# Chapter 3 CHAPTER IV Machiavelli's Teaching T WOULD not be reasonable to claim,or indeed to believe,that the preceding observations suffice to elucidate every obscure passage of the Discourses.The utmost we can hope to have achieved is to have pointed to the way which the reader must take in studying Machiavelli's work.Books like the Discourses and the Prince do not reveal their full meaning as intended by the author unless one ponders over them“day and night"for a long time.The reader who is properly prepared is bound to come across suggestions which refuse to be stated.Pen or typewriter,to say nothing of hand and tongue,refuse their service.The reader thus comes to understand the truth that what ought not to be said cannot be said.It is fortunate for the historians of ideas,to say nothing of others,that there are not many books of this kind.Still,there are more of them than one would easily believe,for there were more great men who were stepsons of their time or out of step with the future than one would easily believe.As Faust put it to Wagner,"the few who understood something of the world and of men's heart and mind,who were foolish enough not to restrain their full heart but to reveal their feeling and their vision to the vulgar,have ever been crucified and burned”;not everyone belonging to those few failed to restrain his full heart.Goethe was the last great man who rediscovered or 》I74《 MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》I75《 remembered this,especially after he had returned from the storm and stress of sentiment to the tranquillity of fullness of vision. After him,social reason,sentiment and decision and whatever goes with those“dynamic forces”united in order to destroy the last vestiges of the recollection of what philosophy originally meant. Many writers have called Machiavelli a pagan.²Most of them mean by this that,"loving his fatherland more than his soul,"he forgot or denied the other world,and being enamored of the worldly glory of pagan Rome,he forgot or rejected the imitation of Christ.They mean that he forgot .to think about everything which is not political in the narrow sense or that he was so self- complacent as to rest satisfied with rebelling passionately and blindly against Christian morality without giving dispassionate thought to the theological premises of that morality.They imagine that he was another Cosimo de’Medici who said among other things that states cannot be kept with paternosters and was therefore slan- dered as a man who loved this world more than the other world.3 7 一 A man of this sort is not properly called a pagan. Paganism is a一 kind of piety and one does not find a trace of pagan piety in Ma- chiavelli's work.He had not reverted from the worship of Christ to the worship of Apollo.On the other hand,it is not misleading to count Machiavelli among"the wise of the world."He informs us that Savonarola's sermons are full of accusations of"the wise of the world"and of invectives against them.According to Savo- narola,"the wise of the world"do in fact say that a state cannot be ruled with paternosters.But they also say that they do not wish to believe anything,except what rational discourse proves; they therefore regard the Biblical prophecies as “things for women”; Savonarola has heard them say in their disputations that,speaking philosophically and disregarding the supernatural,the world is eternal,Cod is the final and not the efficient-cause of this world and there is only one soul in all men;they say that faith is nothing but opinion.4Those “wise of the world”who transcend the limits of political cleverness reject not only the myths of the pagans but above all revelation and the characteristic teachings of revelation on the ground indicated.They are falasifa or“Averroists.” The vulgar understanding of Machiavelli is justified to some extent by his reticences.He does not often speak of theological subjects,the Bible,Biblical characters,Biblical events or Christi- 》I76《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI anity.This fact does not necessarily prove indifference or ignor- ance.Granted that his primary theme is political,it is not obvious, and it certainly was not obvious in former times,that the Bible is mute about political conduct.But let us grant that political science is autonomous in its sphere and can be treated without any regard to the teaching of the Bible,since the Bible itself presents the non- prophet Jethro as the teacher of the prophet Moses in things politi- cal.This would explain Machiavelli's silence if there were no apparent conflict between his political science and the teaching of the Bible.But there is such an apparent conflict.To see this,it suffices that one remember simultaneously what Machiavelli says concerning the excusable character of the fratricide committed by the founder of the city of Rome and what the Bible says about the fratricide committed by the first founder of any city.Machia- velli needed much more urgently than did even Hobbes a detailed discussion revealing the harmony between his political teaching and the teaching of the Bible.Yet unlike Hobbes he failed to give such a discussion.The fact that he failed to do so and at the same time spoke so rarely about revelation cannot be explained by blind- ness or ignorance but only by a peculiar mixture of boldness and caution:he silently makes superficial readers oblivious of the Biblical teaching.This mixture was appropriately characterized and as it were imitated by Bacon in his I3th Essay:"one of the doctors of Italy,Nicholas Machiavel,had the confidence to put in writing, almost in plain terms, That the Christian faith had given up good men in prey to those who are tyrannical and unjust. ” The sentence to which Bacon refers occurs in the second of the three passages explicitly dealing with the essence of Christianity. We shall disregard here those innumerable passages,to say nothing of others,which in effect deal with the essence of Christianity since they deal explicitly with the contrast between the ancients and the moderns;for the ancients are primarily the pagan Romans and the moderns are primarily the Christians.In the Preface to the First Book Machiavelli expresses the"belief"that the failure to imitate the ancients in the most important matters is caused “not so much by the weakness into which the present religion has led the world or by that evil which ambitious leisure has done to many Christian countries and cities,but by the lack of true knowl- edge of the histories."If we surrender to the drift of the sentence, MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》I77《 we are led to"believe"that the failure to imitate the ancients properly is in no way due to Christianity.But if we follow that drift without surrendering to it and if we assume that the present religion is the Christian religion,and not merely the Christian religion in its alleged present state of decay,we see that according to Machiavelli Christianity has led the world into weakness,and the failure to imitate the ancients properly is due to some extent to Christianity.This induces us to reflect on the connection between the prevailing weakness and the prevailing unwillingness or inability properly to imitate the ancients,and thus to realize that according to Machiavelli the decisive reason for the failure to imitate the ancients properly is precisely Christianity,i.e.,a phenomenon which he apparently regarded only as a secondary reason.⁵Apart from this,Machiavelli speaks frequently about pagan Rome without contrasting pagan Rome with Christianity or modernity;even in those cases,we are not permitted to forget his general thesis that the present religion has led the world into weakness.While "the present religion has led the world into weakness,"“the world triumphed”under the pagan emperors from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius as distinguished not only from the later emperors but from the earlier ones as well:the world did not triumph in the reign of Augustus,during which Jesus was born;that reign,so far from being "the fullness of time"and thoroughly just,was a. period of utter corruption;Augustus has the primary responsibility for the Roman people becoming unarmed.6Nor can one say that Christianity compensated for the weakness into which it led the world by making the world more God-fearing:"there was never for centuries so great fear of God as there was in that republic,” i.e.,the Roman republic.It is true that if "that religion had been maintained in the princes of the Christian republic in accordance with what the giver of the same had ordained,the Christian states and republics would be more united and much more happy than they are”;but this does not mean that,given this condition,the Christian states and republics would equal the Roman republic in union,happiness and virtue.Whereas the Roman Church is the greatest enemy of the well-being of Italy,the pagan auguries were the cause of"the well-being of the Roman Republic."7 In the central statement on the essence of Christianity Machia- velli speaks,not indeed of Christianity nor yet of “the present 》17 8《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI religion,"but of“our religion."That statement contains the only density of“we's"in the sense of "we Christians”which occurs in the Discourses.8 Machiavelli again expresses a belief.Yet whereas the first statement had opened with one Credo,the second statement opens with two Credos and ends with one Credo.While he now speaks with unique frequency of "we Christians,"he does not express what “we(Christians)”believe but only what he himself believes.9 He now raises the question of why the peoples were greater lovers of freedom in ancient times than in the present, and he answers it by expressing the belief that the cause is the same as the cause that men are now less strong than they were in ancient times;that cause,he believes,is the difference between“our” education and ancient education,which difference is founded on the difference between "our"religion and the ancient religion.Up to this point he merely restates,although with greater force and clarity,what he had already said in the first statement.He goes on to explain why,or by virtue of what,Christianity has led the world into weakness.By showing the truth and the true way, Christianity has lowered the esteem for"the honor of the world," whereas the pagans regarded that honor as the highest good and 一 were therefore more ferocious or less weak in their actions.Machia- velli seems to say that awareness of the truth and the true way is destructive of the strength of the world Does he mean to say that the strength-giving esteem for worldly honor is based on error or delusion,and therewith that his own political teaching which favors the strength of the world is based on the open rejection of the truth and the true way?Yet he is undoubtedly concerned with teaching the truth and the true way.To quote the strongest statement regarding truth which he ever makes,"It is truer than every other truth that where men are not soldiers this is due to a fault of the prince."10 He admits then that there is a truth which is truer than the truth of Christianity.In accordance with this,he traces the religious establishment of pagan Rome to heavenly inspiration.The truth of Christianity then depends on whether Christianity is in agreement and sympathy with the most perfect truth mentioned.That most perfect truth upholds the demand for the strength of the world.Hence if Christianity has led the world into weakness,it cannot be true.There is essential harmony between truth and worldly strength:“all those modes MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》I79《 and those opinions deviating from the truth arise from the weakness of him who is lord."11 What has been said about the truth,applies to the true way.The true way-the way shown by experience to be true-is the way of a warlike republic like the Roman.12 When Machiavelli says that Christianity has shown the truth and the true way,he lets us see that he is aware of the claim of Christianity and that he has come to grips with that claim.What characterizes Christianity according to him is not its alleged truth but its lower- ing the esteem for worldly glory or,as he says in the sequel,its regarding humility,abjectness and contempt for things human as the highest good.The ancient religion,he had originally said, regarded worldly honor as the highest good.He now says that the ancient religion regarded greatness of mind,strength of the body and all other things which are apt to make men very strong,as the highest good.He thus suggests a corresponding improvement of his statement concerning the highest good as understood by Christianity:the highest good is God who assumed humility and weakness and thus consecrated humility and weakness."Hence our religion ...demands that you be fit to suffer rather than to do something strong."The unarmed heaven demands an unarmed earth,an unarmed emperor and an unarmed heart.1³The belief in the Passion fosters passivity or the life of humility or contemplation rather than the active life.“This mode of life then appears to have rendered the world weak and given it up in prey to criminal men who can manage the world with safety seeing that the large majority,in order to enter Paradise,think more of bearing their beatings than of avenging them."After having traced the present weakness of the world to its ground,Machiavelli says that the present effeminacy of the world is due not to Christianity but to a false interpretation of Christianity:since Christianity permits the exaltation and defense of the fatherland,it demands that Christians be strong.He concludes the statement by saying that the decline of love of freedom is due,as he believes,less to Christianity than to the destruction by the Roman empire of all republics.Yet in making these amazingly bold retractions, he does not retract what he had said about the superiority of worldly glory to humility, about the ground of the preference generally given to humility, and about the weakness and servility prevailing in the Christian world.14 And in saying that Christianity“permits”the defense 》180《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI and even the exaltation of the fatherland,he is not oblivious of the fact that Christianity subordinates the earthly fatherland to the heavenly fatherland and thus subordinates the power temporal to the power spiritual.15 The third statement occurs in the first chapter of the Third Book.Machiavelli there discusses the need for periodic renovations of republics,sects,and kingdoms.He illustrates the renovation of sects “by the example of our religion”which had been renewed and thus preserved by the new orders of St.Francis and St.Dom- inic.Through poverty and the example of the life of Christ they restored Christianity in the minds of men from which it had already vanished.Their new modes and orders prevented the immorality of the prelates and of the heads of religion from ruining the religion.“They give the peoples to understand that it is evil to speak evil of evil and it is good to live in obedience to them and,if they err,to let God chastise them;and thus they do the worst they can for they do not fear that punishment which they do not see and in which they do not believe."Shortly afterwards, when he speaks no longer of sects,Machiavelli shows that the neglect of law enforcement,of human punishment,leads to the consequence that either the evils will be eventually corrected with non-legal violence or else that society will perish.In the last statement,Machiavelli finds the root of the prevailing weakness in the prohibition against speaking evil of evil or, more generally and more clearly,in the prohibition or counsel against resisting evil.Non-resistance to evil would secure for ever the undisturbed rule of evil men.Resistance to evil is natural to man as well as to any other living being.The counsel against resisting evil can therefore lead only to evasion of that counsel.16 Machiavelli himself has indicated the difficulty to which his thesis is exposed.In the only chapter explicitly devoted to criminal rulers,he explicitly contrasts a single ancient and a single modern example.The ancient criminal Agathocles ruled“securely for a long time in his fatherland,"whereas the modern criminal Liverotto was destroyed one year after he had come to power.Yet Liverotto was destroyed by Cesare Borgia,and one might say that Cesare himself was a criminal ruler.Still,Cesare was not as successful as the criminal pagan emperor Severus who succeeded in being "revered by everyone."Machiavelli probably meant that since MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》18I《 Cesare was only the tool of his father,Pope Alexander VI,the destruction of the criminal Liverotto was the work of another modern criminal ruler who,at any rate by virtue of his sacred office,was revered,not to say worshipped,by everyone.If one objected that the pagan emperors received even divine honors, Machiavelli would perhaps reply that the worship of the pagan emperors did not preclude the assassination of many of them.He certainly shows in both books at considerable length how insecurely those pagan emperors lived who lacked virtue.17 To overcome easily the obvious difficulty to which Machiavelli's thesis is exposed,one merely has to assume that that thesis expresses in an exaggerated manner what he seriously means:not the world has been rendered weak by Christianity but Italy has been rendered weak by the Roman Church.He frequently praises the strength shown by Christian nations like the French,the Germans,and the Swiss. Besides,he can maintain his thesis regarding the weakness of the moderns only by being almost silent about the modern conquest of the ocean.18 Furthermore,he cannot deny that in two of the three branches of the army the moderns are superior to the ancients. If we had not learned something about Machiavelli's art,we might have the presumption to say that it is almost pitiful to see how he struggles to minimize the significance of artillery and cavalry in order to save the superiority of the ancient Romans.In the chapter on artillery he tries to show that if artillery had been known to the Romans as well as to their enemies,the Romans would nevertheless have succeeded in acquiring their empire;he does not come to grips with the fact that the inventors of the legion were unaware of artillery,a source of considerable strength especially with regard to the reduction of fortresses.In the chapter on cavalry he tries to show that the Romans were right in regarding infantry, and not cavalry, as the queen of battles;he is silent there about the superiority of modern cavalry to Roman cavalry and the superi- ority of cavalry to infantry in terrain of a certain kind,e.g.in some parts of Asia;he merely alludes to these facts by his examples,not all of which are apt or appear in the proper places.19 One cannot do justice to Machiavelli's argument if one does not remember the following points:he did not deny the possibility of progress beyond the Romans;his discussion of infantry,artillery and cavalry in the three central chapters of the central Book of the Discourses does 》182《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI not merely deal with the three inseparable parts of a modern army in the literal sense;his argument proceeds on more than one level.However highly he regarded the French,the Germans and the Swiss,he left no doubt about their inferiority to the Romans.The French know nothing of politics;a French king has acted against the greatest truth by disarming his peoples;while less corrupt than Italy,France is more corrupt than Germany. Machiavelli especially praises the German cities.Yet these cities control only small territories and they are subject to the German emperor though he has reputation rather than force.They cannot be compared to the Swiss who are not only,like the German cities, free to the highest degree but besides armed to the highest degree. The Swiss can be compared to the ancient Tuscans.But they cannot be compared to the ancient Romans.The modes and orders of ancient Rome,as distinguished from those of ancient Tuscany or modern Switzerland,enable a state to acquire a large empire.When Machiavelli speaks of the weakness of the modern world,he thinks in the first place of the fact that after the destruction of the Roman empire,no lasting and ecumenical empire emerged.As builders of empires,the Muslims appeared to him to come closer to the Romans than did the Christians.He seems to have been struck by the contrast between the Crusades and the conquest of the East by the Romans and by Alexander the Great.20 The two classical empires owed their being directly or indirectly to classical republics and the superiority of the latter to the monarchic East. When Machiavelli speaks of the weakness of the modern world, he has chiefly in mind the weakness of the modern republics.In classical antiquity as long as it was incorrupt,the West was pre- dominantly republican,whereas the modern West,the Christian republic,is predominantly monarchic.Machiavelli thinks of Athens and Sparta,of Rome and the republic which bred Hannibal,and even of Tyre which withstood Alexander“after he had already conquered the whole Orient.”He does not think of Jerusalem.21 It was impossible to analyze the outer layer of what Machiavelli means by the weakness of the world without at the same time indicating what he means by making Christianity responsible for that weakness.Christianity stems from the servile East which is habitually subject to princes who are destroyers of countries and squanderers of everything reminiscent of civilization.It stems more MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》183《 particularly from a weak Eastern nation which had a very defective polity.Machiavelli expects the readers who have been trained by him,to read the Bible“judiciously”;he limits himself to giving a few indications.Regarding the exodus from Egypt,he suggests that the Jews were unwilling to live any longer as slaves in Egypt, a well-ordered,fertile,most pleasant country of great military power,and therefore had to flee from Egypt;they were not strong enough to conquer Palestine but had to accommodate themselves to some extent to the natives whom they were unable to dislodge. By leading the Jews out of Egypt,Moses "redeemed his land"and "ennobled his fatherland."The inappropriateness or ambiguity of the term"fatherland"in this context draws our attention to the long periods of oppression or exile in which the Jewish people only longed for the land that had belonged to their fathers and was promised to them,rather than possessed it;this longing fore- shadows the Christians'longing for the heavenly fatherland or the Christian dualism of the heavenly and the earthly fatherland;the true Christian is an exile on earth who lives in faith and hope and who arouses these passions in others.Machiavelli explicitly con- trasts the greatest Jewish king,David,with his successors who were “weak princes.”He tacitly contrasts the succession of the two virtuous princes,Philip who"from a little king became a prince of Greece”and Alexander the Great,with the succession of David who“vanquished and beat all his neighbors”and Solomon.The former succession,Machiavelli notes,culminated in the conquest of the world;the latter succession,as he refrains from saying, culminated in the building of the temple in Jerusalem.Certainly David's successors were "little kings."Machiavelli gives us no reason for believing that he excepted the kings of Israel and Judah from his verdict about "the oriental princes"who in his eyes were barbarians.He says of David that he“was undoubtedly a man most excellent in arms,in learning,in judgment”whereas he says of Savonarola that "his writings show the learning,the prudence and the virtue of his spirit or mind”and that“his life,his learning and the subject which he took up were sufficient to make men believe in him”: whereas David had arms,and even his own arms,Savonarola was unarmed;whereas one must live in a certain manner in order to find belief,one does not need prudence and judgment for that purpose;whereas the writings of Savonarola do not show the 》184《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI excellent character of his learning nor of his judgment,the life of David was not such as to make him worthy to be believed,for “one comes from a low to a high position through fraud rather than through force."Regarding the defective character of the Biblical polity,it suffices to compare the Biblical modes and orders with the Roman modes and orders praised by Machiavelli.To mention only one example,one must compare the legal and the trans-legal context of Moses'severities with that of the severities of his Roman parallels,Manlius and Papirius.Thanks to their institutions and their spirit,the Romans could lawfully prevent, or at any rate lawfully disapprove of,severities of their dictators which they regarded as excessive,to say nothing of the fact that their dictators had extremely short tenures of office.There is an immediate connection between this difference and the presence or absence of proper safeguards for distinguishing between accusa- tions and calumnies.22 It is particularly necessary to compare the status of priests and augurs in the Roman polity with that of priests and prophets in the Biblical polity.In Machiavelli's presentation the Roman polity as the model is characterized by the unqualified supremacy of political authority proper as distinguished from any religious authority.He indicates his reason for that preference by saying that good arms are the necessary and sufficient condition for good laws.Priests and prophets are not as such warriors.The natures,the habits, the training,the function,and the tastes of the two types of men differ radically.Machiavelli shows the difference between the ways of life of the ruler-warrior and the priest most forcefully by presenting his Castruccio as confronted with a choice between them;the reader is reminded of young Heracles at the crossroads who has to choose between pleasure or vice and virtue.If the fundamental alternative is that of rule of priests or rule of armed men,then we understand why Machiavelli suggested that the truth“where men are not soldiers,this is due to a fault of the prince”is the greatest truth.Priests as priests cannot defend their subjects against people who are not frightened by maledictions or appearances.Ecclesiastical principalities may be secure and happy;they are not powerful and respected because they are not armed.They are,or tend to become,a kind of Capua in which even ancient Romans would forget the fatherland.2³In his judg- MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》185《 ment on the rule or supremacy of priests Machiavelli merely fol- lows the classical tradition.Plato's rule of philosophers is meant to replace the Egyptian rule of priests.According to Aristotle,priestly functions ought to be assigned to distinguished citizens who are too old in body or mind to fulfill political functions proper.The concern with divine things is in one sense the first concern of the city but in a more important sense it comes after the arts,arms and wealth,to say nothing of the deliberative-judicial function.24 Machiavelli would have been the first to admit that there may be warlike and armed prophets and priests.As regards armed priests, he points out that it was Pope Alexander VI through whose ef- forts the Church became armed;the first armed Pontiff conspicu- ously lacked goodness.The chief reason why Machiavelli opposed the direct or indirect rule of priests was that he regarded it as essentially tyrannical and even,in principle,more tyrannical than any other regime.Commands which are alleged to be derived from divine authority or given by virtue of divine authority are in no way subject to approval by the citizen body however wise and virtuous.Priestly government cannot be responsible to the citizen body however excellent.Hence,ecclesiastical principalities more than any others can be acquired and maintained without virtue.If a government is based on divine authority,resistance is in principle impossible;the rulers have nothing to fear.On the other hand, if a government is based on arms and if the citizen body is armed and virtuous,misgovernment can easily be prevented.25 By saying that Christianity has rendered the world weak Ma- chiavelli does not deny that Christianity wields very great power. We must try to show how he could have accounted on the basis of his principles for the victory of Christianity.According to him, Christianity acquired its power through a particular constellation of circumstances,or"the quality of the times."Rome had de- stroyed freedom and the spirit of freedom in the only part of the world in which freedom ever existed.Rome itself had become corrupt.The Romans had lost their political virtue.Roman men and especially Roman women became fascinated by foreign cults. Christianity originated among people who completely lacked po- litical power and therefore could afford to have a simple belief in morality.The severe morality preached and practiced by the early Christians created respect and awe especially in those subjects of 》186《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI the Roman empire who equally lacked political power.By de- manding humility,Christianity appealed to the humble and gave them strength.It thus was enabled to inherit the Roman empire and whatever remained of the classical arts and sciences.In this shape it confronted and over-awed the young and vigorous if rude nations which conquered the Roman empire.It succeeded in put- ting its stamp on those nations so deeply that the Roman modes and orders have not yet been restored,not to say surpassed. Machiavelli appears to judge Christianity with exclusive regard to an end which is not specifically religious,namely,political hap- piness,i.e.strength and freedom combined.He is so confident of the propriety of such judgment that he can indicate that,by making the Italians thoroughly irreligious,the Roman Church has harmed Italy less than by keeping Italy divided.26 He begs the decisive question unless one would say that a divinely established order is of necessity good also with a view to political happiness or that according to the Bible itself its political arrangements are perfect and not essentially punitive.To enter a deeper layer of Machiavelli's argument,we start from the observation that he applies almost the same expression to both Philip of Macedon and Ferdinand of Aragon.27 It looks as though he had known or fore- seen that,just as Philip was succeeded by Alexander the Great, Ferdinand was or would be succeeded by Charles V,the ruler of an empire on which the sun never sets.We must then consider how in his opinion the strength compatible with the Biblical teaching differs from the strength of the ancient Romans.Whereas Philip used most cruel means which were inimical not only to the Chris- tian way of life but to the humane one as well,Ferdinand always used religion as a cloak,and turning to pious cruelty,hunted the Marranos from his kingdom and deprived it of them.“A certain present-day prince,whom it is not good to name,never preaches anything but peace and faith and is the greatest enemy of the one and of the other,and one as well as the other if he had observed them,would many times have taken from him either his reputation or his state."Through using both pious cruelty and faithlessness Ferdinand became out of a weak king the first king of the Chris- tians in fame and in glory.His fame and glory is then not com- parable to that of the good Roman emperors under whom the world was filled with peace and justice,not to say with peace and MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》187《 faith,and whose times were the golden times when everyone could hold and defend every opinion he wished.Ferdinand is a good ex- ample of a fox;he is not,like the criminal Roman emperor Severus, a good example of both a fox and a lion.The outstanding con- temporary Christian prince is inferior in goodness to the good Roman emperors and inferior in badness to the bad Roman em- perors:he does not“know how to be altogether bad or altogether good."28 Through his arrangement of subject matter and his choice of examples in the Prince as well as through the “repetition”in the Discourses,Machiavelli suggests that the moderns are not inferior to the ancients in faithlessness,are inferior to them in cruelty,29 and are superior to them in pious cruelty.Ferdinand's expulsion of the Marranos was “a rare example”but hardly“a grand enterprise.” It was an act of pious cruelty;Machiavelli does not say that it was an act of cruelty well used.30 He has much to say in favor of cruelty.Certainly a new prince cannot avoid acquiring a reputation for cruelty.31 The most important remarks on cruelty occur in the Tacitean subsection of the Discourses.Hannibal's cruelty,not to say inhuman cruelty,was justified by the fact that he was the captain of an army which consisted of men of many races.Could it be that the government of an ethnically heterogeneous mixed body,of a society embracing members of many nations,not to say all nations,requires a degree of severity which would not be needed for the good government of a homogeneous society?Certainly only a being“born of man”can be expected to have those feelings of humanity which lead to revulsion against tyranny.According to Machiavelli,even in a homogeneous society like the early Roman republic,cruelt y or extreme severity of leading citizens is most useful or desirable.It makes a man thought to be a lover of nothing except the fatherland or the common good,or to be thoroughly just,and to be completely indifferent to his or others'private good.32 The Biblical expression for love of the common good is love of the neighbor whom one is commanded to love as oneself. According to the Biblical teaching,love of the neighbor is in- separable from love of God whom one is commanded to love with all his heart,with all his soul,and with all his might.From Machia- velli's point of view,the Biblical teaching regarding man's destiny appeared to lead to a more than Manlian severity,to pious cruelty, as a duty.We must try to understand what he meant by indicating 》188《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI that the Biblical God is a tyrant.33 The Biblical command is re- vealed;its acceptance is based not on reason but on authority; authority will not be accepted in the long run and by many people if it cannot use compulsion “in order to keep firm those who al- ready believe and in order to make the unbelievers believe”;for not only actions but beliefs are demanded.To demand belief is to stamp as criminal or sinful thoughts of a certain kind which man cannot help thinking precisely because of the unevident char- acter of what man is commanded to believe;it means to induce men to confess with their tongues what they do not believe in their hearts;it is destructive of generosity.The Biblical command is very difficult to fulfill,and it is a most true rule that when diffi- cult things are commanded,harshness,and not sweetness,is needed in order to bring about obedience.34 The Biblical command cannot be fulfilled:all men are sinners;the universality of this proposition proves that all men are necessarily sinners;this neces- sity must derive from a disproportion between the command and man's nature or original constitution.Man is so placed that he is capable of deserving infinite punishment but not infinite reward; while he is punished as a matter of right,his reward is entirely a matter of grace.The Biblical command given to man out of love for man implies as command that man can rebel against God or hate God or that man can be an enemy of God.Disobedience to God and estrangement from God is in itself absolute misery.Those who neither adhere to God nor rebel against God may deserve in- finite contempt;those guilty of rebellion deserve infinite pity because they cannot have understood what they did.Yet that re- bellion is in addition a crime which must be punished.Punishment must fit the crime.Eternal and infinite punishment-punishment which excludes the possibility of repentance or forgiveness-is needed.The punishment meted out or threatened by God becomes the model for man's punitive justice.The God of Love is neces- sarily an angry God who"revengeth and is furious”and"re- serveth wrath for his enemies,"a consuming fire,who has created Hell before he created man,and the fire of Hell is reflected in the fire with which the enemies of God are burned at the stake by faithful men.35Machiavelli tacitly rejects the very notion of divine punishment.Whereas according to his understanding of the Chris- tian teaching one should obey evil rulers and let God chastise them, MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》189《 he prefers to follow provisionally the golden sentence of the his- torian Tacitus according to which one should obey evil rulers; shortly afterward,he quotes two verses in which it is said that few tyrants“descend to the son-in-law of Ceres without murder and wounds”:36 Pluto is not the Devil,Hades is not Hell,to say nothing of the fact that it is fit for poets to use “poetic fables.”Machiavelli teaches that man's nature is not bad,originally or as a consequence of sin;men are often corrupt;yet this corruption can be counter- acted only by“the virtue of a man who is alive at that time”;cor- rupt men can only be restrained by a practically regal power and this means of course by the power of a human king;any other way of attempting to make them good would be either a most cruel enterprise or else altogether impossible.37 On the basis of the Biblical teaching,love of God becomes fervent zeal for the glory of God; it becomes a passion which in Machiavelli's eyes is not distinguish- able from the passion of partisanship or fanatical loyalty to a leader whose cause is not identical with the common good of a par- ticular state.From this Machiavelli can understand why Christian nations as Christians can rear good soldiers.Whereas the ancient Romans were good and faithful soldiers because they fought for their own glory,Christians may be good and faithful soldiers because they fight for the glory of God.38 When Machiavelli teaches that Christianity has rendered the world weak by commanding men not to glory in their virtue and power,he means also that Christianity has lowered the stature of man by rejecting the seeking of one's own honor and one's own glory as such.The distrust of the concern with one's own honor and glory goes hand in hand with the distrust of one's own virtue: one ought to put one's trust less in flesh and blood,in men's will, and ultimately in one's own arms,virtue and prudence than in prayer and in God.If one were to follow the Bible,one could not count Moses among those new princes who acquired their power by their own arms and their own virtue.One would have to say that he deserves admiration “only with regard to that grace which made him worthy to speak with God."God desires that the glory be given to him while he leaves us "part of that glory which belongs to us," whereas the leading Romans who trusted in their own arms and courage desired that"the glory should belong wholly”to the victorious consuls.According to Machia- 》I90《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI velli,man will not reach his highest stature if he himself does not demand the highest from himself without relying on support from powers outside of him,and if he cannot find his satisfaction in his achievement as his own achievement.Not trust in God and self-denial but self-reliance and self-love is the root of human strength and greatness.Trust in one's own virtue enables one to have trust in the virtue of other men.3⁹Consciousness of excellence on the part of excellent men must take the place of consciousness of guilt or sin.That man is mortal does not mean that he should regard himself as dust and ashes;it means in the case of the best men that they seek immortal glory.The truth in the assertion that all men are sinners is that all men however excellent are imperfect. No one can possess all perfections.A man's excellence will neces- sarily be accompanied by specific shortcomings,for the various kinds of excellence cannot co-exist in the same individual,at least not on their highest level.Certain excellences are denied to men by the very nature which enables and compels them to acquire other excellences.To say nothing of the fact that the nature of man,of human society,nay of fame and infamy itself implies that the large majority of men will be neither famous nor infamous. Machiavelli goes further.Man is by nature compelled to sin.Sub- jects are compelled to be disloyal to a prince who,without any fault of his own,is unable to protect them.“Our nature does not consent”to any man remaining on"the true way,""the way of the mean."Some men are compelled by their natures to be cruel or arrogant or irascible so that their efforts to be gentle or humble or meek are tantamount to attempts to change their natures,and the results will be indistinguishable from more or less successful dissimulation.For instance,Pope Julius II was incapable of pro- ceeding with humility and meekness and compelled by his nature to proceed with ferocity and fury.0 Machiavelli is willing to compare his admired Roman nobility to small birds of prey whose natural greed makes them unaware of the big bird which is about to swoop upon them;he is then willing to grant even more than was meant by the saying that the virtues of the Romans were resplendent vices;yet this does not prevent him from holding up as models the qualities and achievements of the Roman nobility, although those very achievements prepared the ruin of the Roman nobility and of the Roman republic by the big bird Caesar.For MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》I9I《 such is the nature of human life that actions prompted by un- Christian and even inhuman passions can redound to the lasting, although never perpetual,benefits of society and even of Christian- ity,nay, may be required by the needs of society or of the Church; to expect perpetual benefits is unreasonable since no mixed body can be perpetual.The sins which ruin states are military rather than moral sins.On the other hand,faith,goodness,humility and patience may be the road to ruin,as everyone understanding any- thing of the things of the world will admit.There is no pious work which may not be the origin of tyranny and therefore in fact be cruel.Pious bequests for the benefit of the poor and the sick will lead sooner or later to the accumulation of very great wealth in the hands of pious administrators;this wealth is bound to have its natural effects on the administrators and the people who look up to them,regardless of the quality of their intentions.De- spite the necessary connection between good and evil,or virtues and vices,a crude and simple political virtue can be instilled into the minds of the citizens and can be made dominant in a city. Corruption in the politically relevant sense is destructive of this kind of virtue.But corruption thus understood is caused,not by sin but by temptations which the large majority of men cannot possibly resist;those temptations are caused by such things as intercourse with foreigners and gross inequality.Given the in- stability of human things,states cannot choose the true way or the right mean which consists in keeping what one has and in not taking away from others what belongs to them;one is forced to choose one of the extremes:either to allow the others to take away from one what one has or else to take away from others what belongs to them;honor,worldly honor,dictates the choice of the latter.Yet it is not always and not fundamentally honor which dictates that choice.Should Heaven be so kind to men that they should never be compelled to go to war,they would become effeminate or else engage in civil strife.Thanks to Heaven's defi- cient kindness,nations sometimes wage war because the alternative is to perish through famine.This kind of war is much more cruel than the one caused by love of honor and glory because in wars of survival the survival of every member is at stake.41 The warriors fight for the very life of their neighbors,their fathers,their chil- dren and their womenfolk.In this case,the fulfillment of the divine I92《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI command to multiply reduces large multitudes to the necessity of massacring large multitudes or else of committing the sin of sui- cide.Since the attacked nation is in the same danger as the attacking one,the war is just on both sides.One cannot say that this difficulty is limited to states;it suffices to think of the two shipwrecked men on a raft.It is hard to say that the famine is a punishment for sin.For a punishment for sin which compels men to sin still more,or at any rate to behave with the utmost savagery,does not appear to be wise.It is then ultimately the nature of man and of man's situation which accounts for the necessity to sin. Once one realizes the power of that necessity which is the natural necessity to sin,and therewith the inseparable connection between sinning and everything noble and high,one will cease to deplore that necessity or to wish it away.Nor will one disingenu- ously conceal it from oneself,for instance by presenting acts of savagery or of astuteness prompted by necessity or even by the desire for honor or glory as acts of love or piety.Knowing that all men seek wealth or honor,one will be certain that the desire for distinction and all its noble and base companions affect even those who are reputed to be saints.One will recognize the desire for dominion in what presents itself as charity and one will recog- nize in religion a kind of "the arts of peace"not morally different from the art of war.Gratitude is the root .or support of all pro- found obligation.By his virtue and merits Scipio had deserved the gratitude of all Romans.Yet by his very virtue and merits he had become a menace to Roman freedom.It was Cato,the reputed saint,who stood up for Rome's freedom and was not ashamed to act,or to appear to act,ungratefully.Tutored by Machiavelli,we must assume that Cato's good conscience in acting as he did is indistinguishable from his envy of Scipio's fame.42 Awareness of the necessity mentioned will secure“knowers of the world”who are fortunate enough to be born with the right kind of temper,against both pride or arrogance and humility or ab- jectness.The most excellent men will have a proper estimate of their worth and of the conduct becoming to them,and they will not be shaken in their opinion and their conduct by the whims of fortune.They will live in an even temper without bope and_with- out fear or trembling.They may have regrets but they will feel no need for repentance or redemption,unless it be the redemption 》I93《 of their fatherland from foreign or tyrannical domination.Imi- tating nature,they will be filled with both gravity and levity but they will be free from fanaticism.They will not expect to find perfection or immortality anywhere except in works of art.They will regard as the virtue opposite to pride or arrogance,not humil- ity,but humanity or generosity.43 This is the place to survey Machiavelli's teaching regarding the conscience.He does not often speak of the conscience.In the Florentine Histories,which are almost as long as the Prince and the Discourses taken together,there occur five mentions of the conscience;four mentions occur in speeches by Machiavelli's char- acters;the fifth and last mention occurs in Machiavelli's description of Piero de'Medici who was inferior in virtue of the mind and of the body to his father Cosimo and his son Lorenzo.44 In the Dis- courses,he speaks of the conscience on four occasions.Baglioni did not abstain from killing or otherwise hurting the Pope and all cardinals“for reasons of either goodness or conscience,for into the breast of a criminal man who kept his sister,who had killed his cousins and nephews in order to reign,no pious or compassionate respect could descend.”Machiavelli clearly distinguishes here be- tween“goodness”and“conscience”as two different sources of restraint.We are inclined to believe that whereas Baglioni's lack of goodness or compassion showed itself in his murders,his lack of conscience or piety showed itself in his incest.When Machia- velli speaks later on of a sin similar to incest,namely , sodomy一 he does this shortly after having referred to the ius gentium which,to say the least,reminds one of the natural law-he says of a youth who refused to comply with the desire of a man merely that that youth was“averse to things of this kind”;the crime of the older man consisted in using force in order to satisfy his de- sire.45 The second mention of conscience likewise occurs within a Christian context.Machiavelli compares or contrasts two similar cases which show“the goodness and religion”of the common people in incorrupt cities;one example is Roman,the other is Christian;only in the Christian example does he mention the con- science.When the German cities levy a property tax,each citizen takes an oath that he will pay the proper amount and then throws into a public chest the sum of money which“according to con- science he believes he ought to pay; of this payment no one is 》I94《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI witness except him who pays."46 By virtue of the conscience,a man judges by himself and in solitude as to what he ought to do. But the conscience also pronounces a man's own and solitary judg- ment on whether he did what he ought to have done.The con- science of a man is the witness within him;this witness is in many cases the only witness to what he does and,so to speak,in all cases the only witness to what he believes.The goodness and religion of the Christians is connected with the belief that everything a man does or believes is witnessed not only by the man himself but by God as well.As one would expect,Machiavelli is silent about God's witnessing or the relation between the conscience and God. We are led to wonder what Machiavelli thought about the status of the conscience:Does it belong to man's natural constitution or to the natural constitution of men of a certain type or is it the work of society,if not of societies of a certain kind?With a view to what does the conscience decide on what a man ought to do? What is the relevance of a man's condemnation by his conscience? To answer these questions,one would have to summarize Machia- velli's analysis of morality.At present we note that he does not speak of pangs of conscience whereas he speaks of the pangs of ingratitude suffered or injustice suffered.He does this while show- ing that the vice of ingratitude is the effect of a natural necessity.47 If man is compelled to sin,there is no reason why he should have a bad conscience for sinning.If human goodness and the conscience belong to two different orders,there may be badness undisturbed by conscience.This conclusion is confirmed by Machiavelli's nu- merous and detailed stories of famous and otherwise contented criminals.The satisfaction of a good conscience is not in all cases as gratifying as the sweetness of triumph or of revenge.The third mention of coscienza occurs in a context which is no longer ob- viously Christian.The Latins had secretly prepared a revolt against the Romans.The Romans became aware of this and asked the Latins to send a certain number of Latin citizens to Rome for consulta- tion.Thereupon,the Latins knew that the Romans knew of the conspiracy.The Latins knew—or,more literally,had awareness (coscienza)- of many things which they had done against the will of the Romans.Originally,only the Latins knew of their prepara- tions for revolt;thereafter,the Romans shared this knowledge with the Latins without the Latins knowing that their knowledge MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》I95《 was shared by the Romans;finally,the Latins shared with the Romans the knowledge that the Romans knew of the Latin con- spiracy.Only because the Latins and the Romans “knew together” that both knew the secret of the Latins,could the Latins have had a bad conscience.But in fact the Latins were not afraid.They were fearless not because the Romans had been most unjust to them or because they trusted in the justice of their cause,but because they had awareness (conscientia) of their power on the one hand and of the power of the Romans on the other.The event showed indeed that they had not"measured well their forces"48 and therewith that they ought to have a bad conscience,because they knew that the Romans had come to know their intentions. Could the conscience in Machiavelli's opinion be based on true knowledge of the relation of the power of man to the power of God?In that case,the conscience would be prudence modified by the knowledge of the overwhelming power of God who punishes every action done against his will.Certainly one of Machiavelli's characters identifies the conscience with the fear of hell.9 The last mention of conscience occurs in the chapter on conspiracies. Despite the Christian command and the Tacitean counsel not to conspire against princes,even if they are evil,“many attempt” such conspiracies. Machiavelli desires to buttress the command and the counsel and thus to achieve what neither the command nor the counsel had ever achieved by showing that ordinary prudence strongly dissuades from conspiracies against princes.Conspiracies against princes,as distinguished from conspiracies against the father- land for instance,are by far the most dangerous enterprises.This does not mean that all conspiracies against princes are doomed to failure and that if they succeed the reward is disproportionate to the toil and anguish of the conspirator.Conspiracies may be said to be distinguished from all other crimes by the fact that if they fully succeed,their very notoriety contributes to the extinction of their criminality and they may carry with them rewards sur- passing by far the rewards to be hoped for from any other action. Successful conspiracies may therefore be said to shake the com- mon notions regarding penal justice.In addition,conspiracies are enterprises in which human beings share,or“know together,”a punishable secret or in which there are necessarily conscii.Machia- velli speaks of the conscience explicitly in that part of the chapter 》I96《 THOUGHTSON MACHIAVELLI which deals with the dangers run during the execution of the conspiracy.In the first example,he mentions a conspirator who was willing to kill a Medici but not to kill him in church;it would seem,although Machiavelli does rot say so,that that man was restrained by his conscience;his conscience spoke against sacrilege but not against homicide.Machiavelli then turns to those dangers run during the execution which are caused by failure of courage and lack of prudence.Failure of courage may be caused by rever- ence or by cowardice;or,as Machiavelli shows by his example, reverence may make a man vile;in cases of this kind men do not know what stopped them;for what stopped them was an uncanny mixture of power and graciousness.One cannot say that the failure was due either to lack of courage or to lack of prudence but one can say definitely that it was due to“a confusion of the brain.” After having turned to another part of the argument,Machiavelli speaks of his own reverence for a historian called Herodian whose authority induces him to believe something which he would never otherwise have believed to be possible.Returning to the earlier part of the argument Machiavelli speaks of the dangers to the execution which are caused by"false imaginations."Those who conspired against Caesar were tempted to murder him at the wrong time because they had“a false imagination”:they wrongly believed that Caesar knew of their conspiracy.The false imagination consisted in a wrong interpretation of an accident.It was caused by the "stained conscience"of the conspirators,i.e.by their be- lief that there might be a disapproving witness of their secret.50 Was the bad conscience of these ancient Romans caused by the suspicion that they did wrong or by fear of detection by human beings?Machiavelli forces us to raise this question but does not answer it.For the time being we suggest that Machiavelli tried to replace the conscience,or religion,by a kind of prudence which is frequently indistinguishable from mere calculation of worldly gain:"the true way”consists,not in obeying God's invariable law,but in acting according to the times.51 It is impossible to excuse the inadequacy of Machiavelli's argu- ment by referring to the things he had seen in contemporary Rome and Florence.For he knew that the notorious facts which allowed him to speak of the corruption of Italy proved at the same time the corruption of Christianity in Italy.It is somewhat worthier MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》I97《 but still insufficient to excuse the inadequacy of Machiavelli's argument by the indescribable misuse of the Biblical teaching of which believers in all ages have been guilty.At any rate,many present-day readers who have some understanding of the Bible are likely to be less shocked than amazed by Machiavelli's sug- gestions.They have become accustomed,not only to distinguish between the core and the periphery of the Biblical teaching,but to abandon that periphery as unnecessary or mythical.Machia- velli was unaware of the legitimacy of this distinction.52 Recent theology has become inclined to deny that divine punishment is more than the misery which is the natural or necessary consequence of the estrangement from God or of the oblivion of God,or than the emptiness,the vanity,the repulsive or resplendent misery,or the despair of a life which is not adherence to God and trust in God.The same theology tends to solve the difficulty inherent in the relation between omnipotence and omniscience on the one hand and human freedom on the other by reducing providence to God's enabling man to work out his destiny without any further divine intervention except God's waiting for man's response to his call.Machiavelli's indications regarding providence are con- cerned with that notion of providence according to which God literally governs the world as a just king governs his kingdom. He does not pay any attention to the fact that the prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the just were always regarded by thinking believers as an essential part of the mystery of the provi- dential order.We almost see him as he hears the saying “all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword”and answers “but they who do not take the sword shall also perish by the sword”: he does not stop to consider that only the first,by appealing to the sword,submit entirely to the judgment of the sword and there- fore are self-condemned,seeing that no mixed body is perpetual. Machiavelli's characters in his Florentine Histories speak as a matter of course explicitly of God’s justice as the cause of their actual or hoped for successes against their enemies as well as of their own misfortunes,and of their successes as proofs of the justice of their cause.53 In the same work,which is dedicated to the Medici Pope Clement VII,Machiavelli in his own name twice speaks explicitly and without qualifying expressions like“it seems,” of God’s taking care of men insofar as God's providence relates 》I98《 THOUGHTSON MACHIAVELLI to justice.The first remark occurs in an excursus which is pre- ceded by an account of the consequences of the capture of Con- stantinople by the Turks and of the victory of the Christians over the Turks at Belgrade.These two events may be said to have been the greatest exhibitions of the power of human arms which are mentioned in the work.At that time when,owing to the Turkish danger,men had laid down arms in Italy,God seemed to wish to take them up.An awful storm and whirlwind in which superior forces,"natural or supernatural,"were at work,terrified Tuscany so that everyone judged that the end of the world had come;very great harm was done to the country,houses and temples were ruined,but not many people were killed.“Undoubtedly God wished to threaten rather than chastise Tuscany.”He wished that "this little example should suffice for refreshing among men the memory of his power.”The second remark occurs in Machia- velli's account of the events of the year 148o.Not only the Floren- tine people,"subtle interpreters of all things,"but the leading men too asserted that Florence had never been in so great a danger of losing her liberty.The Medici were in particular danger."But God who always in similar extremities has had particular care of (Florence),made an unexpected accident arise”which caused the Pope and the other enemies of Florence to turn to something else. The unexpected accident through which God saved Florence from the Pope and his allies was the landing of the Turks at Otranto, their sacking of that town,their killing all its inhabitants and their “good cavalry”devastating the countryside.God's special care for Florence showed itself in his threatening his vicar with the power of the infidels.The Pope became meek and willing after the example of the highest Redeemer to embrace the Florentines with the utmost compassion.54 But let us return to the Prince and the Discourses in which Machiavelli sets forth“everything he knows.”His doctrine re- garding providence⁵5 may be summarized as follows.Since man is by natural necessity compelled to be ungrateful to man,he has no reason to be grateful to God.For if there is a natural necessity to sin,one is compelled to ascribe to God the origin of evil;one cannot speak of God as pure goodness or as the highest good which does not contain any evil within itself.Man cannot be expected to be grateful to God for undeserved blessings since he receives MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》I99《 with equal abundance sufferings which he does not deserve.Neces- sity rather than God or necessity governing God or necessity in God,not to say chance,and not human merit or demerit,is the cause of those blessings or sufferings which are not due to man's own prudence or folly.We find just retribution only where just men rule.Every other just government is imaginary.The effective rule of just men depends on good arms,on human prudence and on some measure of good luck.There is no shred of evidence supporting the assertion that chance favors the just more than the unjust.God is not a judge or even an arbiter but a neutral.If it is true that extreme injustice arouses men's hatred,resistance and desire for revenge,it is also true that perfect justice would para- lyze the hands of government;states can only be governed by a judicious mixture of justice and injustice.God is with the strongest battalions,which does not mean that he is with the largest number of battalions.Virtue,i.e.man's own virtue,and chance take the place of providence. In the last chapter of the Prince Machiavelli speaks of what God has done in order to help the Italians to redeem their country. He mentions there some extraordinary events without example which resemble miracles performed on the way from Egypt to the promised land.Yet there is this decisive difference between the Biblical miracles and Machiavelli's extraordinary events.The Bib- lical miracles evidently protected the children of Israel against their enemies,against their losing their way in the desert,against thirst and against hunger and thus contributed to their safely reaching the promised land.Machiavelli's extraordinary events have no evident relation to the needs of the Italians;they appear to be entirely useless.Of ecclesiastical principalities,Machiavelli says that while they are undefended,they are not taken away from their rulers because they are exalted and maintained by God; somewhat later he says that without having arms of its own,no principality is secure but it is entirely dependent upon chance since it lacks virtue which would defend it faithfully in adversity; immediately afterward he quotes a Tacitean sentence which deals with the weakness of such a reputation for power as is not based on force;Tacitus speaks only of the reputation of mortals;Machia- velli changes the text so that the text speaks by implication of the reputation of immortals as well.56 In the chapter on principali- 》 200《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI ties acquired by crime,by the breach of human and divine law, Machiavelli describes what one is tempted to call the speedy punishment of the parricide Liverotto;yet that speedy punish- ment proved to be possible only because of Liverotto's"simplicity" or Cesare Borgia's superiority in crime.Answering a doubt with his creed,Machiavelli says in the same context that Agathocles could live securely for a long time in his fatherland after he had committed innumerable treacheries and cruel deeds because he used his cruelty judiciously;God opposed his designs as little as he did those of Cesare Borgia.57 All conspiracies against the Roman emperors which were undertaken by men who had been made great by the emperors in question had “the end which the ingrati- tude of the conspirators deserved,"i.e.a bad end.But a similar conspiracy in more recent times had a good end.Is retribution for ingratitude less effective now than it was under the pagan em- perors?Another modern conspiracy of the same kind “ought to have had a good end"because the conditions were highly favorable to its success:Machiavelli has learned through the comparison of the ancients and the moderns that there is no correspondence between success and justice but only a correspondence between success and prudence in the crude sense.58 Considerations of crude prudence would be affected by expectations of punishment after death or, more generally,by belief in the immortality of the soul.Machia- velli reveals his opinion on this subject clearly enough by refusing to use,in the Prince and the Discourses,as distinguished from his other writings,the terms"soul,"59"the other life"or"the other world.”Two ways are open to founders,the way of kingship and the way of tyranny:"one which makes them live securely and renders them glorious after death;the other makes them live in con- tinuous anguish and makes them leave,after death,an infamy which lasts always.”60 “Life”means here only“this life”;after life, there is no longer either security or anguish,continuous or discon- tinuous,but fame or infamy of which the dead are not aware.In opposing the imagined republics and principalities which are based on the assumption that man can act as he ought to act,Machiavelli states that by acting as one ought to act,one is likely to bring about one's ruin:61 he does not even allude to the danger of eternal ruin which may be run by those who do not act as they ought to act.The dangers run in a conspiracy,i.e.the dangers of torture MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》20I 《 and death,“surpass by far every other kind of danger”and there- fore,we must add,the danger of damnation.62 Or did Machiavelli believe that the danger of damnation can be averted by repentance and perhaps even by repentance on the deathbed?"Penitence,"he says in his Exhortation to Penitence,"is the sole remedy which can wipe out all evils,all errors of men."He does not even allude to this possibility in the Prince and the Discourses. If all men's being sinners would have to be understood as a consequence of sin,man must have been radically different prior to his original sin from what he is now;his passions must have been different;this would require,as matters stand,that man was created in the image of God and that man,and the world as a whole,had a beginning in time:there was a first man not born of man."In the beginning of the world,the inhabitants being scarce,men lived for some time dispersed in similitude to the beasts."63 If we assume that in considering this sentence Machia- velli remembered the fact that there are gregarious beasts,he would be making two suggestions by means of the sentence quoted:in the beginning of the world men lived both dispersed and in similitude to the beasts.In addition,the Bible denies that in the beginning of the world men-Adam and Eve—lived dispersed.Certainly, Machiavelli's notion of the beginning of the world is not the Biblical but rather the"Epicurean"notion which presupposes the eternity of“matter”;by assuming that matter is uncreated,one could admit the necessity of evil or of sin without derogating from God's goodness.64 Certain scholars believe that every difficulty vanishes once one assumes that in the passage quoted Machiavelli merely copies Polybius.Apart from the fact,which we regard as most important,that Machiavelli does not deign to mention Poly- bius,Polybius does not say that men lived in the beginning of the world dispersed like beasts.He implies that in the beginning there were only few men,and he says that only at a later date they formed herds as do other animals.Above all,he makes it quite clear that he does not speak of the beginning of the world but of the beginning of the world’s present epoch which began after an almost complete destruction of the human race;and he teaches explicitly that such destructions have occurred and will occur many times. If Machiavelli had referred us to Polybius, we would be inclined to believe that he wished here to indicate 》 202《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI that"the beginning of the world"is in fact only the beginning of the present epoch of civilized life on earth which is preceded by other such epochs.In the first of three parallel statements he declares that there has been no change in the motion,the order, and the power of heaven,the sun,the elements,and man since antiquity.In the second statement he declares that men always were born,lived and died under the same order.In the third statement he declares that in all cities and in all nations there are, and there always will be the same desires and the same humors. Twenty-six chapters later he silently expresses his view on the creation of the world by refuting an argument advanced against the most famous alternative thesis which affirms the eternity of the visible universe.At the beginning of the I36th chapter he indicates, while referring to a saying of the prudent,that men always had and will have the same passions and that therefore there always have been and will be the same consequences of the passions,i.e., the same human actions,unless the actions are modified to some extent by education.65“I judge that the world has always been in the same manner and there has been(always)as much good as there has been evil."66 Almost all statements just referred to express mere judgments, i.e.,mere conclusions without the reasoning supporting them.The only exception is Machiavelli's summary refutation of an argument in favor of creation.“To those philosophers who have meant that the world has been eternal,I believe,one could reply that if so great an antiquity were true,it would be reasonable that there should be memory of more than 500o years-if it were not visible how those memories of the times are extinguished by various causes.”67 The weakness of a single argument in favor of the be- ginning of the world is not a sufficient ground for rejecting the Biblical account.Machiavelli draws our attention to "those philos- ophers”who taught that the world is eternal,or,in other words, that there is no efficient cause of the world.Savonarola mentions contemporary "worldly wise"men who assert that God is not the efficient but the final cause of the world as well as that there is only one soul in all men,i.e.,that there is no immortality of indi- vidual souls.The men who held these views were the Averroists.68 The fundamental tenets of Averroism were as well known to intelli- gent men of Machiavelli's age as the fundamental tenets of,say, MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》203《 Marxism are in the present age.We must turn to the books of the“Averroists”in order to complete Machiavelli's intimations and to fill the gaps between the seemingly unconnected denials without which his political teaching as a whole would be baseless. The most important of those books are not easier of access than are Machiavelli's books. At first glance,Machiavelli seems merely to attempt to show that the Biblical teaching contradicts experience or contradicts itself.He does not refer to the possibility that human assertions regarding God and divine things are necessarily self-contradictory nor does he consider the limitations of experience as he understood experience.A"first man,"a “man not born of man”is essentially inaccessible to our experience,and yet the Epicureans in former times and today even people who do not believe in the truth of the Bible admit,on the basis of reasonings which start from experience,that there were"first men,"men not generated by men. Machiavelli goes beyond the ways of reasoning mentioned by suggesting that there is no evidence supporting the Biblical teaching.He may be said to exclude dogmatically all evidence which is not ultimately derived from phenomena that are at all times open to everyone's inspection in broad daylight.Or,to elab- orate a suggestion which he makes,whereas Isaac judged rightly by hearing but falsely by touching,Machiavelli holds that one judges falsely not only by hearing but even by seeing and that the few who are able to judge,judge well by touching:in order not to be deceived,one must be close to the deceptive things and immune to false imaginations.69 By complying with his canon of criticism,he is led to think that the beginnings of revealed re- ligion,as all other beginnings,are not only necessarily imperfect or of deficient goodness but also imperfectly known.The study of the Roman commonwealth led him to the insight that there was not a single founder but a continuous series of founders;this in- sight must be applied to the other mixed bodies.70 We would go too far were we to assert that Machiavelli has never heard the Call nor sensed the Presence,for we would contradict his remarks re- ferring to the conscience.But he certainly refuses to heed experi- ences of this kind.If we consider the case of the man whose conscience spoke against sacrilege but not against homicide,we become inclined to believe that,according to Machiavelli,every 》204《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI articulation of the dictate of the conscience needs a support dif- ferent from the conscience itself.In accordance with this,tradi- tional theology had a proper regard for the objective evidence concerning the beginnings of revealed religion. Whereas Machiavelli does not explicitly discuss the beginnings of Christianity,he explicitly discusses what one may call the be- ginnings of Judaism.He opens that discussion by saying that one ought not to reason about Moses since he was merely an executor of the things which God commanded him,and that only a pre- sumptuous and temerarious man would discuss ecclestiastical prin- cipalities since they are ruled by higher causes than the human mind can reach.Even the increase of the temporal power of the Church is discussed by Machiavelli only with a view to the possi- bility that someone might ask him about the subject.71 Although one cannot reason about Moses,"yet he ought to be admired solely on account of that grace which made him worthy to speak with God."Does God give his grace without any regard to the previous worthiness of the individual concerned?Did Moses lack virtue of his own?Machiavelli settles these questions by counting Moses among those who became princes by their own virtue and their own arms.He goes on to say that if one considers the actions and "the particular institutions"of men like Cyrus,one will not find them discrepant from those of Moses “who had so great a teacher,” namely,God and not“Chiron.”Whereas the Bible asserts that there is a fundamental difference between Moses and other founders like Cyrus and Romulus,reason does not find such a difference: the Mosaic foundation was as purely human as all other founda- tions.72 As Machiavelli suggests shortly thereafter,states are natural things:7³no state,not even the state founded by Moses, has a supernatural basis.In the lives of the founders one finds much to admire but one does not find miracles.“The actions and the life” of Moses and Cyrus show that God was not more a friend to them than he is to the house of the Medici who have been en- couraged by extraordinary events without examples,but not by miracles.Or if one insists on finding miracles in the life of Moses, one must also admit the miracles told in the lives of other founders. According to the order of a cruel king,the new-born Moses was to be thrown into a river and yet he was saved;according to the order of a cruel king,the new-born Romulus was to be thrown into MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》205《 a river and yet he was miraculously saved.Hiero of Syracuse,who can be compared to founders like Romulus and Moses,was exposed as an infant and saved miraculously by bees which fed him;other portents distinguished him in his later life.74The Biblical miracles and revelations are as credible as the miracles and revelations of the pagans.If Moses and Savonarola speak with God,Numa speaks with a nymph.Machiavelli does not believe that there are nymphs nor that one can speak with God:one does not hear the words of God but only the words of men.He says therefore that Numa pretended he spoke with a nymph,and he implies that Savonarola and Moses deceived themselves in believing that they spoke with God.Moses and Savonarola did what they did on their own author- ity.There is no essential difference between the decay of paganism and the decay of Christianity.Religion belongs to the desires and humors which are always the same in all nations.75 We find padri in pagan Rome as well as in Christianity.As Machiavelli makes us realize by both treating Demetrius and Pompey as parallels and yet being silent as to a point concerning Demetrius,as to which he is not silent regarding Pompey,and by thus inducing us to look up his source,the people of Athens decreed that Demetrius be given the appellation “Saviour-god.”According to Livy,Alex- ander of Epirus went to Italy because he wished to escape the doom threatened by an oracle of Jupiter;Machiavelli makes him go to Italy because he was deceived by exiles:there is no funda- mental difference between people who,being full of faith and full of hope of returning to their fatherland,promise that fatherland to anyone likely to help them,on the one hand,and ancient oracles on the other.76 According to Machiavelli,Biblical religion and pagan religion have this in common,that they are both of merely human origin. As for the essential difference between them,he is primarily con- cerned with its political aspects.The independent Old Testament priests and prophets and the independent Christian clergy have no parallel in the Roman republic but they correspond in certain respects to the“third”force,different from the prince and the people, which existed under the Roman emperors,i.e.,to the sol- diers.The contrast between priests and soldiers indicates the essen- tial difference.The preponderance of “arms and the man”in pagan Rome explains why the Romans were less in need of "others"for 》206《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI their defense or why they were less dependent on fortresses and consolations or why they were less exposed to Fortuna than the moderns.To repeat Machiavelli's primary contention,whereas the pagan religion was conducive to the triumph of the world,Christian- ity has rendered the world weak.77 Since the character of a society is determined by the character of its ruling element or of its "princes,"the difference between paganism,or at any rate Roman paganism,and Christianity must be traced to the fact that in Rome a warlike nobility predominated whereas Christianity was origi- nally a popular and not war-like movement.For Machiavelli it is not an accident that the Church favored the popular element in the Italian cities against the nobles.The Roman counterpart to Savonarola was the plebeian leader Virginius;but as long as Rome remained incorrupt,men like Virginius could never play the role which Savonarola played in Florence;the senate was there to undeceive the people.The difference between paganism and Chris- tianity would then seem to be rooted in the fundamental difference of political "humors,"the "humor"of the great and that of the people.Machiavelli is willing to praise the intention of the populist Gracchi but he cannot praise their prudence,for,to say nothing of their peculiar mistake,the preponderance of the great and ex- alted over the weak and humble is essential to the strength of society.78 If it is true,as Machiavelli contends, that unarmed prophets necessarily fail,one would have to say that Christianity was originally a populist movement which failed and that Chris- tianity took on its purely religious character by virtue of the attempt to interpret that failure as a victory."All histories,"nay, “all writers”accuse the multitude of inconstancy.Livy gives the example of Manlius Capitolinus whom the plebs originally sup- ported,then condemned to death,and for whom finally,after his execution,the plebs most passionately longed.Machiavelli defends the Roman common people,as distinguished from other common peoples,against this accusation:the Roman people condemned Manlius for his seditious activity and it longed for his virtues."If amidst so great a longing Manlius had been resurrected,the Roman people would have passed on him the same sentence"as before.If we turn to Livy,we find that the plebs had almost made Manlius a god,the equal of Jupiter,and that the plebs traced a plague MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》207《 which occurred after Manlius'execution to the pollution of the Capitol by“the blood of its saviour.”79 Although Machiavelli admitted that the Biblical religion cannot be understood in purely political terms,he did not reject the view that it can be characterized with regard to its political implications. Even the most obvious difference between Biblical and pagan re- ligion,the monotheism of the former and the polytheism of the latter,offers itself to a political characterization.The pantheon of the pagans resembles a republic or the rulers of a republic,whereas the Biblical God resembles an absolute monarch.Certain observa- tions of Machiavelli regarding the difference between republics and absolute principalities lend themselves to being understood as keys to his judgment regarding the difference between paganism and Biblical religion.Paganism is characterized by satisfaction with the present,with the world and its glory,and therefore by despair regarding the future,the ultimate future,of the individual as well as of the mixed body to which it dedicates itself;the utmost the pagan expects is temporary security to be found on a low and nearby elevation on earth;for since the memory of every human work is extinguished sooner or later,there can be no eternal glory strictly speaking.Biblical religion is characterized by dissatisfac- tion with the present,by the conviction that the present,the world, is a valley of misery and sin,by longing for perfect purity,hence by such a noble scorn for the world and its ways as to pagans was bound to appear as hatred for the human race,and by a hope which derives from the promise or certainty of ultimate victory.The poetic fable of the pagans regarding Anteus,the son of Earth,agrees with Machiavelli's judgment:if man has his heart armed,he cannot do better than to take his stand firmly on earth and to oppose the efforts of the Egyptian Heracles and his like to lift him high;man ought to tempt or to try Fortuna,the goddess of man's world,but he ought not to try to conquer the kingdom of heaven.80 The peculiar difficulty to which Machiavelli's criticism of the Bible is exposed is concentrated in his attempt to replace humility by humanity.He rejects humility because he believes that it lowers the stature of man.But humanity as he understands it implies the desire to prevent man from transcending humanity or to lower 》208《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI man's goal.As for the other elements of his criticism of the Bible, it would be useless to deny that they were implicit in the teaching of Aristotle and developed by those intransigent Aristotelians who knew the Bible.The Aristotelian God cannot be called just;he does not rule by commanding but only by being the end;his rule consists in knowing,in his knowing himself.Aristotle tacitly denies cognitive value to what is nowadays called religious experience. There is no place for piety in his ethics.According to him,humility is a vice.On the other hand,he identifies the virtue opposed to humility not as humanity but as magnanimity. In order to bring out more clearly the difference between Machiavelli and Aristotle,we must consider Machiavelli's doctrine regarding God and his attributes.Let us consider first the explicit references to God which occur in the Discourses. The first refer- ences of this class occur in the section on the Roman religion (I II-I5).In the Roman republic there was great“fear of God”; that fear was related to"the power of God,"and it resided in the general run of citizens rather than in the leading men.It ap- pears from the context that the pagans feared not “God”but their “gods.”Lycurgus,who according to Machiavelli had recourse to God,had in fact recourse to Apollo.Numa was in need of the authority of God;he therefore pretended to be familiar with a nymph.The pagans feared the gods because they believed that the gods could grant them good and evil;and they believed this be- cause they believed that the gods could predict people's future good or evil.The Roman plebs could easily be induced to believe that the gods were angry and had to be placated.On a certain occasion“Apollo and certain other responses”gave a counsel of eminent political benefit:what the Romans heard was a response said to be Apollo's,but not Apollo himself.The auguries were the cause of the well-being of the Roman republic.As the context shows,they were also the cause of great embarrassments:unfavor- able omens frightened the soldiers.To counteract this bad effect, the ancient captains either showed the cause,i.e.,the natural cause, of the frightening event or else gave the event a favorable inter- pretation.On the whole Machiavelli teaches in the section on the Roman religion that fear of God's or the gods'power and wrath can be very useful;he is silent as to whether God and the gods are powerful or exist.He can hardly be said to break that silence MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》209《 in the only other reference to God which occurs in the First Book:"not without cause does one liken the voice of the people to that of God;for a universal opinion visibly produces marvellous effects in its prognostications,so much so that it seems as if the people foresees its evil and its good by an occult virtue."In the Second Book he mentions God or gods only once;he does this when stating the opinion of a pagan writer concerning the belief of the Roman people.In the Third Book he mentions God once, the gods twice,Apollo thrice and the Sun-God once;all men- tions occur in his statements of other people's opinions.81 Whereas the Discourses are then in the decisive respect silent about God,they make significant assertions regarding heaven. Following the “astrologers”or “scientists”of his age,and perhaps even going beyond them,Machiavelli replaces God by"heaven."82 “Heaven,the sun,the elements,and men”have always the same “motion,order and power.”This does not contradict the fact that “heaven”is not always kind;for plagues,famines and great floods are somehow caused by"heaven."Accordingly one can say that some men are “more loved by heaven”than others."Heaven" establishes for"all things of the world,"i.e.,for all terrestrial beings,specific life spans;whether they live out their time or not does not depend on"heaven"but on what these beings them- selves do and on chance."Heaven"is the summit which human fame can reach.83 None of these remarks necessarily implies that "heaven"is a thinking and willing being.There occurs only one passage in the Discourses where “heaven”is described as a think- ing and willing being,and in that passage "heaven"(il cielo)is used interchangeably with the Biblical "the heavens"(i cieli).Of “the heavens”Machiavelli says that they give men occasion for acquiring glory,that they form judgments,that they inspired the Roman senate,that they have purposes and act in accordance with them.Now,in the passage in which Machiavelli tacitly identifies “heaven”with"the heavens,"he tacitly identifies both with For- tuna.84 Fortuna is not the same as heaven or the all-comprising vault.Fortuna can be said to be the goddess which rules the little world of man in regard to extrinsic accidents.85 We shall then say that Machiavelli replaces God,not by heaven,but by Fortuna. Machiavelli has explicitly devoted two chapters of the Dis- courses to what one may call theology as distinguished from re- 》2IO《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI ligion.86 In I 56 he teaches that accidents of public importance are always preceded by"heavenly signs"such as divinations,revela- tions,and prodigies.The accidents in question appear to be public disasters such as foreign invasions and deaths of princes.Machia- velli gives three examples of recent Florentine disasters and then one example of an ancient Roman disaster,all of which were pre- ceded by heavenly signs;heavenly signs are obviously not a pre- serve of revealed religion proper.One of the Florentine disasters was preceded by two heavenly signs,while each of the others was preceded by one heavenly sign.In speaking of the recent heavenly signs,Machiavelli says three times that “everyone knows” of their having happened.The fact that important accidents are preceded by heavenly signs is then undeniable.The difficulty con- cerns the cause of the heavenly signs.In order to discover the cause,one would have to possess knowledge of things natural and supernatural,a knowledge“which we do not possess.”87 Machia- velli does not exclude the possibility that other men might possess, or might have possessed,such knowledge.He regards the explana- tion given by"some philosopher"as a possible explanation without either accepting or rejecting it.According to that philosopher,the air is"full of intelligences which through their natural powers (virtu) foresee future things and,having compassion for men, warn them with such signs so that they can prepare themselves for defense."88 This philosopher does not regard the heavenly signs as miracles or as acts of God.Nor does Machiavelli give any indi- cation that he himself thinks that God causes the heavenly signs. The intelligences in the air which may be the cause of the heavenly signs are neither gods nor heaven.The gods,including Fortuna, which are thought to foresee evil,are also thought to cause evil, and heaven causes evil without foreseeing it.89 The intelligences in the air,on the other hand,do not cause the disasters of which they warn men nor can they prevent those disasters;they merely fore- see them.Machiavelli does not even remotely suggest that the heavenly signs are marvellous effects of God's prescience.Accord- ing to our nameless philosopher,the heavenly signs are not signs of the wrath of God or of the gods.The intelligences which give the signs are moved,not by wrath but by compassion.They do not punish men nor do they announce punishment.Accordingly, the heavenly signs do not prove the existence of angry gods.The MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》 2II《 possible explanation of the heavenly signs which Machiavelli re- ports is in entire agreement with the intention of his whole work —with the intention sufficiently revealed by his silence in both books regarding devil and hell,as distinguished from God and heaven,and by his silence regarding divine punishment.90 Yet we must not for one moment forget that Machiavelli does not assert the existence of those intelligences in the air;the only superhuman intelligent and willing being whose existence he asserts in the Dis- courses is Fortuna.This however does not dispense us from the duty to wonder why he refers to those intelligences as a possible cause of the heavenly signs.The answer is revealed by the practi- cal consequence of the tentative explanation.Man does not have to fear the intelligences in the air,for they are compassionate and not cruel,but man need fear only the accidents which they an- nounce;the signs given by the intelligences are meant to induce men not to repentance but to vigilance.The suggested explanation is then conducive to making men not weak but strong.The sug- gested explanation may not be true;it is certainly salutary.The question arises as to why the heavenly signs are frequently inter- preted,e.g.,by Livy or his Romans,as indicating the wrath of the gods or of God.Machiavelli gives his answer through the context. The chapter on heavenly signs is preceded by one of the two chapters in which he mentions the Christian conscience,the silent witness within the individual;it is succeeded by the chapter which deals with the fundamental difference between the plebeian indi- vidual by himself and the plebs as an acting whole:whereas Livy had said of the individual that he is obedient,Machiavelli says that he is vile and weak.91 Weakness is not only the effect but the very cause of the belief in angry gods. The explanation of the heavenly signs which is reported by Machiavelli as not inadequate does not fit all kinds of heavenly signs in which men believed or believe.It does not fit favorable auguries or prophecies.It would seem that favorable and at the same time true auguries are not as well attested to as unfavorable ones. The philosophic explanation of heavenly signs does not even fit equally well all five examples which Machiavelli mentions.The intelligences in the air are said to warn men through heavenly signs so that they can prepare themselves for defense.According to the central example,the death of the elder Lorenzo de’Medici was preceded by"a heavenly arrow"striking the cathedral and damaging the building severely.If what happened to the cathedral announced the.death of Lorenzo,it is hard to see how that heavenly sign could have been a warning to Lorenzo or to the Florentines to avert Lorenzo's death.The uneasiness would seem to be strength- ened by the next example.Soderini's downfall was preceded by lightning striking the palace;Soderini could indeed have taken this heavenly sign as a warning addressed to him to be on his guard; yet according to Machiavelli's analysis,Soderini would have lacked the astuteness and ruthlessness required for his salvation;the warn- ing would have been useless.One might say,however,that the heavenly sign preceding Lorenzo's death was a warning addressed to the Florentines to be on their guard against the evil conse- quences of Lorenzo's death.Still,we wonder whether all five heavenly signs mentioned by Machiavelli as undeniable facts pos- sess the same status.Machiavelli speaks of three heavenly signs which announced the invasion of Italy by the modern French or the ancient Gauls.One of them was a fight of armed men in the air above Arezzo,a fight vouched for by what was said,not in Arezzo in particular but everywhere in Tuscany.The only heavenly sign mentioned as reported by Livy was vouched for by a plebeian who had heard a superhuman voice in the middle of the night while he was alone.The only example of heavenly signs mentioned by Machiavelli which both is certainly authentic and easily fits the tentative explanation of heavenly signs is that of Savonarola's predicting the invasion of Italy by the French.92 Yet precisely this example shows the difficulty of discerning the meaning of heavenly signs or of distinguishing between heavenly signs and mere accidents.Savonarola's prediction was not unconnected with his belief that the sins of Italy deserve extraordinary punishment; by virtue of this belief he could not draw the proper conclusion, i.e.,the military or political conclusion,from what he foresaw or expected or guessed.93 At any rate,heavenly signs announcing for- eign invasions appear to be the clearest case of warnings addressed to men to prepare themselves for defense.Heavenly signs thus understood announce terrors stemming,not from heaven however understood,but from other men.The only proper way of heeding heavenly signs would then be political and military preparation: good arms are the one thing needful.Machiavelli draws our at- MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》2I3《 tention to the difficulties mentioned by expressing himself differ- ently on the subject under discussion in the heading and the be- ginning of the chapter on the one hand,and at its end on the other.He draws our attention,in other words,to the movement of thought which underlies the chapter or finds expression in it.The first statement is to the effect that grave accidents which occur in a city or in a country are always preceded by heavenly signs.The repetition is to the effect that extraordinary and new things which happen to countries,are always preceded by"such accidents,"i.e., human predictions,lightning striking temples or palaces,or noc- turnal or diurnal apparitions.In the repetition he replaces “city or country"by"country”:the foreign invasions mentioned were invasions of Italy,whereas the death or downfall of princes men- tioned affected primarily the city of Florence.In the repetition Machiavelli replaces “grave accidents”by“extraordinary and new things."Grave accidents are distinguished from extraordinary ones by the fact that the former cannot possibly be handled without the use of extraordinary powers whereas this is not true of extraor- dinary accidents.94 The death of a prince is not necessarily a grave event.Above all,in the repetition Machiavelli replaces “heavenly signs”by“accidents.”We shall have to consider the relation between those“accidents”which come to sight primarily as "heavenly signs" and the workings of Fortuna. Whereas I 56 leads up to a merely hypothetical suggestion belonging to quasi-theology,II 29 promises by its very heading to contain Machiavelli's assertoric quasi-theology:"Fortuna blinds the minds of men when she does not wish them to oppose her de- signs."95 This sentence is taken almost literally from Livy;it em- bodies Livy's “conclusion”from certain events which he had stated prior to drawing his conclusion;Livy has thus “demon- strated”fully and effectively the power of Fortuna over human things:whereas the existence of the intelligences in the air re- mains a mere possibility,the existence of Fortuna has been demon- strated.By ascending from the phenomena to their causes we finally come to realize the existence of Fortuna rather than of God. Livy has established to Machiavelli's entire satisfaction that For- tuna is a willing and thinking being.To leave no room for the slightest doubt,he quotes literally Livy's conclusion in the body of the chapter and alters it in the Italian statement in the heading: 》2I4《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI whereas Livy speaks of "Fortuna's might,"Machiavelli speaks of "Fortuna's designs."Fortuna is not only one god among many; as Machiavelli indicates by using in this chapter“Fortuna”and "heaven"synonymously,Fortuna takes the place of all gods.Not only is the existence of Fortuna more certain than that of the intelligences in the air;she is also more powerful than they might be.Fortuna did not wish the Romans to prepare themselves for defense against the Gauls;according to the philosophic explana- tion of the heavenly signs, the intelligences in the air warned the Romans at that time to prepare themselves for defense against the Gauls;the intelligences were overruled by Fortuna just as in Machiavelli's time,as he says in the Prince,someone apparently chosen by God was rejected by Fortuna.98 It appears that Fortuna is distinguished from the hypothetical intelligences in the air also by the fact that whereas the latter are benevolent,Fortuna is malevo- lent.Both Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia suffered from the malignity of Fortuna."Human appetites owe it to nature that they can long and that they wish to long for everything,and they owe it to Fortuna that they can attain only a few of those things":whereas Nature wishes to grant,Fortuna denies.97 This notion of Fortuna is however somewhat modified in our chapter.Fortuna inflicted indeed many evils on the Romans;but she did this,not out of malevolence,but because she wished the Romans to recognize her power,and she wished this with a view to a further or an ulti- mate end:she wished to make Rome great because she had elected Rome.In the preceding chapter Machiavelli had said that the disasters of the Gallic War befell the Romans "only because the Romans had not observed justice."Must we then say that Fortuna had originally elected the Roman people because of its justice and that Fortuna is the guardian or source of justice?Certain it is that Fortuna blinds cities or countries less the more they are filled with virtue,religion and order.Fortuna reminds one in some respects of the Biblical God.She takes the place of the Biblical God.She is indeed not a creator and she concentrates entirely on the government of men:Machiavelli does not mention in our chap- ter a single“heavenly sign”;the workings of Fortuna as described here show themselves exclusively in human actions or sufferings. But to return to the question of Fortuna's justice,Fortuna caused the Fabii,the ambassadors whom the Romans had sent to the MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》2I5《 Gauls,to commit a sin against the law of nations and thus to bring on the war with the Gauls.“Fabius”seems to be an enemy,not only of the Gauls,but of Fortuna herself.Fortuna as it were hardened the heart of the Fabii.It does not appear however that the sin of the Fabii was caused or predestined by Fortuna as a punishment for preceding sins.Besides,the sin of the Fabii was avenged,not by Fortuna,but by the Romans.98 Above all,Machia- velli would hardly have traced his own misfortune to Fortuna in the Epistle Dedicatory of the Prince if he had thought that For- tuna is just.We must then leave it at saying that Fortuna mys- teriously elects some men or nations for glory and others for ruin or infamy.She certainly is not always malevolent.She cer- tainly is,if not all powerful,at least so powerful that men cannot oppose her designs.The practical consequence is not quietism.As we have seen,the end which Fortuna pursues is unknown,and so are her ways toward that end.Hence,Machiavelli concludes, men ought always to hope,men ought never to give up,no matter what the condition into which Fortuna may have brought them. We need not discuss whether Machiavelli is consistent in draw- ing this sanguine conclusion from his quasi-theology.His conclu- sion from his assertion regarding Fortuna is certainly consistent with the conclusion which follows from his assumption regarding the intelligences in the air:man has no reason to fear super- human beings.But whereas in the earlier chapter he had left it to the reader to draw the conclusion,he now explicitly urges all readers to hope,i.e.,to abandon themselves to the passion oppo- site to fear. It suffices to remember what was said earlier concerning the primacy of terror,in order to see that the reasoning of Discourses II 29 cannot be Machiavelli's last word on Fortuna.He indicates the difficulty to which that reasoning is exposed by making a mistake in the center of the chapter.He says that Livy states the “conclusion”regarding the power of Fortuna after having narrated the mistakes which the Romans had made prior to the war with the Gauls and at the beginning of that war.If we turn therefore to Livy,we see that his “conclusion”precedes rather than fol- lows his narrative of the Romans'mistakes or that the“conclusion” precedes the establishment of the premises:the events narrated by Livy do not justify his conclusion.99 Accordingly,the immediately 》216《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI following chapter which touches upon the theme of the quaestio disputata and refers to “an imagined danger"and "unarmed heart” leads up to a practical conclusion entirely different from that of II 29.Fortuna is changeable,and her power shows itself in un- expectcd political changes or victories and defeats;Machiavelli con- tinues to be silent about heavenly signs.Fortuna shows her power the less,the more men possess virtue.Hence,a man of supreme virtue,of ancient virtue,should and can "regulate"Fortuna so that she has no cause to show her power all the time.Fortuna is changeable and hence unreliable:to trust in her and to put one's hopes in her is madness.She is so far from possessing superhuman power that man cannot only tempt or try her without having to fear her,but can even "regulate"her.Or to quote from the Prince, “Fortuna is a woman,and if one wishes to keep her down,it is necessary to beat her and to pound her."Fortuna can be van- quished by the right kind of man.100 The fact that man's well- being depends on his vanquishing Fortuna shows that the initial suspicion was right:Fortuna is the enemy.Lacking superhuman power,she is not likely to be a superhuman being,a being which is more powerful than man and which wills and thinks.When speaking in Discourses II 29 of Fortuna's“judging"that she must beat Rome in order to make Rome great,Machiavelli says that he will discuss this “at length in the beginning of the following Book.”He had used the story of the Gallic War in I 29 in order to show the power of Fortuna.He uses the same story in III I in order to show that mixed bodies must frequently be restored to their beginnings.Such restoration can take place in the case of republics101 through“intrinsic prudence”or through“extrinsic accident.”The restoration or rebirth of Rome at the time of the Gallic War was caused by"extrinsic accident."Every mixed body has a natural tendency to decay or to become corrupt.This tend- ency can be arrested by unexpected disasters which compel the mixed body or its rulers to restore order and virtue.Not Fortuna had then blinded the Romans at that time,but the Romans had degenerated by a natural process or they had become careless and vile;therefore they made disastrous mistakes;but their disasters brought them to their senses.When discussing his subject“at length,"Machiavelli replaces the figurative expression“Fortuna judged”by the proper expression"extrinsic accident caused."102 MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》217《 By sometimes identifying Fortuna and heaven,Machiavelli is enabled to present Fortuna not merely as the only superhuman being which thinks and wills,or as the only god,but likewise as the all comprehensive order which does not think and will,or as nature. What then is the relation between Fortuna and nature?Accord- ing to one passage,"human appetites owe it to nature that they can long and can wish to long for everything,and they owe it to Fortuna that they can attain only a few of these things.”This remark serves the provisional purpose of presenting Fortuna as a thinking and willing being which is malevolent.Machiavelli ex- presses himself differently in another passage:“Nature has so created men that they can long for everything and cannot attain every- thing“”;this gives rise to their being discontented and to conflict among them,and hence to the varying of their fortunes.103 The power of Fortuna is based on the primary action of nature.Nature somehow comprises Fortuna.Fortuna is a part,and not the ruling part,of the whole.The whole is ruled by heaven.Heaven estab- lishes for all earthly beings specific life spans beyond which they cannot live.Heaven does not determine,however,that each earthly being should live out its time,for heaven is the cause of plagues, famines,and similar disasters.Heaven leaves room for human causation,for action,for prudence and for art.Fortuna belongs to the same domain to which art and prudence belong.104 Fortuna is thought to be the cause of men's good or ill fortunes.But if one looks more closely,one sees that in the most important cases “the cause of(good)fortune”is not Fortuna but human virtue and good institutions,i.e.,the work of prudence or art.Rome owed her greatness decisively to her virtue and not to Fortuna. Rome,as distinguished from Sparta,rose to greatness,not through the prudence of her founder,but through chance or accidents; these accidents however arose from the discord between the nobles and the plebs;that discord in its turn arose from the opposition between the humor of the great and that of the people,from an opposition which is essential to every republic;the alternative to that discord is the oppression of the people;the accidents which made Rome great must then be traced,not to chance,but to the prudence or generosity of her nobles and the virility of her plebs.105 Conversely,the cause of misfortune is frequently not Fortuna,but lack of virtue and art—a lack which can be traced to determinate 》2 18《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI causes and which therefore can be remedied to some extent.Still, a complete control of chance is impossible.If Lorenzo de'Medici had not died in his 44th year from a disease of his stomach,the ruin of Italy would have been averted.106 This is not to deny that the dependence of a country on the life of a single man is the consequence of a fundamental defect of the moral and political constitution of that country.The good or ill fortune of captains or princes like Fabius Maximus,Pope Julius II and Machiavelli himself is caused by the agreement or disagreement between their specific natural qualities and the characters of their times;for dif- ferent types of human beings agree with different times;the agree- ment between the nature of an individual and his times,and hence his good fortune,is caused by Fortuna,by chance.107 A man,like Machiavelli,who was born in the wrong time,may achieve post- humous success through his writings,but this depends on the survival of his writings,i.e.,on something which is essentially exposed to chance.Since the success or failure at any rate of indi- viduals depends then ultimately on unconquerable chance,the rule “Conquer Fortuna”is insufficient.Excellent men will rise above chance.Chance will have no power over them,over their minds. While their fortune varies,they will always remain the same.The dignity of man consists,not in conquering chance,but in inde- pendence.This freedom,this dignity,this genuine“good fortune” can arise only from a man's having knowledge of"the world,” i.e.,in particular of the place and significance of accidents.Con- trary to what Machiavelli had indicated in his chapter on heavenly signs,such knowledge is available to him.Inner freedom from chance,an ultimate superiority to every fear and every hope,pre- supposes recognition of the true power of chance,of the natural necessities by virtue of which chance rules supreme within certain limits.The alternatives to that freedom are either faith or vulgar worship of success.108 The most important errors arise from false notions regarding chance.They consist in assigning to chance a much greater power than it possesses and in obscuring the nature of chance.In order to prepare the discussion of this subject,Machiavel li replaces “chance”by"accidents,"either by“extrinsic accidents”or by "trivial accidents."109 By substituting“accidents"for"chance,” he deliberately blurs the distinction between nature and chance MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》219《 in order to indicate the common origin of both belief in gods and knowledge of nature.For that purpose,accidents may be defined as events which are not foreseen by every human being of common understanding.110 An event which a man intentionally brings about is therefore not an accident for him.Accidents are either foreseen or not foreseen;they are not foreseen either because they cannot be foreseen or because the people to whom they occur lack fore- sight.Accidents are either important or unimportant.Men can cope,if sometimes only by resignation,with the ordinary and familiar.They therefore attempt to understand the new in the light of the old,or they tacitly identify the natural with the common or ordinary.If they once lost a battle at a certain place,they are afraid to wage another battle at the same place;lacking knowledge of the causes,they mistake the merely accidental but very striking for the cause;they mistake an unimportant accident for an impor- tant accident.They understand the new in the light of the old because,owing to the primacy of terror,they are upset and fright- ened by the new,unforeseen or extraordinary.They are therefore anxious to foresee what is unforeseeable either in itself or for them.For this purpose they as it were postulate beings of super- human perfection which can predict to them the future;once they believe that there are gods who can predict to them their future good and evil,they readily believe that those gods cause their good and evil.They thus arrive at making foreseeable the unfore- seeable and at transforming the simply unintended into something intended.Being frightened by the extraordinary or new as such, they identify the extraordinary with the grave.By virtue of this effect of the new on the minds of unwise and undisciplined men, the new as such becomes important.Accidents may therefore be grave though they are in themselves trivial or "weak."An unim- portant but striking accident may be connected with an intrinsi- cally grave accident by mere accident,e.g., because it happens in or near the same place or at the same time as a grave accident or shortly before a grave accident.Thus,striking accidents will be regarded in retrospect as signs of grave accidents.This will give rise to the belief that striking accidents always portend grave accidents.An event brought about intentionally is an accident for those men who did not intend it or foresee it.Let us now call "new accidents"such accidents as are not in themselves grave.New 》220《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI accidents happen not only by accident;they can also be fabri- cated,e.g.,for the purpose of upsetting an enemy.In the chapter on new accidents(III 14)Machiavelli gives five examples,three of which were fabricated accidents.New accidents may be per- ceived by seeing or by hearing.Machiavelli speaks only of such fabricated new accidents as were seen;he leaves it to the reader to discover whether voices or words can be fabricated as well.But he makes clear that if one fabricates new accidents,one must prevent the people who are to be deceived from coming close to those accidents.He seems to pay a compliment to the human race by choosing as his examples three fabricated accidents of which two failed to deceive;yet these three accidents were all seen and not heard.However this may be,it would seem that the prudent use of genuine new accidents is safer than the fabrication of new accidents.That prudent use consists either in revealing the true cause of the accident in question or else in interpreting it as 3 favorable sign,i.e.,in not questioning its being a sign.In the latter case one must prevent the people who are to be deceived from coming close to the accident,ie.,from discovering its true cause.111 What the wise captain does regarding the particular accident which upsets his army,Machiavelli does regarding all accidents:he either does not question their being signs or heavenly signs but interprets them as warnings sent by friendly spirits,or else he indicates their natural causes. In the Prince,in which Machiavelli never speaks of"we Chris- tians,"he never mentions the gods or heaven.Similarly,while he asserts in the Prince the existence both of God and of Fortun3 as a willing and thinking being,he never refers there to any demonstration of the existence or power of Fortuna.The first reference to Fortuna as a thinking and willing being occurs in the third part of the book,some time after the beginning of the descent.Especially when she wishes to make a new prince great, Fortuna causes enemies to rise against him and causes him to act against them so that he has occasion to overcome them and thus to acquire reputation.Therefore "many"judge that a wise prince ought to nourish some enmity against himself in order to increase his reputation by suppressing the enemy whom he created.112“Many judge”then that a wise prince ought to imitate Fortuna or that Fortuna is the model for wise princes.But the phenomenon which MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》22I《 Machiavelli here traces to Fortuna was traced by him,in the central chapter of the first part,to the nature of things:against a new prince many enemies rise of necessity.Machiavelli takes up the opinions of the many regarding Fortuna in the 25th chapter,which is explicitly devoted to the question of the power of Fortuna. “Many have had and have the opinion”that the things of the world are governed by Fortuna and by God in such a way that human prudence is powerless.They believe then that Fortuna and God are not only to be imitated but also that they are so powerful that they cannot be imitated unless Fortuna and God decree or cause such imitation.Yet such power of Fortuna and of God,or such exercise of their power,is incompatible with human freedorn. Machiavelli therefore judges that one half of our actions is deter- mined by Fortuna whereas the other half,or about the other half, is left to our own determination.The popular error consists in assigning to Fortuna a much greater power than she possesses. Machiavelli is silent now about the causality of God.Instead he explains that Fortuna is like one of those ruinous rivers which "when they become angry,"destroy everything men have built and are simply irresistible.Fortuna is the enemy of man.Fortuna exercises her power only when she is angry,when the times are turbulent or difficult;the half ruled by Fortuna is the difficult times,whereas the half ruled by man is the peaceful times.Yet if men are virtuous and prudent,Fortuna leaves them alone at all times;Fortuna favors virtue and prudence in the sense that she has a healthy respect for them.Machiavelli makes it clear that he could have said more regarding the resistance to Fortuna,or the war against Fortuna,in general,had he wished to do so.He hardly sheds further light on Fortuna,or on chance,by saying at the end of the chapter that Fortuna is like a woman who can be van- quished by the right kind of man.For if Fortuna can be vanquished, man would seem to be able to become the master of the universe. Certainly Machiavelli does not recommend that Fortuna be wor- shipped:she ought to be beaten and pounded. We have stated the reasons which may induce one to think that Machiavelli’s cosmological premises were Aristotelian.113 Yet there is no place in his cosmology for a ruling Mind.This by itself does not prove that he consciously broke away from Aristotle's doctrine of God,for that doctrine has been understood in greatly different 》222《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI ways.114 Machiavelli indicates his fundamental disagreement with Aristotle's doctrine of the whole by substituting "chance”(caso) for "nature”in the only context in which he speaks of "the be- ginning of the world."Polybius had called the cyclical change of regimes a change which takes place“according to nature”;Machia- velli says that that cyclical change occurs "by chance."By this he does not mean that the changes of regimes occur without any order or regularity,at random or haphazardly,for he shows that they occur with necessity and in an unalterable sequence.He understands“chance”in opposition to “prudence”:115 the cyclical change of regimes does not occur because it has been planned by any being or because it serves an end.The substitution of“chance” for "nature,"or the understanding of nature as chance was imputed to Democritus in particular.Among "the philosophic family"sur- rounding Aristotle in Dante's Limbo we find"Democritus who ascribes the world to chance."From the point of view of Aristotle, or of Plato,every doctrine which understands the world as the work of soulless bodies not tending towards ends in fact identifies nature and chance.116 By substituting chance for nature when men- tioning"the beginning of the world,"Machiavelli indicates that he has abandoned the teleological understanding of nature and natural necessity for the alternative understanding.He speaks very frequently of“accidents”but never of"substances."Just as he never mentions souls in the Prince and the Discourses,he speaks in those books not of“"substances”but of"bodies."In the first mention of this subject,he distinguishes between"simple"and "mixed"bodies,understanding by simple bodies living beings.In the repetition he distinguishes between"mixed bodies"and "the bodies of men,"having fallen silent about simple bodies.He thus forces us to wonder whether the bodies of living beings can prop- erly be called simple bodies and therewith whether simple bodies have to be conceived in the Aristotelian or in the Democritean- Epicurean or in some other manner.117 In both books he rather frequently uses the terms"form"and “matter”but he never speaks of the form of a natural being and he speaks only once of matter while having in mind natural beings.118 It is reasonable to assume that Machiavelli favored a cosmology which is in accordance with his analysis of morality.His analysis of morality will prove to be incompatible with a teleological cosmology.We conclude that MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》223《 the movement of fundamental thought which finds expression in both books consists in a movement from God to Fortuna and then from Fortuna via accidents,and accidents occurring to bodies or accidents of bodies,to chance understood as a non-teleological necessity which leaves room for choice and prudence and there- fore for chance understood as the cause of simply unforeseeable accidents. Machiavelli has indicated his fundamental thought also in his Life of Castruccio Castracani.The Castruccio presents itself as a biography.Machiavelli dedicated it to two friends,one of whom was one of the addressees of the Discourses.In considering the Castruccio, one must be mindful of the distance between the two books in which Machiavelli expresses "everything he knows"and all his other utterances.Castruccio appears to be the greatest man of post-classical times:he would have surpassed Philip,the father of Alexander,and Scipio had he been born in antiquity.He lived 44 years,like Philip and Scipio,and,we may add,Lorenzo the Magnificent.He surpassed Philip and Scipio because he rose to greatness from“a low and obscure beginning and birth.”He re- sembled the men of the first rank who were all either exposed to wild beasts or else who had fathers so contemptible that they made themselves sons of Jupiter or of some other god.Having been found as a baby by the sister of a priest in her garden he was raised by her and her brother and destined for the priesthood.But as soon as he was I4 years old,he left the ecclesiastical books and turned to arms.He found favor in the eyes of the most distinguished man of his city,a Ghibelline condottiere,who took him into his house and educated him as a soldier.In the shortest time Castruccio became a perfect gentleman,distinguishing himself by his pru- dence,his grace and his courage.When on the point of dying,his master made him the tutor of his young son and the guardian of his property.Castruccio had no choice but to make himself ruler of his city.He won brilliant victories,rose to be the leader of the Tuscan and Lombard Ghibellines,and eventually became almost prince of Tuscany.He never married lest love of his children pre- vent him from showing due gratitude to the blood of his bene- factor.After having described Castruccio's beginning,life and death,Machiavel li devotes half a page to a description of his character or manners and thereafter more than three pages to a 》224《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI collection of witty remarks made by Castruccio or listened to by him.These sayings reveal to us Castruccio's mind.There are alto- gether 34 such sayings.Almost all-3I—can be traced to Diogenes Laertius'Lives of the Famous Philosophers.This fact is all the more remarkable since Machiavelli refers so rarely to philosophy and philosophers:in the Prince and the Discourses taken together there occurs only one reference to Aristotle and one reference to Plato.Whenever it is appropriate,Machiavelli changes the sayings of the ancient philosophers to make them fit Castruccio.For in- stance,when the ancient philosopher speaks of "the festivals of the gods,"Castruccio is made to speak of "the festivals of our saints”;whereas the ancient philosopher said he would wish to die like Socrates,Castruccio is made to say that he would wish to die like Caesar;the ancient philosopher,noticing a certain in- scription at the door of a rascally eunuch,made a remark which Castruccio is said to have made when noticing a similar inscription in Latin letters.A single saying(no.I9)stems from Aristotle.The Aristotelian saying is surrounded on each side by two sayings of a certain Bion.Bion was a pupil of the notorious atheist Theodorus and was himself a man of many wiles,a sophist of many colors, and so shameless as to behave like an atheist in the company of his fellows.Yet when he fell ill,he was persuaded,people said,to wear an amulet and to repent his offenses against the divine.The five central sayings(nos.I7-21)are surrounded on one side by I5 sayings of the Cyrenaic Aristippus and on the other by II sayings of the Cynic Diogenes.Aristippus and Diogenes shared an extreme contempt for convention as opposed to nature.One or two of the three sayings to which Castruccio listened are transmitted by Diogenes Laertius as sayings of Aristippus to which the tyrant Dionysius listened:Castruccio takes the place not only of Aristotle, Diogenes,Bion and Aristippus,but also of the tyrant Dionysius. One saying of Castruccio(no.33)stems from“a black devil”in Dante's Inferno.119 What we learn from Diogenes Laertius con- cerning Bion's sick-bed repentance draws our attention to what Castruccio had said when he had fallen mortally ill.Castruccio, who speaks in his witty sayings and elsewhere of God,mentions Fortuna in his dying speech five times,but never God.Castruccio, who in his witty sayings speaks of the soul,of hell and of paradise, mentions this world once in his dying speech and the next,never. MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》22 5《 Similarly,when expressing his own thought,Machiavelli mentions this world once in the Castruccio and never the next;and he mentions fortuna eight times and God never.However these things will be understood,the mind of Machiavelli's exemplary prince,as revealed by that prince's sayings,reminds most strongly of such unsung and undignified philosophers as Aristippus and Diogenes and hardly at all of Aristotle.It would not be prudent to forget this ironical but not misleading expression of Machiavelli's inner- most thought.That expression is not miisleading since it points to a thought at the core of which Aristotle is kept in bounds or overwhelmed by Bion and the periphery of which consists of a shocking moral teaching. Machiavelli uses the term "religion"in two senses.He uses "religion"synonymously with"sect"and understands by it a mixed body,or a society of a certain kind.“Sect”is used also in the sense of "party,"i.e.,an association whose end is not identical with the common good of a particular state.Parties are not necessarily parts of an individual state but may,like the Guelphs and the Ghibellines,permeate many states,not to say all states.In accordance with this,the religion of the ancient Romans was the religion not only of the Romans but of the Gentiles in general, just as the religion of the modern Romans is Christianity.Machia- velli also understands by"religion"a part of virtue or one of the virtues.He may have conceived of the relation between religion as a virtue and religion as a society as parallel to the relation between justice and the other virtues on the one hand and civil society on the other.The acts of religion appear to be worship of gods,fear of gods and trust in gods.“Observance of religion” can therefore be used synonymously with“observance of religious ceremonies.”Yet religious ceremonies are not the foundation of religion.The foundation of religion is in the last analysis a belief, the belief in the power and intelligence of gods.Therefore the vice opposed to religion is incredulity.Religion is of human,not divine,origin.For instance,heaven inspired the Roman senate to elect as king the future founder of the Roman religion;heaven did not inspire the founder of that religion himself;that founder merely pretended to converse with a nymph.Generally stated, the belief which is the foundation of religion is not true belief, i.e.not belief based on firm or reliable experience but belief caused 》226《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI by self-deception and to some extent even by deception.With a view to the facts that religion is to some extent intentionally created by men and,whatever its origins may be,can be used intentionally by men,it can be called an art.It belongs to the arts of peace as distinguished from the art of war.Certainly at first glance religion and arms are the highest powers of man;these powers,while in a sense opposed to each other,supplement each other.120 Machiavelli was not the first man to assert that religion is both untrue and salutary.Religion is a part of virtue or is a virtue.Among all men who are praised,the heads and founders of religions occupy the highest place.Machiavelli"believes"that Rome owed more to Numa,the founder of her religion,than to Romulus,her founder simply who gave her arms;for where there is religion,arms can easily be introduced,but where there are arms and no religion, religion can only with difficulty be introduced.Rome was corrupt under Romulus;Numa made Rome religious and hence good or incorrupt.Religion was the cause of the well-being of the Roman republic.121 After having made these suggestions,i.e.after having adopted certain opinions which were generally received or akin to the generally received,Machiavelli goes on to question his first statements.Let us first recall the further fate of Numa in Machiavelli's pages.At first glance,Rome seemed to owe more to Numa than to Romulus because the work of Numa was more difficult than that of Romulus.Some lines later,Machiavelli states that Numa could achieve his work with great ease because of the rudeness of the early Romans:the obstacle to the introduction of religion is not arms but civilization or sophistication.Given the essential character of the multitude,the condition for the introduc- tion of religion is fulfilled always and everywhere.Numa was not only not superior to Romulus,he even proves inferior to him.In his second statement,Machiavelli contrasts Romulus,as an ex- cellent prince,with“the quiet and religious”Numa who was a weak prince.Numa's characteristic policy made the Romans effemi- nate and slothful or,in other words,Numa made Rome entirely dependent on chance.He was then inferior to Romulus in prudence. He was inferior in virtue and prudence not only to his predecessor but also to his successor,Tullus Hostilius.In order to bring out the fundamental defect of Numa's policy,Machiavelli goes so far as for a moment to call Tullus "a most prudent man,"although MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》227《 the only action of Tullus which he discusses was in fact extremely imprudent :even this most imprudent action of Tullus was more prudent,as a matter of principle,than Numa's whole policy. Machiavelli had prepared this disclosure,before he began the discussion of the Roman religion,by saying first that the founders of religions are the men most highly praised,and shortly thereafter that no glory surpasses that of the founder of a city,such as Romulus.122 If religion stems from weakness of mind and will and fosters such weakness,it cannot be simply necessary for the well-being of society.After having said that the observance of divine worship causes the greatness of republics,Machiavelli says that a kingdom in which fear of God is lacking will either be ruined or will have to be maintained by the fear of a prince who makes up for the lack of religion.Religion is indeed indispensable for the well-being of a republic but not for that of a principality ruled by a prince of outstanding virtue.In accordance with this remark,Machiavelli praises the religiosity of the unsophisticated Roman republic,but when he points out the virtues of the reigns of the five good emperors from Nerva to the philosopher Marcus Aurelius,he mentions,not religion but perfect freedom of opinion.The sub- stitution of the fear of a virtuous prince for the fear of God might not seem to be satisfactory,for,as Dante wisely says,virtue rarely descends from father to son,as God wills so that men must pray to him for virtue as his gift.For Machiavelli however the un- reliability of hereditary succession is not a reason for prayer but a reason against hereditary,succession:a virtuous prince will so order his state that it can maintain itself after his death,i.e.he will follow the example of the good Roman emperors by appointing as his successor an adopted son.123 Machiavelli may be said to foreshadow the extreme form of “enlightened despotism.”In his usage,a virtuous prince is not so much a prince possessing moral virtue as a prince of strong mind and will who prudently uses his moral virtue and vice according to the requirements of the situation. A virtuous prince in this sense cannot be religious.In other words,a prince need not be religious and ought not to be religious,but it is most important for him to appear to be religious. Machiavelli does not resist the temptation to say on one occasion that the appearance of religion is more important for the prince 》228《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI than anything else.On the other hand,it seems to be highly de- sirable that his soldiers should possess fear of God.124 Republics on the other hand stand or fall by religion.We are inclined to understand this assertion to mean that political freedom requires,or consists in,dedication to the common good or free subjection to serving the whole or one's neighbors,and that such dedication or subjection is achieved by means of religion and only of religion.By maintaining the foundations of their religion,the rulers can keep their republic"religious and hence good."Yet religion or serving gods is not invariably followed by goodness or serving men.Machiavelli reminds us through the mouth of Livy of a pirate who was as religious as any Roman.125 But “good- ness”does not necessarily have the broad meaning indicated.It may mean merely obedience to the ruler or the rulers.126 Accord- ingly,the effect of religion on a republic would consist in making the citizens obedient to their rulers.The fact that the Roman republic was filled with fear of God facilitated every enterprise on which the senate and the leading men embarked.More simply, the rulers of the Roman republic used religion for the control of the plebs.Hence Machiavelli is silent about religion in the section in which he analyzes the character of the Roman nobility(I 33-45), while he speaks of religion in the section in which he analyzes the character of the Roman multitude(I 46-59).In the central chapter of the section on the religion of the Romans(I 13),he makes a distinction regarding the uses to which the Roman nobility put religion.Religion proved to be very helpful for certain limited purposes,but it proved to be indispensable for stopping the agita- tion by the tribune of the plebs,Terentillus,in favor of a law which would have destroyed the pre-eminence of the nobility forever. Machiavelli refers in I13 to a later discussion of the Terentillian law.From that later discussion(I 39)it appears that the use of religion by the nobility was neither sufficient nor necessary to overcome the serious danger caused by Terentillus'bill.The success of the Roman nobility depended decisively on the use, not of religion but of purely political means.Furthermore,the Roman republic owed its well-being to "the religion of the Gentiles," i.e.to a religion which was not peculiar to the Romans;that that religion did not cause the well-being of the other pagan republics is shown by the fact that they were subjugated by the Romans; MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》229《 hence not that religion as such but its“good use”by the Romans, that prudent use of religion by the Roman nobility which included the prudent disregard of religion,accounts for the well-being of the Roman republic.The Samnites for instance were no less re- ligious than the Romans,but they did not use religion well.De- sirous to continue their war with the Romans after their cause had already become hopeless,the Samnites tried to make their soldiers obstinate by having recourse to an ancient and awesome rite.But, as the Roman commander opposing them pointed out to his soldiers, by making this use of religion the Samnites increased the fear which their soldiers had felt before;they added the fear of the gods to the fear of the enemy.In fact,Roman virtue proved to be superior to whatever obstinacy the Samnites might have acquired through "the virtue of religion."Machiavelli makes it clear at the beginning of this reasoned narrative that religion is not the best means for making soldiers obstinate.As he notes on a later occasion,Manlius' killing his son and Decius'killing himself made the Roman army more obstinate than the equally strong and good Latin army and thus brought about the victory of the Romans.Or, as he shows by two non-Roman examples,there is “no truer nor more reliable” means for making soldiers obstinate against an enemy than to make them commit a grave crime against that enemy:fear of human beings may have the same effect as the fear of gods.But the truest and best means for making one's soldiers obstinate is to impose upon them a manifest necessity to fight and to conquer, or to make them fully aware of the fact that only their virtue, and no god,can save them.Even a Samnite appealed to such necessity on the eve of the greatest Samnite victory over the Romans.127 Besides,it would be wrong to say that religion is necessary to protect society against tyranny;for religion can be used for the establishment and preservation of tyranny.Finally, it is obvious that religion is indispensable to the extent to which oaths are indispensable.At the beginning of the section on the religion of the Romans,Machiavelli adduces two examples of how Roman patricians compelled fellow citizens at sword's point to swear that they would act in a certain way,and how the people who had sworn under duress kept their oaths:having a higher regard for the power of God than for the power of men,the citizens of Rome were in greater fear of breaking an oath than 》230《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI of breaking the laws.In the sequel Machiavelli draws our attention to the facts that since the purport of oaths is not always clear, there is need for authoritative interpretations,and that,if oaths have a higher status than laws,it is hard to see how the political government can hand down such interpretations;this difficulty throws light on the connection between religion as virtue and religion as sect.On the other hand,the procedure followed by the German cities in levying taxes shows the great convenience afforded by oaths.But as is shown by a parallel example taken from the history of the Roman republic regarding the payment of a tithe,the same desirable result can be achieved without resort to oaths,provided the populace is simply honest.128 Observations like those just mentioned make one wonder whether Machiavelli was convinced that religion fulfills an im- portant function.They make one wonder whether according to him religion is more than a necessary consequence or product of the mind of "the vulgar"—an enormous rock which cannot be removed or split,which is useless and with which one must reckon. This doubt however goes too far.Since according to Machiavelli the locus of religion is the multitude,one must consider his opinion of the multitude or the people.The people,in contradistinction to the great,make very modest demands on their rulers;they merely desire that their lives,their small properties and the honor of their women be respected.Yet as human beings they are neces- sarily dissatisfied with what they possess more or less securely. Being by nature compelled to crave a satisfaction which is im- possible,they will be fundamentally in a situation no less desperate than that in which the Samnites were when they longed for in- dependence after having suffered many disastrous defeats.The great no less crave a satisfaction which is impossible,but wealth, pre-eminence and glory give many comforts of which the many are necessarily deprived.Society would be in a state of perpetual unrest,or else in a state of constant and ubiquitous repression,if men were not made incorrupt by religion,i.e.if they were not both appeased by religious hopes and frightened by religious fears. Only if their desires are thus limited can the many become satisfied with making those small demands which can in principle be ful- filled by political means.Religion as reverence for the gods breeds deference to the ruling class as a group of men especially favored 》2 3I《 by the gods and reminiscent of the gods.And vice versa,unqualified unbelief will dispose the people not to believe in what they are told by venerable men.The ruling class will not be able in the long run to elicit this kind of deference if it does not contain men, and especially old men,who are venerable by virtue of their piety. The venerable old men are not necessarily identical with the prudent old men,the repositories of political wisdom.129 We have devoted what at first glance seems to be a dispropor- tionately large space to Machiavelli's thought concerning religion. This impression is due to a common misunderstanding of the in- tention,not only of Machiavelli but also of a whole series of political thinkers who succeeded him.We no longer understand that in spite of great disagreements among those thinkers,they were united by the fact that they all fought one and the same power-the kingdom of darkness,as Hobbes called it;that fight was more important to them than any merely political issue.This will become clearer to us the more we learn again to understand those thinkers as they understood themselves and the more familiar we become with the art of allusive and elusive writing which all of them employ, although to different degrees.The series of those thinkers will then come to sight as a line of warriors who occasionally interrupt their fight against their common enemy to engage in a more or less heated but never hostile disputation among themselves.The conditions of political thought were radically changed by the French Revolution.To begin with,we cannot help reading earlier thinkers in the light afforded by the changed condition or the novel situation of political,thought.All serious errors in the interpretation of the thinkers in question can be traced to a failure to grasp the parochial character of the roth and 2oth century outlook which inevitably pretends to be wider than that of any earlier age. We are entitled to make a distinction between Machiavelli's teaching regarding religion and his teaching regarding morality since he himself makes a distinction between religion and justice or between religion and goodness.130 His discussion of morality has fundamentally the same character as his discussion of religion. In both cases there is a foreground of“first statements”which reproduce accepted opinions and a background of "second state- ments”which are more or less at variance with accepted opinions. 》232《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI But the explicit discussion of religion occupies much less space than the explicit discussion of morality.There is a much greater number of statements which visibly agree or disagree with accepted opinions on morality than of statements which visibly agree or disagree with accepted opinions on religion.Machiavelli is less reticent regarding morality than regarding religion.The integration of morality into religion or the subordination of morality to religion leads to the consequence that morality appears to be less com- prehensive and hence less fundamental than religion. If one desires not to lose one's way,one must start from Machiavelli's claim,raised at the beginning of the Discourses and in the middle of the Prince,that his teaching which is comprehensive or concerns the foundations is new.The claim to novelty is obviously raised on behalf of the teaching concerning politics and morality, as distinguished from the teaching concerning religion;and in fact it is only his teaching concerning morality and politics which can be considered wholly new.In his teaching concerning morality and politics Machiavelli challenges not only the religious teaching but the whole philosophic tradition as well.This novelty is com- patible with the fact that the teaching in question contains many elements which were known before him to all men or some men; for Machiavelli integrates those elements into a new whole or understands them in the light of a new principle.Even if it were true that that whole or that principle were known to certain earlier thinkers but not set forth by them coherently or explicitly, or in other words,if it were true that Machiavelli differed from those predecessors only by his boldness,his claim would be wholly justified:that boldness as considered boldness would presuppose a wholly new estimate of what can be publicly proposed,hence a wholly new estimate of the public and hence a wholly new estimate of man.Machiavelli has indicated his new principle by opposing it to the principle underlying classical political philosophy. Traditional political philosophy took its bearings by how one ought to live or what one ought to do or by"the good man";it thus arrived at the description of republics or principalities which are imagined but "have never been seen and known to be truly"or which exist only in speech.The traditional teaching is therefore useless.Being concerned with usefulness,Machiavelli is more concerned with"the factual truth,"with how men are seen to 》233《 live or with what men are seen to do than with imagined things and with what exists only in speech but not in deed.Accordingly, he derives greater benefit from historians,from writers who describe how men in fact acted,than from the authors of e.g.mirrors of princes.At first glance,it seems as if Machiavelli's revolt against classical political philosophy merely gives expression to that con- tempt for classical political philosophy which many practitioners of politics must have felt at all times-a contempt of the men of deeds for the men of words,not to say of book learning.Such contempt somehow lives on in Machiavelli's teaching.But his perspective is not identical with that of the practicing politician. He is concerned with reasoning about matters of state and he very frequently addresses men of action,be they princes or conspirators against princes;but he is also concerned with"reasoning about everything, "with such reasoning about everything as does not permit recourse to authority or force,and he also addresses readers who merely try to understand“the things of the world.”131 The teaching of the Prince and the Discourses is based not only on extensive practice or experience of contemporary things but on continuous readings of ancient things as well.That teaching com- bines“general knowledge”with“particular knowledge”or“prac- tice,"for no science can be possessed perfectly without practice. The proper order is ascent from particular knowledge,the knowl- edge inherent in practice,to general knowledge.Practice supplies detailed knowledge of the individual society here and now within which the practitioner operates;general knowledge or “frm science” of the “nature ”of society or of the "nature”of the things of the world is arrived at by recognizing the universal in the particular; the general knowledge thus acquired can thereafter be applied to any other society,even"from afar."182 It is no longer necessary to show that this scheme must be modified with a view to the fact that practice within a corrupt society must be combined with readings regarding incorrupt societies in order to supply one with a sufficient basis for generalization.“The firm science”or the “general knowledge”which is meant to be useful is for this reason at least partly preceptive or normative.Machiavelli does not oppose to the normative political philosophy of the classics a merely de- scriptive or analytical political science;he rather opposes to a wrong normative teaching the true normative teaching.From his 》234《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI point of view,a true analysis of political “facts”is not possible without the light supplied by knowledge of what constitutes a well-ordered commonwealth.133 Before he can show the uselessness or wrongness of classical political philosophy,Machiavelli must show that he has under- stood classical political philosophy.Classical political philosophy claims to be in fundamental agreement with what is generally said about goodness.Machiavelli must therefore reproduce the outlines of what is generally said about goodness.He knows that these generally held opinions are not entirely baseless.They contain elements which he can preserve. Besides,by reproducing those opinions he furnishes himself with the indispensable"first state- ments."As he shows in his very attack on the principle of classical political philosophy,he does not deny that there are good men and he agrees with his opponents as to what is a good man.He knows that the generally held opinions regarding goodness have an evidence of their own and are not arbitrary.“I know that everyone will confess that it would be most praiseworthy for a prince to possess all the above-mentioned qualities which are held to be good,"i.e.liberality,mercy,fidelity,courage,chastity,sin- cerity,religion,and so on.There exists “knowledge of honest and good things”as well as of justice.All men understand by goodness and badness the same things and they know that goodness deserves praise and badness deserves blame.This does not prevent them from acting badly in many cases,so much so that,as is universally admitted,the legislators must assume all men to be bad.134 Goodness in the wider sense is identical with virtue,i.e.moral virtue.To act virtuously means to act as one ought to act.Virtue embraces many virtues or praiseworthy qualities which are the opposite of vices, i.e.,of blameworthy and detestable qualities.“One cannot call it virtue to murder one's fellow citizens,to betray one's friends, to be without faith,without mercy,without religion."Machiavelli can use "virtue”as the synonym of Dante's “probity.”“Goodness” can also designate one of the moral virtues.A good man is an unselfish man,a man who avoids hurting others and who thinks more of benefiting others than of benefiting himself;he is therefore in particular a law-abiding man;if he is a prince,he will never kill a subject except by due process of law.135 Goodness is the habit of choosing good means for the good end.The good end is the MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》235《 common or public good.Good means are means other than fraud and lawless force.Goodness or virtue is both praiseworthy for its own sake and useful as regards its effects.It is followed by honor and glory,and it preserves and makes great kingdoms and republics. For instance,a republic will increase its well-being by treating its neighbors as brothers and not as enemies,and the most important concern of the prince is to benefit his subjects.On this basis one can easily make a distinction between the prince and the tyrant: the prince in the strict sense is informed by virtue and dedicates himself to the common good,whereas the tyrant is prompted by ambition and greed and is concerned only with his own good; the prince,being loved by his subjects,lives in much greater security than the tyrant,who is hated by them.What moral demands are to be made on the prince appears from Machiavelli's remark that the prince has to contend with the ambition of the great and the insolence of the people,and in some cases also with the cruelty and avarice of the soldiers.However this may be,the common good is taken care of only in republics,so much so that one can equate the common good with public liberty.In other words,republics are to be preferred to princes because they are morally superior to the latter:they are less given to ingratitude and bad faith than are princes.136 Goodness as the habit of benefiting others includes honesty as the habit not to hurt others or not to deprive them of the good things which they possess.From this it follows that the demands of the common people are more honest than the demands of the great:the common people merely desire to keep the few good things which they possess or not to be oppressed whereas the great desire to oppress.Goodness is primarily respect for possession:he who possesses nothing in the first place or has not been deprived of anything by others cannot in decency complain; nothing remains to him except to ask for favors.The man who receives favors or benefits is obliged to be grateful.On the other hand,he who is merely left in possession of what he has or who is not hurt feels no obligation.If goodness consists in dedication to the common good,the good man will be satisfied with having little of his own:the good republic will keep its citizens poor and the commonwealth rich.137 The virtuous man is guided by con- siderations not only of the honest but of the honorable as well. The honorable is that which gives a man distinction or which 》236《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI makes him great and resplendent.Hence extraordinary virtue rather than ordinary virtue is honorable.To possess extraordinary virtue and to be aware of one's possessing it is more honorable than merely to possess it.To have a sense of one's superior worth and to act in accordance with that sense is honorable.Hence it is honorable to rely on oneself and to be frank when frankness is dangerous.To show signs of weakness or to refuse a fight is dis- honorable.To make open war against a prince is more honorable than to conspire against him.To lose by fighting is more hon- orable than to lose in any other way.To die fighting is more honor- able than to perish through famine.Noble birth is honorable.A young nobleman of extraordinary virtue is more readily honored than an older nobleman of the same degree of virtue.138 The implicit distinction between the honest and the honorable reminds us of the distinction between justice and magnanimity,the two peaks of Aristotle's ethics.It is noteworthy that Machiavelli avoids mention- ing justice in the most striking passages.For instance,he does not mention justice in his most comprehensive enumeration of the praiseworthy qualities.139 After having referred to the fact that all men agree in praising goodness or virtue and in blaming badness or vice,and hence in praising the virtuous rulers and in blaming tyrants,Machiavelli notes that the writers,and hence the unwary readers,praise the tyrant Caesar most highly.One could dispose of this difficulty by suggesting that while men have a clear grasp of first principles, of what is general,they are easily deceived regarding the application of those principles or regarding what is particular.But according to Machiavelli just the opposite is true:men err more easily re- garding what is general than regarding what is particular. The fact that men agree in praising goodness or virtue does not then settle the question regarding the status of goodness or virtue.What men generally say is identical with what most men say most of the time or with what is said publicly.The common opinions regarding goodness or virtue are then most effective in states in which the most important decisions are made by public assemblies,by the assembled people,on the basis of public deliberation.Hence only a fool would dismiss these opinions as mere words and still believe that he can understand political things.Even granted that the substance of the virtues and vices is“names”so that what counts MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》237《 is not that one is virtuous but that one has the name of a virtuous man,such names convey good or bad reputation and hence power or impotence.Yet public deliberations are in many ways prepared and influenced by private deliberations in which the power of the generally held and publicly defensible opinions is weaker than in public deliberations.140 The generally held opinions thus appear to be a surface phenomenon.Therefore the question arises as to how one can proceed in an orderly and convincing manner from the primarily given,from what can be known by everybody in broad daylight,to the hidden center.While all men praise good- ness,most men act badly.It seems that the error contained in what is generally and publicly said can be recognized by simply con- fronting the manifest speeches with the equally manifest deeds. But the deeds which contradict the speeches praising goodness do not prove that those speeches are untrue,i.e.that men ought not to act virtuously;the deeds by themselves prove merely that most men do not in fact act virtuously.Yet the way in which men mostly act is also expressed by speech,by laudatory speech.Hence the laudatory speeches contradict each other.Machiavelli's analysis of morality will therefore begin with the observation of the self- contradictions inherent in what men generally and publicly praise. The order of that analysis must be distinguished from the order in which its results are presented.Towards the end of his work,he indicates his procedure by the following sentence:“Although to use fraud in any action is detestable,yet in the conduct of war it is praiseworthy and glorious."Common opinion on the one hand unqualifiedly condemns fraud and on the other hand praises fraud when committed in certain circumstances.Common opinion, we may say,hesitatingly and inconsistently takes a middle course between unqualified blame of fraud and unqualified praise of it. It is no accident that the chapter which opens with the sentence just quoted,the I33d chapter of the Discourses,ends with the last of the seven references,occurring in the book,to"the middle course."141 The common understanding of virtue had found its classic expression in Aristotle's assertion that virtue,being the opposite of vice,is the middle or mean between two faulty extremes(a too little and a too much)which are opposed to each other.Machiavelli occasionally bears witness to the truth of this analysis.A prince 》238《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI must proceed in such a way that too much confidence does not make him incautious and too much diffidence(or too little con- fidence)does not make him unbearable.The Roman people kept its place honorably by neither ruling arrogantly nor serving ab- jectly.Liberty is the mean between principality or tyranny and license.On the other hand,however,people condemn "the middle course ”(la via del mezz0) as harmful.Mercy and justice despise the undecided,the lukewarm,those who are neither for nor against God.Furthermore,we may add in accordance with what Aristotle has said,justice is not a mean between two vices but is opposed only to one vice;in the case of some other virtues,Aristotle's view is not supported by usage:the alleged mean or one of the two alleged opposite vices has not received a name,perhaps because they are not generally regarded as virtues or vices.At any rate Machiavelli tacitly rejects the view that virtue is a mean between two vices.In his most comprehensive enumeration of virtues and vices,each virtue appears as the opposite of a single vice.Elsewhere he contrasts the equanimity of the excellent or great man with a single opposite vice of weak men;that vice consists of two"defects," conceit or arrogance on the one hand and vileness or humility on the other.What he means to convey can be stated as follows.The two opposite defects are merely two aspects of,one and the same vice which comes to sight in opposite forms in opposite circum- stances;one does not understand either defect if one does not see in each the co-presence of the other.The virtue in question on the other hand comes to sight as one and the same in all situations; it is stable and unchanging,for it is based on“knowledge of the world."142 Machiavelli opens his most comprehensive enumeration of virtues and vices by making a distinction between the virtue of liberality and the virtue of giving.The distinction is connected with Tuscan usage.The Tuscan tongue distinguishes somehow between stingi- ness and rapacity.If stinginess and rapacity are two different vices, and if each vice is the opposite of one virtue and vice versa,there must be two virtues which correspond to stinginess and rapacity respectively.The stingy man abstains“too much”from using his own;the rapacious man desires to acquire by rapine what belongs to others.Since stinginess is an excess("too much"),it seems to demand a corresponding defect(“too little”),i.e.prodigality; MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》239《 Machiavelli tacitly denies this by assigning to liberality only one opposite vice,namely,stinginess.Whereas stinginess is the only vice concerning the use of property,rapacity seems to be the only vice concerning acquisition.To our surprise Machiavelli identifies the virtue opposed to rapacity as the virtue of giving: he tacitly substitutes the virtue of giving for justice.He alludes to the fact that liberality has two opposite vices and he alludes to justice which is thought to have only one opposite vice.He explains the meaning of these allusions partly in the following chapter.That chapter is entitled“Of liberality and parsimony.”It seems then to be devoted to the virtues dealing with use and preservation of property rather than with its acquisition.A prince,Machiavelli says,who desires to be regarded as liberal must exhibit every sign of sumptuousness.By doing this he is eventually compelled to become stingy:the virtue of liberality necessarily turns into the vice and the infamy of stinginess.What is true of liberality is even truer of prodigality;this is the reason why the difference between liberality and prodigality is irrelevant.The prince ought to practice parsimony;by being parsimonious,he will be enabled to be liberal in the sense that he will not be compelled to rob his subjects or to become rapacious.In the sequel Machiavelli retracts his dis- tinction between liberality and the virtue of giving:not liberality and the virtue of giving but liberality and justice ought to be distinguished from each other.Parsimony necessarily comes to sight as the vice of stinginess but this vice is preferable to the virtue of liberality.143 Machiavelli's conclusion seems to be un- necessarily shocking;he could have limited himself to replacing the virtue of liberality by the virtue of parsimony.More precisely, since parsimony is praised because it prevents men from becoming rapacious and hence unjust,he could have contented himself with saying that the virtue of justice requires the sacrifice of the virtue of liberality.Only by considering his indications regarding justice can we understand why he denies that the virtuous mean is possible. Machiavelli raises the question of whether it is better for a republi c to devote itself to acquisition, i.e.to the acquisition of what belongs to others,or to the preservation of what it possesses, i.e.to forgo ambition.At first glance the second way seems to be preferable.It is the middle course between taking away from 》240《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI others what belongs to them and losing to others what one possesses. Yet since all human things are in a flux,one cannot always do what reason suggests but must sometimes do what necessity demands: a consistent policy limited to preservation is impossible.One must choose between losing to others what one possesses or taking away from others what they possess.But the latter course is more honorable than the former.One cannot leave it then at sacrificing the virtue of giving;one must choose the vice of rapacity.Or,if one prefers,one may say that true liberality or the virtue of giving consists in giving away what one has taken from strangers or enemies;the virtue of liberality is grounded on the vice of rapacity: the model prince Cyrus was liberal only in this sense.144 Justice as the stable mean between self-denial or giving away what one has on the one hand and injustice on the other is impossible;a bias in favor of the latter is necessary and honorable.145 Machiavelli discusses the same difficulty also in the following form.Men have the choice between the way of good and the way of evil but "they take certain middle courses which are most harmful,for men do not know how to be altogether evil nor how to be altogether good, as will be shown in the following chapter by an example."146 We pass over the fact that Machiavelli here calls “certain middle courses,” and not the evil course,"most harmful."The promised example shows that a tyrant who lacked both goodness and conscience did not dare to commit a certain evil deed:he took a most harmful middle course because he did not know how to be altogether evil. But Machiavelli calls the evil deed which the tyrant did not dare to commit—a deed which by its greatness would have overcome every infamy-"honorably evil";the tyrant's previous deeds were unqualifiedly evil,altogether evil;the deed which he failed to commit could therefore be described as a mean between good and evil;precisely by committing the honorably evil deed he would not have remained altogether evil.Not all middle courses but only “certain middle courses”are most harmful.Let us replace the tyrant by a virtuous prince whose previous deeds had been alto- gether good;if that prince out of his goodness or virtue had re- frained from committing the honorably evil deed in question,he would have been as blameworthy as the tyrant referred to:he would have been blameworthy for remaining altogether good instead of taking a middle course between good and evil.It would seem MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》24I 《 then that the right way,at any rate for a prince,is indeed a mean- yet not the mean between two opposite vices but the mean between virtue and vice.As we have seen earlier,according to Machiavelli the right course regarding fraud is the middle course between the unqualified rejection of fraud and its unqualifed approval.Humanity is praiseworthy and makes a man loved whereas cruelty is detestable and makes a man hated;yet“the true way”consists in not desiring "too much"to be loved and therefore in not being too humane; it consists in a certain combination of humanity and cruelty:"the true way"is"the middle course."“The middle course”cannot be kept strictly because our nature does not permit it,but it ought to be kept as much as possible.A prince must know how to use the nature of man and the nature of the beast:he must follow a middle course between humanity and inhumanity,for humanity and good- ness are appropriate for one kind of circumstances whereas the opposite vices are appropriate for the opposite kind of circum- stances;since "the times change,"the change from virtue to vice or vice versa,the movement between the one and the other,is the right course.147 One may therefore speak of a similarity of virtue and vice:unqualified virtue and unqualified vice are faulty ex- tremes.The true way is the way which imitates nature.But nature is variable,and not stable like virtue.The true way consists therefore in the alternation between virtue and vice:between gravity(or full devotion to great things)and levity,constancy and inconstancy,chastity and lasciviousness,and so on.Thus the great Lorenzo de'Medici led both a voluptuous and a grave life;it seemed therefore that in him“two different persons”were united in an apparently impossible union;yet precisely this union agreed with nature.148 That the alternation between virtue and vice some- how occurs in all men is generally admitted;what is controversial is the interpretation of this phenomenon:the alternation which Machiavelli calls natural is understood by the tradition which he attacks as the alternation between sin and repentance.The alterna- tion which he praises as agreeing with nature does not consist however in being pushed or pulled now in one direction and then in the opposite direction;it consists in choosing virtue or vice with a view to what is appropriate "for whom,toward whom,when and where.”For instance,the alternation in question will be different in the case of a prince and in the case of a man like Machiavelli. 》242《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI That alternation is a movement guided by prudence and sustained by strength of mind,will or temper.Prudence and that strength are then always required:whereas in the case of the moral virtues it suffices for the prince to possess the appearance of them,in the case of prudence and strength of mind or will he needs the sub- stance.149 In other words,prudence(judgment)and strength of mind,will or temper are the only generally recognized virtues which truly possess the generally recognized character of virtue in general: they are themselves always salutary.Whereas the moral virtues and vices(e.g.religion and cruelty)can be well and badly used because their use must be regulated by prudence,prudence cannot be badly or imprudently used.150 We must emphasize the fact, which Machiavelli has deliberately obscured by his usage,that his doctrine of“virtue”preserves the relevance,the truth,the reality of the generally recognized opposition between(moral)virtue and (moral)vice.This fact affords perhaps the strongest proof of both the diabolical character and the sobriety of his thought.This is not to deny but rather to affirm that in his doctrine of “virtue” the opposition between moral virtue and moral vice becomes sub- ordinate to the opposition between another kind of excellence and worthlessness.Machiavelli expresses the difference between moral virtue and certain other kinds of excellence most simply by dis- tinguishing between goodness(i.e.moral virtue)and virtue or by denying to moral virtue the name of virtue.In fact in most cases he uses “virtue”in a sense different from that of moral virtue.He draws our attention to the deliberate character of his usage most forcefully by in one breath denying and ascribing virtue to the criminal Agathocles.151 In accordance with this usage characteristic of him,one would have to say that the alternation between goodness and wickedness must be guided by prudence and sustained by virtue. In his most emphatic references to “the middle course”Machia- velli questions the desirability or possibility of“the middle course.” If one examines his remarks on this subject more carefully, one sees that he favors a“certain middle course”rather than the extremes in question.152 We still have to consider whether the apparently unqualified rejection of the middle course does not convey an important message.Machiavelli is an extremist in the sense that he challenges the whole religious and philosophical tradi- MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》243《 tion.Yet for the reason set forth earlier he is compelled to conceal the full extent of his innovation and to suggest frequently what is in fact a compromise between his view and traditional views. The indictment of the middle course as such is necessary to counter- act Machiavelli's own accommodations.153 The willingness to rest content with compromises has its root in man's strong desire to eat his cake and to have it.Men long for a perfectly good combina- tion of all good things which has all the advantages of its elements and is free from their defects.They see for instance that both monarchies and republics have their virtues and their defects;they wish therefore for a mixed state which combines the advantages of the monarchy and the republic and is free from the defects of either;the y overlook the fact that the mixture or mean is inferior to these extremes because it is less stable than they.154 Generally stated,there is no good,simple or combined,without its accompany- ing evil,so much so that all choice can be said to be a choice among evils.If a certain institution appears to be altogether salutary,one can be certain that it will prove to carry with itself an unsuspected evil so that one will be compelled sooner or later to modify or to abolish that institution:one will always be in need of new modes and orders.155 The best regime and happiness,as classical philosophy understood them,are impossible.There cannot be a political order which satisfies all reasonable demands nor a state of the individual which satisfies all reasonable desires.Still,Machiavelli seems to admit a summum bonum;he praises the pagans for having seen the highest good in worldly honor or,more precisely,in“greatness of mind,strength of the body and all other things which are apt to make men most strong.”158 To understand this passage,we must return to Machiavelli's remarks on Agathocles.Agathocles was of outstanding greatness of mind and strength of body but he con- spicuously lacked moral virtue;thus he could acquire empire but not glory;he cannot be judged inferior to any most excellent cap- tain but his vices and crimes do not permit that he be counted among the most excellent men.157 It would seem that "the other things which are apt to make men most strong”are the moral virtues and therefore that,according to the pagans whom Machiavelli praises, the highest good consists in virtue in the most comprehensive sense, i.e.in that quality which makes one not only a most excellent cap- tain but a most excellent man.The most excellent man would 》244《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI then be good without having any defect—contrary to Machiavelli's assertion that every good is accompanied by its own evil.Yet every man,however good,has his specific limitations,or no man partakes of all excellences which can ennoble man:no man is com- plete;a“universal man”is an imagined being.The most perfect prince or ruler cannot possibly possess the specific excellence of which the people is capable,an excellence not inferior to the ex- cellence of the prince.158 The excellence of a man who is the teacher of both princes and peoples,of the thinker who has dis- covered the modes and orders which are in accordance with nature, can be said to be the highest excellence of which man is capable. Yet this highest freedom cannot become effective if the thinker does not undergo what to him must be the most degrading of all servi- tudes.Or if,prompted by levity,he would derive enjoyment from undergoing that servitude,he would lose the respect of his fellow men.The conclusion that excellence,and every kind or degree of excellence,necessarily carries with it its peculiar defect or evil is strengthened if excellence consists in an alternation be- tween moral virtue and moral vice.To sum up,Machiavelli rejects the mean to the extent to which the notion of the mean is linked up with the notions of a perfect happiness that excludes all evil and of the simply perfect human being or of the"universal man," and therefore with the notion of a most perfect being simply which possesses all perfections most eminently and hence cannot be the cause of evil.159 The common understanding of goodness had found its classic expression in Aristotle's assertion that virtue is the habit of choos- ing well and that choosing well or ill as well as the habits of choos- ing well or ill (the virtues or vices)are voluntary:man is respon- sible for having become and for becoming virtuous or vicious. Man can choose the good or the bad;he possesses a free will.This freedom is compatible with the“natural and absolute necessity” through which man is inclined towards the perfect good or true happiness;it is also compatible with that necessity through which means or particular good or evil things are linked to ends or the end:by choosing the means without which he cannot possibly achieve his end or achieve it well,man chooses freely.But free- dom of the will is incompatible with the necessity of compulsion through which a man is literally compelled by other agents to act 》 248《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI certain and imminent death could possibly be avoided:the choice of fighting is imposed by necessity.If the soldiers can save their lives by flight or surrender,they choose flight or surrender as offering a greater prospect of avoiding death and as requiring a much smaller effort or as being easier.Fighting as well as flight or surrender aim at the same end,namely,the preservation of one's life;this end is imposed,as we may tentatively say,by an absolute and natural necessity.If the enemy makes impossible flight or sur- render,fighting is imposed on the soldiers in question as the only possible means to achieve the end mentioned.On the other hand, if the enemy gives them an opportunity to fiee or surrender,flight or surrender is imposed on them as the better or easier means to achieve that end.Yet in the latter case,we do not speak of necessity prompting them because flight or surrender are easier than fight- ing,i.e.,because they go less against the soldiers'natural inclina- tion.We shall then say that the necessity which makes soldiers fighting against a superior enemy operate well is the necessity, rooted in fear of death,to act against their natural inclination but within their ability.Generalizing from this,we may say that it is fear,the fundamental fear,which makes men operate well.165 Machiavelli elucidates the necessity which makes men operate well also in the following manner.He distinguishes two kinds of war,wars caused by necessity and wars caused by choice or am- bition;almost all wars waged by the Romans were wars of choice.Wars of choice or ambition serve the purpose of acquisition or aggrandizement;wars of necessity are waged by whole peoples which are compelled by hunger or a lost war to leave their home- land and conquer another land in which to live.In the most im- portant cases,the necessity to conquer other peoples'lands and to massacre all their inhabitants is caused by hunger due to over- population.If just wars are wars waged by those for whom war is necessary,the wars caused by hunger are the justest of all wars: everyone is compelled to fight for the sake of mere life and there can be no doubt that this necessity is not derived from previous guilt.Wars which are freely chosen are then,to say the least, less just than wars of necessity.Furthermore,hunger and poverty, people say,make men industrious.Again we see that the kind of necessity which makes men operate well-in this case induces them to be just and industrious-is the necessity rooted in the concern MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》249《 for mere life.Necessity thus understood is related to choice as hunger is to ambition:no one is compelled by ambition in the way in which he is compelled by hunger.The satisfaction of the need for food or,generally,for the preservation of life cannot be postponed in the way in which the satisfaction of ambition can be postponed.It is precisely necessity in the sense of the most urgent need or the corresponding fear which as a rule suppresses am- bition.Fighting from necessity precedes fighting from ambition: man's primary condition is one of scarcity.16 The compulsion proceeding from hunger precedes all compulsion caused by men. There is a necessary connection between the primary need and the means of satisfying it("things useful"),and between the latter and property.Property,we may say,is self-preservation which has taken on flesh.Thus life and property are more "necessary" than honor and glory. In accordance with this,when life and property are at stake,as distinguished from when honor is at stake,men are not altogether insane.Men are more concerned with property than with honor;even the Roman nobles,although they were great lovers of honor and glory,were still greater lovers of property.Even Rome's wars of ambition were not unconnected with concern with property;those wars made Rome and the Romans wealthy.167 Considering the connection between property and money,we are not surprised to learn that while virtue is in- deed much more important for winning wars than is money,yet money is necessary in the second place.168 Necessity makes men not only virtuous but good as well.Men in general have no natural inclination toward goodness.Therefore they can be made good and kept good only by necessity.Such necessity is brought upon men originally by non-human nature, by the original terror.But the quasi-original goodness is inseparable from defenselessness and want.Men are therefore compelled to form societies in order to live in peace and security.The security afforded by society would remove the necessity to be good if the primary necessity to be good were not replaced by a necessity to be good which stems from laws,i.e.,from punishment or threat of punishment-by a necessity originating in men.Men living in society can be made good and kept good only by such compul- sion causing fear as originates in other men.189 Of the men who originate compulsion or impose necessities, 》250《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI those operate well who choose the right time and other right cir- cumstances to apply compulsion;they act freely.The modes and orders by which leaders are trained,enabled and compelled to apply compulsion properly,i.e.,to operate well,originate in vir- tuous legislators or founders.The virtuous founders operate well because they are prompted by their natural desire for the common good,by the pleasing prospect that they will make their father- land happy and that they themselves will become happy through earning "the glory of the world"for their work:the virtuous founders do not operate well because they are compelled by other men or by the harsh necessity that they will perish from hunger or from the sword of the enemy if they do not do their work well.Thus the necessity to operate well which originates in men appears to be derivative from choice.It is then ultimately choice and not necessity which makes men operate well.Choice belongs together with ambition which is hard to distinguish from the desire for honor or glory,whereas necessity belongs together with the concern for mere life or the fear of death or of punishment.It was not necessity thus understood but love of glory which,in the opinion of the Romans,makes captains operate well.The Roman nobility was compelled to give the plebs a great share in political power because it wished to use the plebs in its glorious enterprises; the necessity prompting the Roman nobility was derivative from its love of glory,from its choice.A man need not be compelled by others to be good and to remain good;he himself can make arrangements which compel him to be good and to remain good; the necessity which makes and keeps him good may originate in his choice.The necessity to be ungrateful or unjust can be avoided; hence one's being compelled by the necessity to be ungrateful or unjust is due to primary wrong choice.A republic which wages war only when necessity compels it to do so will be less in need of excellent men than a republic like Rome which was constantly engaged in wars of choice;it will therefore operate less perfectly than Rome.Wars of choice or ambition may be less just than wars of necessity or survival;they are however much less savage or in- human than the latter.Necessity and choice are related to each other as the low and the high.Choice,wise or honorable choice, is the prerogative of the prudent and the strong,of individuals and societies which are animated by ambition or love of glory. MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》25I《 For since there is no perfect good,to choose means at best to choose a good mixed with evil.To choose means therefore in all important cases to take a risk and to trust in one's power to keep under control the evil which goes with the good chosen.The weak lack that trust;they never choose well unless other men compel them to choose well.170 Not the strong but only the weak operate well by virtue of that necessity which stems from compul- sion,fear or hunger. Machiavelli's praise of necessity,which surpasses in emphasis everything he says in praise of choice,would be untenable if he had not seen his way toward conceiving of ambition or the desire for honor or glory,and especially of the desire of the founder for supreme glory,as a form of that necessity which makes men op- erate well.In the first place,ambition-the desire to acquire,to have more than one needs,not to be inferior to others,to be superior to others,to be outstanding-arises with necessity as soon as the primary wants are satisfied and exerts a compulsory power. But ambition does not necessarily make men operate well.Not all men know how to satisfy“the natural and ordinary desire for acquisition."Th e most outstanding example used by Machiavelli to illustrate this is Manlius Capitolinus,who sought supreme glory without considering the“matter”with which he had to deal;his unwise cupidity to reign,his blindness of mind led to his failure. Only men of supreme virtue or prudence are compelled by their desire for glory to operate in the most perfect manner.What they recognize as wise or honorable acts on them with the same com- pulsory power with which only fear of great,manifest and immi- nent evils acts on most men.One of the necessities which compelled Hannibal to fight at Zama was the fact that it is more glorious to go down fighting than to lose everything without fighting. While the desire for glory in its highest form acts with compulsory power, it can be identified with choice or freedom for the following reasons.The compulsion stemming from the desire for glory can- not be imposed on a man as can be the compulsion stemming from fear;the former compulsion arises entirely from within.The man driven by the desire for glory is guided by a pleasing prospect rather than compelled by a harsh present;he is not hemmed in by darkness and misery but a broad sunlit field is open to his view. The necessities,with a view to which men of supreme prudence as 》2 52《 THOUGHTSON MACHIAVELLI such necessarily act,are not so much present as foreseen necessities. The two kinds of necessity which make men of the two kinds operate well are naked necessities,necessities known as such.The soldiers led by Messius would not have fought well if Messius had not enlightened them as to the necessity to fight well by shouting to them“Do you believe that some god will protect you and carry you off from here?"171 Only the known necessity compels men to make the supreme effort,not to trust in Fortuna but to try to subjugate her.If men do not know the necessity in question or are under the spell of false opinions denying it,that necessity is counteracted by the compulsory power of ignorance or false opin- ion;this composite necessity-a wrong kind of “middle course”- prevents them from operating well. A man who is by nature supremely virtuous and is as such subject to specific necessities cannot mould his matter as he sees fit,or cannot be the master of his fate and the fate of his people, or cannot operate in the most perfect manner possible to men,if he lacks the occasion or opportunity for so operating.In the highest case,the case of the founder,this opportunity consists in the necessity inherent in his matter,i.e.,his people,to exert itself to the utmost,to be open to a complete change of modes and orders and to submit to the compulsion required for effecting such change. In other cases the opportunity for a man of supreme virtue to operate perfectly consists in the availability of good or incorrupt matter,i.e.,of a people which has become virtuous through the application of compulsion of a certain kind during many genera- tions,and in the presence of great public challenges of a pressing character,i.e.,domestic or foreign dangers which are felt by everyone and therefore are "necessities."The man of supreme vir- tue lacks opportunity in easy times,in times in which men can permit themselves a great variety of"free choices"without them- selves encountering serious dangers and in which therefore they do not operate well.The highest achievement requires that the necessity to operate well which is effective in the giver of the “form”and the necessity to operate well which is effective in the "matter"should meet.But there is no necessity that the two sup- plementary necessities should meet;their meeting is a matter of chance.Still,the man of supreme virtue can create his opportunity to some extent.Contrary to Aristotle's view according to which MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》253《 multitudes have a natural fitness either for being subject to a despot or for a life of political freedom,fitness for either form of life can be artificially produced if a man of a rare“brain”applies the required degree of force to the multitude in question;compulsion can bring about a “change of nature.”No"defect of nature"can account for the unwarlike character of a nation;a prince of suffi- cient ability can transform any nation however pampered by climate into a race of warriors.172 We may express Machiavelli’s thought by saying that Aristotle did not see that the relation of the founder to his human matter is not fundamentally different from the relation of a smith to his iron or his inanimate matter: Aristotle did not realize to what extent man is malleable,and in particular malleable by man.Still,that malleability is limited and therefore it remains true that the highest achievement depends on chance. Conversely,chance may favor the enterprises of founders or captains who lack prudence.This would not make their achieve- ment admirable except for vulgar minds.Machiavelli is far from being a worshipper of success:not the success but the wisdom of an enterprise deserves praise and admiration.The man who has discovered the modes and orders which are in accordance with nature is much less dependent on chance than is any man of action since his discovery need not bear fruit during his lifetime.He too however depends on chance as is shown by the fact that he needs for the actualization of his modes and orders the cooperation of unreliable allies,i.e.,of men whose action in the decisive moment cannot possibly be foreseen.Besides,there is no guarantee what- ever that future opportunities for introducing the new modes and orders will not be spoiled or missed.In spite of all this,his dis- covery will always be vindicated by the failure of all modes and orders which differ from those he has discovered:"if your advice is not taken and through the advice of others disaster follows,you will reap from this very great glory."173 Only he subjugates chance or is master of his fate who has discovered the fundamental neces- sities governing human life and therewith also the necessity of chance and the range of chance.Man is then subject to nature and necessit y in such a way that by virtue of nature's gift of “brain” and through knowledge of nature and necessity he is enabled to use necessity and to transform matter. The common understanding of goodness had found its classic 》254《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI expression in Aristotle's assertions that virtuous activity is the core of happiness for both individuals and societies,that virtue or the perfection of human nature preserves society,and that political society exists for the sake of the good life,i.e.,of the virtuous activity of its members.In order to fulfill its natural function in the best way,the city must have a certain order,a certain regime: the best regime.The best regime,the regime according to nature, is the rule of gentlemen or perhaps the mixed regime.Under cer- tain conditions the best regime may be kingship which is the best regime simply.Its opposite is tyranny,the simply worst regime: whereas the king finds his chief support in the gentlemen,the tyrant finds his chief support in the common people.Apart from its depraved character and depraving effect,tyranny is particularly short-lived;its being against nature shows itself in the fact that tyranny is not viable in the long run.On the other hand,the best regime strictly understood exists very rarely,if it has ever existed,although it is of its essence to be possible.From Machia- velli's point of view this means that the best regime,as Aristotle as well as Plato conceived of it,is an imagined republic or an imagined principality.Imagined states are based on the premise that rulers can or must exercise the moral virtues and avoid the moral vices even in the acts of ruling.According to Machiavelli this premise is based on the more fundamental premise that most men are good;for if most men are bad,the ruler cannot possibly rule his subjects if he does not adapt himself in a considerable measure to their badness.As will appear later,Machiavelli has indicated pre- cisely the root of his disagreement with the classics by pointing to the fact of human badness.But every indication is insufficient and may even be wrong if taken literally.For Aristotle teaches as clearly as Machiavelli himself that most men are bad as well as that all men desire wealth and honor.Yet this very fact leads the classics to the conclusion that the best men,to be rewarded with outstanding honors,ought to rule the many bad by coercing them; they must indeed know thoroughly the bad and their ways;but such knowledge is perfectly compatible with immunity to badness.174 Yet according to Aristotle,man is the worst of all living beings if he is without law and right,and law and right depend upon political society.In other words,men become virtuous by habitua- tion;such habituation requires laws,customs,examples and ex- MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING hortations,and is therefore properly possible only within and through political society.In the words of Machiavelli,good ex- amples arise from good education,good education arises from good laws,and good laws arise from most shocking things.For if virtue presupposes political society,political society is preceded by pre- moral or sub-moral men and indeed founded by such men.There cannot be a moral law of unconditional validity;the moral law cannot possibly find listeners and hence addressees before men have become members of civil society,or have become civilized. Morality is possible only after its condition has been created,and this condition cannot be created morally:morality rests on what to moral men must appear to be immorality.One can avoid this conclusion only by making one of the two following assumptions. Either one must assume that men are good,not only at the begin- ning of republics but at the beginning simply;in that case they would not need civil society for becoming good.Or one must assume that civil society is founded by men of heroic virtue-of a kind of moral virtue which is not derived from habituation.To make this assumption means from Machiavelli's point of view to have an unwarranted belief in the goodness of which man's nature is capable and in the power of that goodness.Not semi-divine or divinely inspired benefactors of the human race but men like Cesare Borgia and especially the criminal emperor Severus reveal to us the true features of the first founders of society.175 The situ- ation in which the foundation took place recurs whenever society as a whole is in grave danger from within or without.In all such situations,the modes used by the original founder must be used again if there is to be society and its offspring,morality.Morality can exist only on an island created or at any rate protected by immorality. The primary badness which is severely limited by civil society and especially by the good civil society affects civil society how- ever good.Reason may dictate the practice of moral virtue;neces- sity renders such practice impossible in important areas.Therefore the best regime of the classics is merely imaginary.The classics demand that the end of civil society be the practice of moral virtue. But even the sober Aristotle is compelled to admit that no state which has“ever been seen and known to be truly”makes moral virtue its end:to the extent to which actual states have any single 》256《 THOUGHTSON MACHIAVELLI and supreme end,that end is lording it over their neighbors with- out any regard to right or wrong.These states admit that virtue is necessary and they praise and honor virtue;but they conceive of virtue as a means for obtaining external goods,i.e.,wealth and honor or glory.But if no state regards moral virtue as its end, how can one say that the natural end of the state is the promotion of virtue?Can something which is contradicted by the universal practice of mankind be natural to man?Classical political philosophy culminates in the description of imagined states and thus is use- less because it does not accept as authoritative the end which all or the most respectable states pursue.That end is the common good conceived of as consisting of freedom from foreign domina- tion and from despotic rule,rule of law,security of the lives,the property and the honor of every citizen,ever increasing wealth and power,and last but not least glory or empire.The common good as pursued by states which are“seen and known to be truly” does not include virtue,but a certain kind of virtue is required for the sake of that common good.In accordance with how men live one must then start from the fact that virtue,far from being the end of civil society,is a means for achieving the common good in the amoral sense.Virtue in the true sense is patriotism,full dedi- cation to the well-being of one's society,a dedication which ex- tinguishes or absorbs all private ambition in favor of the ambition of the republic.The common good is the end only of republics.176 Hence,the virtue which is truly virtue can best be described as republican virtue.Republican virtue has some affinity to moral virtue,so much so that republics come to view as morally superior to principalities.Republics are less given to ingratitude and faith- lessness,and they possess greater goodness and humanity than do princes.Political freedom is incompatible with corruptness of the people.This does not mean however that republics are to be pre- ferred in the last analysis on moral grounds.They are to be pre- ferred with a view to the common good in the amoral sense. Republics can adapt themselves better to the change of times than can monarchies because their government consists of men of dif- ferent natures,and different natures are required in different kinds of times.Republics do not depend upon the hazards of hereditary succession.They are incompatible with absolute power of any individual.In republics there is more life and therefore greater MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》257《 dedication to the common good than in monarchies.The moral superiority of republics is to some extent an accidental result of the republican structure.A republic can afford to be more grate- ful than a prince because,if it is properly constructed,it has a sufficient supply of able captains who mutually supervise and check one another so that no harm will come to the republic from the gratitude by which it encourages its victorious captains.Re- publics keep better faith than princes because of the cumbersome character of republican proceedings,which do not permit sudden and secret switches from one policy to another.177 One of the reasons why Machiavelli distinguishes between vir- tue and goodness is his desire to indicate the difference between republican virtue and moral virtue.Goodness is not always com- patible with the common good,whereas virtue is always required for it.Acts of kindness,however well-intentioned,may lead to the building up of private power to the detriment of the public power. A most important means for making a republic great is to keep the public rich and the citizens poor.To permit the citizens to become rich means to permit some citizens to become rich and hence to make possible the dependence of citizens on private citi- zens or the destruction of civic equality.At the same time it means to introduce luxury and therewith effeminacy into the city.To keep the citizens poor,the republic must honor poverty;it must prevent the preponderance of trade and the mingling with for- eigners.Austerity and severity are the clearest signs of republican virtue.The leading men in a republic ought to be harsh rather than gentle,cruel rather than humane,hated rather than beloved, lest the people adhere to them rather than to the republic.By becoming humane,a republic runs the danger of becoming abject. This is not to deny that humane conduct towards enemies may sometimes be more conducive to conquest than force itself.In the chapter which is devoted to proving this proposition,Machia- velli retells the story of how Scipio acquired high reputation in Spain by his chastity:he returned a young and beautiful wife to her husband without having touched her;it was not his chastity, which in the circumstances would have been a politically irrele- vant virtue,but his generosity which redounded to the benefit of Rome.178 The substitution of republican virtue for moral virtue implies a criticism of moral virtue which can be stated as follows. 》258《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI From the point of view of society at any rate,the moral virtue which comprises all other moral virtues is justice.In order to bring to light the nature of justice,Plato wrote the Republic in which he demanded among other things that the guardians of the city be savage toward strangers.Aristotle,the classic exponent of moral virtue,i.e.,of the highest kind of that virtue which is not knowl- edge,reproves Plato for having made that demand:one ought to be gentle toward everyone,one ought not to be savage toward anyone except toward those who act unjustly.Aristotle assumes that it is always possible and safe to distinguish between foreigners and unjust enemies.He certainly refrains from reproving Plato for having purified the luxurious city without having forced it to restore the land which it had taken from its neighbors in order to lead a life of luxury.Cruelty towards strangers cannot be avoided by the best of citizens as citizens.179 Justice which is the habit of not taking away what belongs to others while defending what belongs to oneself rests on the firm ground of the selfishness of society.“The factual truth”of moral virtue is republican virtue. If the common good in the sense stated is the ultimate end, every means,regardless of whether it is morally good or not,is good if it is conducive to that end.The killing of innocent men, even of one's own brother,will be good if it is needed for that most just and laudable end.It can only be for lack of a suitable example that Machiavelli did not apply to parricide what he teaches regarding fratricide.The example of Junius Brutus enables him to say that those who wish to maintain a newly established republic must kill the sons of Brutus,i.e.,those disaffected with the republic. Those who say that the killing of innocent men for the good end sets a bad example forget that terrible things manifestly done for the salvation of the fatherland cannot be used to excuse the doing of terrible things which have no connection whatever with the salvation of the fatherland.This is to say nothing of the fact that only known or professed misdeeds can be used by others as ex- amples.For if deception is laudable and glorious when practiced against foreign enemies,there is no reason that it should not be permissible against actual or potential domestic enemies of the fatherland,i.e.,of the republic-for where there is no republic there is no fatherland-and not merely after the outbreak of a civil war or when it may be too late.When the existence of the fatherland MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》259《 is at stake,one ought not to be concerned with justice or injustice, with compassion or cruelty,with the laudable or the infamous. There cannot be republics where there is no equality;such equality is abhorred by the feudal nobility or gentry,i.e.,by a certain kind of men who live in abundance without having to work;such men must be destroyed if there is to be a republic.All laws favorable to public liberty arise from civic discord,from the liberty-loving people venting its ambition,its anger,its malignant humors against fellow citizens in tumults or riots;since the effect is good,the causes-discord,disorder,the passions-must be declared to be very good if it is true that the principal cause is of higher rank than its effects.The multitude does not desire public liberty in all cases; in case it does not,to use fraud and force against the multitude it- self for the sake of public liberty is unobjectionable.If every mode of action and every quality deserves praise or blame only with a view to its being conducive or harmful to the common good,able governors or captains degraded by vices however unnatural which do no harm to the republic and do not become publicly known are infinitely to be preferred to saintly rulers who lack political and military ability.To use the words of a historian who is well- known for his strict adherence to moral principle,“a weak man may be deemed more mischievous to the state over which he pre- sides than a wicked one."The common good may be endangered by the legal use of public power;in such cases it is unobjection- able,if appeals to the patriotism of the power-holder are useless, to bribe him for the sake of the public good.One may summarize Machiavelli's thought on this point by saying that moral modes of action are the ordinary modes,the modes appropriate in most cases,whereas the immoral modes are the extraordinary ones,the modes required only in extraordinary cases.One may object to Machiavelli's view of the relation between moral virtue and the common good by saying that it abolishes the essential difference between civil societies and bands of robbers,since robbers too use ordinary modes among themselves whenever possible.Machiavelli is not deterred by this consideration.He compares the Roman patricians,the most respectable ruling class that ever was,to small birds of prey,and he quotes Livy's observation that a certain chief of pirates equalled the Romans in piety.180 The common good claims to be the good of everyone.But 》260《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI since the common good requires that innocent individuals be sacri- ficed for its sake,the common good is rather the good of the large majority,perhaps even the good of the common people as dis- tinguished from the good of the ncbles or of the great.This does not mean that the majority ought to rule in order to take care of the good of the majority.The majority cannot rule.In all re- publics,however well ordered,only a tiny minority ever arrives at exercising functions of ruling.For the multitude is ignorant, lacks judgment,and is easily deceived;it is helpless without leaders who persuade or force it to act prudently.There exists in every republic an antagonism between the people and the great,the people desiring not to be oppressed by the great and the great desiring to lord it over the people.It is in the best interest of the people that it be confronted and led by a virtuous and warlike nobility with which it shares political power in due proportion. Only if political power is shared by the great and the people in due proportion,or in other words if there is a proper proportion between the force of the great and the force of the people,will there be public liberty and proper consideration for the common good.What that proper proportion is depends decisively on whether the republic in question wishes to found an empire or is content with preserving itself.A republic dedicated to aggrandize- ment or acquisition needs the voluntary cooperation of its armed plebs;an armed and virile plebs will naturally demand a consider- able share in political power and in the fruits of conquest,and will not hesitate to support those demands with indecorous,dis- orderly and even illegal actions;republican greatness and perfect order are incompatible;an imperial republic must give its plebs a greater share in political power than a non-imperial republic.In fact,republics are not free to choose between a policy of ag- grandizement or one of mere preservation.Every republic may be compelled by circumstances to engage in a policy of aggrandize- ment and must therefore prepare itself for such contingencies by enlisting the fervent cooperation of the common people.It would be more precise to say that "the desire for acquisition is very natural and ordinary,and when men who are able to acquire do acquire, they will always be praised and not blamed."Accordingly one of the ends of every republic is to make acquisitions.181 An intelligent policy of imperialism as it was practiced by the Romans requires MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》26I《 that the republic permit the strengthening of its plebs by liberally admitting foreigners to citizenship;the republic is thus compelled to permit a considerable degree not only of domestic turbulence but above all of corruption of manners.The common good then requires the sacrifice not only of moral virtue but to some extent even of republican austerity and severity.A non-imperial republic can afford “equal poverty”of all its citizens.An imperial republic will necessarily develop a great inequality of wealth,for aggrandize- ment means also enrichment,and the enrichment of the state will lead to the enrichment of its citizens.The maxim that the public should be rich and the citizens should be poor will have to give way to the maxim that the public should be rich and the common people not become spoiled and effeminate by becoming too wealthy. One must go beyond this and say that in a flourishing republic everyone strives to acquire wealth,i.e.,private wealth,because property and its acquisition is secure thanks to the rule of law, and not only public wealth but also private wealth increases mar- vellously.If it is true that poverty brings better fruits than wealth, one must say that these better fruits must be sacrificed on the altar of the common good and that this sacrifice will hardly be noticed by the happy citizens who enrich the public by enriching them- selves.In the long run,the disastrous effects of great and excessive private wealth will make themselves felt.In addition,once the imperial republic has reached a state of unchallengeable supremacy, salutary necessity ceases to operate and decline inevitably follows. Finally,the imperial republic destroys the freedom of all other re- publics and rules over them much more oppressively than any non-barbarous prince would.These facts force one to recon- sider the assumption that imperialism in the Roman style is the wisest policy or even simply necessary,i.e.,to reconsider a tenta- tive assumption which allowed Machiavelli to make clear that even republican austerity is not a quasi-unconditional demand.Con- federacies of equal republics can be sufficiently strong for mutual defense, and at the same time they are prevented by their struc- ture from engaging in a policy of large scale aggrandizement. Republics of this character would seem to be able to preserve their republican austerity.On the other hand they are not under the same necessity as the Roman republic to give their common people a share in political power.It seems as if republics would have to 》262《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI choose between oppressing foreigners and oppressing their own plebs.Besides,as the examples of the modern Swiss and the ancient Aetolians show,confederacies of warlike republics tend to become notorious for their avarice and their faithlessness towards the for- eign states which hire them to serve in their wars.To sum up, there is no good without its accompanying evil,and this is true even of republican virtue.182 Machiavelli elucidates the difference between the imperial re- public and the confederacy of equal republics by using the examples of ancient Rome and ancient Tuscany.His remarks on this subject are meant both to reveal the nature of human things and to indi- cate political possibilities for contemporary Italy.The imitation of the Romans being difficult,especially the modern Tuscans ought to imitate the ancient Tuscans;for modern Tuscany too is unusually rich in states eager to preserve or to recover their republican lib- erty.But a new Tuscan league would only be the second best solution.No country was ever united or happy if it was not ruled by a single republic or a single prince like France and Spain.The most satisfactory solution to the Italian problem would be the union of all Italy under a hegemonial republic like ancient Rome as it was prior to its making conquests outside of Italy.Ancient Rome prior to the First Punic War was wholly incorrupt;it had not yet reduced its allied republics to the status of subjects,at least not fully and openly;and it was still compelled and able to use its whole citizenry in frequent wars.The successful imitation by modern Italians of the early Roman republic would necessarily be accompanied by a peculiar evil:an Italy unified by a republic or a prince would no longer abound in independent republics and thus would be less likely to abound in excellent men.183 It is not sufficient to say that Machiavelli in effect makes a dis- tinction between republican virtue and moral virtue,and sees in republican virtue "the factual truth"of moral virtue.Republican virtue as dedication to the common good includes all habits which are conducive to the common good and in particular it includes opposite habits(e.g.,severity and gentleness)to the extent to which each is conducive to the common good.The common good includes all things which both can be produced or preserved by common action and are good for almost all members of society,be they great or commoners.184 Since the ruling class and the common MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》263《 people have different functions,each of these two parts must also possess a peculiar kind of virtue.Machiavelli illustrates this dif- ference of virtues chiefly by examples taken from the Roman senate and the Roman plebs.The characteristic virtues of the senate were prudence and a calculated liberality dispensing sparingly such goods as had been taken from enemies;also,dignity and venera- bility;and finally,patience and artfulness.The characteristic virtues of the plebs were goodness,contempt for the seemingly or truly vile,and religion.Goodness is then at home with the people. This is the reason that public deliberations,deliberations in popular assemblies,are unlikely to favor proposals which seem to be cow- ardly or which suggest open breaches of faith.Machiavelli has set forth his view of the innocence of the perfect plebs and the lack of innocence of the perfect patricians in a manner on which it is impossible to improve.According to his version of a Livian story, the angry plebs demanded,after the downfall of the Decemviri, full criminal jurisdiction and the surrender of the Decemviri,whom it desired to burn alive;the two most decent patricians replied to this effect:your first demand is laudable but the last is impious; besides,it is sufficient to ask a man for his weapons,and superfluous to go on to tell him“I want to kill you with them,”for once you have his weapons in your hand,you can satisfy your desire.The goodness of the people consists less in its inability to commit im- pious or atrocious actions-Machiavelli's Florentine Histories are full of accounts of atrocious actions of the Florentine plebs-than in its inability to color its wicked actions:it does not understand the things of the world.In spite or because of this,the perfect plebs is impressed by the dignity and the lofty bearing of the most venerable members of the ruling class;on this basis it believes in the goodness and liberality of the ruling class.185 One is tempted to say that the goodness of the plebs consists in its belief in the goodness of the ruling class,or that goodness exists only in men's thoughts about other men.But this would be an unbearable exag- geration.What Machiavelli means to say is that the natural home of goodness is the people because the people lacks responsibility for the common good and can therefore afford to be good or to abide by those rules of conduct with which the citizens must gen- erally comply if there is to be society.Machiavelli does not mean to say that the people is by nature good:men must be made good 》264《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI and kept good by laws,by speedy,spectacular and equal law enforcement,and by rewards.“Goodness"or“incorruptness”may therefore come to mean no more than fear-bred obedience to the government and even vileness.On the other hand,the people has a very great interest in a somewhat different goodness of its rulers: it longs for kindness,liberality,gentleness,humanity and com- passion in the great men,and not the least if the great men are their foreign conquerors.The people wishes to be certain that its rulers are fully dedicated to the common good and in no way prompted by ambition,to say nothing of avarice.Manlian severity is therefore more laudable in republican leaders than humanity; such severity appears to be incompatible with private ambition. The strongest argument which Thucydides'Nicias used,in order to be believed and trusted by the people when he attempted to dissuade the Athenians from the Sicilian expedition,was the consid- eration that that enterprise would redound to the satisfaction of his ambition,since he would be the chief commander.And yet it was obvious that his ambition could not be satisfied by an enter- prise of which he was certain that it was fraught with disaster. There was in fact perfect harmony between his public proposal and his private ambition.The people are then guided by a false notion of virtue."True virtue,""the true way,"consists not in the extirpation of ambition but in ambition guided by prudence. Lacking prudence,the people identifies human excellence with goodness or with unselfish devotion to the well-being of others. Therefore it can be said that"the many good ones,"whom one may call slaves,make their leader or leaders good.186 The many are good,or they can be good and ought to be good,because,being more or less downtrodden,they are satisfied with little,each of them is frequently in need of the help of others,and what each of them desires can generally speaking be reconciled easily with what every other one of them desires.In order to rule them,the great men must somehow conform to the people's notion of goodness: they must appear to be free from selfish desires.Machiavelli is far from denying that man's dependence on man compels most mem- bers of a society in their intercourse with one another to comply with certain simple and crude rules of conduct(the prohibitions against murder,fraud,theft and so on)and to cherish such qualities as gratitude,kindness,faithfulness and gentleness;but he contends MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》265《 that the same needs which make man dependent on other men com- pel him to form political societies the very preservation of which requires the transgression of those simple rules no less than their observation,as well as the practice of those virtues no less than that of their opposites.He is far from denying that the divorce of those simple rules of conduct from their selfish end is wise,for the selfish end can sometimes be served by secret transgression of those rules;but he contends that those rules cannot be understood if one accepts their wise interpretation.He is far from denying that all or most men by nature have compassion for the sufferings of other men,not only when they see those sufferings but even when they merely read of them;but he contends that many of those sufferings were inflicted by men.He is far from denying that there are some men who are genuinely kind and humane,not from fear or calculation but by nature;yet he contends that such men when entrusted with high office can become a public menace.187 It would seem that,according to him,virtue and goodness are praiseworthy only with regard to their social and political utility. Goodness is the sum of habits which the majority of men living together must possess in order not to be disturbed by one another and by their government in the enjoyment of life,liberty and property.Virtue as it has hitherto come to sight is the sum of habits which the rulers must possess in order to protect themselves and the good subjects against the bad subjects as well as against for- eign enemies;the army,i.e.,the citizenry,must partake of this virtue to some extent. If there is no good which is not accompanied by its peculiar evil,we have to keep watch for the peculiar defects of even the best republic.If it is true that the common good is the end only of republics and that the common good is the ground of virtue, the defective character of republics will prove the defective char- acter of the common good and of virtue.Here the question arises whether the defects of republics are not of such a character as to suggest a certain superiority of principalities.At any rate,every consideration favorable to principalities implies a questioning of the common good and of virtue.Machiavelli believed that princely rule is defensible to some extent.Otherwise he could hardly have taken a position of neutrality with respect to the issue"republic or principality, "and he could not have blurred the difference between 》266《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI republics and principalities as he frequently does in the Discourses. In this explicitly republican book he is indeed slow to introduce the subjects"kingdoms"or"principalities,"as a glance at the headings of the first ten chapters will have shown.In the first chapter in the heading of which he uses the term "prince,"(I 16) he deals with the question of how to secure not only newly estab- lished republics but newly established principalities as well;but in that place he still almost apologizes for treating the latter sub- ject,whereas later on he deals with principalities as a matter of course.One might say that in order to deal properly with one oppo- site he must deal with the other opposite as well,or that one can- not set forth the art of the keeper without setting forth the art of the thief.Still,we must note that the detachment or the generosity with which he gives advice to both republics and destroyers of republics is amazing.For instance,he discusses with perfect im- partiality the mistakes which the Roman people made in trying to preserve its freedom and the mistakes which Appius Claudius made in trying to destroy it;and he gives the best advice possible both to conspirators against princes and to conspirators against the fatherland.188 To understand this ambiguity,we start from the following considerations.If a country like Italy,France or Spain cannot be happy unless it is subject to a single government,and an imperial republic is necessarily more oppressive of all other cities in the country than a non-barbarous prince would be,then the common good of the country as a whole,as distinct from the common good of the ruling city,would be better served by a national monarchy.Besides,it would be wrong to believe that prin- cipalities are as such inferior in military virtue to republics.Fur- thermore,the mirror of republican virtue provided that no philos- opher be received in Rome,whereas in the golden times under the Roman emperors,everyone could hold and defend every opinion he wished;for the fear of God which is indispensable in republics can be replaced by the fear of a prince.It would seem to follow that freedom to hold and defend every opinion one wishes,while a great good for some men,is incompatible with the common good.189 Above all,republics are not always possible.They are not pos- sible at the beginning and they are not possible if the people is corrupt.There is a connection between these two conditions. MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》267《 Since it is only government,laws and other institutions which make men good,men are bad or corrupt prior to the foundation of society;in that state they cannot yet have acquired habits of sociability through social discipline.Only after they had under- gone training in such habits,through the application of regal power for a considerable time,can they have become good or incorrupt. This is one reason that the founders of republics must be princes. The Romans with whom Romulus had to deal were corrupt in spite of,or because of,their being simple,i.e.,they were rude and crude,while by the time of the expulsion of the kings they had become incorrupt,i.e., capable of living as citizens of a republic. There is however another kind of corruption,namely,late rotten- ness,the corruption of Rome at the time not of Romulus but of Caesar.Initial corruption,we may say,is the state of mind which necessarily follows from the absence of law and government;late corruption is the state of mind which necessarily follows from gross inequality in respect of power and wealth among the members temporal and spiritual of a society.The former kind of corrup- tion allows of a republican future;the latter kind of corruption precludes a republican future.Contemporary examples of the latter kind of corruption are supplied by Milan and Naples,states which cannot possibly be transformed into republics but are compelled forever to live under princes.But living under princes unfits the people for freedom. Hence,the transformation of any corruption into incorruption or of any principality into a republic,and in particular the emergence of Roman freedom,seems to be a miracle. One could suggest,as Machiavelli does,that Rome was a republic from the very beginning insofar as its founder shared his power with the senate or the assembly of elders and the senate elected Romulus'successors;but this suggestion does not dispose of the difficulty created by the fact that it is precisely regal power that is required to make the people incorrupt or fit for the life of free- dom and that it is precisely living under regal power which makes the people unfit for a life of freedom.Machiavelli therefore revises his first statement and asserts that not only the initial corruption but even the late corruption can be removed by the proper appli- cation of regal power, of the power of a human being who is alive at that time: even Milan and Naples could be transformed into republics by a man of rare brain and authority who in a 》268《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI rare way combines goodness and badness.Still,it is doubtful whether there is a single example of a restorer,of a founder con- fronted with late rottenness,who succeeded in making a corrupt people fit for a life of freedom.It is doubtful,in other words, whether there ever was a late founder of rare brain.Yet given the almost infinite malleability of "matter"and the almost infinite power of "brain,"the possibility of a late founder or of a restorer cannot be denied.It is therefore insufficient to say that republics are not always possible.190 The difficulty concerning the transformation of a principality into a republic consists rather in the unwillingness of the prince to effect such transformation,and this unwillingness is not altogether reprehensible.In order to make a given corrupt matter incorrupt and thus to make possible freedom and the com- mon good,it is necessary to commit innumerable acts of murder, treachery and robbery or to display an extreme cruelty.A humane prince will shrink from such a course,especially since the future realization of the common good is of necessity uncertain,and will instead prefer to tolerate the prevailing corruption and thus per- petuate it.In order to rule the corrupt multitude with some degree of humanity,the prince is compelled to satisfy its corrupt desires and he cannot afford to perform good deeds. Yet a prince does not have to be humane to make this choice so agreeable to humanity. Princes prefer to keep princely power for ever in their families. The self-interest of the prince is therefore as salutary as his human- ity could be,and since most men are bad,one would have to say that the self-interest of the prince affords a greater guarantee for his conduct being agreeable to humanity than would a humaneness for which one could merely wish.Even if principalities are in- compatible with the common good in the full sense,they are com- patible with some kind of common good,as has just appeared. The common good possible under a prince will in the best case be"security";i.e.,it is not impossible that a prince protect his subjects in regard to their lives,their property and the honor of their women against bad subjects as well as against foreign enemies; but the common good under a prince cannot include freedom of the subjects.The prince on the other hand cannot perform his function if he does not possess freedom,power,and outstanding honor in addition to security.191 This freedom is not necessarily in harmony with the security of all his subjects.It is as necessary 》269《 for him to be concerned with his security and freedom as it is for a republic to be concerned with its security and freedom;the distinction between the common good and the private good is less pronounced in the case of the prince than in that of a republican magistrate;for the prince“to maintain the state"means“to main- tain himself.”The prince is justified in committing all kinds of terrible deeds provided they are necessary for his security and the security of his power and provided he uses his power afterward for benefiting his subjects.In order to benefit his subjects or to make his fatherland most happy,it is not necessary that he be dedi- cated to the common good or possess goodness and conscience. It is sufficient if he realizes that his power cannot be secure and his ambition cannot be satisfied unless he benefits his subjects,if he has a clear grasp of what constitutes the well-being of his subjects, and if he acts vigorously in accordance with this knowledge.Exclu- sive concern with his own well-being,i.e.,with his security and glory,so long as that concern is guided by intelligence and sus- tained by strength of will or temper,is sufficient to make a prince a good prince and even to earn him eternal glory.He certainly need not possess and exercise moral virtue proper,although the reputation for possessing some of the moral virtues is indispensable for him.The prince need not even possess virtue in the sense of such dedication to the common good as excludes ambition.But he must possess that virtue which consists of "brain,"or“greatness of mind,"and manliness combined-the kind of virtue praised by Callicles in Plato's Gorgias and possessed by the criminals Agatho- cles and Severus.This is the most obvious message of the Prince as a whole.Whereas moral virtue and republican virtue are the effects of habituation and hence of society,this kind of virtue which we have now encountered is natural.Its ground is not the common good but the natural desire of each to acquire wealth and glory:men are praised or blamed also with a view to their being good or bad at acquiring.1⁹2 Goodness at acquiring is praised because it is rare,difficult to practice,and salutary to its possessor; it requires at least as much toil and sacrifice of ease as does moral virtue itself. If we look back to Machiavelli's analysis of republics, we see at once that there is no essential difference between the motives of the prince and the motives of the ruling class.The excellent ruling 》270《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI class as exemplified by the Roman senate is not dedicated to the common good as the common good is primarily understood.It identifies the common interest with its own particular interest and is shrewd enough to realize that it serves its own interest best by restraining its desire to command and by making judicious con- cessions to the plebs.The virtue of the senate and of the individuals belonging to it is not different from the virtue of the excellent prince.If the modes of action of the senate differed from those of excellent princes,the whole reason is the difference between the structure of republican and monarchic governments,and not a difference in morality.Republican virtue requires that the citizens be free from ambition and be poor,but the Roman nobility was moved by great ambition and still greater avarice;its poverty in the early times was due not to virtue nor even to law but to circumstances.What made the Roman nobility tolerably humane towards the plebs was fear of the plebs and of potential tyrants on the one hand,and the calculation of the profitable character of cooperation with the plebs at the expense of foreign cities on the other.The tribunes of the plebs were useful for preserving or restoring unity among the nobility:they fulfilled the function of an enemy.As for that model of a leader in a republic,Manlius Torquatus,whose mode of proceeding had no relation whatever to private ambition and who showed himself at all times to be a man who loved only the common good,he was compelled by his nature to proceed in this severe manner which was so useful to the public and he was prompted to his actions by the desire that his severe commands,which his natural appetite had made him give,were observed.193 What the classics called aristocracy,we may say,is an imagined republic;the factual truth of aristocracies which are known to exist or to have existed is oligarchy.This is not to deny that generally speaking a republic is more advantageous than any principality for the large majority of the people and the ma- jority of the great,at any rate in cities.But this is not universally true. If the great in a republic go too far in oppressing the people, it may be better for the people to turn for their protection to an ambitious man of sufficient intelligence and courage,and to help him in setting up and preserving a tyranny.According to Aristotle, the fact that the tyrant is supported by the people as distinguished MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》27I《 from the gentlemen is an argument against tyranny;according to Machiavelli,it is the strongest argument in favor of tyranny,for the end of the people is more just—or,as Machiavelli,choosing his words carefully,prefers to say,more decent or more respectable —than the end of the great.The common good may well appear to be identical with the good of the many.And just as free states may be established by means of violence,tyranny may be estab- lished by consent.For the proper conduct of tyrannical govern- ment,it is necessary to remember that while the end of the many is most respectable,the many themselves are not.They are unable to rule themselves or others.Those whose cause is most just are least capable of defending it;it must be defended by men whose end is,to say the least,less just;justice depends on injustice.At any rate,the common good consists in a precarious harmony be- tween the good of the many and the good of the great;whenever this harmony has ceased to exist,the good of the many takes precedence over the good of the few in accordance with the same principle according to which the common good takes precedence over any particular or sectional interest.Needless to say,the maxim"the end justifies the means"applies to the establishment and the preservation of tyranny thus justified as well as to that of republics:the tyrant is justified in securing himself by cutting to pieces the great and their irreconcilable brood.Cleomenes of Sparta “conspired against his fatherland”because he desired to be helpful to the many whose good was opposed by the few;he had all his opponents massacred;but for an accident he would have acquired the fame of Lycurgus himself.If one says that the tyrant must use fraud in order to rise to power,Machiavelli replies to him that the model king Cyrus and the model republic Rome rose to greatness in no other way.Still,not all tyrannies are defensible.It makes a difference whether an ambitious individual,commanding armed men,murders the great and makes himself master of the people who had lived in harmony with the great,or whether the man in question enters the scene after civil war has broken out or is imminent.The latter too is compelled to cut the great to pieces and to pay due regard to the demands of the common people for security,and he too is moved to all his actions by private ambition; but he is excused by the occasion or opportunity whereas the criminal tyrant is not.As for the contention that tyrannies are 》272《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI unstable,it is bound up with an arbitrary definition of tyranny. Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius are remembered as Roman kings although they were usurpers or had taken possession of their kingdom by extraordinary means.Tyrants who have succeeded in founding a principality which lasts for centuries are remembered as princes by a grateful,if hypocritical,posterity.What name or title is more glorious than“Caesar,”and Caesar was the first tyrant in Rome.As a typical tyrant,he based his power on the common people who avenged his murder.He usurped his power because he was prompted by ambition;but one could say with equal right that he took by force and out of just anger what ingratitude had denied him.In spite or because of this,he was the first emperor; he laid the foundation for the late Roman monarchy,prepared the peaceful reign of Augustus and the golden times of the good Roman emperors.Considerations like these induce Machiavelli frequently to use “prince”and“tyrant”as synonyms,regardless of whether he speaks of criminal or non-criminal tyrants.194 It therefore be- comes necessary to reconsider the distinction between criminal and non-criminal tyrants.It is not sufficient to say that the criminal tyrant lacked opportunity,since without opportunity he could never have become a tyrant.The classic example of a potential tyrant who lacked opportunity and therefore failed was Manlius Capi- tolinus.Capitolinus was induced to strive for tyranny by the envy he felt for the honor and glory which his contemporary Camillus, the most prudent of the Roman captains,had earned;he believed himself to be Camillus'equal.He knew then that he was not the first man in Rome.In his second statement Machiavelli traces Capi- tolinus'abortive conspiracy against his fatherland to“either envy or his evil nature”;it is no longer certain that envy offers a suffi- cient explanation,and Capitolinus'envy is not a sign of an evil nature:envy as such is a passion which arises with necessity in all men under certain conditions for which they are not responsible. In his last statement Machiavelli finds the origin of Capitolinus'ac- tion in his envy,which blinded his mind so far that he did not examine whether the available matter permitted the establishment of tyranny;his "evil nature,"it appears,consisted in the excessive power of a passion which more than any other makes men operate well,for the root of envy proves to be love of glory;but his love of glory was stronger than his understanding:his evil nature con- MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》2 7 3《 sisted in his lack of understanding;he was“full of every virtue and had done publicly and privately very many laudable works,"but he lacked that prudence which lets a man see that one must seek glory by different ways in a corrupt city than in a city which still leads a republican life;oppositely to Camillus,Capitolinus chose badly or had a natural inclination which did not agree with the times;in a corrupt city he would have been a rare and memorable man.His error was not fundamentally different from that of Fabius Maximus,who tried to continue a cautious strategy when a bold strategy had become possible and hence necessary.Machiavelli draws the conclusion that the citizens who in a republic engage in an enterprise either in favor of liberty or in favor of tyranny,must consider the available matter:the neutrality of his advice corre- sponds to the moral neutrality of the problem,namely,of the problem as to how to seek glory or to “acquire.”195 It is likewise not sufficient to say that a criminal tyrant,while not lacking oppor- tunity,lacked justification,for where there are opportunities of this magnitude,justification will not fail to be forthcoming.A potential tyrant of extraordinary gifts may think,not without reason,that after having successfully conspired against the republic,he could de- fend the city or the country against foreign enemies and take care of the good of the many in a much better way than any of his rivals; it is impossible to say after he has succeeded whether the republican leaders would have been capable of the same outstanding achieve- ments.There is then no essential difference between the public- spirited founder of a republic and the selfish founder of a tyranny: both have to commit crimes and both have to pay due regard to that part of society the cause of which is most just.As for the difference between their intentions,one may say with Aristotle that the intentions are hidden.In the last analysis farsighted patriotism and farsighted selfishness lead to the same results.In other words, regardless of whether we start from the premise of justice or from the premise of injustice,we arrive at the same conclusion:in order to achieve its goal,justice must use injustice and injustice must use justice;for both,a judicious mixture of justice and injustice, a certain middle course between justice and injustice,is required. However this may be,the tyrant as well as any other new prince must arm his subjects.Yet he cannot arm all his subjects. It is therefore sufficient if he benefits those whom he has armed. 》274《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI In other words,just as the tyrant comes to power by exploiting the division between the great and the people,he maintains himself in power by creating a division within the people.In some cases he does not have to create such a division;he can arm the peasantry, perhaps a cruelly oppressed peasantry,and with its help keep down the urban populace.Since his first duty is to maintain him- self and his position,he may also have to seek his support in a previously oppressed neighboring people or for that matter in mercenaries in whose loyalty he can have a greater trust than in that of the people who indeed helped him to come to power but who are distracted by memories of a republican freedom which they did not have the wits to preserve and of which they therefore were not worthy.That a regime based on a soldiers'caste is possible and that under such a regime no consideration to speak of need be paid to the people is shown by the Roman emperors, the Turk and the Sultan:the emperor Severus who,in order to satisfy the soldiers,oppressed the people in every way,"always reigned happily,"was "revered by everyone"and had “a very high reputation."After all,what the soldiers do to the people is not different from what the people do,if they can,to other peoples. We may summarize Machiavelli's argument as follows.Either one questions the principles on which republics act: one arrives at imagined republics;or one accepts those principles:one cannot radically condemn tyranny.There is no other way in which one can account for the fact that Machiavelli offers his advice to tyrants with equal alacrity as to republics.To mention only one further example,the would-be tyrant Appius Claudius acted im- prudently by turning suddenly from appearing as a friend of the people into its enemy,for in this way he lost his old friends before he had acquired new friends:he ought to have effected his change from humility and kindness to pride and cruelty in stages.196 It goes without saying that this advice,as well as other advice of the same kind,is innocent of any consideration of the common good. If Machiavelli can give advice to actual or potential tyrants with exclusive regard to their security or glory,there is no reason why he should not give advice of the same character to men who do not aspire beyond the status of subjects or of private citizens or to all men as acting with a view to their private advantage.He concludes the first chapter of the Third Book of the Discourses MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》275《 with the remark that that Book will deal with the actions of "particular men"as distinguished especially from the actions of political society,and,as far as the Roman kings are concerned, he will discuss only such things as they did with a view to their private advantage.He begins the discussion with Brutus,the father of Roman freedom.Did Brutus too act with a view to his private advantage?According to Machiavelli,Livy explained Brutus'sim- ulating stupidity by Brutus'desire to live securely and to preserve his patrimony under the oppressive rule of a king.Machiavelli however thinks that Brutus was moved to his course of action also by his desire to liberate his fatherland.Machiavelli claims then that he makes Brutus more public-spirited than Livy had made him.Certainly Livy's Brutus deliberately committed an act which according to the plausible interpretation of an oracle would have made him the king of Rome.Could the father of the Roman republic have had the desire to reign as king?Machiavelli himself notes a few pages later that the desire to reign as king is so great that it enters even into the hearts of those who can never become kings strictly speaking.After having opened,with the support of Livy's authority,the question of the selfish motive of the most famous patriot,Machiavelli draws this lesson from Brutus'conduct: the enemy of a prince ought to live in familiarity with the prince because this affords him security and permits him to enjoy the amenities of court life.The patient and good Soderini did not know how to resemble Brutus and so he “lost,together with his fatherland,his power and his reputation”;to say the least,Machia- velli puts as great a stress on Soderini's private loss as on his father- land's public loss.He thereafter devotes two chapters(III 4-5)to the three last Roman kings;while he does not there discuss explicitly how those kings acted wisely or foolishly with regard to their private advantage,and while he even refers there to such public spirited princes as Timoleon and Aratus,we are not permitted to forget that the theme of these chapters is private advantage.The chapter on conspiracies which follows immediately thereafter is meant to warn both princes and private men:conspiracies are dangerous for both princes,the intended victims,and private men, the would-be murderers of princes.It appears that it is not difficult to kill a prince but extremely difficult to kill the prince and to survive;Machiavelli's chief concern is with advising conspirators 》276《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI as to their self-preservation.Acting in the same spirit,he next teaches citizens how to seek glory and reputation in both corrupt and incorrupt cities.When in the sequel he teaches captains im- portant rules of strategy and tactics,he draws our attention to the fact that in so doing he teaches them how each can earn glory for himself.He shows in particular how a captain can earn glory for himself in spite of having lost a campaign:the captain may show that the defeat was not due to his fault.When contrasting the modes of the severe and the gentle captains,he is careful to distinguish how those modes affected the fatherland on the one hand and the individual in question on the other; he pays equal regard to public advantage and to private advantage.In a dangerous situation,the colleagues of Camillus ceded to him the supreme command for the sake of the salvation of the fatherland;each of his colleagues saw his own danger,postponed for this reason his ambition,mastered his envy and hastened gladly to obey the man who,he believed,could with his virtue save him.A man counseling measures conducive to the common good may expose himself to great danger;Machiavelli therefore considers how the fulfillment of public duty can be reconciled with private safety;by not standing forth as the sole and passionate promoter of a bold scheme, the counselor will earn less glory but greater safety;on the other hand,if his advice is not taken because of his cautious procedure and disaster follows,he will earn"very great glory;and although the glory which is earned through evils which befall your city or your prince cannot be enjoyed,yet it counts for something."197 While advice with regard to the private advantage of private men becomes conspicuous only in the Third Book of the Discourses, it is not absent from the other parts of Machiavelli's work.In the center of the section on gratitude,a virtue which is no less in- sinuated by calculation than it is commanded by duty,he raises the question as to the proper use of gratitude and its opposite by a prince who does not lead his army but sends out a captain in his stead.He gives precepts not to the prince,for every prince knows by himself what to do in such a case,but to the captain.Under certain conditions the captain ought to be"altogether bad,"i.e. punish the prince for his anticipated ingratitude by rebelling against the prince,i.e.by committing an action which because of its boldness and grandeur cannot but be honorable.Here Machiavelli MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》277《 does not limit himself to giving advice to a man who is already desirous of becoming a tyrant but suggests the thought of tyranny to a previously innocent man.In the heading of the chapter he promises that he will also discuss what the citizen of a republic ought to do in order not to suffer from the ingratitude of his fatherland;he does not keep that promise since he had said in the preceding chapter that Caesar took by force what ingratitude had denied him.Machiavelli stands in the same relation to the innocent captain who is subject to princely or republican government in which the two decent Roman patricians stood to the Roman plebs after the fall of the Decemviri.Machiavelli goes beyond this.The “style”of Piero Soderini,a man distinguished by goodness,humanity, humility and patience,the official guardian of Florentine liberty, was to favor the common people;the enemies of Piero-Machiavelli does not tire of speaking of“Piero ”in this context-made the mistake of not using the same style;Piero,as it seems at first glance, made the mistake of not using the style of his enemies which was to favor the Medici and thus to betray the liberty of the fatherland. Machiavelli is on the verge,as it were,of posthumously suggesting to Piero that he commit an atrocious treachery.Yet he“excuses” Piero for not having committed that treachery by the consideration that by favoring the Medici he would have lost his good reputation whereas by remaining loyal he only lost his reputation,together with his power and his fatherland.But this consideration is insuffi- cient for a reason which even Machiavelli shudders to state in this context.He goes on to say that Piero could not have effected the switch from favoring the common people to favoring the Medici “in secret and at one stroke.”He thus excuses Soderini for not having betrayed his trust by the consideration that such betrayal was not feasible in the circumstances.He draws the conclusion that one ought not to choose a course of action the danger of which outweighs its advantage.We read in the Prince that the minister of a prince ought never to think of himself but only of the prince;the minister must possess goodness.But since men are bad the prince must make his minister good and keep him good by honoring him and by making him rich.The minister does not have to think of his advantage if he can be certain that his prince thinks of it.Yet there are honors above honors and riches beyond riches.The prince must therefore watch his minister carefully.If 》278《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI he has the intelligence and the assiduity required for this,the minister will always be good.198 Let us survey the movement of thought which leads from un- selfish patriotism to criminal tyranny.The republic of the character exemplified by the early Roman republic is the best regime because it fulfills the natural function of political society.Men who originally live like beasts establish government in order to escape insecurity; the function of political society is to make men secure.Security, equally desired by all potential members of a political society,can be achieved only by the union of them all;it is a common good since it must be shared in order to be enjoyed.Political society fulfills its function through political power,and political power is apt to threaten the very security for the sake of which it was established.To avoid this danger,the majority must have a share, commensurate with its capacity,in public power.But men cannot be sure of their security without having acquired superiority to their potential enemies.Besides,they are necessarily dissatisified with security as soon as they possess it;they no longer appreciate it;they subordinate it to superiority to others in wealth and honor. Constant vigilance and periodic return to the beginnings,i.e.periodic terror,do not suffice.Society cannot be kept united if it is not threatened by war,and this threat will soon lose its salutary char- acter if it is not followed from time to time by war itself.War at any rate leads to oppression of the vanquished,even if oppression should not have occurred within the society on account of the desire of some of its members to lord it over their fellows.199 Op- pression,or injustice,is then coeval with political society.Criminal tyranny is the state which is characterized by extreme oppression. There is then in the decisive respect only a difference of degree between the best republic and the worst tyranny.This difference of degree is of the utmost practical importance,as no one knew better than Machiavelli.But a difference of degree is not a difference of kind.One can meet Machiavelli's argument either by appealing to a higher principle which legitimates the oppression exercised by decent societies while condemning tyrannical oppression,or by pointing to political societies in which oppression has been abolished.Oppression exists wherever there is not equal protection, by enforced laws,of everyone in his life,freedom,property and honor except of those who have been convicted by fair judges MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》279《 of crimes against the life,the freedom,the property or the honor of anyone or of all.But oppression perhaps exists also where extreme inequality of wealth causes an extreme dependence of the poor on the rich. Oppression is coeval with society,or with man,because man is by nature compelled to oppress or because men are bad.It is man's nature to be envious,ambitious,suspicious,ungrateful,dis- contented and predatory.Only through necessity,and in particular through compulsion exercised by other men and therefore especially through laws,do men become good.To be bad is the same as to be untied or unchained.Man's becoming good requires that violence be done to him because goodness goes against his grain or against his nature. One would have to say that man is by nature bad if, to quote Hobbes,this could be said without impiety.At any rate, men do not possess a natural inclination toward the good.They are more inclined toward evil than toward the good and therefore they can be corrupted more easily than they can be made in- corrupt.Yet since they can be made good,they are not radically evil:they suffer from curable ills.Only very rarely do they know how to be altogether evil.This is indeed due to the fact that they do not have the courage to be altogether evil or that they are vile;they are cowardly,unstable in evil as well as in good,and simple or easily deceived.Yet this description does not fit all men. Therefore one has to say that most men are by nature bad or that there are various kinds of badness belonging to various kinds of men.Yet even this does not suffice.Machiavelli takes issue with those who explain the bad conduct of men by their bad nature: men are by nature malleable rather than either bad or good;good- ness and badness are not natural qualities but the outcome of habit- uation.200 We have seen that in attacking“the middle course” Machiavelli in fact attacks only a certain kind of middle course and yet his attack on the middle course as such conveys a lesson which is not identical with the rejection of a certain kind of middle course. Similarly,in suggesting that man is by nature bad,Machia- velli does not indicate merely that man is not by nature directed toward the good or that most men,or the vulgar,are contemptible. The assertion that man is by nature bad means above all that man is by nature selfish or prompted by self-love alone.The only natural good is the private good.Since this is so,it is absurd to 》280《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI call men bad with a view to the fact that they are selfish.Even those who appear to be wholly dedicated to the common good or to forget themselves completely in the service of others are driven to such conduct by their peculiar natures and their natural desire to see themselves obeyed or to acquire reputation or to be pleased by pleasing.Camillus,who had always administered the highest offices of the republic with exclusive regard to the public interest, appeared to desire to become equal to the highest god.Man's selfishness is badness as long as it is not molded with a view to the needs of living together;it becomes goodness through such molding; but it always remains selfishness.For the same reason for which men are not by nature directed toward the good,they are not by nature directed toward society.Man does not possess a natural end proper,i.e.he does not have a natural inclination toward the perfection of the nature peculiar to him,the nature of the rational and social animal.Man is not by nature a social or political animal. Men are indeed by nature in need of each other,but they are also by nature no less antagonistic to each other;one cannot say that one of these two opposed necessities is more natural than the other. In adopting Polybius'account of the origin of political society, Machiavelli omits even Polybius'extremely brief references to the union of men and women and the generation of children as well as to man's natural rationality,to say nothing of the fact that whereas Polybius speaks in this context of"nature,"Machiavelli speaks of"chance."Machiavelli,who occasionally speaks of the "natural affection"of subjects for their prince,does not deny that there is natural affection of parents for their children and vice versa;but he contends that the natural affection of the children for their parents'property is no less strong than their affection for their parents,and that a mother's desire for revenge may be stronger than her maternal love.The various kinds of natural affec- tion for human beings do not have a status different from that of the various forms of natural affection for wealth and honor or of natural hostility toward human beings;they all are equally passions, self-regarding passions.201 While everyone is by nature concerned only with his own well-being—with his preservation,his security,his ease,his pleasures, his reputation,his honor,his glory-he must be concerned with the well-being of his society on which his own well-being appears 》 282《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI rule”for making a commander operate well,they provided that the glory of victory be“entirely his.”The desire for glory as the desire for eternal glory liberates man from the concern with life and property,with goods which may have to be sacrificed for the common good;and yet glory is a man's own good.It is therefore possible and even proper to present the whole political teaching as advice addressed to individuals as to how they can achieve the highest glory for themselves.To the extent to which Machiavelli's two books are meant for immediate prudent use rather than for rendering secure the basis of prudence,their broad purpose is to show the need for reckoning with the selfish desires of the rulers and the ruled as the only natural basis of politics,and therefore for trusting,not in men's good will,nor in mercenaries,fortresses, money,or chance but in one's own virtue(if one possesses it)as the ability to acquire for oneself the highest glory and hence to acquire for one's state whatever makes it strong,prosperous,and respected.The wise rulers who act with a view to their own benefit will enlist the cooperation of the ruled,who likewise act with a view to their own benefit,in such activities as cannot but be detrimental to others.Since the many can never acquire the eternal glory which the great individuals can achieve,they must be induced to bring the greatest sacrifices by the judiciously fostered belief in eternity of another kind.202 Machiavelli's book on principalities and his book on republics are both republican:the praise of republics which is expressed in the book on republics is never contradicted by a praise of princi- palities in either book.All the more striking is the seemingly in- human detachment with which Machiavelli acts as the teacher, and hence as the benefactor,of tyrants as well as of republics. How can we respect someone who remains undecided between good and evil or who,while benefiting us,benefits at the same time and by the same action our worst enemies?We called Machiavelli's detachment or neutrality inhuman, for,a s he says,by nature men take sides wherever there is a division which concerns them.Even if someone is unconcerned with honors and profit and therefore tries to stay aloof,the others will not permit him to do so.Or could such unconcern explain Machiavelli's neutrality?He has written the Prince in order to be useful to him who understands. In the Discourses he expresses himself somewhat more clearly.He MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》283《 has written the Discourses because he was moved“by that natural desire which was always in(him),to do,regardless of any other consideration,those things which,as(he)believe(s),bring about the common benefit of everyone.”Machiavelli's work brings bene- fits to both republics and tyrants.This benefit is common because identically the same counsels or rules of action or rules regarding causes and effects are beneficial equally to republics and to tyrants. For instance,by learning which conduct is beneficial to republics, we learn at the same time which conduct is conducive to the de- struction of republics.Machiavelli's apparent neutrality in the con- flict between republics and tyrants is defensible if the common good as intended by republics is not the common good strictly speaking:the only good which is unqualifiedly the common good for all men is the truth,and in particular the truth about man and society.Knowledge of that truth,it would seem,is incompatible with unqualifiedly preferring republics to tyrannies,not because “value judgments”are not rational but because they are rational: while a strong case can be made for republics,a not altogether negligible case can be made for tyranny.We have seen that Machia- velli's apparent rejection of“the neutral course”is in fact a rec- ommendation of discriminating impartiality and therefore of what one might call the highest form of neutrality.In accordance with this,he does not judge it to be a defect to defend with reasons any opinion,and therefore in particular both the opinion favorable to republics and the opinion favorable to tyranny.This difficulty, however,remains.Machiavelli claims to serve the common benefit of everyone by communicating to all the new modes and orders which he has discovered. Yet, as he points out,the new modes and orders cannot benefit those who benefit from the old modes and orders.There are two ways of solving this difficulty.Either one must say that the defenders of the old modes and orders who profit from the untruth profit from it in so far as their subjects believe in the untruth and they themselves do not act on the un- truth;they too are benefited by Machiavelli since they learn from him the full truth on which they must act,and the public com- munication of which they must prevent at all costs;they are benefited by Machiavelli since he gives them a good conscience in doing what they hitherto did with a more or less uneasy conscience; they learn from him to think like Cesare Borgia who also benefited 》284《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI from the old modes and orders but renewed the old orders by means of new modes or of a new spirit. Or else one must say一 and this is what Machiavelli in fact says-that there is no good however great which is unqualifiedly good.203 The common good in the political sense is defective not only because it is inferior qua common good to the common good simply,which is the truth.The good things of which the political common good consists or which it protects or procures are in- compatible with other good things which are even less common than the political common good but which give a satisfaction no less pleasing,resplendent and intense,yet more within the reach of some men than glory.This supplement to the common good which exists on the same level as the common good, i.e.,on a level lower than the truth,is the theme of Machiavelli's comedy La Mandragola.The canzone which introduces the play praises the retired life,the unpolitical life,of nymphs and shepherds.The hero of the play, Callimaco,leads an unpolitical life.Being a Florentine by birth,he had been sent to Paris as a boy and there had spent many years in the greatest happiness and tranquillity, helping everyone and trying to offend no one;his well-being did not depend on the well-being of his fatherland.For the chief reason that he stayed so long in Paris was the ruin of Italy and the insecurity prevailing in Italy,which were the effect of the invasion of Italy by the king of France.He returned to his father- land not because it was his fatherland or because it needed his help but because Florence was the home of the most desirable woman,as he had learned from a certain Cammillo.His desire to see that woman and to win her favors was so strong that he could no longer think of either the wars in Italy or the peace of Italy: not the concern with the common good nor the desire for glory but the desire for a woman made him cease worrying about his own security.Lucrezia is married and of exemplary virtue and piety;she appears to be utterly incorruptible.The hero is near despair.He must choose between death and doing anything,how- ever criminal,which might gain him the possession of Lucrezia. He saves himself by means of a series of deceptions.Lucrezia's husband,a foolish lawyer whose name reminds us of a most virtuous and pious general,is deceived into wishing that she should lie with another man.This of course is not sufficient to overcome MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》285《 Lucrezia's resistance.Needed,therefore,is the help of a priest who is won over to the cause of the hero by being confronted with the choice between persuading a virtuous woman to commit an action most unbecoming a virtuous woman or not receiving money for alms:the good of the many is preferable to the good of one. The priest persuades Lucrezia by pointing to the example of Lot’s daughters who were with child by their father because of the apparent necessity to secure the survival of the human race:what is required for the common good takes precedence over the moral law.The appeals to the common good are made in order to secure the private good of the hero.The case of Lucrezia's lover is strictly parallel to that of the tyrant.The triumph of forbidden love which is celebrated in the Mandragola is strictly parallel to the triumph of the forbidden desire to oppress or to rule.In both cases it is an intense pleasure divorced from its natural end(procreation or the common good respectively)which is desired.In both cases it is necessity which makes men "operate well,"i.e.,to acquire by prudence and strength of will that for which they long.The dif- ference between matters of state and matters of love corresponds to the difference between gravity and levity,between the two opposed qualities,the alternation between which,or rather the union of which,constitutes the life according to nature.The union of gravity and levity,we suspect,is achieved,according to Machiavelli,by the quest for the truth,or for that good than which none is more common and none is more private.204 If our information is correct, it is, universally admitted that Machiavelli questions the supremacy of morality with a view to the require- ments of the common good or of the fatherland.This is no acci- dent.The reason is not that Machiavelli obviously points out the tension between the requirements of morality and those of the fatherland,for there are other elements of his teaching which are no less obvious and yet are not universally admitted.The reason is rather that the questioning of morality in the name of patriotism may go together with gravity,whereas the questioning of morality on other grounds is publicly indefensible. Some people will think that the obscurities which we were compelled to imitate can be avoided if one simply disregards the Mandragola as an extraneous work which belongs to a department wholly unconnected with the department of serious thought,and 》286《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI if one limits oneself strictly to the two books each of which con- tains in its way everything Machiavelli knows.The reader will have observed that we have laid a proper foundation for the use proper than the Prince and the Discourses. The action of the comedy agrees with Machiavelli's claim that he was always moved by the natural desire to work for the benefit of everyone.Yet if the desire to work for the common good is natural in Machiavelli, one should expect that it is by nature effective,if in different de- grees,in all men.This expectation is not borne out by his teaching. What then is“the factual truth”of Machiavelli's natural desire? As the desire to work for the common good is meant to bring benefit to everyone,it must also be directed toward Machiavelli's own good.He hopes to be rewarded for his achievement.The reward would consist in nothing but praise.The praise for which he could hope is necessarily much smaller than the praise which men bestow on the founders of religions and the founders of king- doms or republics.Praise is akin to honor and to glory.Of these three things glory is the highest or the end.From this we can see how Machiavelli must have answered a question which is crucial on a certain level of his argument.If men must be made good and kept good by laws,and if it is the function of laws to make men good and to keep them good,the original lawgivers or founders must have been bad men who were passionately concerned with compelling their fellows and innumerable generations of their descendants to become good and to remain good.The only selfish desire which can induce men to be passionately concerned with the well-being of remote posterity is the desire for perpetual or immortal glory.The desire for such glory is the link between bad- ness and goodness,since while it is selfish in itself it cannot be satisfied except by the greatest possible service to others.The desire for immortal glory is the highest desire since it is the neces- sary accompaniment of the greatest natural virtue.It is the only desire of men of the greatest natural virtue.It liberates men from the desire for petty things-comfort,riches and honors-as well as from fear of death.Yet since the glorious deed requires a long preparation,the man desirous of the highest glory must be con- cerned with his safety,his sustenance,and his quiet while the preparation is carried on.The desire for glory is not always dis- 》287《 tinguishable from the desire for the useful.Thus Machiavelli can occasionally use“force”and“glory”synonymously.The useful coincides with the honorable in the case of the powerful as power- ful:the honorable is that which is good for him who possesses force,prudence,and courage.Since no one is absolutely powerful, conflicts between honor or glory and interest are inevitable.In case of such conflict,generous or proud natures tend to prefer the fonmer,but so do those who regard themselves as free men with- out being free men.Prudence dictates to princes and republics that interest should take precedence of honor or glory,or true generosity demands that one swallow one's pride.Even if a pru- dent captain in a desperate situation prefers to lose gloriously rather than to flee,he is guided by the consideration that by some stroke of good luck he might win the battle.Consideration of glory alone may be said to be decisive in the case of the counselor of a state who is mindful that his advice might not be accepted,with the consequence that his prince or his fatherland is ruined;he thus acquires "very great glory"and nothing else.205 Could pure glory be the privilege of the powerless?Men bestow the highest glory on those to whom they believe they owe the greatest benefits and whom therefore they regard as outstanding in wisdom and good- ness.Yet glory is bestowed not only on benefactors.Since all men strive for wealth or glory,men are praised if they are good at acquiring wealth or glory,regardless of whether this success is beneficial or harmful to those who praise it;since all men are by nature concerned with“acquisition,” they are by nature sensitive to goodness and badness at acquiring,or to virtue and weakness, and they cannot help somehow expressing what they sense.But the large majority are poor judges of virtue,especially in its higher forms.They judge by success and they admire men who merely had good luck or low cunning.They are overawed by power. They are moved by appearance rather than reality.They are more impressed by the spectacular than by the solid:they are not con- cerned with the wisdom of their favorites.For instance,they are more impressed by Manlius Torquatus'killing his own son than by Brutus'wisdom in simulating folly.The vulgar delusions re- garding glory find their most important expressions in the vulgar reverence for the single founder,i.e.,in the vulgar blindness to the fact that in every flourishing society foundation is so to speak 》288《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI continuous.The highest glory goes to men of the remote past who are vulgarly thought to be the greatest benefactors of man- kind,who in fact are at best the originators of the most influential and the gravest errors and who may well be only the reputed originators of the errors in question.Genuine immortal glory requires that the man who claims such glory or on whose behalf it is claimed himself be present to posterity:genuine immortal glory is reserved for most excellent artists or writers.206 The high- est glory goes to the discoverer of the all-important truth,of the truth regarding man and society,of the new modes and orders which are in accordance with nature.He can justly claim to be superior in virtue to all men and to be the greatest benefactor of all men.He can justly claim the glory generally given to more or less mythical founders.He looks at society not theoretically but,being the teacher of founders,in the perspective of founders. The desire for the highest glory,which is the factual truth of the natural desire for the common good and which animates the quest for the truth,demands that the detachment from human things be subordinated to a specific attachment or be replaced by that at- tachment.The perspective of the teacher of founders comprises the perspectives of both the tyrant and the republic.But since the founder in the highest sense,who will deserve the admiration of the many as well as of the discerning few,is as such concerned with preparing the establishment of the most stable,the most happy and the most glorious society,and since a society of this descrip- tion is necessarily republican,he necessarily has a bias in favor of republics.He realizes that,as a matter of principle and if one disregards what is required in more or less unfavorable circum- stances,precisely the men of the greatest gifts can find,as leading men in republics,the highest glory accessible to political men; although Camillus was exiled for some time by the plebs,"he was through all times of his life worshipped as prince."207 The manner in which Machiavelli achieves the transition from neutrality in the conflict between the tyranny and the republic to republicanism,from selfishness to devotion to the common good, or from badness to goodness reminds one of the action of Plato's Republic.In the first book of the Republic Thrasymachus ques- tions justice,i.e.,he raises the question as to whether justice is good.Glauco and Adeimantus are perplexed by the argument,at MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》289《 least to the extent that they are thoroughly displeased with Socrates' apparent refutation of Thrasymachus'contention.After Glauco and Adeimantus have restated Thrasymachus'thesis,Socrates does not immediately turn to refuting it directly.Instead he begins to found a city in speech or to help Glauco and Adeimantus to found a city in speech.Within that speech he takes for granted the goodness of justice which had become thoroughly questionable. What does he mean by this?The assertion that injustice is good means that the life of the tyrant is the best life for the best men because the pleasure deriving from authority or honor is the highest or the all-comprehensive pleasure.By suggesting to his young com- panions that they should together found a city,Socrates appeals from the petty end of the tyrant to the grand end of the founder: the honor attending the tyrant who merely uses a city already in existence is petty in comparison with the glory attending the founder and especially the founder of the best city.The founder however must devote himself entirely to the well-being of his city;he is forced to be concerned with the common good or to be just.Desire for glory appears to be that passion which,if its scope is broadened,transforms the lover of tyranny,to say nothing of the lover of bodily pleasures,into a lover of justice.In Plato's Republic this transformation proves to be only the preparation for the true conversion from badness to goodness,the true conversion being the transition to philosophy,if not philosophy itself;this conversion is effected by the understanding of the essential limita- tions of everything political.In Machiavelli the transformation of man through the desire for glory seems to be the only conversion; the second and higher conversion seems to have been forgotten. This conclusion however is not compatible with Machiavelli's clear awareness of the delusions of glory and of the limitations of the political.Immortal glory is impossible,and what is called immortal glory depends on chance.Hence to see the highest good in glory means to deny the possibility of happiness.This is the reason that Machiavelli finds the good life or the life according to nature in the alternation between gravity and levity:between the expecta- tion of a satisfaction or a pleasure which is always and essentially in the future and the enjoyment of present pleasure.But,as was indicated before,he rises above the plane on which the political good and the erotic good supplement each other while conflicting 》290 《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI with each other.The most excellent man,as distinguished from the most excellent captain,or soldier of war or of love,acquires full satisfaction and immunity to the power of chance through knowl- edge of"the world."208 To the extent to which this knowledge permeates a man,it engenders in him a humanity which goes to- gether with a certain contempt for most men.Since republics are as such more conducive to humanity than are principalities,it engenders in him a bias in favor of republics.If it remains true that even on the highest level the alternation between gravity and levity is according to nature,one must say that whereas gravity belongs with knowledge of the truth,levity comes into play in the communication of the truth.The same man who is the teacher of founders or princes and who discovers the true character of "the world"communicates this truth to the young.In the for- mer capacity he is half-man half-beast or alternates between hu- manity and inhumanity.In the latter capacity he alternates between gravity and levity.For in the latter capacity he is the bringer of a light which illumines things that cannot be illumined by the sun.The unity of knowledge and communication of knowl- edge can also be compared to the combination of man and horse, although not to a centaur. Machiavelli claims to have taken a way not yet trodden by anyone and thus to have discovered new modes and orders.His discovery is implied in the principle that one must take one's bearings by how men live as distinguished from how they ought to live,or that one must pay proper regard to man's badness,i.e., to the roots,the pre-political or sub-political roots,of society or to the phenomena indicated by the expression “the wholly new prince in a wholly new state”:not the one end by nature common to all which is visible in the sky-a pattern laid out in heaven—but the roots hidden in the earth reveal the true character of man or society.The teaching which derives from this principle is obviously opposed to that of classical political philosophy or of the Socratic tradition.Machiavelli's almost complete silence about Plato,Aris- totle,and the political philosopher Cicero,to say nothing of scholasticism,expresses adequately this state of things.Near the beginning of the Discourses he almost copies a philosophic passage from the historian Polybius;but to say nothing of the facts that he nowhere mentions Polybius and that he makes radical changes MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》29I《 in Polybius'statement,209 he who reserves the full power of his attack rather for the end is not likely to reveal the scope of his deviation from the most revered tradition at the beginning of a book.For him the representative par excellence of classical politi- cal philosophy is Xenophon,whose writings he mentions more fre- quently than those of Plato,Aristotle,and Cicero taken together or those of any other writer with the exception of Livy.Xeno- phon's Education of Cyrus is for him the classic presentation of the imagined prince.210 At the same time Xenophon is that writer who for Machiavelli has come closest to preparing his questioning of the imagined prince.Xenophon's Hiero is the classic defense of tyranny by a wise man,and the Education of Cyrus describes how an aristocracy can be transformed by the lowering of the moral standards into an absolute monarchy ruling a large empire.We add the observation that Xenophon's Oeconomicus,which starts from the view that the management rather than the increase of one's landed estate,to say nothing of the pursuit of crafts and trade, befits the gentleman,leads up to the proposal of such a compromise between the noble and the profitable as consists in a certain kind of trading in landed estates;Xenophon appears to be much more tolerant of that "natural and ordinary desire to acquire"than any other classic.But Machiavelli refers only to the Hiero and the Education of Cyrus, not to the Oeconomicus or to any other of Xenophon's Socratic writings.Xenophon's thought and work has two foci,Cyrus and Socrates.While Machiavelli is greatly con- cerned with Cyrus,he forgets Socrates. Machiavelli's claim that he has taken a road not yet trodden by anyone implies that in breaking with the Socratic tradition he did not return to an anti-Socratic tradition,although he could not help agreeing in numerous points with the Socratic tradition on the one hand and the anti-Socratic tradition on the other.We have indicated the kinship of his thought with hedonism.But he agrees with classical political philosophy against classical hedonism in ad- mitting the high dignity of political life.For classical hedonism, honor and glory are contemptible;for Machiavelli the pleasure deriving from honor and glory is genuine and perhaps the highest pleasure.Classical hedonism,we may say,is insufficiently attentive to the conditions and the context of the highest pleasure,which it sees to be dependent on philosophy.Since philosophy consists in 》292《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI ascending from opinion to knowledge,and opinion is primarily politicai opinion,philosophy is essentially related to the city;as transcending the city,it presupposes the city;philosophy must therefore be concerned with the city or be politically responsible. In this important respect Machiavelli agrees with classical political philosophy over against classical hedonism.211 As for Epicureanism in particular,it teaches that happiness presupposes moral virtue as opposed to moral vice,and it is as distrustful of “acquiring”as is classical political philosophy.Machiavelli's teaching is said to be reminiscent of the teaching of "the sophists."To turn from mod- ern hypotheses to the facts vouched for by Aristotle,sophistic political science was either identical with rhetoric or subordinate to it,and somehow concerned with teaching the art of legislation by collecting renowned laws.212 As for teachings like those which Plato put into the mouths of Thrasymachus and Callicles,it suf- fices here to say that those Platonic characters stop where both Socrates and Machiavelli begin;the originators of such teachings have not even grasped the essential connection between ruling and service or between private vice and public benefit because they look at political things in the perspective of the exploiter of the city and not in the perspective of its founder.Other contemporary readers are reminded by Machiavelli's teaching of Thucydides; they find in both authors the same "realism,"i.e.,the same denial of the power of the gods or of justice and the same sensitivity to harsh necessity and elusive chance.Yet Thucydides never calls in question the intrinsic superiority of nobility to baseness,213 a superiority that shines forth particularly when the noble is de- stroyed by the base.Therefore Thucydides'History arouses in the reader a sadness which is never aroused by Machiavelli's books. In Machiavelli we find comedies,parodies,and satires but nothing reminding of tragedy.One half of humanity remains outside of his thought.There is no tragedy in Machiavelli because he has no sense of the sacredness of“the common.”The fate of neither Cesare Borgia nor Manlius Capitolinus is tragic or understood by Machia- velli as tragic;they failed because they had chance or the times against them.As regards chance in general,it can be conquered; man is the master. The modern historian disposes of an immense apparatus sup- plying him with information which can be easily appropriated MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》293《 because it is superficial;he is therefore tempted to try to be wiser than the great men of the past whose work he studies.This is true particularly of his efforts to judge of their positions with respect to their predecessors.We repeat therefore that Machia- velli points to Xenophon more strongly than to any other thinker. He may be said to start from certain observations or suggestions made by Xenophon and to think them through while abandoning the whole of which they form a part.The novel teaching which he thus develops cannot be characterized as the first political teach- ing which gives its due to foreign policy or which recognizes the primacy of foreign policy.He has stated the case for imperialism or for"power politics"more clearly than any earlier or later thinker.But the principle which enabled him to do so applies equally to domestic policy;according to him the fundamental human fact is acquisitiveness or competition.214 We also cannot accept the assertion that he was the first to realize what some people call the narrowness of the traditional condemnation of tyranny.This assertion is indeed confirmed rather than refuted by the fact that Machiavelli sometimes takes up what Aristotle said about the means for preserving tyranny;for,as soon as we con- sider the context,we see that Aristotle treats tyranny as a mon- strosity whereas Machiavelli rather deals with tyranny as essential to the foundation of society itself.In this point,as well as in others of the same character,Machiavelli is closer to Plato than to Aris- totle.Plato does not hesitate to make his founder of a good society, the wise legislator,demand that he be supported by a tyrant.Yet, to disregard the facts that Plato makes a nameless stranger state this demand and that even this nameless stranger makes this de- mand primarily in the name of an absent and nameless legislator, Plato demands the tyrant merely as a helper or a tool for the wise and virtuous legislator.In other words,Plato states with great caution the case for a tyrant preparing a republic in which moral virtue can be practiced.Machiavelli however may be said to argue for a tyrant preparing a republic in which republican virtue is indispensable.215 He even argues for tyranny pure and simple.Yet what enables him to do so is not a more thoroughgoing or compre- hensive analysis of political phenomena as such than that given by the classics but his destructive analysis of moral virtue or what one may call his emancipation of acquisitiveness. Machiavelli's most 》294《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI emphatic attack on“all writers”is directed,not against the tradi- tional condemnation of tyranny but against the traditional contempt for the multitude.216 This may incline us to believe that he was the philosopher who originated the democratic tradition;the undeni- ably non-democratic character of classical political philosophy might thus seem to some extent to justify Machiavelli's revolt which,through Spinoza and Rousseau,led to democratic theory proper.But just as in the case of tyranny,we must note here that the change in judgment is only a part of a comprehensive argument meant to lay bare the essential dependence of morality on society:the unmasking of the alleged aristocracy of the classics as oligarchy leads necessarily to a somewhat more favorable judg- ment on the common people,and the unmasking of the rule of men of moral worth is part of the destructive analysis of moral virtue.The result of that analysis can be stated as follows.Moral virtue,wished for by society and required by it,is dependent on society and therefore subject to the primary needs of society.It does not consist in the proper order of the soul.It has no other source than the needs of society;it has no second and higher source in the needs of the mind.Through an irony beyond Machia- velli's irony,his silence about the soul is a perfect expression of the soulless character of his teaching:he is silent about the soul be- cause he has forgotten the soul,just as he has forgotten tragedy and Socrates.It is ironical in the same way in which his half silence about philosophy is ironical. To avoid the error of denying the presence of philosophy in Machiavelli's thought,it suffices to remember what he indicates regarding the relation between the superiority of"the most ex- cellent man"to fate and that man's knowledge of "the world."217 Still,as our presentation could not help showing,one is entitled to say that philosophy and its status is obfuscated not only in Machia- velli's teaching but in his thought as well.That moral virtue is a qualified requirement of society is infinitely clearer to him than that it is a requirement of philosophy or of the life of the mind. As a consequence he is unable to give a clear account of his own doing.What is greatest in him cannot be properly appreciated on the basis of his own narrow view of the nature of man.Even the union of gravity and levity of which he speaks appears to be a dim reflection of what Plato says about the union of seriousness MACHIAVELLI's TEACHING 》295《 and play.Machiavelli has two great themes,glory and the pleasures of love;the classic comic poet Aristophanes has three great themes, justice,the pleasures of love and the wise man(e.g.,Euripides and Socrates):wisdom is not a great theme for Machiavelli be- cause justice is not a great theme for him.He does not give an account of how the stability of excellence,or the firmness of knowl- edge of"the world,"of equanimity,of strength of will and of prudence is compatible with the variability of all human things and of nature;his argument would seem to require a movement from excellence to vileness as well as a movement from moral virtue to moral vice.The fact that humanity and inhumanity are required for the well-being of society proves to him that humanity is not more“according to nature”than its opposite:he denies that there is an order of the soul,and therefore a hierarchy of ways of life or of goods.Hence his assertion that there is no good without its peculiar evil amounts to the absurdity that God cannot be the most perfect being because he lacks the specific excellences of which created beings as such are capable.218 While the supra- political is everywhere and always present and effective in Machia- velli's thought,he analyses the political as if it were not ordered toward the supra-political or as if the supra-political did not exist. The consequence is an enormous simplification and,above all,the appearance of the discovery of a hitherto wholly unsuspected whole continent.In fact,however,Machiavelli does not bring to light a single political phenomenon of any fundamental importance which was not fully known to the classics.His seeming discovery is only the reverse side of the oblivion of the most important:all things necessarily appear in a new light if they are seen for the first time in a specifically dimmed light.A stupendous contraction of the horizon appears to Machiavelli and his successors as a wondrous enlargement of the horizon. Instead of saying that the status of philosophy becomes ob- scured in Machiavelli's thought,it is perhaps better to say that in his thought the meaning of philosophy is undergoing a change. The classics understood the moral-political phenomena in the light of man's highest virtue or perfection,the life of the philosopher or the contemplative life.The superiority of peace to war or of leisure to business is a reflection of the superiority of thinking to doing or making.Solutions of the political problem which are al- 》296《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI together satisfactory to the good citizen prove to be inadequate solely because they make men oblivious of man's highest perfection. This is the reason why the best regime is so lofty that its actual- ization is very improbable or why its actualization so much depends on chance.Philosophy transcends the city,and the worth of the city depends ultimately on its openness, or deference,to philos- ophy.Yet the city cannot fulfill its function if it is not closed to philosophy as well as open to it;the city is necessarily the cave. The city understood in its closedness to philosophy is the demos in the philosophic sense,i.e.,the totality of the citizens who are incapable or unwilling to defer to philosophy.The philosophers and the demos in the sense indicated are separated by a gulf;their ends differ radically.The gulf can be bridged only by a noble rhetoric,by a certain kind of noble rhetoric which we may call for the time being accusatory or punitive rhetoric.Philosophy is incapable of supplying this kind of rhetoric.It cannot do more than to sketch its outlines.The execution must be left to orators or poets.219 Machiavelli's philosophizing on the other hand remains on the whole within the limits set by the city qua closed to philos- ophy.Accepting the ends of the demos as beyond appeal,he seeks for the best means conducive to those ends.220 Through his effort philosophy becomes salutary in the sense in which the demos under- stands,or may understand,the salutary.He achieves the decisive turn toward that notion of philosophy according to which its purpose is to relieve man's estate or to increase man's power or to guide man toward the rational society,the bond and the end of which is enlightened self-interest or the comfortable self-preserva- tion of each of its members.The cave becomes"the substance." By supplying all men with the goods which they desire,by being the obvious benefactress of all men,philosophy(or science)ceases to be suspect or alien.It ceases to be in need of rhetoric,except insofar as the goods which it procures must still be advertised in order to be sold;for men cannot desire what they do not know of.To return to that manifestation of the new notion of philosophy which appears clearly in Machiavelli's books,the new philosophy takes its bearings by how men live as distinguished from how they ought to live;it despises the concern with imagined republics and imagined principalities.The standard which it recognizes is “low but solid."Its symbol is the Beast Man as opposed to the God MACHLAVELLI's TEACHING 》297《 Man:it understands man in the light of the sub-human rather than of the super-human.The scheme of a good society which it projects is therefore in principle likely to be actualized by men's efforts or its actualization depends much less on chance than does the classical“utopia”:chance is to be conquered,not by aban- doning the passionate concern with the goods of chance and the goods of the body but through giving free rein to it.The good society in the new sense is possible always and everywhere since men of sufficient brain can transform the most corrupt people,the most corrupt matter,into an incorrupt one by the judicious appli- cation of the necessary force.Since man is not by nature ordered toward fixed ends,he is as it were infinitely malleable.This view becomes a settled conviction long before philosophers begin to think of“evolution.”Since man is not by nature ordered toward goodness,or since men can become good and remain good only through compulsion,civilization or the activity which makes men good is man's revolt against nature;the human in man is implicitly understood to reside in an Archimedean point outside of nature. The“idealistic”philosophy of freedom supplements and ennobles the “materialistic”philosophy which it presupposes in the very act of negating it.The brain which can transform the political matter soon learns to think of the transformation of every matter or of the conquest of nature.The charm of competence bewitches completely first a few great men and then whole nations and in- deed as it were the whole human race.Yet before that grand revolt or emancipation can get under way,the hold which the old modes and orders have over the minds of almost all men must be broken.It cannot be broken by frontal assault,for there does not yet exist an army which has sworn to the new modes and orders. Therefore a most subtle rhetoric is still needed for recruiting the highest officers or the general staff of the new army.The new philosophy lives from the outset in the hope which approaches or equals certainty,of future conquest or of conquest of the fu- ture-in the anticipation of an epoch in which the truth will reign, if not in the minds of all men,at any rate in the institutions which mold them.Propaganda is to guarantee the coincidence of philos- ophy and political power.Philosophy is to fulfill the function of both philosophy and religion.The discovery of the Archimedean point outside of everything given,or the discovery of a radical 》298《 THOUGHTS ON MACHIAVELLI freedom,promises the conquest of everything given and thus de- stroys the natural basis of the radical distinction between philos- ophers and non-philosophers.221 Yet in looking forward to the extreme consequences of Machiavelli's action,we must not forget the fact that for Machiavelli himself the domination of necessity remains the indispensable condition of every great achievement and in particular of his own:the transition or the jump from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom will be the inglorious death of the very possibility of human excellence. The necessity which spurred on Machiavelli and his great suc- cessors spent itself some time ago.What remains of their effort no longer possesses the evidence which it possessed while their ad- versary was powerful;it must now be judged entirely on its intrinsic merits.Modern man as little as pre-modern man can escape imitating nature as he understands nature.Imitating an ex- panding universe,modern man has ever more expanded and thus become ever more shallow.Confronted by this amazing process, we cannot cease wondering as to what essential defect of classical political philosophy could possibly have given rise to the modern venture as an enterprise that was meant to be reasonable.We dis- regard the many answers which assume the truth of the modern premises.The classics were for almost all practical purposes what now are called conservatives.In contradistinction to many present day conservatives however,they knew that one cannot be dis- trustful of political or social change without being distrustful of technological change.Therefore they did not favor the encourage- ment of inventions,except perhaps in tyrannies,i.e.,in regimes the change of which is manifestly desirable.They demanded the strict moral-political supervision of inventions;the good and wise city will determine which inventions are to be made use of and which are to be suppressed.Yet they were forced to make one crucial exception.They had to admit the necessity of encouraging in- ventions pertaining to the art of war.They had to bow to the necessity of defense or of resistance.This means however that they had to admit that the moral-political supervision of inventions by the good and wise city is necessarily limited by the need of adaptation to the practices of morally inferior cities which scorn such supervision because their end is acquisition or ease.They had to admit in other words that in an important respect the good city 》299《 has to take its bearings by the practice of bad cities or that the bad impose their law on the good.Only in this point does Machia- velli's contention that the good cannot be good because there are so many bad ones prove to possess a foundation.We recognize the consideration which we have sketched in his overstatement that good arms are the necessary and sufficient condition of good laws or in his eventual identification of the most excellent man with the most excellent captain.The difficulty implied in the admission that inventions pertaining to the art of war must be encouraged is the only one which supplies a basis for Machiavelli's criticism of classi- cal political philosophy.One could say however that it is not in- ventions as such but the use of science for such inventions which renders impossible the good city in the classical sense.From the point of view of the classics,such use of science is excluded by the nature of science as a theoretical pursuit.Besides,the opinion that there occur periodic cataclysms in fact took care of any ap- prehension regarding an excessive development of technology or regarding the danger that man's inventions might become his masters and his destroyers.Viewed in this light,the natural cata- clysms appear as a manifestation of the beneficence of nature. Machiavelli himself expresses this opinion of the natural cataclysms which has been rendered incredible by the experiences of the last centuries.222 It would seem that the notion of the beneficence of nature or of the primacy of the Good must be restored by being rethought through a return to the fundamental experiences from which it is derived.For while"philosophy must beware of wishing to be edifying,"it is of necessity edifying. Note s [In references to Machiavelli texts numbers in parentheses indicate the pages of the ltalian edition of Machiavelli's Opere,edited by F.Flora and C.Cordie (Milan:Arnoldo Mondado,1949-50).]-EDS. Introduction 1. Prince chs.17(Dido)and 18 (Chiron). 2.Bacon,Essays (Of Atheism). 3. Rights of Man,Part the Second, Introduction. 4. Cf.Henry Adams, The First Ad- ministration of Thomas Jefferson,II (New York 1898),56,71-73,254.