, oh God, do not let them fail. Drive away the vultures, drive away the wolves, if any there be, and do not let them fail.
7. In silence I now pass over reasons drawn from testimony and example, for so far (thanks be to God) universities flourish all over, the geniuses of right learned men survive, the monuments of our ancestors speak this thing plainly and openly, histories and annals are full of their praises, which no malice will erase, no age will dissemble. If you require express testimonials and examples, read Heldeberg, who writes of the world’s individual oracles and universities. But I am striving for brevity, otherwise here I could urge that nothing produces barbarism, violence, perfidy, loose living, heresy, atheism, and the confusion of all things more than does the failure of schools and universities. If princes wish to be just, safe, pious and religious, they should favor rather than destroy, preserve rather than overthrow universities, in which are reside the splendor of the king, the honor of the commonwealth, the love of virtue, the savor and influence of all good things. Therefore that saying is pernicious and flatly tyrannical, let the schools be destroyed, let the universities be destroyed. Rather, let this be our oracle, Long live the schools, long live Athens, the Arts and Sciences, which are beams of divine wisdom, may they live forever to the glory of the blessed Trinity. Pious is he who gives his assent, wicked is he who does not shout out his Amen.
8. Other shades of the Fury follow that Megaera, therefore I continue in accordance with the order in which I began. The fourth Fury is envious and malicious, who urges that by fraud and art citizens be made strangers to, and suspicious of, each other. For acquaintance and familiarity beget trust and benevolence, in which is discerned the ruin of tyranny. But mark you, government gained by amity is sounder than government gained by force. Now a fifth Fury enters the theater, masked and (as it seems) foresightful: she bids that in all commonwealths every man returning from market and passing by the gates of the king or leading man should salute him. For in this way (she says) citizens will learn to be servile and fawning. But hear me, fear and servitude are bad gatekeepers of the commonwealth. The sixth is sly and shrewd but, as is she is deemed wise, she prescribes that in each and every place whisperers and spies be established to find out princes’ arcane things abroad and citizens’ secrets at home, and report and related them to their tyrants. But pray think to yourself how wretched it should be to govern in this manner. But I shall say more of this matter in this chapter’s doubtful question. The seventh is furious, and she wants slanders, suits and discords to be sown among the citizens. But think what future administration will be like, if pestilential sedition is nourished under the ashes. The eighth rails against paupers, and bids that the common people be insidiously reduced to the extremity of misfortune and unhappiness. Otherwise, she says, because of leisure and an inflow of good things they will tend to lofty thoughts. Hence Egypt’s pyramids, hence the columns of the Cypselids, hence the building-work at Olympus, hence the works of Polycrates on Samos were devised, all of which made for the rout of leisure time and the impoverishment of the commons. To this can also be referred those works of charity, the inordinate taxes levied on subjects, but that man said rightly, The treasury of princes lies in the money-boxes of his subjects. In a hideous voice the other accursed shades of that bevy screech in this manner: Let wars be undertaken, says the ninth, just or unjust, lest the citizenry delight in leisure and the enemy wax proud. You should have no consideration for your friends, says the tenth. It behooves you to allow every indulgence to your wives and your slaves, says the eleventh. Let flatters, assassins and rakehells be admitted to the tyrant’s side, says the twelfth; for these men say everything with an eye to gratification, since they are prepared for every crime, educated for every manner of loose living. The twelfth says, Let aliens rather than citizens be chosen for the tyrant’s banquets and friendship. But oh the unhappy republic in which reign Mars, mistrust, wantonness, servitude, flattery and the dissolution of morals! Many are these Furies whom tyrants employ in destroying the forms of republics. Yet their slogans can be reduced and recalled to two headings, or rather two secrets of tyrannical shrewdness. For tyrants do and attempt this to deprive their citizens both of the will and the power to enter into conspiracies. The former comes about because of citizens’ cowardice and mistrust, the latter by their deprivation of money, arms and protection. Cowardice and mistrust are engendered in their minds if they are preoccupied by novel trash, great in appearance, but in truth concerned only with goat’s wool; if precaution has been taken that they do not entertain loftier aspirations, if by means of noblemen’s tragedies they be reduced to a narrow, oppressed state of mind. Their other faculty, namely that of entering into conspiracies comes to be taken away if their weapons, wealth, and other necessary helps to life are removed by some pretext of virtue or another. Hence they are rendered helpless and weak, but what strength and vigor does the body have when its members are wasting away? What dignity is possessed by that commonwealth in which good citizens go without powers and their weaponry?
9. These things pertain to the first method, namely the Persian way of preserving tyranny. Now it follows that I discourse about the second, namely the sophistic and feigned. But this occurs when the tyrant apes royal majesty, not as a lion, but as a fox and a shape-shifter, and pretends to do only those things which befit the personage of a Caesar. Concerning this, nine precepts are adduced, which I shall only enumerate, for I fear lest princes grow to be too adept at them. The first, therefore, is that the prince appear to be the father of his country, and solicitously to take upon himself the care for all things. But (as the Philosopher teaches) this occurs if he does not squander the goods acquired by the people’s sweat upon whores, aliens and artisans crime, save only in secret; if from time to time he submit a fiscal accounting, if he often talk about his favor towards the people and his pursuit of virtue. The second is that he demand tributes, subsidies, and other exactions only for necessary administrative purposes, for example for war or the redemption of captives. The third, that he must appear grave but not severe, venerable but not formidable, simple but not shrewd, politic but not feeble-minded, magnificent but not of hangdog spirit. The fourth is that he harm no man save under a show of devotion to God or because of an injury inflicted on the nation. The fifth is that he openly possess only a single wife, now matter how many whores and sluts he may maintain in private. For often (as has been shown above) many tyrannies have been extinguished because of the turpitude of the tyrant’s life, such as Tarquin, Heliogabalus, Appius Claudius, and six hundred others who observed no limit in the enjoyment of their pleasures. The seventh us that the tyrant must feign a singular piety towards God and profound religiosity, for (as the Philosopher says) in this way his subjects, convinced of their prince’s piety, fear less for themselves and plot against a man they fancy to be helped by God. The eighth is that some men deserving well of the republic should be given pubic honors, albeit sophistically, and that others should be punished severely. The last is that when noblemen are executed under the pretext and show of treason their income should be granted to their descendants, lest it seem that savagery rather than the severity of justice has been dealt out. The gist of all of these is that the tyrant must appear to be a king, a father of his nation, a tutor of the commonwealth, a patron of justice, a light of life, a pillar of reason. But, good Christ, what are these precepts! What coverings and mists for crimes! Is this what it is to live? To feign faith, religion, piety towards God and country? If this is allowed, what is forbidden? I therefore pray God that it never be permitted to Machiavelli and other bogus statesmen to read these things, to place and carry them in their eyes, minds, and hands.

THE DISTINCTION OF THE QUESTION

10. OBJECTION Machiavelli took the cardinal points of his precepts concerning the prince from this Book, therefore in justice he cannot be wounded, unless (as they say) Aristotle is killed by the same sword.
RESPONSE Machiavelli had one purpose, but Aristotle another. For the one applied these causes to monarchy, but the other to tyranny, since very wisely the Philosopher disclosed these secrets in this way, but Machiavelli set forth these blemishes of life and administration as if they were laws governing kingship and the king.
OBJECTION In this context the Philosopher criticizes some things which he previously approved, therefore he now discourses unadvisedly about these matters. The antecedent is clear, since he previously taught that it was permissible for magistrates to use sophistries in deceiving the people, and he seems to me to place all the means of preserving tyranny in this sophistic precept.
RESPONSE The intention of the good magistrate is one thing, that of the tyrant another. The former employs sophistries, and sometimes deceives citizens, but he tends towards the common good. But the latter uses tricks and contrivances, but he is consulting for his own interest, not that of the commonwealth.
OBJECTION To admit foreigners to the market place, to reduce the people to poverty, fear and cowardice, to undertake wars with neighboring nations so that all might be safe at home, to exact tribute under the pretext of economic need, and the other means of tyranny preserve monarchy, and so are unjustly condemned in this context. The antecedent is proven, since the law of nations requires that all over the world market and church be open to foreigners. Nature bids us repel force with force, and prudence demands that the people be deterred from faction by fear, from sedition by taxation.
RESPONSE In a certain respect, all the things you allege can be tolerated in a correct administration of the republic, but not if they are advanced in that spirit which they are in tyranny. For it is permissible to open the market to foreigners, but not for enticement. It is permissible to reduce the people to want and fear, not that it might be oppressed, but that it might better be contained in its office, and only when it it waxes proud, stubborn and factious.

OPPOSITIONS AGAINST THE QUESTION

11. OBJECTION Universities have been founded exclusively for the idle contemplation of things, which does not profit the republic, therefore it will be permissible for kings to abolish them. The antecedent is proven, since a university is nothing else but a great school in which we speculate about the Arts. Hence courtiers rather than academicians are fit for the commonwealth, for the character of the former is active, whereas in the latter there is, as it were, a certain lazy and useless entombment of studies. For the former dispute by acting, but these latter only contend among themselves with words and, as it were, in a dream, about matters of small moment, for how do noun and verb, genus and species, trope and scheme, unity and line, gnomon and lyre, nay, that I may speak more highly, how do sphere and star, how do matter and form benefit the commonwealth? These are mysteries about which Platonics, Academics, and the sons of Aristotle discourse in the schools.
RESPONSE There’s motion in yours words, but no weight in your things. For it is silly that you should say that academics are destined only for idle contemplation, since in them is found practical wits, and stars shine from their actions, like their kindred stars from their spheres. Noun and very, genus and species benefit the republic, for in them are the roots and the powers of art and reason.
OBJECTION Sometime it comes about that when academics are infected by heresy, the republic in which they exist suffers from the same infection. Thus if the contagion cannot otherwise be stifled, it will be permissible to remove and eradicate them. For it is better to amputate the corrupt parts than draw the entire body into danger. Unless I am mistaken, Scripture confirms this, in which it is agreed that, in accordance with the Lord’s command, the college of Baal’s priests and lying seers was wholly demolished by His prophets. Furthermore, commonwealths are often uprooted and destroyed for their conspiracy against God, whose worship should be the supreme and singular care for all princes and emperors, for that saying is true, kings rule thanks to Me.
RESPONSE Just as the drowning of a man is no reason why water should be destroyed, and the burning of a house is no reason why fire should be abolished, thus universities are not to be wholly demolished because of an infection of error. As to what you urge from a supposition, namely that if the contagion cannot otherwise be destroyed, I reply that from falsity can come nothing but the false, and that supposition is false. For it is possible that that contagion can be removed by medicine, not bloodletting. Furthermore, this reasoning contains a fallacy (as some men call it) from a secondary consideration to a simple, for even if in this case it should be permissible, it does not follow that it is simply permissible. What you add about it being better that the infected part perish rather than the whole, this is true, as long as the part is not a primary one in which reside the life and soul of the whole, such as is the university of which we are now speaking. Next, examples from scripture do not always constitute a law. Finally, your final reasoning contains an unfair comparison between the king and God, for God seeks conversion rather than confusion, but if this contagion of yours has spread so far that it cannot be cured by medicine, some maintain that there is no juster cause for abolishing universities than impious conspiracy against God and religion. But, with all due respect to these gentleman, I shall say that men commit sin, not walls, not incomes, not taxes. Therefore the authors of evil are to be removed, not their places. For when they have been removed, let other better men replace them. But if these are removed, no hope remains.

THE CHAPTER’S DOUBTFUL QUESTIONS
Should it be permissible to plant spies and listeners everywhere?
Should free speech regarding kings be permitted to all men?

12. Do you live thus, Hero, that you fear your citizens’ talk and their rumors? If you conduct yourself properly there is no reason you should be afraid; but if you do so badly, it certainly is unjust to plant your spies in the commonwealth’s corners. Indeed it is Persian, barbaric and tyrannical to place agents and listeners everywhere, to cock an ear to everything done and said, to insinuate themselves slyly into every meeting and gathering of men, to maliciously set traps against the life and fortunes of citizens. Who is safe, if such rascals live in the commonwealth? Who is free, if magistrates nurse such scorpions? The worst part of servitude is to be subordinated to slaves. And to nurse butchers in our household, at our table, in our bosom is an intolerable yoke of servitude. I prove this thing with points. It is the mark of tyrants (as the Philosopher teaches here) to maintain spies and (if it is allowed to coin a word) intelligencers. Therefore it will not be permitted kings (the opposite of tyrants in all things) to support such men. The antecedent is self-evident in the text, where among the preservative causes of tyranny Aristotle lists this one thing, that there should be listeners of this ilk to note the sayings and doings of citizens, and to report and denounce these to tyrants. This, he says, was satisfactory at Syracuse, this that savage tyrant Hiero did. The conclusion of this argument follows and rightly coheres from contradictories. For what things are more contrary than the king and the tyrant, than barbaric oppression and the civil and free government of men? Furthermore, when war is running riot, it is permissible to have such men; therefore when peace flourishes, it is not. Furthermore, this engenders servile fear in subjects’ minds, and so often fans sedition’s flames. Kings should avoid these two things, namely servile fear and the hostile movement of sedition, therefore it will not be permissible for kings to do this. Next, a king should not be suspicious of his citizens, therefore it impermissible to appoint and plant foxes of that kind among them. Then too, doing this is contrary to the freedom of nature, contrary to the dignity of the commonwealth, it lacks the example of good men, and it is contrary to the law of charity, and so it impermissible, since spies exist among citizens like cankers among roses, wolves among sheep. But liberty, the honor of the commonwealth, and the law of love and charity refuse this thing. Finally, it it is better to have open enemies than false friends within the republic, and if these furtive agents are pleasant falsifiers who carry the hook and the poison underneath the bait, there is nobody who does not see that it is highly unjust and dangerous to tolerate such men in the republic. Here it is to be appreciated that we sometimes admit the employment of poison among the wholesome medicines. Therefore, just as mithridaticum comes from the flesh of vipers, so within the commonwealth a useful help sometimes grows from these snakelike spies. But here a distinction of the times in which these hyenas emerge from their caves and lairs is to be observed. Some statesmen of our times prescribe two times, namely when a vehement suspicion of internal sedition exists, or when an external enemy invades. To this they add that this kind of sophistry is useful if it is employed secretly and covertly against neighboring nations. Scripture approves of spies and agents in wartime, and the prudence of the Spartans (who often sent such little foxes against Athens) approved them in antiquity. Here I shall say nothing of the practice of our time; it is just, if it has a just reason, but unjust if it only wears a show and mask of virtue.
13. Another doubt is related and akin to this one, namely is the liberty of saying whatever we wish about kings to be permitted? The words of the text are these: For then (says the philosopher, he means when these spies are flitting about the marketplace) men are less daring in their use of free speech, indeed if they do speak out they will be less hidden. You were a very secure king, Antigone, when you went about knocking on the doors of men who spoke ill of you, saying Beware lest the king hear you. Bad thoughts and imaginings against a king are intolerable, let alone bad speech. If the freedom of thinking evil of the king is to be denied citizens, the freedom of speaking ill of him will be much more forbidden. Furthermore the king is the sacred person of the entire commonwealth, whose hand grasps life and death. There should therefore be no freedom of speaking against the king. For if it should exist, confusion would of necessity follow. So let the farmer talk, but of nothing above his plow. Let the soldier talk, but of nothing above his spear. Let citizens talk, but of nothing above their station. But they will not speak freely of the king, for that liberty begets the prince’s wrath, and the wrath of a prince begets death and destruction. Wicked Semei, why assail David’s name with your evil tongue? Do you not remember that a king is appointed by God? So whatever you speak against David you are speaking against divine providence, for it is God Who has made kings, and it is by His means that kings rule. Those boys who slandered the prophet were killed by most savage bears. Therefore beware what you say against the king, for you will not commit slander without suffering revenge. For if punishment is to be pronounced on him who visits an injury on a fellow-citizen and a companion, how great a chastisement is due to him who has wounded his king by freedom of speech? The Romans, the Macedonians, the Spartans and other nations used to account this vice of the tongue among the crimes of treason, and prosecuted with no less severity than treason’s other forms. This frowardness in speaking about kings is therefore to be abolished. The children of Israel only muttered against Moses their leader and Aaron their priest, but the leaders of that rebellion and there accomplices (terrible to say) went down to Hell alive. Tell me, what health would be there be in the body, if the parts opposed themselves to the head? And the king is the head of the whole commonwealth, and citizens are its parts. Therefore this liberty of speaking ill of kings is not to be indulged. Finally, a king is a father, and it is not permitted to speak ill of a father, therefore neither is it of a king. I thus conclude that in a well-regulated commonwealth this freedom of speech concerning kings is not to be tolerated.

AN OBJECTION TO THE FIRST QUESTION

14. OBJECTION The conspiracies of traitors are often detected by means of spies and agents and are baffled,being foreseen. These men are therefore to be tolerated in the commonwealth. Furthermore, accusers of bad men are to be approved in the commonwealth, spies are accusers of bad men, therefore spies are also to be approved in the commonwealth. Finally, in particular subject places the Romans had their spies. If, therefore, it was permissible for them to maintain those men, why will it not be permissible for us too?
RESPONSE The detection and denunciation of bad man occurs in two ways, either openly in the name of justice, and thus they ought to be approved in the republic, or furtively and not without the cunning and malice of the accusers, and thus they ought not to be tolerated. So, although conspiracies and evils are often foreseen and baffled by means of spies, men of this ilk are not to be permitted, since they come to their accusations with the intention of shedding blood, not accomplishing justice. But only that should occur in the commonwealth which can be said to occur with order and justice. But to entice citizens and set traps against their lives is neither humane, just, nor decorous. So let there be accusers in the commonwealth, if it please you, but known men. Let there be spies, but just men. For otherwise the name of accuser is hateful. The Romans indeed had their spies, but only in times of war and sedition.

AN OBJECTION TO THE SECOND QUESTION

15. OBJECTION Freedom of speech granted to citizens renders kings more careful and better, it is therefore to be approved. The antecedent is proven, since, when kings are aware of what the entire commonwealth thinks of them, they are overcome by a kind of shame, and, like King Philip of Macedon, will begin to remember their mortality. Furthermore, the Roman people possessed this freedom, who often hit at their emperors not only with words but also with posted libels. This too also happened, that Nathan, who accused David of adultery, Elijah, who accused Ahab of idolatry, and John, who accused Herod of incest, are greatly lauded in Scripture, which they indeed would not have not have done, were freedom of speech not tolerated in citizens.
RESPONSE As wounded lions grow savage, not mild, so kings stained by the blot of reproach do not improve, but often grow worse. Your antecedent proposition is therefore not absolutely true, nor is its confirmation. I reply to the other part of the argument that this liberty did not flourish among the Romans. For although it is read that many consuls and emperors felt the frowardness and fury of the tribunes, we never discover that this liberty of speech was conceded the people. The final part of your reasoning proves nothing against the proposition, for prophets and priests are God’s ambassadors, having it in their mandate that they man denounce the crimes of the highest, the middling, and the most base without any fear, but that they should be fearless in such a way that prudence is not wanting in their denunciation, as is clearly evident in the present example of Nathan.

Chapter xii

Is there a fixed and fatal period of time appointed for kingdoms?

T was opportune, when previously disputing about the causes of tyranny’s overthrow, that I showed that the constitution of tyranny is most subject to fortune’s alterations, and that it cannot long endure. Now at the beginning of this chapter Aristotle demonstrates the same by four examples, which, in my opinion, illustrate the causes of tyranny’s preservation, rather than of its destruction. In the first it is shown why the tyranny of Ortagoras and his sons at Sicyon lasted for an entire century. For in many respects they were popular, and often seemed just. For one of them, Cleisthenes, is said to have bestowed a crown in life upon a man who had disqualified him from a victory, and to have honored him with a statue after his death. They also say that when Peisistratus was summoned to a trial at the Areopagus, he not unwillingly submitted to the sentence of the judge. In these ways those men made their government more long-lasting, perhaps cleverly putting up with lighter injuries so that afterwards they could themselves cruelly inflict greater ones. Next most long-lived was the tyranny of the Cypselids at Corinth, which also remained sound for a long time. For Cypselus himself governed as a tyrant for thirty years, Periander for forty-four, and Psammeticus the son of Gordias for three years and some months. The third example is that of the Peisitratids, who, together with Peisistratus their father, cruelly oppressed the people at Athens for thirty-seven years. The final example is that of Hiero, Gelo and Thrasybulus, who only raged at Syracuse for twelve years. Therefore the longest-lived tyrants were those at Sicyon, those at Corinth less so, the Athenians a little more briefly, but the Syracusans for the shortest time of all.
2. With these things set forth, the Philosopher comes to the second part of the chapter, in which, after his fashion, he criticizes Plato, who used numbers to ascribe a fixed and predetermined alteration for republics. Thence arises the question I am now treating, whether there is a definite period of republics. Bodinus, that most erudite man of our age, philosophizing excellently, has these words in his book On Method : Indeed it strikes me as absurd that Plato measures the downfalls and vicissitudes of republics by the power of numbers exclusively. For although immortal God has wondrously bound everything together by power, numbers, order and measure, yet this is not to be attributed to the powers of the humors, far less to fate, but to His divine majesty, which itself is destiny (as Augustine writes), or else nothing at all exists. Therefore, since Aristotle attributed everything to consequent causes, he lampooned Plato’s numbers in Book V of The Republic, and nothing else in his entire disputation seems to me to be handled better or more accurately. So much for him, whose words I have rather liberally inserted, since I would ardently wish that the tricksters and magicians of our times would understand their wisdom aims too high in their divinations and dire forecasts for republic, since some of them strive to assign the declines of commonwealths to numbers, others to intelligences, others to the stars, and yet others to the motions and influences of the heavenly circles. Here I omit Copernicus, who dreamed that the sun stands without motion and the earth is sped along with movement, and that the alterations of republics arise from this motion. Yet nobody (if I may again use Bodinus’ words) is so ignorant as to imagine that any power can exert influence coming from the centers of heavenly circles, much less earthly ones.
3. But I leave these gentlemen and, as is my wont, prove my case with brief, concise arguments. Plato (that I may conceal nothing here) held the republic to be mortal, and posits as the cause of its demise a number, whose a root ratio of four to three, conjoined to five, produces two harmonies. He says that when this number becomes a solid, nature gives birth to brass and iron, that is, to bad men, when otherwise she produces gold and jewels, that is, to good men. You speak right obscurely, oh Plato. So tell me what you mean. Number exists in heaven’s motion. What motion do you mean? The motion of the sun. But since that is threefold, show me which one you have in mind. I mean the retrograde, which is perceived in the number and movement of the constellations. What about this number? What about this motion? I want the cube of twelve to be observed in the alteration of things. Still more clearly, please. I mean that within this motion a multiplication of twelve by twelve is conceived, and when these are multiplied they exactly produce the number 1728, which number great empires make up, such as that of the Assyrians from King Ninus down to Alexander. So you seem to be teaching that the number of solar years, which the sun completes by its retrograde motion through the signs of the Zodiac, are the cause of alteration, if twelve times twelve are multiplied by twelve? Why not? If you pursue this number of years, movements, and alterations so exactly, in which heaven’s changed face brings about a great old age for things, why do you not speak about the quintile cube, in which more or less every five hundred years heaven’s baleful aspect and a number of alteration is discerned? But I shall not press this further, for I know that you will dispute about the universal rather than the particular aspect of the sun and the number of its movement.
4. Now you will pardon me, distinguished philosopher, if together Aristotle, your disciple and my preceptor, I refute this doctrine. Number is a mathematical thing, therefore it cannot bring about the alteration of republics. The antecedent is regarded as true by the votes of all philosophers. The reasoning is clear: since mathematical things are abstract, abstract things cannot act upon the demise of existing things, therefore number cannot. But if you should say that number is understood numerically, which is nothing else than heaven’s numeric alteration, then indeed I urge that republics are orders of commonwealths, since they depend on the human mind and human will. Heaven imposes no period and no necessity upon the human mind and human will, therefore neither does it upon the republics that depend upon them. No philosopher entertains doubt about the major premise, since the definition of the republic is that it is an ordering of citizens proceeding from right reason (which is referred to the mind), and from justice (which is referred to will). The minor premise is agreed, since there is no mean between heaven and mind, between star and will. For heaven is a body, but mind and wills possess the substance of spirit. Furthermore, if the common dictum is true, the wise man masters the stars, and again, the stars incline us, but impose no necessity, I fail to see how Atlas himself can forecast fatal diseases, critical days, and deaths of republics so surely and definitely. Also, in my opinion to impose a definite period of empires by number, movement, fate, or any other human and natural means, is to detract greatly from divine providence, and to break faith with God’s Word, since what else is this but to bind God by a fateful necessity to His means, and to call God’s prophets issuing predictions about the periods of kingdoms astrologers and philosophers, rather than heralds and messengers of inspired truth? Daniel dealt with the fall and number of empires. What? Shall we say that Daniel consulted the tomes of Ptolemy rather than God’s oracles? But there are those who dare assign this number of days and mystery of weeks in that prophet to heaven’s motions and the influence of the stars. Here another reason can be adduced from the minor premise, namely that a certain period cannot be defined for human life, therefore neither can it for the commonwealth. The antecedent is proven, since it is agreed that prior to the Flood a man could live to be nearly a thousand, but now we regard his sixty-third year as fatal and climacteric.
5. These things having been posited, I ask what the cause of such a great alteration will be. Heaven retains the same motion and number, and Man the same nature. Nay, if the period of human life should very definitely depend on heaven, why do twins born under the same star not have the same lot? Why to the countless men sometimes killed in a war not have diverse fortunes? Die we indeed must, but who knows the period of his life, the means and time of his death? If the alteration of human life (which in a certain way depends on heaven) cannot be certainly defined by anybody, who dares analytically define the period of the commonwealth (which has as its causes, not heaven, but mind and will)? Here I shall say nothing about the crimes and felonies of the people, which (as our sacred oracles testify) are the particular causes of overthrowing empires. What called down celestial sulfur and fire upon Sodom and Gomorra? A malign conjunction of stars and planets? Not at all. What then? Monstrous turpitude of life. What created a Flood of all the world? Monstrous turpitude of life. What laid waste to the Temple, what to Jerusalem? Certainly the people’s turpitude. God threatened Nineveh with a sad and fatal end: for what reason? The city’s turpitude. But you say that this is a moral cause, not a natural one such as is sought here. What? Does the heaven produce good men and bad? Does the heaven always turn empires into dust by its own virtue? Does an unlucky star rule when commonwealths fall? This is a dangerous doctrine, and it drags many men into a whirlpool of atheism. God indeed wants to use means, but He is not bound by times and means. Lastly, I would gladly learn whether these mages and diviners of times can illustrate the exact logic of this period with examples, and from their Sibylline leaves very precisely predict the year, the day, the hour of collapsing empires. Certain men take pride in the fact that the monarchy of the Assyrians filled 1728 years, and boast that a like number of years are reckoned from the waters of the Flood to the overthrow of the Temple and the republic of the Jews. What? Was it not a single year less than that? Or a single one more? But this is silly. Why do they not proved that the same amount of time was consumed by the empires of the Medes, the Persians, the Macedonians? Why do they not now circumscribe the Romans’ eagle by the same limits? It is indeed worthwhile to observe them, as it were, tumbling into a valley of fantasies. For some of them deny these were world empires, others wrangle over the number of years, other have doubts about heaven’s influence, and some mint novel explanations, but few (or rather none at all) put their fingers on the true ones. Possibly I am writing rater too much or too vehemently about this business, since today Furies are being conjured up from Hell, today the Sibyl’s songs about this marvelous year are being recited, today Lord knows what fatal news is reported out of Calabria, today strange, monstrous opinions about the stars’ frightful aspect are being broadcast everywhere. And yet I am not denying here (you students of politics) that heaven is threatening us with fearful things. But what I would hope is that n this old age of the universe we dread God, not a star, and that we pray Him that the sun stand still in mid-sky until Israel defeats its enemies, and indeed, if it please Him, that it move backwards a long space, so that Elizabeth may live long and happily for the advantage of England.
6. But here I shall break off my thread, and turn to an exposition of the remaining part of the text, in which the Philosopher first shows that Plato had no bad idea in thinking that the heaven instills golden and iron (that is, good and bad) morals in men. For, he says, some are readily schooled to virtue, whereas others can be cured by no education, that is, that they become good and earnest men with difficulty. But he erred in this, that he discovered only a single cause of alteration, one that is common and false, as Aristotle shows by the example of a thing that has arisen and been changed. The second thing he criticizes in Plato is that he first posits the best form of the republic he describes changing into the power of the few, next into the popular state, and finally into tyranny. The Philosopher says this is untrue, since republics are more frequently transformed into their opposites than into adjacent forms. In the third place he reproaches Plato, since he failed to specify the form into which tyranny is transformed. Plato did this (as Aristotle says) since he believe that tyranny is so immutable that it is not easy to pronounce into what form it is changed, unless perhaps Plato meant that it is recalled into that best form which he invented. But (he says) tyranny is often changed into tyranny, as among the Sicyonians; often into the power of the few, such as Antileon gained at Sicyon, and Gelo at Syracuse; now into aristocracy, as at Carthage. The remaining examples in the text are clear. In the forth place, he criticizes Plato for his understanding that the cause of changing the republic in the power of few is excessive desire and greed for money, when the beginning-point of this transmutation is when the wealthy think it wholly unfair that those who possess nothing are made their equals in participation in honor. In the fifth place, he argues against that belief in Plato where he teaches that two commonwealths are comprehended in oligarchy, since it is agreed that oligarchy consists of a mixture of rich and poor. This, says the philosopher, is impossible, inasmuch as this constitution can be transformed into another (such as into a popular constitution) with no diminution of property. His final conclusion against Plato is that he only established a moral cause for the decline of a republic, namely the squandering of family property and wealth, as if everybody (or at least most people) were originally wealthy. Thus other causes are to be assigned besides this one, as I have myself have done: for example, ambition for honor, injury, insult, hatred, overindulgence, license of morals, and many things similar to this, which, as I have shown above, produce horrible alterations and movements in the commonwealth, even if no loss of property or family inheritances has occurred. In this I have exerted myself that none of the things contained in the Philosopher’s work are omitted. I trust I have compounded wholesome remedies. If you have gotten a taste of poison, it is only a fume, not the vapor. For to the best of my powers I have eradicated and moderated its powers. I say this because in the arguments about preserving tyranny many things have perhaps offended your ears, but I wish you to understand that I have only reported all things in all of my discussions to the glory of God and of His Church.

THE DISTINCTION OF THE QUESTION

7. OBJECTION There is a natural origin of the commonwealth, therefore a fatal period also exists for it. The antecedent is proven at Politics I.iii, where Aristotle shows that the commonwealth is derived from nature. The reasoning is clear from the definition of fate, which is nothing other than a necessary connection of things produced by nature, and their certain and inevitable decline in things growing old.
RESPONSE This definition of fate has force in things simply and absolutely natural, such as the commonwealth is not, for it depends not just on nature (with respect to its material) but also on the human mind and human will (with respect to its form). Furthermore, in this context we are not discussing physical fate and the relation of causes, but of Stoic and mathematical fate, which is defined by number and the motion, aspect and influence of the stars.
OBJECTION All transitory and mortal things have their fatal period in accordance with divine providence, republics are transitory and mortal, therefore republics have their fatal period in accordance with divine providence. The major premise is agreed, since God has bound all things by numbers, order and measure, and has appointed a fixed duration of time. The minor is confirmed by induction from all the republics which once flourished and now lie entombed in oblivion.
RESPONSE All these things can be conceded, for I are not asking whether there is a period of republics in accordance with God’s providence, but whether there is an ultimate and defined fate for the commonwealth in accordance with heaven’s influence, and whether the same is most assuredly known to men, which I deny.
OBJECTION Since God wants republics and empires to fall in accordance with providence, He employs certain and definite natural causes, certain and definite causes are known to men, therefore since God wants republics to fall in accordance with providence, this is known to men. Which being conceded, I do not see why a certain period occurring by intermediate causes (which God employs in His providence) cannot be demonstrated with certainty. The major premise of this syllogism is proven by its minor, since when God wanted to add fifteen years to Ezechiel’s age, he recalled the sun ten degrees in its course. When He wanted to conquer in battle, He bade the sun stand still in mid-heaven. When He wanted the death of His son to be conspicuous to all men, He created a miraculous eclipse, and when the famous philosopher Dionysius saw this he was compelled to say, Either God is suffering or all the world’s machinery is being torn apart. By a star He guided the Magi, by a comet He warned Jerusalem. Why say more? He employs intermediate causes in executing His justice, and He has granted mortals the understanding of intermediate causes. And since they are endowed with these, why should they be ignorant of the periods of mortal republics?
RESPONSE Nature’s means can be considered in two ways, either according to their proper force, motion and order, and thus God has conceded mortals the understanding of them, or according to God’s providence, which employs nature’s means according to its will, and thus He has not granted mortals the understanding of them, as is clear in all of the examples cited, in which it is proven that God employs these causes in means contrary to their proper force, motion and order. But you ask why, since these means are disposed according to their proper force, motion and order, man cannot forecast according to the same period of republics. As above, I reply that this is because the republic is not simply a work of nature, but also of mind. But these means do not have the power of changing a work of the mind, unless (as the philosophers say) in consequence and by accident.
OBJECTION From the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt to the reign of Solomon took five hundred years, then to the Babylonian exile took 560. From the return to the final destruction took 500. Why say more? As Joachim says, it has been observed that a wonderful and fatal alteration has occurred at about this time in every notable commonwealth. There therefore appears to be a certain period of the commonwealth. For, as a man has a climacteric at age 63, so the 500th year is perilous for the commonwealth.
RESPONSE This induction is lame and mutilated, nor does it warrant a universal conclusion. For a thousand example of republics can be adduced which experienced no movement of failure during that year. I nonetheless acknowledge that this observation is not with its use regarding the quinctile cube, in which heaven’s retrograde motion contains the extreme risk of a fearful aspect. And yet I maintain that this is not the fatal cause of a period. For, just as a man does not always die in his climacteric year, so republics are not necessarily altered at that age.

THE CHAPTER’S DOUBTFUL QUESTIONS
Is any account of heaven’s influence to be taken in a good administration of the republic?
Is it the alteration of republics into their adjacent forms easier than into extremely different one?

9. Even though I have just argued against that doctrine of the Platonists and Stoics concerning the fatal number and period of republics, when it comes to administering the republic. I am not so minded as not to attribute a great deal to the powers of nature and heaven. For if the mind’s traits follow upon the temperament of the body, as the physicians teach, if this lower orb of the university is conjoined to the higher, as do the philosophers, I dare not deny that the power of heaven has a great, or rather a wonderful power for swaying men’s manners and emotions, and also of altering the forms and constitutions of republics. So although I deny that a period of commonwealths can be demonstrated with certitude and precision by means of numbers, motions, or the powers of the heaven, I still regard that man as unworthy of the title of magistrate who neglects all the science of heavenly influence, who is ignorant of the rising and setting of the planets and constellations, who does not seriously and diligently consider the powers of climates over individual nations, and especially of that in which he lives. For who is worthy of the title of magistrate who does not understand the innate qualities of his place, the manners of this is people, the temperament of his air, the parts and alterations of the year? But all of these depend on heaven’s influence, since individual nations take their impulses, their manners, their powers from the power of heaven. Hence the Scythians are said to be warlike, the Spaniards clever, the Phoenicians fickle, the Greeks liars, the Egyptians untrustworthy and superstitious. Furthermore, a necessary impression of this influence affects individual men born beneath heaven, therefore this is far truer regarding great nations. The antecedent is proven, since who denies that men born under Jupiter are great-minded, under Mars belligerent, under the moon soft, under Mercury docile and inconstant? So if the affections of the individual are infused by heaven’s power, how much do the manners of places flow from heaven? If the magistrate wholly neglects the science of these things, he cannot rightly preside over the commonwealth. Then too, if heaven has no power in shaping our manners, tell me why men of the north are warlike. Why are men of the south clever? Why are islanders shrewd and canny? It is certain that the roots of their manners flow from the rays of the stars. Therefore if the magistrate wishes to administer well, it does not behoove him to scorn the science of climates. Finally, since the magistrate is called a father, a shepherd and a physician by the Philosopher, he indeed should regard the manners of his citizens, like a father; the powers of times and places, like a shepherd; the infirmities of bodies and aspects of the stars, like a physician. But he cannot do this properly if he does not apply the science of heaven’s influence to governing well. The science of heaven’s influence is therefore to be brought bear in good administration of the republic.
10. A second doubt follows, namely whether the alteration of the republic into an adjacent form is easier than its alteration into its opposite. Here Plato maintains that it more easily passes into an adjacent form, Aristotle that it more easily passes into its opposite. The matter is settled in a word: for, as Thomas says, the republic changes into another in one of two ways, either gradually, and thus it is easier changed into an adjacent form, or rapidly or violently, and this more easily into its opposite. For as it migrates into another form gradually and step by step, it is probable that it should have certain slips and slides through middling phases. For as elements having something in common are more quickly transmuted into each other, so do republics when associated by a bond of affinity. Hence certain men agree with Plato, as it says in the text, that the simply best republic turns into aristocracy, and this into the power of the few, the power of the few into the popular constitution, and finally the popular constitution into tyranny. But Aristotle, setting himself against this, teaches the contrary. For he opines that there are no intermediate phases of transformation between republics, as there are between elements and vices, since he says that kingship is more frequently transformed into tyranny, aristocracy into the power of the few, parliamentary democracy into the fury of the multitude, without any middle step. And indeed what the Philosopher says is true, for a king can become a tyrant, optimates may turn factious, and (as they say) proximately and immediately, at that. But if mixed forms of the republic are compared with simple, between which there exists a certain contradiction, a slip does not occur without due measure, a fall does not occur without a middling step. For example, Roman monarchy, which belonged to kings, fell by passing through aristocracy, which belonged to consuls, into a seditious power of the people, which belonged to tribunes. Hence some men gather there is a cycle and circle of republics, for once upon a time at the dawning of the world men were compelled by force of reason to establish men as petty kings, whence arose kingship. But when these men, puffed up by arrogance, transformed themselves into wolves, tyranny arose out of kingship. But when eagles and noble men could no longer tolerate the claws and oppressions of tyrants, tyranny flowed into aristocracy. But when optimates became vultures because of succession, aristocracy shifted over to oligarchy. But the multitude did not tolerate this yoke, and so launched an attack and seized the government, which is called democracy. The multitude, however, is a many-headed hydra, wherefore, lest everything be turned into anarchy, men were obliged to look backwards and betake themselves once more to an enthusiasm for kingship. Thus, as you see, kingships fall, thus great empires fall, thus passes the world’s glory, nothing under the sun is sound, nothing everlasting. Summer follows spring, winter follows summer, then the blossoming of springtime once more comes after winter. The year has its cycle, the universe its circle, in which commonwealths only endure for a point in time. But what is a point, if you consider heaven? Nothing. What is a kingdom, if you consider eternity? Nothing at all.

OBJECTIONS TO THE FIRST DOUBTFUL QUESTION

11. OBJECTION As proven above,the orders and manners of the commonwealth depend on the mind, not on heaven; on the law of education, not the inclination of some star. Therefore the science of climates is unnecessary for the good administration of the commonwealth.
RESPONSE The orders and manners of the commonwealth are considered in two ways, either primarily, and thus they depend on the mind and the law of education, or less primarily and (as they say) consequentially, and thus they depend on heaven and the inclination of some star. But since men follow nature’s impulse and heaven’s motion more than the will and government of reason, the science of climates is most necessary for the magistrate, so that from it he may better understand the method of education by means of the multitude’s inclination.
OBJECTION If the science of climates is sure with respect to men’s manners, why is it not sure with respect to the period of commonwealths, whose life consists entirely in men’s manners?
RESPONSE This question has already been satisfied in the distinction above, in which I have shown that human manners do not depend on heaven’s motion absolutely and primarily. Nevertheless there is a sure science of this inclination, for inclination follows nature, but education follows the power of reason.
OBJECTION The science of climates often deceives us, therefore it is unnecessary for the administration of the republic. The antecedent is proven, since, it being posited that this is a sure science, it ought to follow of necessity that southerly nations existing beneath the sun have a greater power of mind, by force of nature, but that northern nations should have greater physical strength. For the sun tempers the humors of southern nations and renders their animal spirits more vigorous. But it often comes to pass that southern nations live less fortunate and happy in their intellect, as Sabellicus and other historians relate. It is therefore likely that northern nations dwell in a higher part of the world, and hence in subtler air. Therefore it is probable that they can claim for themselves a greater power of mind.
RESPONSE The science of climates does not deceive. What you urge about southerners and northerners is indeed true in a few particular cases, but not generally in all cases. And indeed the defect is not in heaven’s action, but in the bad disposition of the brain. For, just as not every part of the world is fit for bearing fruit, so every constitution of the brain cannot be taught to comprehend the cultivation of wit. The final part of the objection concerning the higher part of the world and subtler air points to no conclusion, especially since the sun’s benign influence is absent, which refreshes the powers of the mind.

PRAISE BE TO GOD ALONE

Go to Book VI