ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 71 



old women from their birth, having among them all three but one eye, 

 and one tooth, which, as they had occasion to go out, they each wore 

 by turns, and laid them down again upon coming back. This eye 

 and this tooth they lent to Perseus, who, now judging himself suffi- 

 ciently furnished, he, without further stop, flies swiftly away to Medusa, 

 and finds her asleep. But not venturing his eyes, for fear she should 

 wake, he turned his head aside, and viewed her in Pallas's mirror, 

 and thus directing his stroke, cut off her head; when immediately, 

 from the gushing blood, there darted Pegasus winged. Perseus now 

 inserted Medusa's head into Pallas's shield, which thence retained 

 the faculty of astonishing and benumbing all who looked on it." 



This fable seems invented to show the prudent method of choosing, 

 undertaking, and conducting a war. The chief thing to consider in 

 undertaking a war is a commission from Pallas, certainly not from 

 Venus, as the Trojan war was, or other slight motive. Because the 

 designs of war ought to be justified by wise counsels. As to the choice 

 of war, the fable propounds three grave and useful precepts. 



The first is, that no prince should be over-solicitous to subdue a 

 neighboring nation: for the method of enlarging an empire is very 

 different from that of increasing an estate. Regard is justly had to 

 contiguity or adjacency in private lands and possessions; but in the 

 extending of empire, the occasion, the facility, and advantage of a war, 

 are to be regarded instead of vicinity. Thus Perseus, though an 

 eastern prince, readily undertook an expedition into the remotest parts 

 of the western world. An opposite instance of the wisdom of this pre- 

 cept occurs in the different strategy of war practised by Philip and 

 Alexander. For Philip urged war only on the frontiers of his empire, 

 and with great strife and peril barely succeeded in bringing a few 

 cities under his rule, but Alexander carried his invading arms into 

 distant countries; and with a felicitous boldness undertook an ex- 

 pedition against Persia, and subduing multitudinous nations on his 

 journey, rested at last rather fatigued with conquest than with arms. 

 This policy is further borne out by the propagation of the Roman 

 power; for at the time that the arms of this martial people on the side 

 of the west stretched no farther than Liguria, they had brought under 

 their dominion all the provinces of the East as far as Mount Taurus. 

 In like manner, Charles VIII, finding a war with Great Britain 

 attended with some dangers, directed his enterprise against Naples, 

 which he subdued with wonderful rapidity and ease. One of the 

 causes of these wonderful successes in distant wars, is the low state of 

 discipline and equipment, which invites the attack of the invading 

 power, and the terror which is generally struck into the enemy from 

 the bold audacity of the enterprise. Nor can the enemy retaliate or 

 effect any reciprocal invasion, which always results from a war waged 

 with the frontier nations. But the chief point is, that in subduing a 

 neighboring state the choice of stratagems is narrowed by circum- 

 stances; but in a distant expedition, a man may roll the tide of war 

 where the military discipline is most relaxed, or where the strength 

 of the nation is most torn and wasted by civil discord, or in whatev 

 part the enemy can be the most easily subjugated. 



