Essays, or discourses, vol. 1 (of 4)

by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo

XXV. The reading of good books is very useful, to instruct Princes in the maxims of sound policy. But which are the good books? I believe very few. Those which contain sound doctrine are infinite; but what signifies their informing, if they don’t stimulate or move? The most difficult part of morality, does not so much consist in coming at a knowledge of what is right, as in exciting and moving an effectual inclination to practise it. There are books of short sentences, and abounding with affectation, (in the stile of Seneca, which a certain Emperor called sand without lime) which tingle in the ear, but their echo never reaches the heart. There are others, filled with texts and pulpit conceits, which, instead of illustrating, confound, and instead of moving, become tiresome and surfeiting. There are others again, which abound with the sentences of Thucydides, Polybius, Tacitus, Livy, and Sallust, intermixed with a number of historical passages. I shall say of all these, as Apelles said of a pupil of his, who had painted Helen with very little beauty, but in a very costly dress stuck full of jewels: Cum non posses facere pulchram, fecisti divitem. As you was unable to make her handsome, you have made her rich. These forced and unnatural ornaments, with which erudition in the books that treat of it, dress virtue, do not conduce to fire the minds of those who read them, with the love of her. He only will accomplish this end, who has the art of painting in lively colours her native beauty; and who has the address and genius, to impress on the understanding, a clear and agreeable idea, of the magnificence of her charms.

XXVI. But better than the best books, is good conversation. The instruction which is communicated by means of the voice, is natural, that which is conveyed by writing, is artificial; the one is animated, the other dead; consequently, the first will be efficacious and active, the second languid and faint. The tongue writes on the soul, as the hand on paper. That which we hear, is conveyed to us immediately and in the first instance, from the mind of him from whom the instruction proceeds; that which we read, is the copy of a copy. If princes in their childhood, were daily attended by discreet and good-intentioned people, who under the colour of amusing and entertaining them, were to instruct them; any one might venture to be bound, for their future good behaviour and wise conduct. The learning insinuates itself deepest, which is conveyed under the veil of diversion; and as that nourishes the body best, which we eat with desire and an appetite, so that which we listen to with delight, is most improving to the soul. The word instruction is unpleasing to children, therefore it is necessary as far as we are able, to take away the name, and leave or preserve the substance of the thing; and this is much more necessary to be done in the case of Princes, because from their early time of life, either their own vanity, or the flattery of other people, inspires them with a notion, that persons of their rank and station have no need of learning. The rules of equity and civil jurisprudence, conveyed under the disguise of engaging and entertaining relations of the conduct and management of just Princes, who by acting well, attained the accomplishment of all their wishes with respect to foreign concerns, and acquired the adoration of their own subjects at home, and the admiration of all strangers; I say, if improvement was insinuated into them in this way, by some person whose conversation was pleasing to them, and who had the address to introduce it, not as if he was instructing, but entertaining, them; it would be the best method of ingrafting in their minds, plants of the choicest quality, from whence in time you might expect to gather excellent fruit. For this reason, the wise Bishop of Cambray composed for the education of the Duke of Burgundy, whose preceptor he was, a collection of pleasing fables, in the stile and manner of such tales, with which old women are accustomed to entertain children, and which children for their amusement are used to relate to one another; in these, he in natural and easy language, suited to their capacities and comprehensions, conveyed all the precepts which compose the most Christian policy.

SECT. VII.

XXVII. All the lessons however, which are given to Princes, should be calculated to train them to, and make them enamoured with those virtues, which may be of the most consequence, and the most useful to them, both as Princes and men; above all, regard should be had, as a matter of the utmost importance, to implanting in them, the feelings of humanity and moderation of spirit, which virtues, as being diametrically opposite to, are the best counterpoises to the vice of ambition. Other vices may be prejudicial to themselves, or injurious to particular individuals; but ambition, or the inordinate lust of dominion and controul, are pernicious, and evils to a whole kingdom. There is no doubt, but an unjust or a cruel Prince, is extremely abhorrent, though with all this, if you attend to the mischief these vices produce, you will find, that that occasioned by ambition, far exceeds the other; for on account of its being most generally felt, it is by far the greatest. Injustice and cruelty are exercised on determined individuals, but ambition oppresses all. Or we should express it better, by saying, the unjust and cruel, is cruel and unjust to some particular people; but the ambitious is unjust and cruel to the whole community. These are the ordinary steps and progressions of ambition. It begins by injustice, goes on to rigour, and ends with cruelty. The Prince is unjust to a state, who, by extending his demands beyond the limits of right reason, is desirous of burthening his subjects more than the rules of equity permit. But what follows this oppressive mode of conduct? Why that the subjects, as soon as it is introduced, begin to be dissatisfied and complain; and that the Prince, regarding their complaints and applications for redress, though couched in never so submissive terms, as affronts and injuries, begins to direct chastisements. Measures of rigour are now determined on; and what follows the execution of them? Why, that the clamours and complaints grow louder, and that the cries of the oppressed in the ears of the King, sound like the voice of rebellion. Upon this, the rigour, under the colour of law and justice, is augmented, till it ascends to the degree of cruelty; but in case things do not arrive at this extremity, because fear suffocates in the breasts of the afflicted, the voice of murmur; yet what greater torment can a man undergo, than that of supporting a heavy yoke on his shoulders, and having at the same time a cord drawn so tight round his neck, as to obstruct the relief of a sigh? This then being a great martyrdom, the oppression which is the cause of it, can’t fail of being a great cruelty.

SECT. VIII.

XXVIII. I am not surprized that some Princes have gone to this extreme, but rather wonder that all have not proceeded to it. The thirsty desire of domineering, which is never satiated, is natural to the heart of man; and this principle which is born with us, in Princes, is stimulated and inflamed by flattery. We frequently hear them addressed, in terms which are exquisitely hyperbolical, some to blazon the perfections of their characters, others those of their persons. They represent to them their superiority in a manner, that tends to persuade them, they are more than men, and that other people are less. This ostentatious image of grandeur is very grateful to their feelings, and therefore it is not wonderful, they should set it up as an idol, for the people who are under them to offer as sacrifices to, all they possess which is most valuable. Some politicians have thought it expedient, in order to give Princes a higher idea of their own excellence, and fill them with more exalted notions, to place flatterers about their persons; and I have no doubt but this may be proper, when you perceive them to be very pusillanimous. But in general, the thing of most consequence in their education, ought to be taking care to impress on their minds, such maxims only, as are dictated by religion, virtue, and humanity. And this is the manner in which they should be propounded to them.

XXIX. That a King is a man, as other men are, son like them, of the same common father, equal by nature, and only unequal in fortune.

XXX. That this fortune, imagine it to be great as you will, he owes all to God, who has power to place one of another race on the throne; and no man, if he pleases to do it, has a right to find fault or complain of injustice, even though he should raise to the rank of Majesty a person of the most humble station in the kingdom, and reduce to the lowest class, him, who the day before was seated on a throne.

XXXI. That so much the greater the idea of his own grandeur is, by so much the greater ought his gratitude and thankfulness to be to the Divine Majesty, who has conferred it upon him; and that in proportion to the superiority of his rank, are his obligations to serve and obey God as an example to other men.

XXXII. That God did not make the kingdom for the King, but the King for the kingdom. Therefore the object of his government should not be directed to support his own private interest or convenience, but that of the republic. For this reason, Aristotle points out the essential distinction between a King and a tyrant, that the first only attends to his own convenience, the other to the public good.