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Updated: May 15, 2025
It was not till then that a serious reaction set in against the deeper influences of medieval thought. To illustrate the limitations of this period let us take Machiavelli, one of the most original thinkers that Italy ever produced.
The sage began betimes with his Italian proverbs, full of hardhearted worldly wisdom, and the boy was scarce out of the hornbook before he was introduced to Machiavelli.
It is obvious that in this view of history Machiavelli was inspired and instructed by the ancients. And it followed from his premisses that the study of the past is of the highest value because it enables men to see what is to come; since to all social events at any period there are correspondences in ancient times. The lawgiver must assume for his purposes that all men are bad: ib. i. 3.
Dale," said Riccabocca, taking off his hat with great formality, "if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, I will come to you instead of to Machiavelli." "Ah!" cried the parson, "if I could but have a calm hour's talk with you on the errors of the Papal relig " Riccabocca was off like a shot. The next day Mr. Dale had a long conversation with Mrs. Fairfield.
The Machiavelli whom he depicts does not cease to be politically a republican and socially a just man because he holds up an atrocious despot like Caesar Borgia as a mirror for rulers. What Machiavelli beheld round him in Italy was a civic disorder in which there was oppression without statecraft, and revolt without patriotism.
When the object of bargaining is to give as little and gain as much as possible, the Christian standard of values has been rejected as completely as it was by Machiavelli himself. The competition between two parties to a bargain is often a competition in unserviceableness. Money is very frequently made by creating a local and temporary monopoly, which enables the vendor to squeeze the purchaser.
Unless we are much deceived, this is the real reason of the secret sympathy with which Machiavelli treats the great criminal; from Cesare, or from nobody, could it be hoped that he 'would draw the steel from the wound, in other words, annihilate the Papacy the source of all foreign intervention and of all the divisions of Italy.
'See how she prays God to send her some one who should save her from these barbarous cruelties ind insults! See her all ready and alert to follow any standard, if only there be a man to raise it! Then Machiavelli addresses himself to the chief of the Medici in person.
"Well, I wish thou hadst brought along a kettle to cook some corn in!" exclaimed Standish with something of his old joviality of manner, for his suspicions in falling upon Canacum had in some degree lifted from Kamuso, who certainly played his part with wonderful skill, and had he been white instead of red, and civilized instead of savage, might have left his name on record as a diplomatist beside that of Machiavelli or Ignatius Loyola.
When religion plunged into impotence, then: Christ a banished beggar looking for a shelter, while in the royal and pharisaic palaces lived: Machiavelli, the atheist; Napoleon, the atheist; Marx, the atheist; and Nietsche, the atheist, imperially ruling Europe's rulers. The spirit was wrong and everything became wrong.
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