Prince XI (Redux)
Tying up some loose ends
Chapter 19 discusses how the prince is to avoid hatred and contempt. Above all, Machiavelli emphasizes the need to conceal the arbitrary character of executive power.
What makes him contemptible is to be held variable, light, effeminate, pusillanimous, irresolute, from which a prince should guard himself as from a shoal. He should contrive that greatness, spiritedness, gravity, and strength are recognized in his actions, and he should insist that his judgments in the private concerns of his subjects be irrevocable.
Resolution or resoluteness is necessary for good government. To waffle, to flip-flop, to decide one way today only to reverse yourself tomorrow simply undermines the people’s confidence in your capacity to rule, which is coterminous with your capacity for decision.
As Machiavelli will emphasize later in Chapter 23, being agreeable will make one inconstant, thus it is better to be hard. Think back to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Turning to Chapter 21 we take up the subject of what a prince should do to be held in esteem. Machiavelli concludes the chapter thusly:
A prince should also show himself a lover of the virtues, giving recognition to virtuous men, and he should honor those who are excellent in an art. Next, he should inspire his citizens to follow their pursuits quietly, in trade and in agriculture and in every other pursuit of men, so that one person does not fear to adorn his possessions for fear that they be taken away from him, and another to open up trade for fear of taxes. But he should prepare rewards for whoever wants to do these things, and for anyone who thinks up any way of expanding his city or his state. Besides this, he should at suitable times of the year keep the people occupied with festivals and spectacles. And because every city is divided into guilds or into clans, meet with the sometimes, and make himself an example of humanity and munificence, always holding firm the majesty of his dignity nonetheless, because he can never want this to be lacking in anything.
Machiavelli is counseling that the price ought to be virtuous and chaste, and he should refrain from the property of his citizens. This is an application of the teaching above, of picking the less bad as the good. What is best is to take without repercussions; what is worst is to take with repercussions; thus, it is less bad, that is, good, not to take.
Chapter 22 discusses advisors. Here Machiavelli gives one of his famous teachings regarding the intellectual capacities of human beings. He begins by emphasizing that the selection of advisors is a reflection of the prince’s prudence. He continues to discuss the three types of brains found among men.
And since there are three types of brains: one that understands by itself, another that discerns what others understand, the third that understands neither by itself nor through others; the first is most excellent, the second excellent, and the third useless.
This ranking ends up being revised in the sequel:
And since many esteem that any prince who establishes an opinion of himself as prudent is so considered not because of his nature but because of the good counsel he has around him, without doubt they are deceived. For this is a general rule that never fails: that a prince who is not wise by himself cannot be counseled well, unless indeed by chance he should submit himself to one alone to govern him in everything, who is a very prudent man. In this case he could well be, but it would not last long because that governor would in a short time take away his state … [skipping some] So one concludes that good counsel, from wherever it comes, must arise from the prudence of the prince, and not the prudence of the prince from good counsel.
In the final analysis then, only the first type of brain is any good. Both the other types are useless to a price or any other person who has political ambition.
Chapter 24 reinforces the preference for independence that is implicit in the foregoing. Machiavelli concludes the chapter by saying, “For one should never fall in the belief you can find someone to pick you up. Whether it does not happen or happens, it is not security for you, because that defense was base and did not depend on you. And those defenses alone are good, are certain, and are lasting, that depend on you yourself and on your virtue.” Chapter 25 is the penultimate chapter and serves as the culmination of Machiavelli’s project, which becomes the project of modernity, to conquer Fortune. And Chapter 26 is an exhortation for a unified Italian state.