The same flaws are more or less encountered in the other professions. Fathers, mothers, and relatives are usually so biased in favor of their children that as long as they have absolute control of the choice of their profession, there will always be very bad practitioners in every profession and trade. They do not regard so much the natural disposition of the child, which they always believe to be excellent for undertaking everything, (332) as their own plans and the advantage that they want to procure for their family.

After general conveniences, the prince must pay attention to the conveniences of each individual because men are not made alike and what might appear convenient, easy, and agreeable to one of them would not be to another with respect to his natural disposition. It is fitting to accommodate these differences in dispositions that are in the bodies and in the minds of men, which are impossible to change.

It is also a great help to the state’s wealth for the prince to try to attract by means of compensation all those who can invent things to shorten or to decrease the pain (325) and the inconveniences that accompany most of the work of the body and mind and to make these kinds of inventions immediately public, especially when they concern the three main professions of the state that I have just mentioned.

There are other kinds of people in states who ruin themselves by dint of work, not so much out of necessity as out of greed to earn; their enormous avarice hardens their bodies so much that they make surprising efforts beyond what nature can bear, but in the end they exhaust themselves and succumb, and when they do not die, they at least become disabled and useless for other work, which is a loss for the state.

Far from having succeeded in any state in the world, we see everywhere that while some live with amenities and an excess of conveniences and without any effort from morning to night, others are so overwhelmed with work and troubles that neither their bodies nor their minds are able to support it, but succumb and perish under the huge load with which they are burdened. It is as I just said with regard to necessities: often some die of repletion and others from lack of food.

 VII.  It is not enough for a prince who wants to govern his people well, that is to get rich, to focus all his attention on making sure that everyone has necessities, and their bodies are preserved and properly fed, and their minds do not lack the necessary education[^1] so that their bodies can act for the good of the state.

In republics today, commerce is also one of the usual occupations of the nobility in times of peace. It is only in monarchies where one thinks differently, imagining that commerce is only suitable for commoners. However, the nobility of France, where they used to be more sensitive about this than in any other Kingdom, was allowed to take (313) an interest in the trading companies that were formed to establish colonies on the Islands of America and to conduct large scale trade[^1] with all parts of the world.

In a state, excluding those who govern, (309) there are three professions that principally contribute to public opulence by producing and procuring necessary, convenient, and superfluous things: that of farmers, artisans, and merchants. They support all the others, which gives them and preserves, so to speak, their life. The number of contributors to the state’s wealth that these three professions encompass is so large that the rest seem almost nothing next to them; that is why they are the main object of the attentions of the prince who wants to get rich.

This instruction, which embraces all the useful sciences, boils down to four main points: to know the will, the power, and the number of contributors[^1] to our wealth, and the proportion that must be maintained so that everything we do leads to the common goal of society, which is temporal happiness in which wealth—as long as it is not universal—has not reached the (305) highest degree of its perfection. That is why each individual must wish for it and direct all his actions to this general goal of the whole human race.

Most people who are born into poverty allow themselves to be overcome by their unfortunate situation, believing like the rich that there is only a certain quantity of goods that can give them complete satisfaction; and since they see that acquiring them is so difficult, they abandon themselves to their misfortune and do not aspire to something that they believe is impossible. The true knowledge of their poverty with which we will nourish[^1] their minds from their childhood will reassure them and will prod them to contribute to the wealth of others in order to have their share.