In the
same way with regard to a State, whether it be under a single ruler or
more than one, if, while the government is being carried on
methodically and in a right course, it asks advice about any details
of policy, it is the part of a wise man to advise such people. But
when men are travelling altogether outside the path of right
government and flatly refuse to move in the right path, and start by
giving notice to their adviser that he must leave the government alone
and make no change in it under penalty of death-if such men should
order their counsellors to pander to their wishes and desires and to
advise them in what way their object may most readily and easily be
once for all accomplished, I should consider as unmanly one who
accepts the duty of giving such forms of advice, and one who refuses
it to be a true man.
Holding these views, whenever anyone consults me about any of the
weightiest matters affecting his own life, as, for instance, the
acquisition of property or the proper treatment of body or mind, if it
seems to me that his daily life rests on any system, or if he seems
likely to listen to advice about the things on which he consults me, I
advise him with readiness, and do not content myself with giving him a
merely perfunctory answer. But if a man does not consult me at all, or
evidently does not intend to follow my advice, I do not take the
initiative in advising such a man, and will not use compulsion to him,
even if he be my own son. I would advise a slave under such
circumstances, and would use compulsion to him if he were unwilling.
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