CONCERNING A KINGDOM

A king should be one who is most just; and he will be most just who most closely attends to the laws. Without justice it is impossible to a king; and without law there can be no justice. For justice is such only through law, justice's effective cause. A king is either animated law, or a legal ruler, whence he will be just, and observant of the laws. There are however three peculiar employments of a king: leading an army, administering justice, and worshipping the Gods. He will be able to lead an army properly only if he knows how to carry on war properly. He will be skilled in administering justice and in governing all his subjects only if he has well learned the nature of justice and law. He will worship the gods in a pious and holy manner only if he has diligently considered the nurture and virtue of God..... a good king must necessarily be a good general, judge and priest; which things are inseparable from the goodness and virtue of a king. It is the pilot's business to preserve the ship; the charioteer to preserve the chariot; and the physician's to save the sick, but it is a king's or a general's business to save those who are in danger in battle. For a leader must also be a provident inspector, and preserver. While judicial affairs are in general every body's interest, this is the special work of the king; who, like a god, is a world-leader and protector. While the whole state should be generally organized in a unitary manner, under unitary leadership, individual parts should be submissive to the supreme domination. Besides though the king should oblige and benefit his subjects, this should not be in contempt of justice and law. The third characteristic of a king's dignity is the worship of the Gods. The most excellent should be worshipped by the most excellent; and the leader and ruler by that which leads and rules. Of naturally most honorable things, God is the best; but of things on the earth, and human, a king is the supreme. As God is to the world, so is a king to his kingdom; and as a city is to the world, so is a king to God. For a city, indeed, being organized from things many and various, imitates the organization of the world; and its harmony; but a king whose rule is beneficent, and who himself is animated law, to men outlines the divinity.

It is hence necessary that a king should not be overcome by pleasure, but that he should overcome it; that he should not resemble, but excel the multitude; and that he should not conceive his proper employment to consist in the pursuit of pleasure, but rather in the achievement of character. Likewise he who rules others should be able first to govern his own passions.

As to the desire of obtaining great property, it must be observed that a king ought to be wealthy so as to benefit his friends, relieve those in want, and justly punish his enemies. Most delightful is the enjoyment of wealth in conjunction with virtue. So also about the preeminence of a king; for since he always surpasses others in virtue, a judgment of his empire might be formed with reference to virtue; and not to riches, power, or military strength. Riches he possesses in common with any one of his subjects; power, in common with animals, and military strength in common with tyrants. But virtue is the prerogative of good men; hence, whatever king is temperate with respect to pleasures, liberal with respect to money, and prudent and sagacious in government, he will in reality be a king. The people, however, have the same analogy with respect to the virtues and the vices, as the parts of the human soul. For the desire to accumulate the superfluous continues with the irrational part of the soul; for desire is not rational. But ambition and ferocity cling to the irascible part; for this is the furious part of the soul. The love of pleasure clings to the passionate part, which is effeminate and yielding. Injustice, however, which is the supreme vice, is composite and clings to the whole soul. The king should organize the well-legislated city like a lyre; first with himself establishing the just boundary and order of Law; knowing that the people's proper arrangement should be organized according to this interior boundary, the divinity having given him dominion over them. The good king should also establish proper positions and habits in the delivery of public orations, behaving in a cultured manner, seriously and earnestly, lest he seem either rough or abject to the multitude; but show agreeable and easy manners. These things he will obtain if in the first place his aspect and discourse be worthy of respect, and if appears to deserve the sovereign authority which he possesses. But in the second place, if he proves himself to be benign in behavior to those he may meet, in countenance and beneficence. In the third place, if his hatred of depravity is formidable, by the punishment he inflicts thereon, from his quickness in inflicting it, and in short from his skill and exercise in the art of government. For venerable gravity being something which imitates divinity, is capable of winning for him the admiration and honor of the multitude. Benignity will render him pleasing and beloved. His formidableness will frighten his enemies, and save him from being conquered; and make him magnanimous and confident to his friends. His gravity, however, should have no abject or vulgar element; it should be admirable, and worthy of the dignity of rule and sceptre. He should never contend with his inferiors or equals, but with those that are greater than himself; and, conformably to the magnitude of his empire, he should count those pleasures greatest which are derived from beautiful and great deeds and not those which arise from sensual gratifications; separating himself indeed from human passions and approximating the Gods, not through arrogance, but through magnanimity and the invincible preeminence of virtue. Hence he should invest his aspect and reasonings with such a gracefulness and majesty, and also in his mental conceptions and soul-manners, in his actions, and body motions and gestures, that those who observe him may perceive that he is adorned and fashioned with modesty and temperance, and a dignified disposition. A good king should be able to charm those who behold him, no less than the sound of a flute and harmony attract those that hear them. Enough about the venerable gravity of a king. I must now mention his benignity. Generally, any king who is just, equitable and beneficent will be benign. Justice is a connective and collective communion, and is that disposition of the soul which adapts itself to those near us. As rhythm is to motion, and harmony to the voice, so is justice to diplomacy; since it is the governors' and the governedsÕ common good, harmonizing political society. But justice has two fellow administrators, equity and benignity; the former softening severity of punishment, the latter extending pardon to the less guilty offenders. A good king must extend assistance to those in need of it; and be beneficent; and this assistance should be given not in one way only, but in every possible manner. Besides, this beneficence should not be (hypocritical), regarding the honor to be derived therefrom, but come from the deliberate choice of the giver. Towards all men a king should conduct himself so as to avoid being troublesome to them, especially to men of inferior rank, and of slender fortune; for these, like diseased bodies, can endure nothing of a troublesome nature. Good kings, indeed, have dispositions similar to the Gods, especially resembling Jupiter, the universal ruler, who is venerable and honorable through the magnanimous preeminence of virtue. He is benign, because he is beneficent, and the giver of good; hence by the Ionic poet (Homer) he is said to be father of men and gods. He is also eminently terrible, punishing the unjust, reigning and ruling over all things. In his hand he carries thunder, as a symbol of his formidable excellence. All these particulars remind us that a kingdom is something resembling the divine.