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Chapter XVII.
Chapter XVII.
Of Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better To Be Loved or Feared
Passing to the other qualities above referred to, I say that every Prince
should desire to be accounted merciful and not cruel. Nevertheless, he should
be on his guard against the abuse of this quality of mercy. Cesare Borgia was
reputed cruel, yet his cruelty restored Romagna, united it, and brought it to
order and obedience; so that if we look at things in their true light, it will
be seen that he was in reality far more merciful than the people of Florence,
who, to avoid the imputation of cruelty, suffered Pistoja to be torn to pieces
by factions.
A Prince should therefore disregard the reproach of being thought cruel
where it enables him to keep his subjects united and obedient. For he who
quells disorder by a very few signal examples will in the end be more merciful
than he who from too great leniency permits things to take their course and so
to result in rapine and bloodshed; for these hurt the whole State, whereas the
severities of the Prince injure individuals only.
And for a new Prince, of all others, it is impossible to escape a name
for cruelty, since new States are full of dangers. Wherefore Virgil, by the
mouth of Dido, excuses the harshness of her reign on the plea that it was
new, saying:-
`A fate unkind, and newness in my reign
Compel me thus to guard a wide domain.`
Nevertheless, the new Prince should not be too ready of belief, nor too
easily set in motion; nor should he himself be the first to raise alarms; but
should so temper prudence with kindliness that too great confidence in others
shall not throw him off his guard, nor groundless distrust render him
insupportable.
And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather
than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we
should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if
we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. For of
men it may generally be affirmed, that they are thankless, fickle, false
studious to avoid danger, greedy of gain, devoted to you while you are able to
confer benefits upon them, and ready, as I said before, while danger is
distant, to shed their blood, and sacrifice their property, their lives, and
their children for you; but in the hour of need they turn against you. The
Prince, therefore, who without otherwise securing himself builds wholly on
their professions is undone. For the friendships which we buy with a price,
and do not gain by greatness and nobility of character, though they be fairly
earned are not made good, but fail us when we have occasion to use them.
Moreover, men are less careful how they offend him who makes himself
loved than him who makes himself feared. For love is held by the tie of
obligation, which, because men are a sorry breed, is broken on every whisper
of private interest; but fear is bound by the apprehension of punishment which
never relaxes its grasp.
Nevertheless a Prince should inspire fear in such a fashion that if he
do not win love he may escape hate. For a man may very well be feared and yet
not hated, and this will be the case so long as he does not meddle with the
property or with the women of his citizens and subjects. And if constrained to
put any to death, he should do so only when there is manifest cause or
reasonable justification. But, above all, he must abstain from the property of
others. For men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of
their patrimony. Moreover, pretexts for confiscation are never to seek, and he
who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is
not his; whereas reasons for shedding blood are fewer, and sooner exhausted.
But when a Prince is with his army, and has many soldiers under his
command, he must needs disregard the reproach of cruelty, for without such a
reputation in its Captain, no army can be held together or kept under any kind
of control. Among other things remarkable in Hannibal this has been noted,
that having a very great army, made up of men of many different nations and
brought to fight in a foreign country, no dissension ever arose among the
soldiers themselves, nor any mutiny against their leader, either in his good
or in his evil fortunes. This we can only ascribe to the transcendent cruelty,
which, joined with numberless great qualities, rendered him at once venerable
and terrible in the eyes of his soldiers; for without this reputation for
cruelty these other virtues would not have produced the like results.
Unreflecting writers, indeed, while they praise his achievements, have
condemned the chief cause of them; but that his other merits would not by
themselves have been so efficacious we may see from the case of Scipio, one of
the greatest Captains, not of his own time only but of all times of which we
have record, whose armies rose against him in Spain from no other cause than
his too great leniency in allowing them a freedom inconsistent with military
strictness. With which weakness Fabius Maximus taxed him in the Senate House,
calling him the corrupter of the Roman soldiery. Again, when the Locrians were
shamefully outraged by one of his lieutenants, he neither avenged them, nor
punished the insolence of his officer; and this from the natural easiness of
his disposition. So that it was said in the Senate by one who sought to excuse
him, that there were many who knew better how to refrain from doing wrong
themselves than how to correct the wrong-doing of others. This temper,
however, must in time have marred the name and fame even of Scipio, had he
continued in it, and retained his command. But living as he did under the
control of the Senate, this hurtful quality was not merely disguised, but came
to be regarded as a glory.
Returning to the question of being loved or feared, I sum up by saying,
that since his being loved depends upon his subjects, while his being feared
depends upon himself, a wise Prince should build on what is his own, and not
on what rests with others. Only, as I have said, he must do his utmost to
escape hatred.
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