XXVIII. Finally: Experience is the arbitrator in these matters, as it
is in most others. There have in all times, been eminent politicians,
without the assistance of books; and very lame ones, who have read
and studied them. It is certain, that in Tacitus, we see exposed, the
errors by which some princes lost their crowns, and the artifices by
which others acquired or preserved them. Charles the First of England,
was a great admirer of Tacitus, whose works he always carried about
with him, and for which he had so great a respect, that he adopted them
as the oracles of his government. Notwithstanding this, they did not
teach him to avoid the errors of those who had lost their crowns; nor
to imitate the arts of those, who had acquired or preserved them; and
with all the assistance of this great guide Tacitus, he scarce advanced
a step, that did not approach him to the precipice; and by pursuing, or
misunderstanding the maxims of that politician, he caused himself to
descend from the throne, in order to mount the scaffold.
XXIX. By way of contrast to Charles the First of England, we may instance
Charles the First of Spain, and the Fifth of Germany, who, without the
assistance of literature, but left solely to the benefit of his own
genius, was one of the most profound politicians of the age in which he
lived.
XXX. The Romans, conquered the world without the help of books, and lost
it after they knew the use of them. It was in the reign of Augustus, that
the first schools of politics were opened in Rome; I mean, that then the
Romans began to read the Grecian histories, in which are represented
the industry and arduous application exerted by that most sagacious
people, in the management of public business. Of what use was all this
instruction to the Romans? Of the same it had been before to the Greeks
themselves; who, when they had present and before their eyes, inserted
in written histories, the conduct of their greatest politicians, were
obliged to submit to the superior ability of the Romans, who had not
the least benefit of those instructions; and the Romans, after that
cultivation was introduced among them, proceeded by little and little, to
lose all they had gained before.
XXXI. The two Roman historians, Livius and Sallust, who both wrote in the
reign of Augustus, were in no wise inferior to the best Greek ones; and
the Romans, in case they had not well understood the foreign ones, had
then masters of their own. We may add to this, that they had for their
instruction, the great example of Augustus himself; who, not from the
help of reading or study, but by the dint of his own excellent genius,
was without doubt a most signal politician. But all this was useless, and
perhaps hurtful. Rome, which had gone on continually prospering, while
she was a stranger to these lessons, was, soon after she began to listen
to them, advancing fast to her destruction. Or let us express it in
another way; the Romans were great politicians when they did not conceit
themselves such; and ceased to be so, when by studying foreign maxims,
they fancied they had improved themselves much in political knowledge.
XXXII. But where is the necessity of making a repetition of examples?
All those who were the first founders of monarchies and republics, were
endued with supreme political abilities; for without possessing those
talents, how could they have trained a roving and savage multitude, to
submit to the yoke, and live sociably and quietly under one prince, or
a determined set of magistrates? What books could they study, at a time
when such things were hardly known? And what examples could they copy
after, who were the first that adopted that kind of management? Those
who succeeded them, had the benefit of their examples for their guidance;
but with all this advantage, the greatest part of them could do no more,
than just preserve the dominion that fell to them by inheritance, very
few improved it, and some of them lost it. So that we may apply to both
one and the other of them respectively, what Cæsar in his oration for
Catiline, said in the Roman senate, _Profecto virtus, atque sapientia
major in illis fuit, qui ex parvis opibus magnum imperium facere, quam in
nobis, qui ea bene parta vix retinemus_. (_Apud Sallustium_)