392 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



should cultivate the art of war, as that which would make 

 their city the head of the world.&quot; The whole frame and 

 structure of the Spartan government tended, with more dili 

 gence, indeed, than prudence, only to make its inhabitants 

 warriors. Such was also the practice of the Persians and 

 Macedonians, though not so constant and lasting. The 

 Britons, Gauls, Germans, Goths, Saxons, and Normans, 

 for some time also principally cultivated military arts. 

 The Turks did the same, being not a little excited thereto 

 by their law, and still continue the discipline, notwithstand 

 ing their soldiery be now on its decline. Of all Christian 

 Europe, the only nation that still retains and professes this 

 discipline is the Spanish. But it is so plain, that every one 

 advances furthest in what he studies most, as to require no 

 enforcing. It is sufficient to intimate, that unless a nation 

 professedly studies and practices arms and military disci 

 pline, so as to make them a principal business, it must not 

 expect that any remarkable greatness of empire will come 

 of its own accord. On the contrary, it is the most certain 

 oracle of time, that those nations which have longest con 

 tinued in the study and profession of arms, as the Romans 

 and the Turks have principally done, make the most sur 

 prising progress in enlarging the bounds of empire. And 

 again, those nations which have flourished, though but for 

 a single age, in military glory, yet during that time have 

 obtained such a greatness of empire as has remained with 

 them long after, when their martial discipline was slackened. 

 It bears some relation to the foregoing precept, that &quot;a 

 state should have such laws and customs as may readily ad 

 minister just causes, or at least pretexts, of taking arms. 1 

 For there is such a natural notion of justice imprinted in 

 men s minds, that they will not make war, which is attended 

 with so many calamities, unless for some weighty or at least 

 some specious reason. The Turks are never unprovided of 

 a cause of war, viz., the propagation of their law and relig 

 ion. The Romans, though it was a high degree of honor for 



11 Livy, v. 37. 



