Another business of the sovereign is to choose good counsellors;Imean such whose advice he is to take in the government of the Commonwealth.For this word counsel (consilium,corrupted from considium)is of a large signification,and comprehendeth all assemblies of men that sit together,not only to deliberate what is to be done hereafter,but also to judge of facts past,and of law for the present.I take it here in the first sense only:and in this sense,there is no choice of counsel,neither in a democracy nor aristocracy;because the persons counselling are members of the person counselled.The choice of counsellors therefore is proper to monarchy,in which the sovereign that endeavoureth not to make choice of those that in every kind are the most able,dischargeth not his office as he ought to do.The most able counsellors are they that have least hope of benefit by giving evil counsel,and most knowledge of those things that conduce to the peace and defence of the Commonwealth.It is a hard matter to know who expecteth benefit from public troubles;but the signs that guide to a just suspicion is the soothing of the people in their unreasonable or irremediable grievances by men whose estates are not sufficient to discharge their accustomed expenses,and may easily be observed by any one whom it concerns to know it.But to know who has most knowledge of the public affairs is yet harder;and they that know them need them a great deal the less.For to know who knows the rules almost of any art is a great degree of the knowledge of the same art,because no man can be assured of the truth of another's rules but he that is first taught to understand them.But the best signs of knowledge of any art are much conversing in it and constant good effects of it.Good counsel comes not by lot,nor by inheritance;and therefore there is no more reason to expect good advice from the rich or noble in matter of state,than in delineating the dimensions of a fortress;unless we shall think there needs no method in the study of the politics,as there does in the study of geometry,but only to be lookers on;which is not so.For the politics is the harder study of the two.Whereas in these parts of Europe it hath been taken for a right of certain persons to have place in the highest council of state by inheritance,it derived from the conquests of the ancient Germans;wherein many absolute lords,joining together to conquer other nations,would not enter into the confederacy without such privileges as might be marks of difference,in time following,between their posterity and the posterity of their subjects;which privileges being inconsistent with the sovereign power,by the favour of the sovereign they may seem to keep;but contending for them as their right,they must needs by degrees let them go,and have at last no further honour than adhereth naturally to their abilities.
And how able soever be the counsellors in any affair,the benefit of their counsel is greater when they give every one his advice,and the reasons of it apart,than when they do it in an assembly by way of orations;and when they have premeditated,than when they speak on the sudden;both because they have more time to survey the consequences of action,and are less subject to be carried away to contradiction through envy,emulation,or other passions arising from the difference of opinion.