3. The third seditious doctrine springs from the same root, that tyrannicide is lawful; nay, at this day it is by many divines, and of old it was by all the philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and the rest of the maintainers of the Greek and Roman anarchies, held not only lawful, but even worthy of the greatest praise. And under the title of tyrants, they mean not only monarchs, but all those who bear the chief rule in any government whatsoever; for not Pisistratus only at Athens, but those Thirty also who succeeded him, and ruled together, were all called tyrants. But he whom men require to be put to death as being a tyrant, commands either by right or without right. If without right, he is an enemy, and by right to be put to death; but then this must not be called the killing a tyrant, but an enemy. If by right, then the divine interrogation takes place: Who hath told thee that he was a tyrant? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? For why dost thou call him a tyrant, whom God hath made a king, except that thou, being a private person, usurpest to thyself the knowledge of good and evil? But how pernicious this opinion is to all governments, but especially to that which is monarchical, we may hence discern; namely, that by it every king, whether good or ill, stands exposed to be condemned by the judgment, and slain by the hand of every murderous villain.
4. The fourth opinion adversary to civil society, is their’s who hold, that they who bear rule are subject also to the civil laws. Which hath been sufficiently proved before not to be true, in chap VI. art. 14, from this argument: that a city can neither be bound to itself, nor to any subject; not to itself, because no man can be obliged except it be to another; not to any subject, because the single wills of the subjects are contained in the will of the city; insomuch that if the city will be free from all such obligation, the subjects will so too; and by consequence she is so. But that which holds true in a city, that must be supposed to be true in a man, or an assembly of men who have the supreme authority; for they make a city, which hath no being but by their supreme power. Now that this opinion cannot consist with the very being of government, is evident from hence; that by it the knowledge of what is good and evil, that is to say, the definition of what is, and what is not against the laws, would return to each single person. Obedience therefore will cease, as oft as anything seems to be commanded contrary to the civil laws, and together with it all coercive jurisdiction; which cannot possibly be without the destruction of the very essence of government. Yet this error hath great props, Aristotle and others; who, by reason of human infirmity, suppose the supreme power to be committed with most security to the laws only. But they seem to have looked very shallowly into the nature of government, who thought that the constraining power, the interpretation of laws, and the making of laws, all which are powers necessarily belonging to government, should be left wholly to the laws themselves. Now although particular subjects may sometimes contend in judgment, and go to law with the supreme magistrate; yet this is only then, when the question is not what the magistrate may, but what by a certain rule he hath declared he would do. As, when by any law the judges sit upon the life of a subject, the question is not whether the magistrate could by his absolute right deprive him of his life; but whether by that law his will was that he should be deprived of it. But his will was, he should, if he brake the law; else his will was, he should not. This therefore, that a subject may have an action of law against his supreme magistrate, is not strength of argument sufficient to prove, that he is tied to his own laws. On the contrary, it is evident that he is not tied to his own laws; because no man is bound to himself. Laws therefore are set for Titius and Caius, not for the ruler. However, by the ambition of lawyers it is so ordered, that the laws to unskilful men seem not to depend on the authority of the magistrate, but their prudence.
5. In the fifth place, that the supreme authority may be divided, is a most fatal opinion to all commonweals. But diverse men divide it diverse ways. For some divide it, so as to grant a supremacy to the civil power in matters pertaining to peace and the benefits of this life; but in things concerning the salvation of the soul they transfer it on others. Now, because justice is of all things most necessary to salvation, it happens that subjects measuring justice, not as they ought, by the civil laws, but by the precepts and doctrines of them who, in regard of the magistrate, are either private men or strangers, through a superstitious fear dare not perform the obedience due to their princes; through fear falling into that which they most feared. Now what can be more pernicious to any state, than that men should, by the apprehension of everlasting torments, be deterred from obeying their princes, that is to say, the laws; or from being just? There are also some, who divide the supreme authority so as to allow the power of war and peace unto one whom they call a monarch; but the right of raising money they give to some others, and not to him. But because monies are the sinews of war and peace, they who thus divide the authority, do either really not divide it at all, but place it wholly in them in whose power the money is, but give the name of it to another: or if they do really divide it, they dissolve the government. For neither upon necessity can war be waged, nor can the public peace be preserved without money.
6. It is a common doctrine, that faith and holiness are not acquired by study and natural reason, but are always supernaturally infused and inspired into men. Which, if it were true, I understand not why we should be commanded to give an account of our faith; or why any man, who is truly a Christian, should not be a prophet; or lastly, why every man should not judge what is fit for him to do, what to avoid, rather out of his own inspiration, than by the precepts of his superiors or right reason. A return therefore must be made to the private knowledge of good and evil; which cannot be granted without the ruin of all governments. This opinion hath spread itself so largely through the whole Christian world, that the number of apostates from natural reason is almost become infinite. And it sprang from sick-brained men, who having gotten good store of holy words by frequent reading of the Scriptures, made such a connexion of them usually in their preaching, that their sermons, signifying just nothing, yet to unlearned men seemed most divine. For he whose nonsense appears to be a divine speech, must necessarily seem to be inspired from above.
7. The seventh doctrine opposite to government, is this; that each subject hath an absolute dominion over the goods he is in possession of: that is to say, such a propriety as excludes not only the right of all the rest of his fellow-subjects to the same goods, but also of the magistrate himself. Which is not true; for they who have a lord over them, have themselves no lordship, as hath been proved chap. viii. art. 5. Now the magistrate is lord of all his subjects, by the constitution of government. Before the yoke of civil society was undertaken, no man had any proper right; all things were common to all men. Tell me therefore, how gottest thou this propriety but from the magistrate? How got the magistrate it, but that every man transferred his right on him? And thou therefore hast also given up thy right to him. Thy dominion therefore, and propriety, is just so much as he will, and shall last so long as he pleases; even as in a family, each son hath such proper goods, and so long lasting, as seems good to the father. But the greatest part of men who profess civil prudence, reason otherwise. We are equal, say they, by nature; there is no reason why any man should by better right take my goods from me, than I his from him. We know that money sometimes is needful for the defence and maintenance of the public; but let them who require it, show us the present necessity, and they shall receive it. They who talk thus know not, that what they would have, is already done from the beginning, in the very constitution of government; and therefore speaking as in a dissolute multitude and yet not fashioned government, they destroy the frame.
8. In the last place, it is a great hindrance to civil government, especially monarchical, that men distinguish not enough between a people and a multitude. The people is somewhat that is one, having one will, and to whom one action may be attributed; none of these can properly be said of a multitude. The people rules in all governments. For even in monarchies the people commands; for the people wills by the will of one man; but the multitude are citizens, that is to say, subjects. In a democracy and aristocracy, the citizens are the multitude, but the court is the people. And in a monarchy, the subjects are the multitude, and (however it seem a paradox) the king is the people. The common sort of men, and others who little consider these truths, do always speak of a great number of men as of the people, that is to say, the city. They say, that the city hath rebelled against the king (which is impossible), and that the people will and nill what murmuring and discontented subjects would have or would not have; under pretence of the people stirring up the citizens against the city, that is to say, the multitude against the people. And these are almost all the opinions, wherewith subjects being tainted do easily tumult. And forasmuch as in all manner of government majesty is to be preserved by him or them, who have the supreme authority; the crimen læsæ majestatis naturally cleaves to these opinions.
9. There is nothing more afflicts the mind of man than poverty, or the want of those things which are necessary for the preservation of life and honour. And though there be no man but knows, that riches are gotten with industry, and kept by frugality, yet all the poor commonly lay the blame on the evil government, excusing their own sloth and luxury; as if their private goods forsooth were wasted by public exactions. But men must consider, that they who have no patrimony, must not only labour that they may live, but fight too that they may labour. Every one of the Jews, who in Esdras’ time built the walls of Jerusalem, did the work with one hand, and held the sword in the other. In all government, we must conceive that the hand which holds the sword, is the king or supreme council, which is no less to be sustained and nourished by the subjects’ care and industry, than that wherewith each man procures himself a private fortune; and that customs and tributes are nothing else but their reward who watch in arms for us, that the labours and endeavours of single men may not be molested by the incursion of enemies; and that their complaint, who impute their poverty to public persons, is not more just, than if they should say that they are become in want by paying of their debts. But the most part of men consider nothing of these things. For they suffer the same thing with them who have a disease they call an incubus; which springing from gluttony, it makes men believe they are invaded, oppressed, and stifled with a great weight. Now it is a thing manifest of itself, that they who seem to themselves to be burthened with the whole load of the commonweal, are prone to be seditious; and that they are affected with change, who are distasted at the present state of things.
10. Another noxious disease of the mind is theirs, who having little employment, want honour and dignity. All men naturally strive for honour and preferment; but chiefly they, who are least troubled with caring for necessary things. For these men are invited by their vacancy, sometimes to disputation among themselves concerning the commonweal, sometimes to an easy reading of histories, politics, orations, poems, and other pleasant books; and it happens that hence they think themselves sufficiently furnished both with wit and learning, to administer matters of the greatest consequence. Now because all men are not what they appear to themselves; and if they were, yet all (by reason of the multitude) could not be received to public offices; it is necessary that many must be passed by. These therefore conceiving themselves affronted, can desire nothing more, partly out of envy to those who were preferred before them, partly out of hope to overwhelm them, than ill-success to the public consultations. And therefore it is no marvel, if with greedy appetites they seek for occasions of innovations.
11. The hope of overcoming is also to be numbered among other seditious inclinations. For let there be as many men as you will, infected with opinions repugnant to peace and civil government; let there be as many as there can, never so much wounded and torn with affronts and calumnies by them who are in authority; yet if there be no hope of having the better of them, or it appear not sufficient, there will no sedition follow; every man will dissemble his thoughts, and rather content himself with the present burthen than hazard a heavier weight. There are four things necessarily requisite to this hope. Numbers, instruments, mutual trust, and commanders. To resist public magistrates without a great number, is not sedition, but desperation. By instruments of war, I mean all manner of arms, munition, and other necessary provision: without which number can do nothing. Nor arms neither, without mutual trust. Nor all these, without union under some commander, whom of their own accord they are content to obey; not as being engaged by their submission to his command; (for we have already in this very chapter, supposed these kind of men not to understand being obliged beyond that which seems right and good in their own eyes); but for some opinion they have of his virtue, or military skill, or resemblance of humours. If these four be near at hand to men grieved with the present state, and measuring the justice of their actions by their own judgments; there will be nothing wanting to sedition and confusion of the realm, but one to stir up and quicken them.
12. Sallust’s character of Cataline, than whom there never was a greater artist in raising seditions, is this: that he had great eloquence, and little wisdom. He separates wisdom from eloquence; attributing this as necessary to a man born for commotions; adjudging that as an instructress of peace and quietness. Now eloquence is twofold. The one is an elegant and clear expression of the conceptions of the mind; and riseth partly from the contemplation of the things themselves, partly from an understanding of words taken in their own proper and definite signification. The other is a commotion of the passions of the mind, such as are hope, fear, anger, pity; and derives from a metaphorical use of words fitted to the passions. That forms a speech from true principles; this from opinions already received, what nature soever they are of. The art of that is logic, of this rhetoric; the end of that is truth, of this victory. Each hath its use; that in deliberations, this in exhortations; for that is never disjoined from wisdom, but this almost ever. But that this kind of powerful eloquence, separated from the true knowledge of things, that is to say, from wisdom, is the true character of them who solicit and stir up the people to innovations, may easily be gathered out of the work itself which they have to do. For they could not poison the people with those absurd opinions contrary to peace and civil society, unless they held them themselves; which sure is an ignorance greater than can well befall any wise man. For he that knows not whence the laws derive their power, which are the rules of just and unjust, honest and dishonest, good and evil; what makes and preserves peace among men, what destroys it; what is his, and what another’s; lastly, what he would have done to himself, that he may do the like to others: is surely to be accounted but meanly wise. But that they can turn their auditors out of fools into madmen; that they can make things to them who are ill-affected, seem worse, to them who are well-affected, seem evil; that they can enlarge their hopes, lessen their dangers beyond reason: this they have from that sort of eloquence, not which explains things as they are, but from that other, which by moving their minds, makes all things to appear to be such as they in their minds, prepared before, had already conceived them.
13. Many men, who are themselves very well affected to civil society, do through want of knowledge co-operate to the disposing of subjects’ minds to sedition, whilst they teach young men a doctrine conformable to the said opinions in their schools, and all the people in their pulpits. Now they who desire to bring this disposition into act, place their whole endeavour in this: first, that they may join the ill-affected together into faction and conspiracy; next, that themselves may have the greatest stroke in the faction. They gather them into faction, while they make themselves the relators and interpreters of the counsels and actions of single men, and nominate the persons and places to assemble and deliberate of such things whereby the present government may be reformed, according as it shall seem best to their interests. Now to the end that they themselves may have the chief rule in the faction, the faction must be kept in a faction; that is to say, they must have their secret meetings apart with a few, where they may order what shall afterward be propounded in a general meeting, and by whom, and on what subject, and in what order each of them shall speak, and how they may draw the powerfullest and most popular men of the faction to their side. And thus when they have gotten a faction big enough, in which they may rule by their eloquence, they move it to take upon it the managing of affairs. And thus they sometimes oppress the commonwealth, namely, where there is no other faction to oppose them; but for the most part they rend it, and introduce a civil war. For folly and eloquence concur in the subversion of government, in the same manner (as the fable hath it) as heretofore the daughters of Pelias, king of Thessaly, conspired with Medea against their father. They going to restore the decrepit old man to his youth again, by the counsel of Medea they cut him into pieces, and set him in the fire to boil; in vain expecting when he would live again. So the common people, through their folly, like the daughters of Pelias, desiring to renew the ancient government, being drawn away by the eloquence of ambitious men, as it were by the witchcraft of Medea; divided into faction they consume it rather by those flames, than they reform it.
1. The right of supreme authority is distinguished from its exercise. 2. The safety of the people is the supreme law. 3. It behoves princes to regard the common benefit of many, not the peculiar interest of this or that man. 4. That by safety is understood all manner of conveniences. 5. A query, whether it be the duty of kings to provide for the salvation of their subjects’ souls, as they shall judge best according to their own consciences. 6. Wherein the safety of the people consists. 7. That discoverers are necessary for the defence of the people. 8. That to have soldiers, arms, garrisons, and moneys in readiness, in time of peace, is also necessary for the defence of the people. 9. A right instruction of subjects in civil doctrines, is necessary for the preserving of peace. 10. Equal distributions of public offices conduces much to the preservation of peace. 11. It is natural equity, that monies be taxed according to what every man spends, not what he possesses. 12. It conduceth to the preservation of peace, to keep down ambitious men. 13. And to break factions. 14. Laws whereby thriving arts are cherished and great costs restrained, conduce to the enriching of the subject. 15. That more ought not to be defined by the laws, than the benefit of the prince and his subjects requires. 16. That greater punishments must not be inflicted, than are prescribed by the laws. 13. Subjects must have right done them against corrupt judges.
1. By what hath hitherto been said, the duties of citizens and subjects in any kind of government whatsoever, and the power of the supreme ruler over them are apparent. But we have as yet said nothing of the duties of rulers, and how they ought to behave themselves towards their subjects. We must then distinguish between the right and the exercise of supreme authority; for they can be divided. As for example, when he who hath the right, either cannot or will not be present in judging trespasses, or deliberating of affairs. For kings sometimes by reason of their age cannot order their affairs; sometimes also, though they can do it themselves, yet they judge it fitter, being satisfied in the choice of their officers and counsellors, to exercise their power by them. Now where the right and exercise are severed, there the government of the commonweal is like the ordinary government of the world; in which God, the mover of all things, produceth natural effects by the means of secondary causes. But where he to whom the right of ruling doth belong, is himself present in all judicatures, consultations, and public actions, there the administration is such, as if God, beyond the ordinary course of nature, should immediately apply himself unto all matters. We will therefore in this chapter summarily and briefly speak somewhat concerning their duties, who exercise authority, whether by their own or other’s right. Nor is it my purpose to descend into those things, which being diverse from others, some princes may do, for this is to be left to the political practices of each commonweal.
2. Now all the duties of rulers are contained in this one sentence, the safety of the people is the supreme law. For although they who among men obtain the chiefest dominion, cannot be subject to laws properly so called, that is to say, to the will of men, because to be chief and subject, are contradictories; yet is it their duty in all things, as much as possibly they can, to yield obedience unto right reason, which is the natural, moral, and divine law. But because dominions were constituted for peace’s sake, and peace was sought after for safety’s sake; he, who being placed in authority, shall use his power otherwise than to the safety of the people, will act against the reasons of peace, that is to say, against the laws of nature. Now as the safety of the people dictates a law by which princes know their duty, so doth it also teach them an art how to procure themselves a benefit; for the power of the citizens is the power of the city, that is to say, his that bears the chief rule in any state.
3. By the people in this place we understand, not one civil person, namely, the city itself which governs, but the multitude of subjects which are governed. For the city was not instituted for its own, but for the subjects’ sake: and yet a particular care is not required of this or that man. For the ruler (as such) provides no otherwise for the safety of his people, than by his laws, which are universal; and therefore he hath fully discharged himself, if he have thoroughly endeavoured by wholesome constitutions to establish the welfare of the most part, and made it as lasting as may be; and that no man suffer ill, but by his own default, or by some chance which could not be prevented. But it sometimes conduces to the safety of the most part, that wicked men do suffer.
4. But by safety must be understood, not the sole preservation of life in what condition soever, but in order to its happiness. For to this end did men freely assemble themselves and institute a government, that they might, as much as their human condition would afford, live delightfully. They therefore who had undertaken the administration of power in such a kind of government, would sin against the law of nature, (because against their trust, who had committed that power unto them), if they should not study, as much as by good laws could be effected, to furnish their subjects abundantly, not only with the good things belonging to life, but also with those which advance to delectation. They who have acquired dominion by arms, do all desire that their subjects may be strong in body and mind, that they may serve them the better. Wherefore if they should not endeavour to provide them, not only with such things whereby they may live, but also with such whereby they may grow strong and lusty, they would act against their own scope and end.
5. And first of all, princes do believe that it mainly concerns eternal salvation, what opinions are held of the Deity, and what manner of worship he is to be adored with. Which being supposed, it may be demanded whether chief rulers, and whosoever they be, whether one or more, who exercise supreme authority, sin not against the law of nature, if they cause not such a doctrine and worship to be taught and practised, or permit a contrary to be taught and practised, as they believe necessarily conduceth to the eternal salvation of their subjects. It is manifest that they act against their conscience; and that they will, as much as in them lies, the eternal perdition of their subjects. For if they willed it not, I see no reason why they should suffer (when being supreme they cannot be compelled) such things to be taught and done, for which they believe them to be in a damnable state. But we will leave this difficulty in suspense.
6. The benefits of subjects, respecting this life only, may be distributed into four kinds. 1. That they be defended against foreign enemies. 2. That peace be preserved at home. 3. That they be enriched, as much as may consist with public security. 4. That they enjoy a harmless liberty. For supreme commanders can confer no more to their civil happiness, than that being preserved from foreign and civil wars, they may quietly enjoy that wealth which they have purchased by their own industry.
7. There are two things necessary for the people’s defence; to be warned and to be forearmed. For the state of commonwealths considered in themselves, is natural, that is to say, hostile. Neither if they cease from fighting, is it therefore to be called peace; but rather a breathing time, in which one enemy observing the motion and countenance of the other, values his security not according to the pacts, but the forces and counsels of his adversary. And this by natural right, as hath been showed in chap. II. art. 11, from this, that contracts are invalid in the state of nature, as oft as any just fear doth intervene. It is therefore necessary to the defence of the city, first, that there be some who may, as near as may be, search into and discover the counsels and motions of all those who may prejudice it. For discoverers to ministers of state, are like the beams of the sun to the human soul. And we may more truly say in vision political, than natural, that the sensible and intelligible species of outward things, not well considered by others, are by the air transported to the soul; that is to say, to them who have the supreme authority: and therefore are they no less necessary to the preservation of the state, than the rays of the light are to the conservation of man. Or if they be compared to spider’s webs, which, extended on all sides by the finest threads, do warn them, keeping in their small holes, of all outward motions; they who bear rule, can no more know what is necessary to be commanded for the defence of their subjects without spies, than those spiders can, when they shall go forth, and whither they shall repair, without the motion of those threads.
8. Furthermore, it is necessarily requisite to the people’s defence, that they be forearmed. Now to be forearmed is to be furnished with soldiers, arms, ships, forts, and monies, before the danger be instant; for the lifting of soldiers and taking up of arms after a blow is given, is too late at least, if not impossible. In like manner, not to raise forts and appoint garrisons in convenient places before the frontiers are invaded, is to be like those country swains, (as Demosthenes said), who ignorant of the art of fencing, with their bucklers guarded those parts of the body where they first felt the smart of the strokes. But they who think it then seasonable enough to raise monies for the maintenance of soldiers and other charges of war, when the danger begins to show itself, they consider not, surely, how difficult a matter it is to wring suddenly out of close-fisted men so vast a proportion of monies. For almost all men, what they once reckon in the number of their goods, do judge themselves to have such a right and propriety in it, as they conceive themselves to be injured whensoever they are forced to employ but the least part of it for the public good. Now a sufficient stock of monies to defend the country with arms, will not soon be raised out of the treasure of imposts and customs. We must therefore, for fear of war, in time of peace hoard up good sums, if we intend the safety of the commonweal. Since therefore it necessarily belongs to rulers, for the subjects’ safety to discover the enemy’s counsel, to keep garrisons, and to have money in continual readiness; and that princes are, by the law of nature, bound to use their whole endeavour in procuring the welfare of their subjects: it follows, that it is not only lawful for them to send out spies, to maintain soldiers, to build forts, and to require monies for these purposes; but also not to do thus is unlawful. To which also may be added, whatsoever shall seem to conduce to the lessening of the power of foreigners whom they suspect, whether by slight or force. For rulers are bound according to their power to prevent the evils they suspect; lest peradventure they may happen through their negligence.
9. But many things are required to the conservation of inward peace; because many things concur (as hath been showed in the foregoing chapter) to its perturbation. We have there showed, that some things there are, which dispose the minds of men to sedition, others which move and quicken them so disposed. Among those which dispose them, we have reckoned in the first place certain perverse doctrines. It is therefore the duty of those who have the chief authority, to root those out of the minds of men, not by commanding, but by teaching; not by the terror of penalties, but by the perspicuity of reasons. The laws whereby this evil may be withstood, are not to be made against the persons erring, but against the errors themselves. Those errors which, in the foregoing chapter, we affirmed were inconsistent with the quiet of the commonweal, have crept into the minds of ignorant men, partly from the pulpit, partly from the daily discourses of men, who, by reason of little employment otherwise, do find leisure enough to study; and they got into these men’s minds by the teachers of their youth in public schools. Wherefore also, on the other side, if any man would introduce sound doctrine, he must begin from the academies. There the true and truly demonstrated foundations of civil doctrine are to be laid; wherewith young men, being once endued, they may afterward, both in private and public, instruct the vulgar. And this they will do so much the more cheerfully and powerfully, by how much themselves shall be more certainly convinced of the truth of those things they profess and teach. For seeing at this day men receive propositions, though false, and no more intelligible than if a man should join together a company of terms drawn by chance out of an urn, by reason of the frequent use of hearing them; how much more would they for the same reason entertain true doctrines, suitable to their own understandings and the nature of things? I therefore conceive it to be the duty of supreme officers, to cause the true elements of civil doctrine to be written, and to command them to be taught in all the colleges of their several dominions.
10. In the next place we showed, that grief of mind arising from want did dispose the subjects to sedition; which want, although derived from their own luxury and sloth, yet they impute it to those who govern the realm, as though they were drained and oppressed by public pensions. Notwithstanding, it may sometimes happen that this complaint may be just; namely, when the burthens of the realm are unequally imposed on the subjects; for that which to all together is but a light weight, if many withdraw themselves it will be very heavy, nay, even intolerable to the rest: neither are men wont so much to grieve at the burthen itself, as at the inequality. With much earnestness therefore men strive to be freed from taxes; and in this conflict the less happy, as being overcome, do envy the more fortunate. To remove therefore all just complaint, it is the interest of the public quiet, and by consequence it concerns the duty of the magistrate, to see that the public burthens be equally borne. Furthermore, since what is brought by the subjects to public use, is nothing else but the price of their bought peace, it is good reason that they who equally share in the peace, should also pay an equal part, either by contributing their monies or their labours to the commonweal. Now it is the law of nature, (by art. 15, chap. III), that every man in distributing right to others, do carry himself equal to all. Wherefore rulers are, by the natural law, obliged to lay the burthens of the commonweal equally on their subjects.
11. Now in this place we understand an equality, not of money, but of burthen; that is to say, an equality of reason between the burthens and the benefits. For although all equally enjoy peace, yet the benefits springing from thence are not equal to all; for some get greater possessions, others less; and again, some consume less, others more. It may therefore be demanded, whether subjects ought to contribute to the public according to the rate of what they gain, or of what they spend: that is to say, whether the persons must be taxed, so as to pay contribution according to their wealth; or the goods themselves, that every man contribute according to what he spends. But if we consider, where monies are raised according to wealth, there they who have made equal gain, have not equal possessions, because that one preserves what he hath got by frugality, another wastes it by luxury, and therefore equally rejoicing in the benefit of peace, they do not equally sustain the burthens of the commonweal: and on the other side, where the goods themselves are taxed, there every man, while he spends his private goods, in the very act of consuming them he undiscernably pays part due to the commonweal, according to, not what he hath, but what by the benefit of the realm he hath had: it is no more to be doubted, but that the former way of commanding monies is against equity, and therefore against the duty of rulers; the latter is agreeable to reason, and the exercise of their authority.
12. In the third place we said, that that trouble of mind which riseth from ambition, was offensive to public peace. For there are some, who seeming to themselves to be wiser than others, and more sufficient for the managing of affairs than they who at present do govern, when they can no otherwise declare how profitable their virtue would prove to the commonweal, they show it by harming it. But because ambition and greediness of honours cannot be rooted out of the minds of men, it is not the duty of rulers to endeavour it; but by constant application of rewards and punishments they may so order it, that men may know that the way to honour is not by contempt of the present government, nor by factions and the popular air, but by the contraries. They are good men who observe the decrees, the laws, and rights of their fathers. If with a constant order we saw these adorned with honours, but the factious punished and had in contempt by those who bear command, there would be more ambition to obey than withstand. Notwithstanding, it so happens sometimes, that as we must stroke a horse by reason of his too much fierceness, so a stiff-necked subject must be flattered for fear of his power; but as that happens when the rider, so this when the commander is in danger of falling. But we speak here of those whose authority and power is entire. Their duty, I say, it is to cherish obedient subjects, and to depress the factious all they can; nor can the public power be otherwise preserved, nor the subjects’ quiet without it.
13. But if it be the duty of princes to restrain the factious, much more does it concern them to dissolve and dissipate the factions themselves. Now I call a faction, a multitude of subjects gathered together either by mutual contracts among themselves, or by the power of some one, without his or their authority who bear the supreme rule. A faction, therefore, is as it were a city in a city: for as by an union of men in the state of nature, a city receives its being, so by a new union of subjects there ariseth a faction. According to this definition, a multitude of subjects who have bound themselves simply to obey any foreign prince or subject, or have made any pacts or leagues of mutual defence between themselves against all men, not excepting those who have the supreme power in the city, is a faction. Also favour with the vulgar, if it be so great that by it an army may be raised, except public caution be given either by hostages or some other pledges, contains faction in it. The same may be said of private wealth, if it exceed; because all things obey money. Forasmuch therefore as it is true, that the state of cities among themselves is natural and hostile, those princes who permit factions, do as much as if they received an enemy within their walls: which is contrary to the subjects’ safety, and therefore also against the law of nature.
14. There are two things necessary to the enriching of the subjects, labour and thrift; there is also a third which helps, to wit, the natural increase of the earth and water; and there is a fourth too, namely, the militia, which sometimes augments, but more frequently lessens the subjects’ stock. The two first only are necessary. For a city constituted in an island of the sea, no greater than will serve for dwelling, may grow rich without sowing or fishing, by merchandize and handicrafts only; but there is no doubt, if they have a territory, that they may be richer with the same number, or equally rich being a greater number. But the fourth, namely, the militia, was of old reckoned in the number of the gaining arts, under the notion of booting or taking prey; and it was by mankind, dispersed by families before the constitution of civil societies, accounted just and honourable. For preying is nothing else but a war waged with small forces. And great commonweals, namely, that of Rome and Athens, by the spoils of war, foreign tribute, and the territories they have purchased by their arms, have sometimes so improved the commonwealth, that they have not only not required any public monies from the poorer sort of subjects, but have also divided to each of them both monies and lands. But this kind of increase of riches is not to be brought into rule and fashion. For the militia, in order to profit, is like a die; wherewith many lose their estates, but few improve them. Since therefore there are three things only, the fruits of the earth and water, labour, and thrift, which are expedient for the enriching of subjects, the duty of commanders in chief shall be conversant only about those three. For the first those laws will be useful, which countenance the arts that improve the increase of the earth and water; such as are husbandry and fishing. For the second all laws against idleness, and such as quicken industry, are profitable; as such whereby the art of navigation, by help whereof the commodities of the whole world, bought almost by labour only, are brought into one city; and the mechanics, under which I comprehend all the arts of the most excellent workmen; and the mathematical sciences, the fountains of navigatory and mechanic employments, are held in due esteem and honour. For the third those laws are useful, whereby all inordinate expense, as well in meats as in clothes, and universally in all things which are consumed with usage, is forbidden. Now because such laws are beneficial to the ends above specified, it belongs also to the office of supreme magistrates to establish them.