§ 1. Political writers distinguish a twofold power: domestic and external. Domestic power is directed against seditions, conspiracies, and rebellions of citizens which are against the state, the prince, the senate, or one part against another part. External power is directed against neighboring states or kings, either to repel or to inflict force.
§ 2. There cannot be firm power against an external enemy unless there is also power against an internal one. For every kingdom divided against itself will be made desolate, and house will fall upon house. For only a united city has strength against an enemy. For this reason the Romans, who were always unwarlike at home, if danger threatened, created a dictator and reduced everyone to order. But I have dealt with this subject when I treated monarchy and concord.
§ 3. Domestic power is acquired and preserved with greater difficulty than external power, because you will much more easily find one who conquers an enemy than one who governs a citizen. An enemy can be overcome by strength, stratagem, anger, vigilance, or fraud; a citizen is governed only by prudence and virtue.
§ 4. Hence there is no domestic power unless you are feared and loved. It is necessary to be feared, because no one will perform his duty from love
if he loves himself more; but each person is more attached to himself than to another. Therefore, when the matter so falls out that your prosperity must be sought at his own danger, expense, and labor, each will begin his affection from himself and put the prince second. Yet it is necessary to be loved. For if the prince, the senate, or the state is in danger, no one will be afraid; for we do not fear those who themselves are afraid and are placed amid great difficulties. Therefore, when fear has been removed through contempt, if love is absent they will wholly desert the man whom they neither love nor fear; and if by chance they hate him, they will pursue him.
§ 5. If I must speak the truth freely, the thought of all those who court power seems most foolish. For if they desire to be powerful solely for the public safety or the divine glory, so that they may protect the good and restrain the wicked, I praise their royal spirit, because it devotes its life to justice. For every dominion is of brief life. Ecclesiasticus, chapter 10, verse 11. Few non-Christian princes were safe from their own people; most were killed. There has been absolutely no one, among those who have merely tasted command, who did not endure many plots and conspiracies. Since I have demonstrated this by many examples, let us now treat of acquiring and increasing power.