nor so impracticable and headstrong—
as human kind,
when prosperity—or what is so considered—lies within its grasp.
|E| No less difficult is the task of advising a ruler how to rule. To admit reason, he fears, is to admit a ruler, whose law of duty will make a slave of him and curtail the advantage he derives from power. He has yet to learn a lesson from Theopompus, the Spartan king, who was the first to modify the powers of the throne by means of that of the Ephors. When his wife reproached him for proposing to leave to his children less authority than he had inherited, he replied: ‘Nay, greater, because more assured.’ By relaxing its excessive absolutism he escaped the |F| consequent ill-feeling, and therewith its dangers. But note. Theopompus, in diverting into other channels a portion of the full stream of power, deprived himself of just so much as he gave away. But when philosophic reason becomes the established colleague and protector of a ruler, it merely removes the perilous element and leaves the healthy—a process as necessary to power as to sound health.
In most cases, however, monarchs or rulers show as little wisdom as a tasteless sculptor, who fancies that to represent a figure with a huge stride, strained muscles, and gaping mouth, is to make it appear massive and imposing. They imagine that |780| an arrogant tone, harsh looks, short temper, and exclusiveness give them the true regal air of awe and majesty. In reality they are not a bit better than a colossal statue with the outward shape and form of a god or demigod, while the inside is a mass of earth, stone, or lead. Indeed, in the case of the statue, these heavy materials serve to keep it erect and prevent it from warping; whereas, with an unschooled governor or chief, the unreason within is often the cause of instability and collapse. |B| His foundation being out of plumb, the lofty power which he builds upon it is correspondingly unstable. Now it is only when the builder’s square is itself faultless in line and angle, that it can make other things true to line by adjustment to, and comparison with, itself. So a ruler must begin by acquiring rule within himself. Let him set his own soul straight, and make his own character firm, and then begin adjusting his subjects thereto. You cannot set upright, when you are falling; teach, when you are ignorant; discipline, when unruly; command, when disobedient; govern, when ungoverned. And yet it is a common error to suppose that the chief blessing of authority |C| is to be above authority. To the King of Persia every one was a slave except his own wife, the very person whose master he ought to have been.
By whom, then, is the ruler to be ruled? By the
Law,
Sovereign of mortals and immortals all,
as Pindar says; not a law written outwardly in books or on wooden tables, but a living law of reason in himself, abiding with him, watching him, and never leaving his soul destitute of guidance. The King of Persia kept one chamberlain whose special function was to enter in the morning and say to him: ‘Rise, Sire, and attend to matters which Great Oromazdes |D| meant for your concern.’ The ruler who has learned wisdom and self-control hears the same voice of exhortation from within. It was a saying of Polemo that love is ‘serving the Gods in the care and protection of the young‘. With more truth it might be said that a ruler serves God in the care and protection of men, by dispensing, or safeguarding, the blessings which God gives to mankind.
See’st thou yon boundless sky and air aloft,