Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/88

34 means by which the encroachments of their rulers might be most effectually resisted; and, at the same time, to satirize, under the ironical mask of loyal and courtly admonition, the characteristical vices of princes. But, although this hypothesis has been sanctioned by several distinguished names, and derives some verisimilitude from various incidents in the author’s life, it will be found, on examination, quite untenable; and accordingly it is now, I believe, very generally rejected. One thing is certain, that if such were actually Machiavel’s views, they were much too refined for the capacity of his royal pupils. By many of these his book has been adopted as a manual for daily use; but I have never heard of a single instance, in which it has been regarded by this class of students as a disguised panegyric upon liberty and virtue. The question concerning the motives of the author is surely of little moment, when experience has enabled us to pronounce so decidedly on the practical effects of his precepts.

“About the period of the Reformation,” says Condorcet, “the principles of religious Machiavelism had become the only creed of princes, of ministers, and of pontiffs; and the same opinions had contributed to corrupt philosophy. What code, indeed, of morals,” he adds, “was to be expected from a system, of which one of the principles is,—that it is necessary to support the morality of the people by false pretences,—and that men of enlightened minds have a right to retain others in the chains from which they have themselves contrived to escape!” The fact is perhaps stated in terms somewhat too unqualified; but there are the best reasons for believing, that the exceptions were few, when compared with the general proposition.

The consequences of the prevalence of such a creed among the rulers of mankind were such as might be expected. “Infamous crimes, assassinations, and poisonings (says a French historian,) prevailed more than ever. They were thought to be the growth of Italy, where the rage and weakness of the opposite factions conspired to multiply them. Morality gradually disappeared, and with it all security in the intercourse of life. The first principles of duty were obliterated by the joint influence of atheism and of superstition.”

And here, may I be permitted to caution my readers against the common error of confounding the double doctrine of Machiavellian politicians, with the benevolent reverence for established opinions, manifested in the noted maxim of Fontenelle,—“that a wise man, even when his hand was full of truths, would often content himself with opening his little finger?” Of the advocates for the former, it may be justly said, that “they love darkness