The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [249]
42. We lead unruly horses and runaway dogs by force of bits and dog-collars;
43. But nothing makes a man willingly tractable and gentle to another man except trust in his goodwill and belief in his nobility and justice.
44. And therefore Demosthenes is right in declaring that the greatest safeguard states possess against tyrants is distrust;
45. For that part of the mind with which we trust is most easily taken captive.
Chapter 30
1. The first and most important advantage to the reputation of statesmen is the trust which gave them an entrance into public affairs;
2. And the second is the goodwill of the multitude, which is a weapon of defence for the good against the slanderous and wicked, keeping off envy.
3. In the matter of power, make the low-born equal to the nobles, the poor to the rich, and the private citizen to the office-holders.
4. When truth and virtue are added to this, the goodwill that results will be a steady fair wind behind one’s endeavours.
5. Of all kinds of love, that which is engendered in states and peoples for an individual because of his virtue is at once the strongest and best;
6. But those falsely named and falsely granted honours derived from giving theatrical performances, making distributions of money or offering gladiatorial shows, are like harlots’ flatteries,
7. Since the masses always smile upon him who gives to them and does them favours, granting him an ephemeral and uncertain reputation.
8. And so he who first said that the people were ruined by the first man who bought his favour was well aware that the multitude loses its strength when it succumbs to bribe-taking;
9. But those also who give such bribes should bear in mind that they are destroying themselves when they purchase reputation by great expenditures,
10. Thus making the multitude strong and bold in the thought that they have power to give and take away something important.
11. We ought not, however, on this account to be niggardly about the customary public contributions, if we are in prosperous circumstances;
12. Since the masses are more hostile to a rich man who does not give them a share of his private possessions than to a poor man who steals from the public funds,
13. For they think the former’s conduct is due to arrogance and contempt of them, but the latter’s to necessity.
14. First, then, let the gifts be made without bargaining for anything; for so they gladden the recipients more completely;
15. And secondly they should be given for a worthwhile reason connected with the public good, for example, education;
16. For at the same time there springs up in the minds of the masses a strong disposition to associate the benefaction with real benefit.
17. Just as Plato wished to withhold the Lydian and the Ionian musical modes from the education of the young,
18. Because the first arouses a sense of mourning and grief, and the second arouses feelings of pleasure and lasciviousness,
19. So you must, if possible, remove from the state all those free exhibitions which excite and nourish the murderous and brutal or the scurrilous and greedy appetites,
20. Or if you cannot do that, avoid them and oppose the multitude when they demand them.
21. But always make the objects of your expenditures useful and moderate, having as their purpose either what is good or what is necessary,
22. Or at any rate what is pleasant and agreeable without anything harmful or outrageous in it.
23. But if your property is moderate and in relation to your needs strictly circumscribed,
24. It is neither ignoble nor humiliating at all to confess your poverty and to withdraw from among those who have the means for public expenditures,
25. Instead of borrowing money and making yourself at once a pitiful and a ridiculous object in the matter of your public contributions;
26. For men are plainly seen to lack resources when they keep annoying their friends or truckling to money-lenders;
27. So that it is not reputation