I AM not unaware that many have held, and do still hold, the opinion that the affairs of this world are controlled by Fortune and by God, that men cannot control them with their prudence, and that, on the contrary, men can have no remedy whatsoever for them. For this reason, they might judge that it is useless to lose much sweat over such matters, and let them be controlled by fate. This opinion has been held all the more in our own times because of the enormous upheavals that have been observed and are being observed every day– events beyond human conjecture. When I have thought about it, sometimes I am inclined to a certain degree towards their opinion. Nevertheless, in order not to wipe out our free will, I consider it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one half of our actions, but that she still leaves the control of the other half, or almost that, to us.* I compare her to one of those destructive rivers that, when they become enraged, flood the plains, ruin the trees and buildings, raising the earth from one spot and dropping it onto another. Everyone flees before it; everyone yields to its impetus, unable to oppose it in any way. But although rivers are like this, it does not mean that we cannot take precautions with dikes and dams when the weather is calm, so that when they rise up again either the waters will be channelled off or their force will be neither so damaging nor so out of control. The same things occur where Fortune is concerned. She shows her power where there is no well-ordered virtue* to resist her, and therefore turns her impetus towards where she knows no dikes and dams have been constructed to hold her in. If you consider Italy, the seat of these upheavals and the area which has set them in motion, you will see a countryside without dikes and without a single dam: if Italy had been protected with proper virtue, as is the case in Germany, Spain, and France, either this flood would not have produced the enormous upheavals that it has, or it would not have struck here at all. And with this I consider I have said enough about resisting Fortune in general.
Restricting myself more to particulars, let me say that one sees a prince prospering today and coming to ruin tomorrow without having seen him change his nature or his qualities. I believe this happens first because of the causes that have been discussed at length earlier. That is, that the prince who relies completely upon Fortune will come to ruin as soon as she changes. I also believe that the man who adapts his method of procedure to the nature of the times will prosper, and likewise, that the man who establishes his procedures out of tune with the times will come to grief. We can observe in the affairs that lead them to the end they seek– that is, towards glory and wealth– that men proceed in different ways: one man with caution, another with impetuousness; one with violence, another with astuteness; one with patience, another with its opposite. Each may achieve his goals with these different means. In the case of two cautious men, we also see that one reaches his goal while the other does not. And likewise, two men prosper equally employing two different means, one being cautious and the other impetuous. This occurs from nothing other than from the quality of the times, that either match or do not match their procedures. This follows from what I said: two men acting differently can reach the same result; and of two men acting identically, one reaches his goal and the other does not. On this also depends the variation of the good,* for if a man governs himself with caution and patience, while the times and circumstances are turning in such a way that his conduct is appropriate, he will prosper. But if the times and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change his method of procedure. No man is so prudent that he knows how to adapt himself to this fact, both because he cannot deviate from that to which he is by nature inclined, and also because he cannot be persuaded to depart from a path after having always prospered by following it. And therefore, when it is time to act impetuously the cautious man does not know how to do so, and is ruined as a result; for if he had changed his conduct with the times, Fortune would not have changed.
Pope Julius II acted impetuously in all his affairs, and he found the times and circumstances so suitable to this method of procedure that he always achieved felicitous results. Consider the first campaign he waged against Bologna while Messer Giovanni Bentivoglio was still alive.* The Venetians were unhappy about it and so was the King of Spain. Julius still had negotiations going on about it with France. Nevertheless, he started personally on this expedition with his usual ferocity and impetuosity. Such a move astonished Spain and the Venetians and stopped them in their tracks, the latter out of fear and the former out of a desire to recover the entire Kingdom of Naples. On the other hand, Julius involved the King of France, for when the King saw him move, and wishing to make him his ally in order to defeat the Venetians, the King decided that he could not deny the Pope the use of his troops without openly injuring him. Therefore, with his impetuous move, Julius accomplished what no other pontiff would ever have achieved with the greatest of human prudence. For if he had waited until he could leave Rome with agreements settled and everything in order, as any other pontiff would have done, he would never have succeeded, because the King of France would have found a thousand excuses and the others would have aroused in him a thousand fears. I wish to leave unmentioned the other deeds of his, since all were similar and all succeeded well. The brevity of his life* did not allow him to experience the contrary; since if times that required proceeding with caution had arrived, his ruin would have followed, for he would never have deviated from those methods to which his nature inclined him.
I therefore conclude that, since Fortune varies and men remain obstinate in their ways, men prosper when the two are in harmony* and fail to prosper when they are not in accord. I certainly believe this: that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman, and if you want to keep her under it is necessary to beat her and force her down. It is clear that she more often allows herself to be won over by impetuous men than by those who proceed coldly. And so, like a woman, Fortune is always the friend of young men, for they are less cautious, more ferocious, and command her with more audacity.