§ 1. No discussion is more difficult than a discussion concerning prudence. For many fear lest there be too many prudent people and lest wisdom, if made common, become cheap; they would wish to arrogate so great an honor to themselves alone. Let wisdom, they say, belong to the prince, from whom counsel is derived, and let it belong to those few who are around the prince, while all effort is expended, as it were, in obeying and executing commands. Let no one be more learned, no one more prudent, than the prince. They praise the custom of the Muscovites, among whom all must be less wise than the Grand Duke, and to be excessively devoted to prudence is a crime of majesty. They therefore approve the counsels of tyrants, who remove vivid and ready talents from their midst, lest there be anyone who censures or exposes things not well done. They praise the ancient stupidity of the Arcadians, the Lesbian and Cumaean asses, the minds of the Abderite common people, and the childishness of the Thracians, who could not proceed in counting beyond four and who, when their leader threatened that he would climb to Juno by the ladders which he had caused to be made and accuse them, were terrified and granted everything that was demanded. They judge that Brazilians, Americans, Guineans—in one word, golden slaves, wethers, and blocks—are proper subjects.
But I affirm entirely the contrary: it is altogether expedient for the commonwealth that all should be strong in wisdom, judgment, and talent, so that they can judge concerning public and private affairs. The greatest and truest simplicity does not injure true wisdom, since the Lord commands that dovelike simplicity be joined with serpentine sagacity. I banish crafty, cunning, and deceitful citizens from the commonwealth; wise, cautious, circumspect, and intelligent citizens I judge not only useful, but also people to be instructed in these things with the greatest care.
§ 2. The reasoning of the pseudo-politicians is that through inexperience, imprudence, and want of consideration citizens may be prompt and pliant toward commands; that they may not examine the princes’ orders, and that they may repose trust in the speeches and persuasions of counselors, courtiers, and senators. But they will attain these things better by teaching them prudence than by casting them into stupidity and keeping them in it. I shall not employ the argument of the Stoics and say that all who have not attained the highest summit of wisdom are foolish and consequently insane, and that therefore the prudence of the pseudo-politicians is insane, since they devise a commonwealth in which they alone seem wise and wish the rest of the crowd to be stupider than a terebinth. Those things belong to the Porch of Chrysippus, as does the equality of virtues and sins. I do not believe it, if only for this reason: since the whole Stoa confesses that it has hitherto produced no wise man, Cleanthes, Zeno, Chrysippus, and the others of that sect must be insane; but it is fitting that the insane possess no public authority, since, when they ought to be commended to the custody of their kinsmen, they have by a domestic judgment lost the right to pronounce an opinion and give a vote.
I omit these things. For if I followed them, no king, no consul, and no praetor would be sane; all would be insane, for no one would be wise. I speak in a civil and human manner. It is expedient neither for kingship, nor for aristocracy, much less for polity, that the citizens be foolish, dull, and stupid, such as the Ethiopians around Cape Verde, the Brazilians, the Mexicans, and formerly the Thracians,
Phrygians, Arcadians, and others whose rudeness was mocked in the proverbs of more cultivated nations.
§ 3. The first reason is valid and, from the nature of the thing, refutes their erring wisdom. For the dunces with whom they wish the state to be filled do not sufficiently weigh either the dignity of magistracy or the obligation of obeying, and therefore obey neither readily nor constantly. They define the prince’s duty by a triumphal robe, scepter, diadem, procession of attendants, hunts, and courses at the table. They cannot even suspect what cares oppress and what torments vex that shadowy happiness.
§ 4. Hence another reason follows: namely, that magistracy is not loved by such men, since they do not recognize the causes for loving it; and from this it is customary for the worst thing to occur—that they perform their duty through fear alone. “A similarity of morals joins friendships,” Quintilian says; “somehow the lights of minds see and recognize one another, and no one can love in another anything except what he silently approves.” For they cannot have a fellowship of affairs and persons so as to live in common, much less, as friends, will they expose or devote themselves to death for the prince’s sake. Friendship will never flourish in those mushrooms, with which and for which they might die. For such men do nothing by judgment, prudence, or regard for the public good.
§ 5. The third reason is this: that crowd is the most inconstant of all, and therefore a government hanging upon mobility so slippery is fragile. For a foolish multitude is led by the lightest impulse and is credulous toward specious words. And so they represent the Gallic Hercules as leading foolish nations by their ears with a golden chain hanging from his mouth; and when the Thracians saw ladders being made by which their accuser would ascend to Juno, they became afraid. We see stupidity exposed to every imposture. Histories teach that peoples were alienated from kings by one speech. At Athens the foolish people was led by orators; at Rome the men beneath the Rostra were the slaves of the tribunes. Everything barbarous is ἠλίθιον—foolish, simple, and therefore easily deceived, but, on the contrary, faithless.
Trajan’s letters recount so many conquered nations that it was difficult to retain their names; but because they were barbarous, they rebelled with the same levity with which they had acceded. In the year of Christ 116, the Cyrenian Jews, ignorant of all things except wickedness, revolted upon a slight occasion under their leader Andrew, and two hundred thousand were killed. The ignorance of those whom Artemion seduced was no less, and the disaster even greater, for with an army sent against them, as many were slaughtered more cruelly. What aroused the sedition of Münzer and Campanus except the uncultivated malice of a people ignorant of its duty and zealous for new things? For when religion had been abjured, it was also easy to alter the commonwealth.
§ 6. The fourth reason: a stupid people cannot resist enemies, for war is an affair of prudence, skill, and stratagems. How easily did Cyrus seize the whole world, and the Spaniards the Indies, though they were comparable neither in bodily mass, strength, nor multitude? One part of Belgium resists for so many years in an almost equal contest, while such extensive dominions come beneath the yoke and desert their kings, because they know neither how to protect them nor to defend their own things. Therefore these men advise the prince just as if a commander should select foolish soldiers who can only hear the trumpet and strike. You would not require prudence in battle, in camp, or in a garrison.
In this year the Portuguese fought a battle against barbarians; letters from India relate the history in this manner. Another enormous fleet of two hundred ships was approaching from the Acehnese—people of the island of Sumatra and perpetual enemies of the Portuguese. Of these, sixty were triremes, and quadriremes larger than those of our countrymen, whose cannon vomited stone balls of thirty and forty pounds. The king of the Acehnese himself sailed in that fleet, together with sixty thousand fighting men. Four Portuguese squadrons unexpectedly encountered that fleet—which it can be believed had conspired together with the Dutch for the destruction of Malacca—and attacked it, with a daring or a fortune the greater of which you might doubt; and after a most bitter battle they routed it, two whole days having been spent in fighting. As many as forty triremes or quadriremes of the enemy were sunk; thirty thousand human beings are written to have fallen. Indeed, in that very confused multitude the cannon fought among themselves against one another; a multitude of other vessels perished; one Portuguese ship of more than a hundred tons, having caught fire, was entirely burned—whether by accident or by enemy force.
Behold what prudence and dexterity bestowed upon the Portuguese, and how the barbarians perished through their own stupidity.
§ 7. Finally, who would prefer a stupid slave to a prudent one? What besides the mill could you safely entrust to a slave who does nothing by reason but is driven by impulse wherever he is moved? Do you therefore wish citizens to be those who cannot go but must be carried? Whom, when your wise mind has deserted them, the enemy may overwhelm as they stand stupefied in the midst of the whirlwind of affairs? “The life of a fool is thankless, it is fearful, it is borne wholly toward the future.” Seneca speaks not only of the life of Baba and Ixion, whom stupidity ennobled, but of the life of those whom pseudo-political prudence calls simple. For disgust with present things, security concerning future evils, and the ostentation of frivolous people cast them headlong into things that will harm them. Do you seek such citizens, subjects, and defenders of the fatherland, whose folly will sell itself to the enemy sooner than it will conquer him?
But since we are treating of the commonwealth, ancient examples can also teach us. More experienced and wiser men have commanded barbarians and stupid men. The Trojan War exercised the victors and the conquered for ten years; in one siege they served half a lifetime of campaigns. Those who as recruits pitched the first tents of the camp, as veterans, aided by hand and stratagems, undermined the walls. Afterward Antenor, Diomedes, Aeneas, Acestes, and the others, scattered through the lands, established kingdoms, prudent and skilled in ruling. The more cultivated Greeks obtained Ionia and the best part of Italy and Africa. Seneca says truly in his Consolation to Helvia: “What do Greek cities intend for themselves in the midst of barbarian regions? What does the Macedonian language intend among Indians and Persians? Scythia, and that whole tract of wild and unconquered nations, displays cities of Achaea planted upon the shores of Pontus. Neither the savagery of perpetual winter nor the dispositions of human beings, bristling in the likeness of their climate, obstructed those transferring their homes. There is an Athenian crowd in Asia; Miletus poured out the population of seventy-five cities in diverse directions. The entire side of Italy which is washed by the lower sea was Greater Greece. Asia claims the Etruscans as its own; Tyrians inhabit Africa, Carthaginians Spain; Greeks thrust themselves into Gaul, Gauls into Greece. The Pyrenees did not prevent the passage of the Germans. Through trackless and unknown places human restlessness has tossed itself.”
If you examine all things, history, which is the teacher of prudence, will demonstrate that a few prudent people who employed laws and discipline held government over many savage and strong peoples. The Germans and Gauls indeed formerly changed their abodes, but occupied kingdoms only after they had been taught civilization. But the Greeks, more civilized than others, and the Tyrians, more civilized than the Greeks, founded long and enduring empires.
The prince must therefore do this: see that all, so far as can be done, are exercised in every respect, but especially in prudence. For thus he will easily rule by good reason and good law those who have learned to follow reason as their leader; and he will correct those who err with a gentler command.
For correction accomplishes more with a prudent man than a hundred lashes with a fool. For stupidity is the mother of all evils: it is always beginning to live, has the slightest occasions for treachery, and is, like a golden flock, a source of profit to the more cunning.