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. It will be good to establish societies of learned and expert people who endeavor to make everything that concerns agriculture, manufactures, and commerce more perfect and easier to exercise: they will hold public meetings four or more times per year in which each will present the observations he has made with regard to these matters. They will do the experiments in front of everyone so that everyone can learn about the things that are so useful and so necessary for society. (326)
Prerogatives and considerable rewards will be given to anyone who has invented something to succeed in one of these three professions in less time and with greater ease. If princes knew that they possessed the secret to exciting the emulation of superior geniuses by giving honors that cost them nothing—without regard to the birth of the one who presents himself—or even by often giving a small gracious compliment from their own mouths, they would use them more to increase their wealth. And if, after the honors, they did not even spare as much as a small golden chain or medal in a gracious manner to the people who have distinguished themselves in any one of (327) these areas, even when they have not really merited it, they would soon see the consequences.[^1] But to foresee it, their minds must be nourished with how a useful expenditure prevails over a useless one.
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