feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Prince/section_16_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Prince.chapter 18
feat_summary_id: chapter 18
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201108110625/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-prince/summary-and-analysis/chapter-18", "summary": "Everyone knows that princes should keep their word, but we see that the princes who have accomplished the most have been accomplished at deception. A prince may fight with laws, which is the way of human beings, or with force, which is the way of animals. A prince should imitate the fox in cunning as well as the lion in strength. A wise prince should never keep his word when it would go against his interest, because he can expect others to do the same. In order to pull it off, you must be a good liar, but you will always find people willing to be deceived. To sum it up, it is useful to seem to be virtuous, but you must be ready to act the opposite way if the situation requires it. A prince should do good if he can, but be ready to do evil if he must. Yet a prince must be careful to always act in a way that appears virtuous, for many can see you, but few know how you really are. If a ruler conquers and maintains his state, everyone will praise him, judging his actions by their outcome.", "analysis": "This chapter concludes Machiavelli's discussion of the qualities a prince should display. Keeping his feet firmly in the real world, as he promised, he begins by stating that even though everyone assumes princes should keep their word, experience shows that those who do not keep their word get the better of those who do. This is Machiavelli's justification for deceit: Because you can expect other princes not to honor their word to you, you should not feel obligated to honor your word to them. Sebastian de Grazia, writing about this chapter, refers to Machiavelli's precept as the \"Un-Golden Rule\"--do unto others as you can expect they will do unto you. In this bestial world, princes must act like beasts, imitating the clever fox, instead of relying only on strength, as does the lion. In a world full of deceivers, there must also be someone to deceive, and Machiavelli finds that there are plenty of people willing to overlook all kinds of deceit as long as their state is peaceful and prosperous. The prince's control of his public image gets special attention in this chapter. A prince must always appear to be truthful, merciful, and religious, even if he must sometimes act in the opposite way. Interestingly, these are the very same qualities he condemns Agathocles for lacking in Chapter 8, but here, he advises the prince to dispense with them when necessary. But the great mass of people will never see the prince as he really is; they will see only the image he projects. The few insiders who know the prince's true nature will do nothing to harm him as long as the people support him, and the people will support him as long as he has been successful. Here, Machiavelli sounds remarkably like a modern spin doctor advising a politician on how to get good press. Glossary Chiron the wisest of all centaurs , famous for his knowledge of medicine: he is the teacher of Asclepius, Achilles, and Hercules. prince who is not named the reference is to King Ferdinand of Spain, who had a wide reputation for being deceptive and crafty."}
text: 
  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.
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 18
target: Everyone knows that princes should keep their word, but we see that the princes who have accomplished the most have been accomplished at deception. A prince may fight with laws, which is the way of human beings, or with force, which is the way of animals. A prince should imitate the fox in cunning as well as the lion in strength. A wise prince should never keep his word when it would go against his interest, because he can expect others to do the same. In order to pull it off, you must be a good liar, but you will always find people willing to be deceived. To sum it up, it is useful to seem to be virtuous, but you must be ready to act the opposite way if the situation requires it. A prince should do good if he can, but be ready to do evil if he must. Yet a prince must be careful to always act in a way that appears virtuous, for many can see you, but few know how you really are. If a ruler conquers and maintains his state, everyone will praise him, judging his actions by their outcome.
feat_summary_analysis: This chapter concludes Machiavelli's discussion of the qualities a prince should display. Keeping his feet firmly in the real world, as he promised, he begins by stating that even though everyone assumes princes should keep their word, experience shows that those who do not keep their word get the better of those who do. This is Machiavelli's justification for deceit: Because you can expect other princes not to honor their word to you, you should not feel obligated to honor your word to them. Sebastian de Grazia, writing about this chapter, refers to Machiavelli's precept as the "Un-Golden Rule"--do unto others as you can expect they will do unto you. In this bestial world, princes must act like beasts, imitating the clever fox, instead of relying only on strength, as does the lion. In a world full of deceivers, there must also be someone to deceive, and Machiavelli finds that there are plenty of people willing to overlook all kinds of deceit as long as their state is peaceful and prosperous. The prince's control of his public image gets special attention in this chapter. A prince must always appear to be truthful, merciful, and religious, even if he must sometimes act in the opposite way. Interestingly, these are the very same qualities he condemns Agathocles for lacking in Chapter 8, but here, he advises the prince to dispense with them when necessary. But the great mass of people will never see the prince as he really is; they will see only the image he projects. The few insiders who know the prince's true nature will do nothing to harm him as long as the people support him, and the people will support him as long as he has been successful. Here, Machiavelli sounds remarkably like a modern spin doctor advising a politician on how to get good press. Glossary Chiron the wisest of all centaurs , famous for his knowledge of medicine: he is the teacher of Asclepius, Achilles, and Hercules. prince who is not named the reference is to King Ferdinand of Spain, who had a wide reputation for being deceptive and crafty.