Perhaps the best and most pertinent example of his method of treatment is found in the chapter on taxation. It will be evident that the questions which were disturbing his mind have not yet ceased to agitate the world. Substitute for "prince" the word "government," and it will appear that most of the financial problems of our present day were burning questions in the days of Erasmus and Thomas More; for in More's Utopia we have in the main the same moral elevation applied to the same questions as in the _Institutio_. Erasmus says[118]: [118] iv., 593-594. "The ancient writers tell us that many rebellions have arisen from immoderate taxation. The good prince ought therefore to see to it that the minds of his people should be as little as possible disturbed by these matters. Let him if possible govern without expense to them. The office of the prince is too lofty to be used for money-making. The good prince has for his own whatever his loving subjects have. There have been many heathen who put nothing into their treasuries from serving the state save glory alone; and some, like Fabius Maximus and Antoninus Pius, despised even this. How much more, then, ought the Christian prince to be satisfied with the consciousness of rectitude, especially since he serves a Master who leaves no good deed without ample reward. There are men who busy themselves with nothing but finding out new devices for cheating the people, and think they are best serving the prince by making themselves the enemies of his subjects. Let him who listens to them know that he is far from the true ideal of a prince. "The very best way to increase the revenue is to cut off unnecessary expense, doing away with burdensome service, avoiding wars and journeys that are like wars, checking the greed of officials, and trying rather to govern well what the prince has, than to get more. Otherwise, if he is to measure his taxes by his greed or his ambition, what limit or end of taxation will there be? For desire is infinite and is always pressing and straining at what it has once begun until, according to the old proverb, the overdrawn rope will break and the exhausted patience of the people burst forth into rebellion, whereby the most powerful empires have been ruined.