Now, why should I discourse of dignities and power which you, not
knowing what true dignity and power meaneth, exalt to the skies? And if
they light upon wicked men, what Aetnas, belching flames, or what deluge
can cause so great harms? I suppose thou rememberest how your ancestors,
by reason of the consuls' arrogancy, desired to abolish that government
which had been the beginning of their freedom, who before, for the same
cause, had removed the government of kings from their city. And if
sometime, which is very seldom, good men be preferred to honours,[112]
what other thing can give contentment in them but the honesty of those
which have them? So that virtues are not honoured by dignities, but
dignities by virtue. But what is this excellent power which you esteemed
so desirable? Consider you not, O earthly wights, whom you seem to
excel? For if among mice thou shouldst see one claim jurisdiction and
power to himself over the rest, to what a laughter it would move thee!
And what, if thou respectest the body, canst thou find more weak than
man, whom even the biting of little flies or the entering of creeping
worms doth often kill? Now, how can any man exercise jurisdiction upon
anybody except upon their bodies, and that which is inferior to their
bodies, I mean their fortunes? Canst thou ever imperiously impose
anything upon a free mind? Canst thou remove a soul settled in firm
reason from the quiet state which it possesseth? When a tyrant thought
to compel a certain free man by torments to bewray his confederates of a
conspiracy attempted against him, he bit off his tongue, and spit it out
upon the cruel tyrant's face,[113] by that means wisely making those
tortures, which the tyrant thought matter of cruelty, to be to him
occasion of virtue. Now, what is there that any can enforce upon another
which he may not himself be enforced to sustain by another? We read that
Busiris, wont to kill his guests, was himself slain by his guest
Hercules.[114] Regulus had laid fetters upon many Africans taken in war,
but ere long he found his own hands environed with his conqueror's
chains.[115] Wherefore thinkest thou the power of that man to be
anything worth, who cannot hinder another from doing that to him which
he can do to another? Moreover, if dignities and power had any natural
and proper good in them, they would never be bestowed upon the worst
men, for one opposite useth not to accompany another; nature refuseth to
have contraries joined. So that, since there is no doubt but that men of
the worst sort often enjoy dignities, it is also manifest that they are
not naturally good which may follow most naughty men. Which may more
worthily be thought of all fortune's gifts which are more plentifully
bestowed upon every lewd companion. Concerning which, I take that also
to be worthy consideration, that no man doubteth him to be a valiant man
in whom he seeth valour, and it is manifest that he which hath swiftness
is swift. So, likewise, music maketh musicians, physic physicians, and
rhetoric rhetoricians. For the nature of everything doth that which is
proper unto it, and is not mixed with contrary effects but repelleth all
opposites. But neither can riches extinguish unsatiable avarice, nor
power make him master of himself whom vicious lusts keep chained in
strongest fetters. And dignity bestowed upon wicked men doth not only
not make them worthy but rather bewrayeth and discovereth their
unworthiness. How cometh this to pass? Because in miscalling things that
are otherwise, you take a pleasure which is easily refuted by the effect
of the things themselves. Wherefore, by right, these things are not to
be called riches, this is not to be called power, that is not to be
called dignity. Lastly, we may conclude the same of all fortunes in
which it is manifest there is nothing to be desired, nothing naturally
good, which neither are always bestowed upon good men, nor do make them
good whom they are bestowed upon.
[112] The subject of _deferantur_ is _dignitates potentiaque_.
[113] The free man was the philosopher Anaxarchus: the tyrant, Nicocreon
the Cypriote. For the story see Diogenes Laertius ix. 59.
[114] Cf. Apollod. ii. 5. 11; Claudian xviii. 159; Virg. _Georg._ iii. 4.
[115] Cf. Cicero, _De Off._ iii. 99.