despite--for the populace always judges by appearance and by results. The
worst thing of all is half-way measures, courses intermediate between good
and evil and vacillating between reason and force. Even Moses had to kill
the envious refractories, while Savonarola, the unarmed prophet, was
destroyed. God is the friend of the strong, energy the chief virtue; and
it is well when, as was the case with the ancient Romans, religion is
associated with it without paralyzing it. The current view of Christianity
as a religion of humility and sloth, which preaches only the courage
of endurance and makes its followers indifferent to worldly honor,
is unfavorable to the development of political vigor. The Italians have
been made irreligious by the Church and the priesthood; the nearer Rome,
the less pious the people. When Machiavelli, in his proposals looking
toward Lorenzo (II.) dei Medici (died 1519), approves any means for
restoring order, it must be remembered that he has an exceptional case
in mind, that he does not consider deceit and severity just, but only
unavoidable amid the anarchy and corruption of the time. But neither the
loftiness of the end by which he is inspired, nor the low condition of
moral views in his time, justifies his treatment of the laws as mere means
to political ends, and his unscrupulous subordination of morality to
calculating prudence. Machiavelli's general view of the world and of life
is by no means a comforting one. Men are simple, governed by their passions
and by insatiable desires, dissatisfied with what they have, and inclined
to evil. They do good only of necessity; it is hunger which makes them
industrious and laws that render them good. Everything rapidly degenerates:
power produces quiet, quiet, idleness, then disorder, and, finally, ruin,
until men learn by misfortune, and so order and power again arise. History
is a continual rising and falling, a circle of order and disorder.
Governmental forms, even, enjoy no stability; monarchy, when it has run out
into tyranny, is followed by aristocracy, which gradually passes over into
oligarchy; this in turn is replaced by democracy, until, finally, anarchy