The second question, Was it right for Prussia to attempt to acquire Silesia for her own profit? may seem to have little claim to discussion by Frederick’s biographers, because considerations of right and wrong counted for little with Frederick himself. There seems to be no evidence that Frederick either in his public or private life practised the stale hypocrisies of truth and morality. What it seemed to him profitable to do, that he did; what it seemed to him profitable to say, that he said. “If there is anything to be gained by being honest, let us be honest; if it is necessary to deceive, let us deceive,” are his own words. In the case of Silesia, his avowal to Podewils, who urged that some legal claim could be furbished up, is sufficiently explicit. On November 7th the King writes: “The question of right (_droit_) is the affair of the ministers; it is your affair; it is time to work at it in secret, for the orders to the troops are given.” Two days later he received the news of the death of the Empress of Russia, which was worth more to him than a thousand title-deeds. Russia had no clear rule of succession, and usually fell into anarchy at the demise of the Crown. Frederick could therefore strike southward with confidence that his flank was safe. The question, Was it right? has, however, a deeper historical interest than that involved in the biography of a king of Prussia. Frederick’s indifference to all right renders it unnecessary to reflect in his case upon the spectacle of a good man cheerfully doing evil in the service of the State—of Sir Henry Wotton setting out with a jest “to lie abroad,” or of Cavour exclaiming, “If we did for ourselves what we do for Italy, what scoundrels we should be!” But it is to be borne in mind that in 1740 it was impossible to lay down with certainty the duty of a state towards its neighbours. The standard of right and wrong for states in their dealings with one another was not yet fixed. Nearly a quarter of a century later it was possible for Frederick to write, “The jurisprudence of sovereigns is commonly the right of the stronger.” But Maria Theresa was taught that sovereigns must rule their peoples as branches of one Christian family. Hitherto the old idea that a state was the property—the estate—of the king had not lost all its influence. Even in England, which was already the leader of the world in politics, the dynasty elected by the nation had great weight in determining foreign policy. Without the knowledge of any Englishman, William III. had committed England to the partition of Spain, and in defiance of most Englishmen George II. was soon to commit her to the defence of the Pragmatic Sanction. But if England was not yet wholly free from the ancient notion, much more did Austria and Prussia, bundles of Hapsburg and Hohenzollern lands, resemble the estates of their rulers.