whom he is always familiar: but being beheld by his subjects in his kingdom as in a splendid light. For a kingdom is judged and proved to resemble the eagle, the most excellent of winged animals, which looks undazzled at the sun. And a kingdom is, indeed, analogous to the sun, because it is divine; and through excess of splendour cannot be seen without difficulty, except by genuine eyes. For the numerous splendours which surround it, and the dark vertigos which it produces in those who survey it, as if they had ascended into a foreign altitude, evinces that their eyes are spurious. But those who can fitly arrive thither, on account of their familiarity with, and alliance to it, are able to use it properly. A kingdom, therefore, is a thing pure, genuine, uncorrupted, and through transcendency, most divine; and difficult to be acceded to by man. Hence it is necessary that he who is established in it should be naturally most pure and pellucid [in his soul], in order that he may not obscure by his stains that which is most splendid; as some persons defile the most sacred places, and the impure pollute those they may happen to meet. But it is requisite that a king, who associates with men, should participate of an undefiled nature, and should know how much more divine both himself and his qualifications are than other things; and from the exemplars to which he assimilates himself, he should use both himself and his subjects in the best manner. And to other men, indeed, if they are delinquents, the most holy purification is for them to be assimilated to their rulers, whether law or a king administers their affairs. But kings who cannot find any thing on the earth to imitate more excellent than their own nature, ought not to wander any farther in search of a paradigm, but should immediately become benefited by imitating God. For neither should any one search for the world, since he exists in, and is a part of it; nor should he who governs others be ignorant of him by whom he is governed. This, however, is a most abundant ornament, that nothing [in the universe] can be found without a ruler.