XII. But abstracted from the innumerable craigs and stumbling blocks in the way of ambition, when it advances to its object by the road of infamy; if its views are very high, the best and most safe policy is, to pursue the pretension by the way of justice and truth. Lord Chancellor Bacon, who was as great a politician as he was a philosopher, divided policy into the high and the low. The exalted or sound policy, consists in the knowledge of disposing means for the attainment of ends, without deviating, either from truth, equity, or honour. The low or mean policy, consists in the art of attaining ends, by the means of fictions, flattery and sophistries; the first is proper and natural to men, in whom a generous and an upright heart, is joined to a clear understanding and a solid judgment. In fact, says the author we have cited, almost all eminent politicians have been of this character: _sane ubique reperias homines rerum tractandarum peritissimos, omnes ferè candorem, ingenuitatem, & veracitatem in negotiis præsetulisse_. The second sort is composed of men, of bastard dispositions or understandings: or of such whose understandings are so faintly enlightened, that they can discern no other road which will lead them to their desired end, but that of deceit; or their dispositions are so depraved, that they embrace dishonesty without reluctance, if they conceive it will be useful to them; or I am rather inclined to think, that both their dispositions and understandings are vitiated. XIII. The representation of both these sorts of politicians, may be seen as in two mirrors, by viewing the characters of the two Emperors, Augustus and Tiberius, who were immediate successors to each other. Augustus was open, candid, generous, steady in his friendships, faithful to his promises, and free from all deceit. In the whole course of his life, which was a very long one, there does not appear the least treachery; why do I say treachery? not even the slightest fallacy. Tiberius, on the contrary, was deceitful, false, gloomy, and dissembling. His looks and his breast, were never in concord, and his words were always opposite to his designs; which of the two was the best politician? Tacitus decides the question, when he extols the perspicuity of Augustus, and remarks on the caution of Tiberius; in the last he recognizes high dissimulation, and in the first supreme ability, which induced Mucianus, by way of animating Vespasian against Vitellius to say: _Non adversus Augusti acerrimam mentem, neque adversus Tiberii cautissimam senectutem insurgimus._