CHAP. JT.I COllRUrr PRECEITS NOT REQUIRED. 33il 



Jiate your enemy as if he were to become your friend :^^ for 

 it surprisingly betrays and corrupts all sorts of utility, to 

 plunge one's self too far in unhappy friendships, vexations, 

 and turbulent quarrels, or childish and empty emulations. 

 And so much, by way of example, upon the doctrine or art 

 of rising in life. 



We are well aware that good fortune may be had upon 

 easier conditions than are here laid down ; for it falls almost 

 spontaneously upon some men, whilst others procure it only 

 by diligence and assiduity, without much art, though still 

 with some caution. But as Cicero, when he draws the per- 

 fect orator, does not mean that every pleader either could or 

 should be like him ; and as in describing the prince or the 

 politician, which some have imdertaken, the model is formed 

 to the perfect rules of art, and not according to common 

 life — the same method is observed by us in this sketch of the 

 self-politician. 



It must be observed that the precepts we have laid down 

 upon this subject are all of them laAvful, and not such 

 immoral artifices as Machiavel speaks of, who directs men to 

 have little regard for vii'tue itself, but only for the show and 

 public reputation of it : " Because," says he, " the credit and 

 opinion of virtue are a help to a man, but virtue itself a 

 hinderance." '^ He also directs his politician to ground all his 

 prudence on this supposition, that men cannot be tinily and 

 safely worked to his purpose but by fear, and therefore 

 advises him to endeavour, by all possible means, to subject 

 them to dangers and difficulties. "Whence his pohtician may 

 seem to be what the Italians call a sower of thorns. '^ So 

 Cicero cites this principle, " Let our friends fall, provided our 

 enemies ])erish ;"f upon which the triumvirs acted, in pur- 

 chasing the death of their enemies by the destruction of their 

 nearest friends. So Catiline became a disturber and incen- 

 diary of the state, that he might the better fish his fortune 

 in troubled waters, declaring, that if his fortune was set on 



c Arist. Rhet. ii. 13, 4 ; and cf. Cic. Lael. xvi. Canning", in one oi 

 his speeches, condemns this principle as unworthy of an honourable 

 mind. But it undoubtedly contains much wisdom, when it is restricted 

 to the moderation of the affections. £d. 



^ Libro del Principe. * II seminatore delle spine. 



f Cadant aipid, dummodo inimici intercidant. Orat. pro reg. Deiot 



