The Prince
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘We have declared before that it is not only expedient but necessary for a prince to take care his foundations be good, otherwise his fabric will be sure to fail.’Considered one of the first works of modern philosophy, Machiavelli’s The Prince is an intense study on the nature of power and the course it should take when ruling a country and expresses the author’s strong and unyielding ideals and beliefs on using force rather than law to achieve your aims.Responsible for the widely-used phrase ‘Machiavellian’, with all of its negative connotations, his extreme treatise remains a classic text to this day.
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THE PRINCE
Niccolò Machiavelli
CONTENTS
Niccolò Machiavelli to the Most Illustrious Lorenzo, Son of Piero Deâ Medici
Chapter 1 The several sorts of Governments, and after what manner they are obtained
Chapter 2 Of Hereditary Principalities
Chapter 3 Of Mixed Principalities
Chapter 6 Of Principalities acquired by oneâs own proper conduct and arms
Chapter 7 Of new Principalities acquired by accident and the supplies of other people
Chapter 8 Of such as have arrived at their Dominion by wicked and unjustifiable means
Chapter 9 Of Civil Principality
Chapter 10 How the strength of all Principalities is to be computed
Chapter 11 Of Ecclesiastical Principalities
Chapter 13 Of Auxiliaries, Mixed, and Natural Soldiers
Chapter 14 The Duty of a Prince in relation to his Militia
Chapter 15 Of such things as render Men (especially Princes) worthy of Blame or Applause
Chapter 16 Of Liberality and Parsimony
Chapter 17 Of Cruelty and Clemency, and whether it is best for a Prince to be beloved or feared
Chapter 18 How far a Prince is obliged by his Promise
Chapter 19 That Princes ought to be cautious of becoming either odious or contemptible
Chapter 21 How a Prince is to demean himself to gain reputation
Chapter 22 Of the Secretaries of Princes
Chapter 23 How Flatterers are to be avoided
Chapter 24 How it came to pass that the Princes of Italy have most of them lost their dominions
Chapter 25 How far in human affairs Fortune may avail, and in what manner she may be resisted
Chapter 26 An Exhortation to deliver Italy from the Barbarians
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary
Those who desire the favour of a prince do commonly introduce themselves by presenting him with such things as he either values much or does more than ordinarily delight in; for which reason he is frequently presented with horses, arms, cloth of gold, jewels, and such ornaments as are suitable to his quality and grandeur. Being ambitious to present myself to your Highness with some testimony of my devotions towards you, in all my wardrobe I could not find anything more precious (at least to myself) than the knowledge of the conduct and achievements of great men, which I learned by long conversation in modern affairs and a continual investigation of old. After long and diligent examination, having reduced all into a small volume, I do presume to present to your Highness; and though I cannot think it a work fit to appear in your presence, yet my confidence in your bounty is such, I hope it may be accepted, considering I was not capable of more than presenting you with a faculty of understanding in a short time, what for several years, with infinite labour and hazard, I had been gathering together. Nor have I beautified or adorned it with rhetorical ornations, or such outward embellishments as are usual in such descriptions. I had rather it should pass without any approbation than owe it to anything but the truth and gravity of the matter. I would not have it imputed to me as presumption, if an inferior person, as I am, pretend not only to treat of, but to prescribe and regulate the proceedings of princes; for, as they who take the landscape of a country, to consider the mountains and the nature of the higher places do descend ordinarily into the plains, and dispose themselves upon the hills to take the prospect of the valleys, in like manner, to understand the nature of the people it is necessary to be a prince, and to know the nature of princes it is as requisite to be of the people. May your Highness, then, accept this book with as much kindness as it is presented and if you please diligently and deliberately to reflect upon it you will find in it my extreme desire that your Highness may arrive at that grandeur which fortune and your accomplishments do seem to presage; from which pinnacle of honour, if your Highness vouchsafes at any time to look down upon things below, you will see how unjustly and how continually I have been exposed to the malignity of fortune.
There never was nor is at this day any government in the world by which one man has rule and dominion over another, but it is either a commonwealth, or a monarchy. Monarchies are either hereditary, where the ancestors of the sovereign have been a long time in possession, or where they are but new. The new are either so wholly and entirely (as Milan was to Francis Sforza), or annexed to the hereditary dominions of the conqueror (as the kingdom of Naples to the kingdom of Spain). These territories thus acquired are accustomed either to be subject to some prince, or to live at liberty and free, and are subdued either by his auxiliaries or own forces, by his good fortune or conduct.
