Machiavelli also indicates the importance of conquest in his thought through his
ordering of the plan of The Prince. Given what we read in the Dedicatory Letter and
Chapter 1, it would be reasonable to harbor one of two expectations about the plan of the
book, neither of which is fulfilled. First, in the dedication, Machiavelli claims that his
book discusses rules for princely government, and he implies (without ever quite saying)
that his book will be most useful to a sitting prince. Thus one might expect the book to
begin with a discussion of how to rule, and specifically of domestic policy. But that
discussion does not really begin, even in a cursory way, until Chapter 6, and it is not
made explicit until Chapter 15.
In fact, Machiavelli implicitly downplays the
importance of such topics in Chapter 2, where he says that hereditary or “natural” princes
—i.e., most of the actual princes in his time—have an easy time of ruling. Neither
Lorenzo de Medici (The Prince’s addressee) nor any other sitting prince needs to be
instructed on how to rule because (Machiavelli implies) ruling such a state mostly takes
care of itself.
Second, given Machiavelli’s taxonomy of principates in Chapter 1, one might expect
the book to begin by discussing the wholly new principate. Such principates are more
fundamental than, and prior in nature to, the other kinds of principates, whose existence
24
Chapter 6—about founding a state from scratch—necessarily discusses domestic policy, if in an oblique
way and one of little practical use to the sitting prince. Domestic policy considerations also figure in Chs.
8-10, though the surface discussion is in each case about something else. Ch. 8 discusses the criminal
tyrant. Ch. 9 treats “soft” tyranny and, apparently, something resembling elections. Ch. 10 discusses
domestic strength sufficient to withstand foreign attack. In Ch. 12, Machiavelli explicitly renounces a
discussion of part of domestic policy by saying there is no need to discuss laws. Then, finally, at the
beginning of Chapter 15, Machiavelli writes that he will now turn to how princes should govern “subjects
and friends” (emphasis mine). A discussion of the morality necessary for successful governance occupies
Chapters 16-18. 19 is difficult to summarize, but on the surface it appears to be primarily a discussion of
how a prince should govern himself so as to appear formidable to those around him and avoid conspiracies.
In all of these chapters, foreign and domestic policy concerns are intermixed. Only in Chapter 20 does
Machiavelli turn his full attention to domestic policy: of the ten policies discussed in Chs. 20 and 21, nine
are concerned solely or partly with domestic policy. Chs. 22 and 23—on ministers—again return to a
subject that transcends domestic and foreign policy.
19
Convention