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Niccolò
Machiavelli
In
What Way Princes Must Keep Faith
How
laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity,
and not with astuteness, everyone knows.
Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have
done great things who have little regard for good faith, and have been
able by astuteness to confuse men’s brains, and who have ultimately
overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.
You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by
law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of
beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have
recourse to the second. It
is therefore necessary for a prince to know well how to use both the
beast and the man….
A prince being thus obligated to know well how to act as a beast must
imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from
traps and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.
One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to
frighten wolves. Those who
wish to be only lions do not understand this.
Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by doing
so it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him
bind himself no longer exist. If
all men were good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are
bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to
keep faith with them. Nor
have legitimate grounds ever failed a prince who wished to show
colourable excuses for the non-fulfillment of his promise.
Of this one could furnish an infinite number of modern examples,
and show how many times peace has been broken, and how many promises
rendered worthless, by the faithlessness of princes, and those that have
been best able to imitate the fox have succeeded best.
But it is necessary to be able to disguise this character well,
and to be a great feigner and dissembler; and men are so simple and so
ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always
find those who allow themselves to be deceived. |
