Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/168

Rh 150 man at large regarded as a political being. He founded the science of politics for the modern world, by concentrating thought upon its fundamental principles. Much that is unnatural in the forced severance of politics from ethics, much that we know now to be untrue in the conception of national development, much that offends our moral sense in the justification of iniquity for public ends, much that the experience of the last three centuries has shown to be mistaken in the theory of the state considered as a work of plastic art, much that belongs to the Renaissance, and has perished with that period of transition, much that is wrongly applied from the experience of Italian diplomacy to polities in general, can be noted by the students of Machiavelli. We feel the want in him of a thorough philosophical education, the continual oscillation between speculative and practical points of view, the lack of system and the negligence of stringent definition. We surmise that, had he studied Plato s Republic or the first chapters of Aristotle s Politics and Ethics, he might perhaps have avoided what has been the stumbling-block to generous readers his indiffer ence to moral righteousness as indispensable to states no less than individuals. We regret his unqualified inculcation of the doctrine that means are justified by ends, a doctrine rendered odious by Jesuitry to the modern mind, and incompatible with any sound science of humanity. We know that ethics cannot be severed, as he severed them, from politics; that, though national differs from private duty, both are based upon the same immutable principles ; that the former tends, with the growth of the race, to approach ever more nearly to the former ; and that it is the function of the political philosopher to keep this steadily in view. We have learned to regard nations, not merely as materials to be moulded by a law giver, but as total organisms, which, however modified by men of genius, obey their own laws of evolution. We have outgrown his admiration of antiquity, and do not believe that modern states should seek to model themselves upon the type of Rome. We perceive that his ideal of a prince, working by force, fraud, cruelty, dissimulation to a certain end, was the creature of circumstances, which caused him to advocate the opposition of violence to anarchy as the only possible resort. These are deductions to be made from Machiavelli s teaching, regarded as final, or as instructive for the times in which we lire. But, when we have made these deductions, there remains the fact of his achievement. He began to study men, not according to some preconception, but as he found them, men, not in the isolation of one century, but as a whole in history. He drew his conclusions from the nature of mankind itself, &quot;ascribing all tilings to natural causes or to fortune.&quot; In this way he restored the right method of study, a method which had been neglected since the days of Aristotle. He formed a conception of the modern state, which marked the close of the Middle Ages, and anticipated the next phase of European development. His prince, abating those points which are purely Italian or strongly tinctured with the author s personal peculiarities, prefigured the monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries, the monarchs whose motto was L etat c est moi ! His doctrine of a national militia fore shadowed the system which has given strength in arms to France and Germany. His insight into the causes of Italian decadence was complete ; and the remedies which he suggested, in the perorations of the Principe and the Artc dcUa Gucrra, have since been applied in the unification of Italy. Lastly, when we once have freed ourselves from the antipathy engendered by his severance of ethics from the field of politics, when we have once made proper allowance for his peculiar use of phrases like &quot;frodi onorevoli&quot; or &quot;scelleratezze gloriose,&quot; nothing is left but admiration for his mental attitude. That is the attitude of a patriot, who saw with open eyes the ruin of his country, who burned above all things to save Italy and set her in her place among the powerful nations, who held the duty of self-sacrifice in the most absolute sense, whose very limita tions and mistakes were due to an absorbing passion for the state he dreamed might be reconstituted. It was Machiavelli s intense preoccupation with this problem what a state is and how to found one in existing circumstances which caused the many riddles of his speculative writings. Dazzled, as it were, with the brilliancy of his own discovery, concentrated in attention on the one necessity for organizing a powerful coherent nation, he forgot that men are more than political beings. He neglected religion, or regarded it ns part of the state machinery. He was by no means indifferent to private virtue, which indeed he judged the basis of all healthy rational existence ; but in the realm of politics lie postponed morals to political expediency. He held that the people, as distinguished from the nobles and the clergy, were the pith and fibre of nations ; yet this same people had to become wax in the hands of the politi cian, their commerce and their comforts, the arts which give a dignity to life and the pleasures which make life liveable, neglected, their very liberty subordinated to the one tyrannical conception. To this point the segregation of politics from every other factor which goes to constitute humanity had brought him ; and this it is which makes us feel his world a wilderness, devoid of atmosphere and vegetation. Yet some such isolation of the subject-matter of this science was demanded at the moment of its birth, just as political economy, when first started, had to make a rigid severance of wealth from other units. It is only by a gradual process that social science in its whole complexity can be evolved. We have hardly yet discovered that political economy has unavoidable points of contact with ethics. From the foregoing criticism it will be perceived that all the questions whether Machiavelli meant to corrupt or to instruct the world, to fortify the hands of tyrants or to lead them to their ruin, are now obsolete. He was a man of science one who by the vigorous study of his subject-matter sought from that subject- matter itself to deduce laws. The difficulty which remains in judging him is a difficulty of statement, valuation, allowance. How much shall we allow for his position in Renaissance Italy, for the corruption in the midst of which he lived, for his own personal temperament ? How shall we state his point of departure from the Middle Ages, his sympathy with prevalent classical enthu siasms, his divination of a new period ? How shall we estimate the permanent worth of his method, the residuum of value in his maxims ? After finishing the Principe, Muchiavelli thought of dedicating it to one of the Medicean princes, with the avowed hope that he might thereby regain their favour and find public employment. He wrote to Vettori on the subject, and Giuliano de Medici, duke of oSTemours, seemed to him the proper person. The choice was reasonable. No sooner had Leo been made pope than he formed schemes for the aggrandizement of his family. Giuliano was offered and refused the duchy of Uibino. Later on, Leo designed for him a duchy in Emilia, to be cemented out of Parma, Piacenza, Reggie, and Modena, Supported by the power of the papacy, with the goodwill of Florence to back him, Giuliano would have found himself in a position somewhat better than that of Cesare Borgia ; and the Borgia s creation of the duchy of Ilomagna might have served as his model. Machiavelli therefore was justified in feeling that here was an opportunity for putting his cherished schemes in practice, and that a prince with such alliances might even advance to the grand end of the uni fication of Italy. Giuliano, however, died in 1506. Then Machiavelli turned his thoughts towards Lorenzo, duke of Urbino. The choice of this man as a possible Italian liberator reminds us of the choice of Don Micheletto, as general of the Florentine militia. To Lorenzo the Principe was dedicated, but without result. The Medici, as yet at all events, could not employ Machiavelli, and had not in themselves the stuff to found Italian kingdoms. Machiavelli, meanwhile, was reading his Discorsi to a select audience in the Rucellai gardens, fanning that republican enthusiasm which never lay long dormant among the Florentines. Towards the year 1519 both Leo X. and his cousin the cardinal Giulio de Medici were much perplexed about the management of the republic. It seemed necessary, if possible, in the gradual extinc tion of their family, to give the city at least a semblance of self-government. They applied to several celebrated politicians, among others to Machiavelli, for advice in the emergency. The result was his Discorso sopra il Riformar lo Stato di Firenze, a treatise in which he deduces practical conclusions from the past history and present temper of the city, blending these w r ith his favourite principles of govern ment in general. He earnestly admonishes Leo, for his own sake and for Florence, to found a permanent and free state system for the republic, reminding him in terms of noble eloquence how splendid is the glory of the iaan who shall confer such benefits upon a people. The year 1520 saw the composition of / sette Libri delP Arte di Guerra, and of the Vita di Castrnccio. The first of these is a methodical treatise, setting forth Machiavelli s views on military matters, digesting his theories respecting the superiority of national troops, the inefficiency of fortresses, the necessity of relying upon infantry in war, and the comparative insignificance of artillery. It is strongly coloured with his enthusiasm for ancient Rome ; and specially upon the topic of artillery it displays a want of insight into the actualities of modern warfare. We may regard it as a supplement or appendix to the-