IN THE PRECEDING book I have discussed, as briefly as I could, the
causes and the methods of tyranny, and I fleetingly touched on
just a few of the effects which derive from it. I do not claim to
have said all that can be said about them, but, indeed, all that
appeared to me to be most significant and least discussed by others.
I shall discuss even more briefly in this second book the ways in
which tyranny can be endured if desired, and shaken off if not
desired.

TO LIVE without a soul is the shortest and surest prescription for
living long and in security in a tyranny; but I neither can nor
will teach precepts for this opprobrious continual death (which
for the honour of the human race I shall call not life but vegeta-
tion); although I myself, without indeed wishing to learn them,

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