ChapterTwoBookOne42

All the beauty of natural bodies is in the proportion of all the members, their harmony and regular movements; the soul that vivifies them makes its beauty known through these charming exteriors. But also, on the contrary, irregular movements disfigure and corrupt the most beautiful bodies; disastrous accidents that happen to the principal parts of a body often destroy all its beauty; wounds and illnesses make the whole machine suffer. Gangrene, for example, that begins in the least of its parts gradually takes over neighboring parts until it is totally destroyed. All these attributes are reflected in the body of a state, where all the advantageous and pernicious revolutions (161) perfectly resemble that which happens in a natural body, which I will easily demonstrate later.

Since wealth is a principal attribute of a state, or in other words, contains all its beauty and all its perfection, and since everyone who makes up this body politic has no other goal but to be happy or rich and is only assembled and united for this end, we must try to draw a finished portrait of this beauty in order to find in individuals how much they approach and how far they are still from this perfection and by what means they should reach it. In the preceding chapter, I gave a general idea of the entire extent of what is called (162) wealth, but because of a property that is essential to it—that it never ends and that it never reaches the highest degree of its perfection because of the immoderate desire of those who seek it and because the objects that must satisfy them are infinite— it is just like the portraits of skillful painters: no matter how perfect they are, we nevertheless still find fault or something to adjust. Philosophers show us perfect virtue at its highest level, which we never reach: however, contemplating this beauty spurs on virtuous souls, encouraging them to approach it. A prince who sees the beauty (163) in a rich state and everything that prevents, retards, and destroys this perfection, to which he is naturally inclined like all other men, will not fail to contribute to it so that he and his people approach as much as possible the sublime degree of satisfaction that the enjoyment of true wealth gives.