No such
principle and no law having this object is either statesmanlike or
useful or right. For the same things are best both for individuals and
for states, and these are the things which the legislator ought to
implant in the minds of his citizens.
Neither should men study war with a view to the enslavement of those
who do not deserve to be enslaved; but first of all they should
provide against their own enslavement, and in the second place
obtain empire for the good of the governed, and not for the sake of
exercising a general despotism, and in the third place they should
seek to be masters only over those who deserve to be slaves. Facts, as
well as arguments, prove that the legislator should direct all his
military and other measures to the provision of leisure and the
establishment of peace. For most of these military states are safe
only while they are at war, but fall when they have acquired their
empire; like unused iron they lose their temper in time of peace.
And for this the legislator is to blame, he never having taught them
how to lead the life of peace.
XV
Since the end of individuals and of states is the same, the end of
the best man and of the best constitution must also be the same; it is
therefore evident that there ought to exist in both of them the
virtues of leisure; for peace, as has been often repeated, is the
end of war, and leisure of toil.
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