How worthy he was of being asked by parents to share their counsels! How worthy of being recorded a co-heir with the children who were innocent! This is the spirit of mercy that graces the prince; wherever he goes he should make everything more peaceable.
In the eyes of a ruler let no man count for so little that his destruction is not noted; be he what he may, he is part of the realm. From the forms of lesser power let us draw a parallel for great power. There is more than one kind of power, a prince has power over his subjects, a father over his children, a teacher over his pupils, a tribune or a centurion over his soldiers. Will he not seem the worst sort of father who controls his children by constant whippings for even the most trifling offenses? And of teachers, which will reflect more credit upon the liberal studies — the one who will draw the blood of his pupils if their memory is weak, or if the eye is not quick and lags in reading, or the one who chooses rather by kind admonition and a sense of shame to correct, and so to teach, his pupils? Show me a tribune or centurion that is harsh; he will cause deserters, who all the same26 are pardonable. Is it just, I ask, that man should be subjected to severer and harsher rule than dumb beasts? And yet the horse is not plied with the lash and terrified by the horse-breaker who is an expert; for it will grow fearful and obstinate unless it is soothed with caressing hand. The same is true of the hunter, whether he is teaching young dogs to follow the trail, or makes use of those already trained for routing out the game or running it down: he neither employs constant threats (for that will break their spirit, and all their native qualities will be gradually lost in a timidity unworthy of their breed), nor does he allow them to range and roam around without restraint. This applies again to drivers of the more sluggish beasts of burden, which, though they are born to abuse and misery, may be driven to refuse the yoke by too much cruelty.