[19] "And then," continued Cyrus, "to rouse enthusiasm in the men, there can be nothing, I take it, like the power of kindling hope?" "True," answered his father, "but that alone would be as though a huntsman were for ever rousing his pack with the view-halloo. At first, of course, the hounds will answer eagerly enough, but after they have been cheated once or twice they will end by refusing the call even when the quarry is really in sight. And so it is with hope. Let a man rouse false expectations often enough, and in the end, even when hope is at the door, he may cry the good news in vain. Rather ought he to refrain from speaking positively himself when he cannot know precisely; his agents may step in and do it in his place; but he should reserve his own appeal for the supreme crises of supreme danger, and not dissipate his credit." "By heaven, a most admirable suggestion!" cried Cyrus, "and one much more to my mind! [20] As for enforcing obedience, I hope I have had some training in that already; you began my education yourself when I was a child by teaching me to obey you, and then you handed me over to masters who did as you had done, and afterwards, when we were lads, my fellows and myself, there was nothing on which the governors laid more stress. Our laws themselves, I think, enforce this double lesson:--'Rule thou and be thou ruled.' And when I come to study the secret of it all, I seem to see that the real incentive to obedience lies in the praise and honour that it wins against the discredit and the chastisement which fall on the disobedient." [21] "That, my son," said the father, "is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship's company will listen to the pilot, how travellers will cling to the one who knows the way better, as they believe, than they do themselves. But if men think that obedience will lead them to disaster, then nothing, neither penalties, nor persuasion, nor gifts, will avail to rouse them. For no man accepts a bribe to his own destruction." [22] "You would have me understand," said Cyrus, "that the best way to secure obedience is to be thought wiser than those we rule?" "Yes," said Cambyses, "that is my belief." "And what is the quickest way," asked Cyrus, "to win that reputation?"