CHAP. III.] A READINESS FOR WAR NECESSART. 345 



For there is such a natural notion of justice imprinted in 

 men's minds, that they will not makt; 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 religion. 

 The Romans, though it was a high degree ot honour for their 

 emperors to extend the borders of their empire, yet never 

 undertook a war for that sole end. Let it, therefore, be a 

 rule to all nations that aim at empire, to have a quick and 

 lively sensibility of any injury done to their frontier subjects, 

 merchants, or public ministers. And let them not sit too 

 long quiet after the first provocation. Let them also be 

 ready and cheerful in sending auxiliaries to their friends and 

 allies, which the Romans constantly observed, insomuch that 

 if an invasion were made upon any of their allies, who also 

 had a defensive league with others, and the former begged 

 assistance severally, the Romans would ever be the first to 

 give it, and not suffer the honour of the benefit to be 

 snatched from them by others. As for the wars anciently 

 waged from a certain conformity or tacit correspondence of 

 states, I cannot see on what law they stood. Such were the 

 wai's undertaken by the Romans for restoring liberty to 

 Greece; such were those of the Lacedfemonians and Athe- 

 nians, for establisliing or overturning democracies or oligar- 

 chies ; and such sometimes are those entered into by repub- 

 lics or kingdoms, under pretext of protecting the subjects of 

 other nations, or delivering them from tyranny. It may 

 suffice for the present purpose, that no state expect any 

 greatness of empire, unless it be immediately ready to seize 

 any just occasion of a war. 



No one body, whether natural or political, can preserve it« 

 health without exercise ; and honourable war is the whole- 

 some exercise of a kingdom or commonwealth. Civil wars, 

 indeed, are like the heat of a fever, but a war abroad is like 

 Ihe heat of motion — wholesome; for men's minds are ener- 

 vated and their manners corrupted by sluggish and inactive 

 peace. And, however it may be as to the happiness of a 

 state, it is doubtless best for its greatness to be as it were 

 always in arms. A veteran army, indeed, kept constantly 

 ready for marchinof, is expensive, yet it gives a state the dia* 

 |)OoaJ of i\i]u%s among its nei^^libours, or at least. procures it 



