§ 1. I have already explained in the preceding book that virtue is necessary to the commonwealth; I have demonstrated this concerning faith and religion. It now remains for me to treat of the other virtues that are necessary to the prince, senators, and citizens. I treat of civil life, and of that life for which nature itself has fashioned and advances us. For although virtue itself has very great force in household management, in private dealings, and in private life, nevertheless every virtue without exception is necessary in the commonwealth. Wherever its protection has withdrawn, there the enemy is admitted. Silence overthrew silent Amyclae; lust, Colchis and Crete; avarice assessed the Roman city in bracelets; credulity received Zopyrus as a traitor; through ambition almost all kingdoms have perished. Wherever there is even a small departure from what is right, the commonwealth lies open to blows; nor is any vice so small that it does not suffice to overthrow great kingdoms, if you despise it. It is an oracle of Pythagoras:
Ἀρετὴ τὸ ἰσχύον μόνον, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα λῆρος.
For virtue alone is powerful; all other things are trifles: riches, the strength of walls, a fleet, an army, auxiliaries—if they are apart from virtue, they accomplish nothing other than that the ruins may terrify with a greater crash as they fall. While morals had not yet declined, not even Manlius could drive the people into servitude; but when the commonwealth had been corrupted, even princes flatter Claudius and enroll Nero among the gods. The commonwealth desires examples of all the virtues, just as it desires those devoted to and skilled in all the arts. For if examples of any virtue are lacking, the enemy is invited through a breach in the rampart.
These were the last words of a bad but shrewd emperor, who found it easier to think and speak rightly than to act rightly: “Everywhere I received a commonwealth in disorder; I leave it pacified even as far as the Britons. An old man, infirm in my feet, I shall leave a strong empire to my Antonines if they are good, a feeble one if they are bad.” It was an oracle. They were bad; swiftly they destroyed both the empire and themselves.
But it is too little for one member in so great a body to be sound. For a state which the virtue of one or a few raises up will not be able to stand if the impulse of the multitude drives and snatches it into vices. The influence of the ruler toward virtue is indeed supreme; yet frequently the vices of the multitude outweigh it. “We are pliant and are led in whatever direction by the prince, and, so to speak, we are followers; we also desire to be dear to him and approved by him. Those unlike him have hoped for this in vain; and by a continuance of compliance we arrive at the point that almost all human beings live by the morals of one man” (Pliny, Panegyric). And so the ancients thought no gift of the gods more excellent or more beautiful than a chaste and holy prince, one most like the gods. For if a prince prefers pleasures and riches to virtue, the people must necessarily become vicious by a swift contagion.
§ 2. There is need, moreover, of all the virtues as though they formed one indivisible body; for they are all fitted and joined together among themselves and, as the Stoics were accustomed to say, ἀχώριστοι, “inseparable.” I do not agree with those who think that one virtue is diversified by its duties. This is a Stoic doctrine. For Chrysippus speaks thus in Laertius:
Τὰς ἀρετὰς ἀκολουθεῖν ἀλλήλαις, οὐ μόνον τῷ τὴν μίαν ἔχοντα τὰς πάσας ἔχειν, ἀλλὰ τῷ τὸν κατὰ μίαν ὁτιοῦν ἐνεργοῦντα κατὰ πάσας ἐνεργεῖν, οὔτε ἄνδρα τέλειον εἶναι, τὸν μὴ πάσας ἔχοντα τὰς ἀρετάς, οὔτε πρᾶξιν τελείαν, ἥτις οὐ κατὰ πάσας πράττεται τὰς ἀρετάς.
The virtues accompany one another, not only because he who has one has them all, but because he who acts according to one acts according to them all. Nor is the man perfect who does not have all the virtues, nor is the action perfect which is not done according to all the virtues.
There is not so great a conjunction of the virtues as they devise, such that none can exist without another; nevertheless, no virtue in its own condition is altogether perfect without the fellowship and companionship of the others. For one is an aid to another, so that it may perform perfect actions consistently; one protects another and makes it invulnerable. And this is what Cicero in book 5 of On Ends, and afterward Jerome, admonishes: “Since the virtues are so coupled and joined together that they all participate in all, and one cannot be separated from another, nevertheless each has its own proper office, so that fortitude is discerned in labors and battles, temperance in pleasures, prudence in choice.” And Seneca, Epistle 67: “When someone endures torments bravely, perhaps he employs all the virtues, although one—patience—is at hand and appears most of all. Yet fortitude is there, of which patience, endurance, and toleration are branches. Prudence is there, without which no counsel is entered upon, and which advises one to bear as bravely as possible what one cannot escape. Constancy is there, which cannot be cast down from its station and does not relinquish its purpose when any force attempts to wrench it away. There is that indivisible company of virtues. Whatever is done honorably, one virtue does, but upon the judgment of the council. But what is approved by all the virtues, even if it seems to be done by one, is desirable.”
§ 3. All participate in all. And it is necessary that this occur in the commonwealth. Otherwise, what happens to a soldier whom his comrades have abandoned alone in the battle line will befall a solitary virtue: while he fights most bravely, even the most cowardly of the enemy strikes him down from the rear or the flank with a stealthy wound. Samson’s fortitude, stripped of the aid of chastity, fell and lay in bonds and filth. The sacrilegious ambition of King Uzziah removed his great virtues from the commonwealth; intemperance overthrew John Maccabaeus. If we also consider our own men, we shall find that sometimes all the virtues have yielded to one vice. What drove Tertullian, with so great learning, gravity, and holiness, out of the Church and into the Montanists, if not a proud obstinacy excessively tenacious of its own judgment? What turned Hosius, renowned throughout the whole world and already in extreme old age, aside from his course, if not fear of torments? For so many virtues and labors, deserted by fortitude, fell at a single blow, as it were. Haste in judging, and a certain indulgence toward his own talent, destroyed Origen.
But since it is rare for a man in the commonwealth to be fortified by the company of all the virtues, and since even the most fortified things are fragile in some part of themselves, it is nevertheless necessary that all these virtues exist in the commonwealth. The fierceness of some must be tempered by the counsels of the prudent; the levity of others must be restrained by gravity; pleasures must be chastised; ambition must be suppressed, so that there is no virtue which is not taught by morals and words. Since, therefore, these goods rarely come together in any one person, let the commonwealth act so that it may at least have them dispersed. It is most difficult for someone to be both vigorous in battle and good in counsel. An equal talent for both camp and gown is not frequently found. Therefore let the legislator so govern his citizens that one supplies the mind, another the hand; and let the warlike right hand strike and avoid the enemy by the counsel of the prudent man, so that it may be unconquered.
§ 4. The conjunction and harmony of the virtues is also discerned in a certain moderation, which consists in a mean. In all of them there is a certain firmness, which is the greater the more virtues are present, just as that battle line is strongest which has both the greatest number and the best soldiers. All are also ruled by a certain equality that directs actions. All are bound together in one prudence; for there is no action of virtue unless prudence has directed it. What is done rashly is impulse, not virtue; and although it has been done with a good outcome, it nevertheless has not been well done.
§ 5. A discourse concerning the political virtues must therefore be undertaken, but concerning true virtues, for I rejected hypocrisy and dissimulation already in the preceding book. Now I also give this warning: vices must not be honored with the names of virtues. This is the most ancient evil of states and will be the last, unless I am mistaken. They call license liberty; they think audacity fortitude; they impose avarice under the name of frugality, prodigality under the name of magnificence, and pride under the name of magnanimity, as though under a covering, upon inexperienced minds. In the schools, when young men have entangled their equals by an ambiguous word or a twisted argument, they rejoice as victors and grieve as defeated men. But in the state, it is not words but the things themselves that entangle many and lead them into fraud. Dissimulation itself is more ingenious in devising things than truth is. Pliny, Panegyric. Horace also gives that warning:
As those hired to mourn at a funeral say And do almost more than those who grieve from the heart.
Vices creep in under the name of virtues. Flattery surpasses friendship in blandishments, and the flatterer often drives out the friend, pleasing by the very thing by which he harms. If rashness is successful, it is praised as fortitude. Fawning enemies call the timid man cautious, the coward moderate. For evils have often presented the appearance of what is honorable.
§ 6. Finally, I wish these things to be understood in such a way that they know there is need of virtue, not of impulse. In virtue there are order, decorum, and constancy; it has harmony among all its actions; it itself distributes duties; it itself moderates all things. It is exceedingly harmful that those who read histories at once admire the sudden desire for action which they call ὁρμήν and number it among the virtues. Many have done something with a noble, liberal, or temperate mind, but once or perhaps twice; their whole life is discordant with the one deed. Such men are most dangerously employed in public affairs, for they have the reputation of a good man and the vices of the ruined. He did something that was right, or in which there was the likeness of what is right, but that was an accident, not an exercise of character. In a state, however, there is need of a brave and constant virtue, one that rests upon judgment and prudence.
Moreover, the virtues I require in the commonwealth are prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, and friendship with true charity, which contains all those virtues. Just as these embrace various parts within themselves and are pressed on the opposite side by various vices, so they supply abundant matter for discussion. But now let us speak of prudence.