Defensor Pacis, translated with an Introduction by Alan Gewirth. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980).
Excerpt:
“Chapter 1: On the general aim of the discussion, the cause of that aim, and the division of the book.
Tranquility, wherein peoples prosper and the welfare of nations is preserved, must certainly be desirable to every state. For it is the noble mother of the good arts. Permitting the steady increase of the race of mortals, it extends their powers and enhances their customs. He was perceived not to have sought for it is recognized to be ignorant of such important concerns.
1. The benefits and fruits of the tranquility or piece of civil regimes were set forth by Casio Doris in this passage of his 1st epistle. Exhibiting through those great goods the greatest good of man, sufficiency of life, which no one can attain it without peace and tranquility, he aims and thereby to arouse in men the desire to have peace with one another and hence tranquility. in the same he was in accord with what the blessed Job said in his 22nd chapter: “be at peace, and thereby thou shalt have the best fruits.” Indeed, it was for this reason that Christ, son of God, decreed that peace would be the sign and messenger of his rebirth, when he wanted the heavenly choir to sing: “glory to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of good will.” …
2. Since, however, “contraries are essentially productive of contraries,” from discord, the opposite of tranquility, the worst fruits and troubles will befall any civil regime or states. This can readily be seen, and is obvious to almost all men, from the example of the Italian states. For a while the inhabitants of Italy lived peacefully together, they experienced those sweet fruits of peace which have been mentioned above, and from and in those fruits they made such great progress that they brought the whole habitable world under their sway. But when discord and strife arose among them, their state was sorely beset by all kinds of hardships and troubles and underwent the dominion of hateful foreign nations. And in The Same Way, Italy is once again battered on all sides because of strife and is almost destroyed, so that it can easily be invaded by anyone who wants to seize it, and who has any power at all. Nor is such an outcome astonishing for, as Sallust attests, writing about Catiline: “by discord small things increase, by discord great things perish.” Ms. led through discord into the bypass of error, the Italian natives are deprived of the sufficient life, undergoing the greatest hardships instead of the quiet they seek, and the harsh yoke of tyrants instead of liberty; and finally they have become so much unhappier than citizens of other states that their ancestral name which used to give glory and protection to all who appealed to it, is now, to their ignominy, cast into their teeth by other nations.”
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