Admonitions to preserve peace

At this point, I think that I can bring my work to an end, not because all has been said that could be said, but because sufficient has been said to lay the foundations. Whoever may wish to build on these foundations a more imposing structure will not only find me free from envy, but will have my sincere gratitude. Yet before I dismiss the reader I shall add a few admonitions which may be of value in war, and after war, for the preservation of good faith and of peace; just as in treating of the commencement of war I added certain admonitions regarding the avoidance of wars, so far as this can be accomplished. And good faith should be preserved, not only for other reasons but also in order that the hope of peace may not be done away with. For not only is every state sustained by good faith,…but also that greater society of states.

[T]his good faith the supreme rulers of men ought so much the more earnestly than others to maintain, as they violate it with greater impunity. [I]f good faith shall be done away with, [rulers] will be like wild beasts, whose violence all men fear. Justice, it is true, in its other aspects often contains elements of obscurity; but the bond of good faith is in itself plain to see, nay more, it is brought into use to so great an extent that it removes all obscurity from business transactions. It is, then, all the more the duty of kings to cherish good faith scrupulously, first for conscience's sake, and then also for the sake of the reputation by which the authority of the royal power is supported. Therefore let them not doubt that those who instil in [rulers] the arts of deception are doing the very thing which they teach. For that teaching cannot long prosper which makes a man anti-social with his kind and also hateful in the sight of God.