_Father._ What you have now asked about has its origin in various facts and occurrences of a harmful character. I believe, however, that such misfortunes would rarely appear among the people who inhabit and till the land, if the men who govern the realm were discreet and the king himself were wise. But when God, because of the sins of the people, determines to visit a land with a punishment that means destruction to morals and intellect, He will carry out His decision promptly, though in various ways, as soon as He wills it. Instances of this have occurred frequently and in various places, where trouble has come when a chieftain, who possessed both wealth and wisdom and who had been highly honored by the king, having sat in his council and shared largely with him in the government, departed this life leaving four or five sons in his place, all in their early youth or childhood. Then the king and the whole realm have suffered immediate injury: the king has lost a good friend, an excellent adviser, and a strong bulwark. Next the man’s possessions are divided into five parts, and all his projects are disturbed. His household sinks in importance, since each of the sons has but a fifth of all the power that the father derived from his means while he was living, and has even less of his insight and knowledge of manners, being a mere child. Greater still will the change be if he leaves no son at his decease but as many daughters as I have now counted sons; but the very greatest change will come if neither sons nor daughters survive him; for then it is likely that his possessions will be split up among distant relatives, unless a near kinsman be found. Now if many such events should occur at one time in a kingdom, vigor would disappear from the king’s council, though he himself be very capable. And if it should happen (for there are cases of such events as well as of the others) that a king depart this life and leave a young son who succeeds to the paternal kingdom, though a mere child, and young counsellors come into the places of the old and wise advisers who were before,—if all these things that we have now recounted should happen at one time, then it is highly probable that all the government of the realm would be stricken with dearth, and that, when the government goes to ruin, the morals of the nation would also fail to some extent.