Possession, ought to make Everything new._
Whosoever becomes prince of a city or State, more especially if his
position be so insecure that he cannot resort to constitutional
government either in the form of a republic or a monarchy, will find
that the best way to preserve his princedom is to renew the whole
institutions of that State; that is to say, to create new magistracies
with new names, confer new powers, and employ new men, and like David
when he became king, exalt the humble and depress the great, “_filling
the hungry with good things, and sending the rich empty away_.”
Moreover, he must pull down existing towns and rebuild them, removing
their inhabitants from one place to another; and, in short, leave
nothing in the country as he found it; so that there shall be neither
rank, nor condition, nor honour, nor wealth which its possessor can
refer to any but to him. And he must take example from Philip of
Macedon, the father of Alexander, who by means such as these, from
being a petty prince became monarch of all Greece; and of whom it was
written that he shifted men from province to province as a shepherd
moves his flocks from one pasture to another.
These indeed are most cruel expedients, contrary not merely to every
Christian, but to every civilized rule of conduct, and such as every
man should shun, choosing rather to lead a private life than to be a
king on terms so hurtful to mankind. But he who will not keep to the
fair path of virtue, must to maintain himself enter this path of evil.
Men, however, not knowing how to be wholly good or wholly bad, choose
for themselves certain middle ways, which of all others are the most
pernicious, as shall be shown by an instance in the following Chapter.