It is unquestionably very praiseworthy in princes to be faith ful to their engagements. There are two ways of deciding any contest, the one by laws, the other by force. The first is peculiar to man, the second to beasts; but when laws are not sufficiently powerful, it is neces sary to recur to force; a prince ought, therefore, to understand how to use both these descriptions of arms. As a prince must learn how to act the part of a beast sometimes, he should make the fox and the lion his patterns. A prudent prince cannot and ought not to keep his word, except when he can do it without injury to himself, or when the circumstances under which he contracted the engagement still exist. I should be cautious in inculcating such a precept if all men were good. It is necessary to disguise the appearances of craft, and thoroughly to understand the art of feigning and dissembling, for men are generally so simple, and so weak, that he who wishes to deceive, easily finds dupes.* I maintain that a prince, and especially a new prince, cannot with impunity exercise all the virtues, because his own selfpreservation will often compel him to violate the laws of charity, religion, and humanity. of All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration. There is a prince now alive who even preaches the doctrines peace and good faith; but if he had observed either the one or the other he would long ago have lost both his reputation and his dominions. Subjects will live contentedly enough under a prince who neither invades their property nor their honour. *One example taken from the history of our own times will be sufficient. Pope Alexander VI. played during his whole life a game of deception; and, notwithstanding that his faithless conduct was extremely well known, his artifices always proved successful. Oaths and protestations cost him nothing; never did a prince so often break his word, or pay less regard to his engagements. A prince whose conduct is light, inconstant, pusillanimous, irresolute, and effeminate, is sure to be despised. A prince has two things to guard against, the machinations of his own subjects, and the attempts of powerful foreigners. History is filled with conspiracies; but how few have been crowned with success. Content the people, and manage the nobles, and you have the maxim of wise governors. It is by conquering difficulties that princes raise themselves to power. Fortune cannot more successfully elevate a new prince than by raising enemies and confederates against him, thus stimulating his genius, exercising his courage, and affording him an opportunity of climbing to the highest degree of power. Fortresses are useful or dangerous according to circumstances. There is no better fortress for a prince than the affection of his people. Nothing is more likely to make a prince esteemed than great enterprises and extraordinary actions. A prince should invest his actions with a character of greatness, and above all things avoid weakness and indecision. They cannot be real friends who ask you to stand neuter. Irresolute princes frequently embrace a neutrality to avoid some present inconvenience, but they meet their ruin by such a course. Princes ought to honour talent and protect the arts, particularly commerce and agriculture. A proper choice of ministers is of no small importance to a prince, for the first opinion that is proved of his capacity arises from the persons by whom he is surrounded. In the capacities of mankind there are three degrees: one man understands things by means of his own natural endowments; another understands things when they are explained to him; and a third can neither understand them himself, nor when they are explained by others. I must not forget to mention one evil against which princes should ever be upon their guard, and which they cannot avoid, except by the greatest prudence, and this evil is the flattery which reigns in every court. Princes have no other way of expelling flatterers than by showing that the truth will not offend. It is well known that men think much more of the present than of the past, and that they never seek for change so long as they find themselves comfortable. As we confessedly have the possession of a free will, it must, I think, be allowed that chance does not so far govern the world as to leave no province for the exercise of human prudence. Those princes who adapt their conduct to circumstances are rarely unfortunate. I think that it is better to be bold than too circumspect; because fortune is of a sex that likes not a tardy wooer, and repulses all who are not ardent. She declares also more frequently in favour of those who are young, because they are bold and enterprising. COPERNICUS, OR ZEPERNIC, NICHOLAS- "A century and a half before Christ, Hipparchus, in his observatory at Rhodes, made the first catalogue of the stars, and representing the motions of the sun and moon by epicycles revolving upon circular orbits, he compiled tables for calculating their places in the heavens. Guided by the genius of Hipparchus, Claudius Ptolemy, the Egyptian, a century and a half after Christ, though he placed the earth in the centre of the system, improved the theories of the sun, moon, and planets— *This sketch is taken verbatim from the "Memoirs of the life, writings, and discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, by Sir David Brewster, K.T." Hamilton Adams and Co., 1855. Vol. I., p. 252, et seq. discovered the principal inequality in the moon's orbit-gave a theory of astronomical refractions more complete than that of any astronomer before Cassini, and bequeathed to posterity the valuable legacy of his Almagest, and his five books of Optics. “After centuries of darkness, Bagdad, the capital of Arabia, became the focus of science. The ancient astronomy was preserved and cultivated, but though new and more accurate observations were made, the science lay prostrate amid the cumbrous appendages of cycles and epicycles. “In the thirteenth century, the noble-minded Alphonso X., sovereign of Castile, published, at a great expense, new astronomical tables, compiled by the most distinguished professors in the Moorish universities; and, as if he had obtained a glimpse of a simpler arrangement, he denounced the rude mechanism of epicycles in language less reverent in its expression than in its truth. 'Were the heavens thus constituted,' he said, ‘I could have given the Deity good advice had he consulted me at their creation.' Notwithstanding these obstructions, astronomy advanced, though with faltering steps, unable to escape from the trammels of authority, or to free itself from the vulgar prejudices which a false interpretation of scripture had excited against a belief in the motion of the earth. "In this almost stationary condition, however, the science of the heavens was not suffered to remain. Nicolas Copernicus arose-a philosopher fitted to develop the true system of the universe, and a priest willing to give absolution for the sin of placing the great luminary in the centre of the system. This distinguished individual, a native of Thorn, in Prussia, though of Bohemian origin, was born on the 19th January, 1472. He at first followed his father's profession of medicine, but finding it uncongenial with his love of astronomy, he went to Bologna to study that science under Dominic Mario. In this situation he was less the disciple than the assistant and friend of Mario, and we find that he had made observations on the moon at that place in 1497. About the year 1500, he went to Rome, where he taught mathematics publicly to a large assemblage of youth and of persons of distinction; and in the month of November of the same year, he observed an eclipse of the moon, and made other observations, which formed the basis of his future researches. While thus occupied, the death of one of the canons of the Cathedral Church of Ermeland at Frauenburg, enabled his uncle, who was bishop of the see, to nominate him to the vacant office. In this secluded spot, in the residence of the canons, situated on the brow of a hill, Copernicus carried on his astronomical observations. During his sojourn at Rome, the Bishop of Fossombrossa, who presided over the council for reforming the calendar, had requested his assistance in that important undertaking. Upon this congenial task he entered with youthful zeal. He charged himself with the duty of determining the length of the year, and the other elements which were required by the council; but the observations became irksome, and interfered with the completion of those interesting views which had already dawned upon his mind. "Convinced that the simplicity and harmony which appeared in the other works of creation should characterize the arrangements of the planetary system, he could not regard the hypothesis of Ptolemy as a representation of nature. This opinion was strengthened by actual observation. The variable appearance of the superior planets, of Mars, for example, in opposition and conjunction-in the one case shining with the effulgence of Jupiter, and in the other with the light of a secondary star— was irreconcilable with the dogma that the planet moved round the earth. That it moved round the sun was the conclusion to which he was then led ; and the grand idea of the bright orb of day being the centre of the planetary system burst upon his mind, though perhaps with all the dimness of a dream—the first phase of every great discovery. In the opinion of the Egyptian sages-in those of Pythagoras, Philolaus, Aristarchus, and Nicatas of Syracuse-he recognised his first conviction that D |