XXIV. The soul then, in the state of nonage, receiving impressions
like wax, and retaining them like brass; I repeat once more, that the
inspiring young people with wholesome maxims in their tender years,
is a thing of the utmost importance. The method of education should
be thus laid out: to begin with religion, to proceed next to ethics
or morality, and to finish with politics. In these three parts, there
is an admirable connection. Religion (which we don’t speak of here as
a special virtue, but only with relation to the firm faith contained
in it, and the truths it persuades) informs the understanding of the
greatness and goodness of God, and disposes the heart to love him.
Ethics, or moral instruction, directs all our actions, and causes them
to conspire unanimously to promote this end, serving at the same time,
as a vehicle to convey, and as an ultimate disposer to the practice
of the most sound policy; or, to speak more properly, the morality
of a King, with relation to his kingly office, is no other thing but
policy itself, taken in general and comprehensive sense; because that
consists, in a combination or assemblage of all those virtues, which
conduce or lead to the exercise of good government.
XXV. The reading of good books is very useful, to instruct Princes in
the maxims of sound policy. But which are the good books? I believe
very few. Those which contain sound doctrine are infinite; but what
signifies their informing, if they don’t stimulate or move? The most
difficult part of morality, does not so much consist in coming at a
knowledge of what is right, as in exciting and moving an effectual
inclination to practise it. There are books of short sentences, and
abounding with affectation, (in the stile of Seneca, which a certain
Emperor called sand without lime) which tingle in the ear, but their
echo never reaches the heart. There are others, filled with texts and
pulpit conceits, which, instead of illustrating, confound, and instead
of moving, become tiresome and surfeiting. There are others again,
which abound with the sentences of Thucydides, Polybius, Tacitus, Livy,
and Sallust, intermixed with a number of historical passages. I shall
say of all these, as Apelles said of a pupil of his, who had painted
Helen with very little beauty, but in a very costly dress stuck full of
jewels: _Cum non posses facere pulchram, fecisti divitem. As you was
unable to make her handsome, you have made her rich._ These forced and
unnatural ornaments, with which erudition in the books that treat of
it, dress virtue, do not conduce to fire the minds of those who read
them, with the love of her. He only will accomplish this end, who has
the art of painting in lively colours her native beauty; and who has
the address and genius, to impress on the understanding, a clear and
agreeable idea, of the magnificence of her charms.
XXVI. But better than the best books, is good conversation. The
instruction which is communicated by means of the voice, is natural,
that which is conveyed by writing, is artificial; the one is animated,
the other dead; consequently, the first will be efficacious and active,
the second languid and faint. The tongue writes on the soul, as the
hand on paper. That which we hear, is conveyed to us immediately and
in the first instance, from the mind of him from whom the instruction
proceeds; that which we read, is the copy of a copy. If princes in
their childhood, were daily attended by discreet and good-intentioned
people, who under the colour of amusing and entertaining them, were to
instruct them; any one might venture to be bound, for their future good
behaviour and wise conduct. The learning insinuates itself deepest,
which is conveyed under the veil of diversion; and as that nourishes
the body best, which we eat with desire and an appetite, so that which
we listen to with delight, is most improving to the soul. The word
instruction is unpleasing to children, therefore it is necessary as
far as we are able, to take away the name, and leave or preserve the
substance of the thing; and this is much more necessary to be done in
the case of Princes, because from their early time of life, either
their own vanity, or the flattery of other people, inspires them with
a notion, that persons of their rank and station have no need of
learning. The rules of equity and civil jurisprudence, conveyed under
the disguise of engaging and entertaining relations of the conduct
and management of just Princes, who by acting well, attained the
accomplishment of all their wishes with respect to foreign concerns,
and acquired the adoration of their own subjects at home, and the
admiration of all strangers; I say, if improvement was insinuated
into them in this way, by some person whose conversation was pleasing
to them, and who had the address to introduce it, not as if he was
instructing, but entertaining, them; it would be the best method of
ingrafting in their minds, plants of the choicest quality, from whence
in time you might expect to gather excellent fruit. For this reason,
the wise Bishop of Cambray composed for the education of the Duke of
Burgundy, whose preceptor he was, a collection of pleasing fables, in
the stile and manner of such tales, with which old women are accustomed
to entertain children, and which children for their amusement are used
to relate to one another; in these, he in natural and easy language,
suited to their capacities and comprehensions, conveyed all the
precepts which compose the most Christian policy.