“The Mirror of Princes”: A Reading List
Collected from the Works of Prominent Authors and, In One Case, a Mere Transcriber
The “Mirror of Princes,” advice to rulers on the virtues proper to rulers and (therefore) on prudent government, is an endlessly fascinating but slippery and ill-defined genre. Taken too expansively, as in this overly-inclusive list, it could encompass a large fraction of political and constitutional theory before the advent of methodological positivism in the social “sciences.” Aquinas’ treatise De Regno (alt title: De Regimine Principum), for example, is from one standpoint and in part an entry in the genre, full of internal advice to those who reign, while from another standpoint it is (partly also) a treatise from an external perspective on the advantages and disadvantages of various forms of regime. Likewise for a methodologically similar work by Giles of Rome.
Our reading list below is narrowly circumscribed to core examples, and is arbitrarily selective even within the core for reasons of space; it is a list of favorites. Many more examples might be offered, and we hope our readers will leave their own favorites in the comments.
Reading List (in no particular order):
Plutarch, Precepts of Statecraft. Advice to a young politician, in vintage Plutarchian style — a series of memorable and penetrating amuse-têtes.
Mengzi and Han Feizi. (The former is translated at the link; a standard translation of the latter is here). Much of the literature of the Warring States period, from Confucians such as Mencius, to the Legalist theorist Han Fei, and others, is quite literally advice to princes. Here we give the basic texts of Mencius and Han Fei. The former is uplifting, idealistic and deeply humane. The latter is full of unforgettable metaphors and withering critique, and not for the faint of heart. A synthesis of the two is probably the path of wisdom, as many in later generations concluded. (Honorable mention: a slightly later mirror-of-princes work, the “New Discourses” by Lu Jia, a scholar of the Former Han dynasty).
Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince. Erasmus haters pipe down; the man could write.
A Mirror for Magistrates, a Tudor-era collaborative work of didactic and cautionary poems, written through the voices of the ghosts of statesmen who recount their errors and vices.
The Prince. Widely attributed to one Niccolo Machiavelli, we here at The New Digest are inclined rather to Cardinal Reginald Pole’s view that the pliable Florentine merely transcribed a work penned by the unholy finger of Another.
Giovanni Botero, On Reason of State. Despite the connotations that amoralists have given “reason of state,” at least in English, Botero’s work is the perfect antidote to Machiavelli.
The Political Testament of Cardinal Richelieu. Self-recommending!
Nizam Al-Mulk, The Book of Government. It’s hard to know which of many mirror-of-princes works from the Islamic (/Persian) Golden Age to single out; not only because we confess a large degree of ignorance here (and would appreciate comments from readers), but because there is a true embarrassment of riches. This volume contains excerpts from many.
Huang Liu-Hung, A Complete Book Concerning Happiness and Benevolence: A Manual for Local Magistrates in 17th-Century China. Written in 1699 by a Qing official, this is not quite a Mirror for Princes, but a mirror for the delegates of princes, the imperial district magistrates. Full of wry observations and the practical wisdom of an eternal and universal type, the harried, overworked, but essentially conscientious, compassionate and public-spirited subordinate official.
We hope you enjoy!
This is a fascinating list, thank you! Maybe less didactic, the Cyropaedia is an entertaining variation/forerunner. Seneca's On Clemency is also a thoughtful, if somewhat narrow, example---though based on the subsequent career of its intended audience perhaps not wholly effective.
Thank you for this great list, Prof Vermeule. Happy to see Confucius, Mencius and HanFeiZi on the list, inclusive of a source for translation. I particularly note the inclusion of Huang Liu-Hung's work on "Happiness and Benevolence"; it causes my heart to skip a beat.
Although I read the original Classical Chinese in this grouping of East-West thinking on the subject, I hardly am a studied enough scholar to speak with persuasive authority.
In a separate but related capacity - that of a lawyer trained in American jurisprudence and clinical psychologist trained in the American teaching curricula which include, in relevant parts, History & Systems in Psychology, the Scientific Method, Developmental Psychology, and Neurobiological bases of human behavior from norm to deviant.
I feel somewhat better at ease to speak in this even more circumscribed framework.
Accordingly, I note there is a lot of talk about “happiness” in contemporary American, but few inquire what “happiness” is.
So first, What is *Happiness*? Second, What is *Benevolence* on the part of “Princes” who are accountable actors in the second to enable (or disable) the first? This is a humongous “thought”subject that requires, as it were, the ploughing of the ocean of theologies east and west, philosophies east and west, and ultimately personal philosophy, belief and value system, just to harvest a spoon of sea water for distillation into crystals examinable under the lens of a microscope. And then there is the Q whose eyes are looking into that microscope.
Notwithstanding the impossibility, I shall offer a tiny thought on what constitute *Happiness*, It is, in my view, only after this Q is sufficiently addressed that the next Q What/Which “Prince" is *benevolent* can follow.
Will return with next segment of thoughts which I hope will be acceptably brief [will take me days, not hours]. But first, let me know if so far what I wrote makes sense. If yes, why, if no, why not. All questions will help what I hope will be a constructive joint effort to facilitate east-west intellectual exchange and mutual understanding. Bridges take many units of time to build, but only 1 second to blow up.