finished_summaries/shmoop/The Prince/section_18_part_0.txt
The Prince.chapter 18
chapter 18
{"name": "Chapter 18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-18", "summary": "We would all love to be perfect and be honest, but, hey, you have to break some eggs if you're going to make an omelet. Dear Shmooponauts: if you want to rule, you're going to have to lie. A lot. Maybe all the time. Machiavelli gives us some metaphors about law versus force, and our animal side versus our human side. Basically the idea is this: don't be afraid to go a little wild. You're going to have to be a bit tricky and a bit scary, and that's okay. We think Machiavelli would have liked the phrase \"there's a sucker born every minute\" because he thinks that most people are just sitting around, waiting to be lied to. He even gives an example of a lying pope: Alexander VI. Here's a guy whose job is to be religious and moral, but how does he succeed in life? By lying! Ta-da. So, Machiavelli gives us the go-ahead to do the nasty stuff. But here's the thing: we have to seem to be innocent. And we need to know when we have to change our tactics. Anyway, as long as you keep your kingdom prosperous and safe, people will say that you were a good guyeven if you say one thing and do another, like the king of Spain.", "analysis": ""}

Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and
to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our experience
has been that those princes who have done great things have held good
faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect
of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on
their word. You must know there are two ways of contesting,(*) the one
by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the
second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it
is necessary to have recourse to the second. Therefore it is necessary
for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the
man. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers,
who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to
the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline;
which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half
beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make
use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable. A
prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought
to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself
against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves.
Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a
lion to terrify the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not
understand what they are about. Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought
he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and
when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer. If men
were entirely good this precept would not hold, but because they are
bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe
it with them. Nor will there ever be wanting to a prince legitimate
reasons to excuse this non-observance. Of this endless modern examples
could be given, showing how many treaties and engagements have been made
void and of no effect through the faithlessness of princes; and he who
has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best.

     (*) "Contesting," i.e. "striving for mastery." Mr Burd
     points out that this passage is imitated directly from
     Cicero's "De Officiis": "Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi,
     unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim; cumque illud
     proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum; confugiendum est ad
     posterius, si uti non licet superiore."

But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic,
and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and
so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will
always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent
example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing
else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he
always found victims; for there never was a man who had greater power
in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet would
observe it less; nevertheless his deceits always succeeded according to
his wishes,(*) because he well understood this side of mankind.

     (*) "Nondimanco sempre gli succederono gli inganni (ad
     votum)." The words "ad votum" are omitted in the Testina
     addition, 1550.

     Alexander never did what he said,
     Cesare never said what he did.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities
I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And
I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe
them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear
merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a
mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and
know how to change to the opposite.

And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one,
cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often
forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to fidelity,(*)
friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary for him to
have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations
of fortune force it, yet, as I have said above, not to diverge from the
good if he can avoid doing so, but, if compelled, then to know how to
set about it.

     (*) "Contrary to fidelity" or "faith," "contro alla fede,"
     and "tutto fede," "altogether faithful," in the next
     paragraph. It is noteworthy that these two phrases, "contro
     alla fede" and "tutto fede," were omitted in the Testina
     edition, which was published with the sanction of the papal
     authorities. It may be that the meaning attached to the word
     "fede" was "the faith," i.e. the Catholic creed, and not as
     rendered here "fidelity" and "faithful." Observe that the
     word "religione" was suffered to stand in the text of the
     Testina, being used to signify indifferently every shade of
     belief, as witness "the religion," a phrase inevitably
     employed to designate the Huguenot heresy. South in his
     Sermon IX, p. 69, ed. 1843, comments on this passage as
     follows: "That great patron and Coryphaeus of this tribe,
     Nicolo Machiavel, laid down this for a master rule in his
     political scheme: 'That the show of religion was helpful to
     the politician, but the reality of it hurtful and
     pernicious.'"

For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything
slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five
qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether
merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing
more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men
judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to
everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees
what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare
not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty
of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and
especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges
by the result.

For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding
his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be
praised by everybody; because the vulgar are always taken by what a
thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are
only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have
no ground to rest on.

One prince(*) of the present time, whom it is not well to name, never
preaches anything else but peace and good faith, and to both he is
most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived him of
reputation and kingdom many a time.

     (*) Ferdinand of Aragon. "When Machiavelli was writing 'The
     Prince' it would have been clearly impossible to mention
     Ferdinand's name here without giving offence." Burd's "Il
     Principe," p. 308.




Chapter 18
We would all love to be perfect and be honest, but, hey, you have to break some eggs if you're going to make an omelet. Dear Shmooponauts: if you want to rule, you're going to have to lie. A lot. Maybe all the time. Machiavelli gives us some metaphors about law versus force, and our animal side versus our human side. Basically the idea is this: don't be afraid to go a little wild. You're going to have to be a bit tricky and a bit scary, and that's okay. We think Machiavelli would have liked the phrase "there's a sucker born every minute" because he thinks that most people are just sitting around, waiting to be lied to. He even gives an example of a lying pope: Alexander VI. Here's a guy whose job is to be religious and moral, but how does he succeed in life? By lying! Ta-da. So, Machiavelli gives us the go-ahead to do the nasty stuff. But here's the thing: we have to seem to be innocent. And we need to know when we have to change our tactics. Anyway, as long as you keep your kingdom prosperous and safe, people will say that you were a good guyeven if you say one thing and do another, like the king of Spain.