Page:History of Freedom.djvu/263

 INTRODUCTION TO IL PRINCIPE 219

Mazzini complains of his analisi cadaverica ed ignoranza della vita; and Barthélemy St. Hilaire, verging on paradox, says: "On dirait vraiment que l'histoire ne lui a rien appris, non plus que la conscience." That would be more scientific treatment than the common censure of moralists and the common applause of politicians, It is easier to expose errors in practical politics than to remove the ethical basis of judgments \vhich the modern world employs in common with Machiavelli. By plausible and dangerous paths men are dra\vn to the doctrine of the justice of History, of judgment by results, the nursling of the nineteenth century, from ,vhich a sharp incline leads to Tile Prince. vVhen we say that public life is not an affair of morality, that there i no available rule of right and wrong, that men must be judged by their age, that the code shifts with the longitude, that the wisdom which governs the event is superior to our own, we carry obscurely tribute to the system which bears so odious a name. Few would scruple to maintain with IVlr. Morley that the equity of history requires that we shall judge men of action by . the standards of men of action; or ,vi th Retz: "Les vices d'un archevêque peuvent être, dans une infinité de rencontres, les vertus d'un chef de parti." The expounder of Adam Smith to France, J. B. Say, confirms the ambitious coadjutor: "Louis XIV. et son despotisme et ses guerres n'ol1t jamais fait Ie mal qui serait résulté des conseils de ce bon Fénelon, l'apôtre et Ie martyr de la vertu et du bien des hommes." lVlost successful public men deprecate what Sir Henry Taylor calls much weak sensibility of conscience, and approve Lord Grey's language to Princess Lieven: "I am a great lover of morality, public and private; but the intercourse of nations cannot be strictly regulated by that rule." While Burke was denouncing the Revolution, 'VValpole wrote: "No great country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go the lengths that may be necessary." All which had been formerly anticipated by Pole: "Quanto quis privatam vitam agens Christi similior erit tanto minlls