§ 1. Vices have no need of a teacher, because examples always strike those they meet: every age will produce Clodiuses, not every age Catos. We are readily inclined toward worse things because neither a leader nor a companion can be lacking; indeed, the thing itself advances even without a leader and without a companion. We are not merely inclined toward vices, but headlong. Indeed, as Cyprian reproaches Demetrianus: “Amid the very adversities in which the soul, constricted and hemmed in, scarcely breathes, you have leisure to be evil and, amid dangers so great, to judge not yourself so much as another. You are indignant that God is indignant, as though by living badly you merited something good, as though he did not still permit all those things that happen to be less and lighter than your sins.”
But this is a peculiar evil of our age: to possess a public teacher of vices, one celebrated besides with the morals of many voting in his favor. He is Machiavelli. He so instructs a prince toward virtue that he nevertheless also permits vices and sets them before the virtues as though more useful to a kingdom. Let us therefore hear him. In The Prince, chapter 15, he says: “I know that no one will fail to confess that it would be a thing celebrated with the highest praises if a prince were adorned with all those qualities which, from what has already been said, are considered good. But since they can neither be possessed nor, because the condition of human life opposes it, preserved, it is necessary for him to employ that prudence by which he may flee the infamy of those vices through which his government could be taken away from him. Let him also beware, if it can be done, of those which nevertheless will not take it away; but if this cannot be accomplished, they can be disregarded with less loss. And assuredly let him not labor greatly if he incurs the infamy of those vices without which he could not easily preserve dominion. For if the matter is diligently considered everywhere in the mind, certain things will be found which are said to bear the appearance of virtue but which, if you follow them, will result in your great evil; while, on the contrary, some things will be discovered vicious in appearance which, if you assume them, will return to your security and safety.”
And in chapter 16: “And again, if someone should say that many princes have existed who accomplished great things with their armies and who nevertheless excelled in that beneficence, it must be said that a prince makes expenditures either from his own goods or those of others. If the first, he ought to be sparing; if the second, it is necessary that he omit no part of liberality. Yet for a prince leading an army on campaign—which army must be sustained by booty, plunder, and tribute—and handling the possessions of others, this liberality is necessary; otherwise the soldiers would not follow him. But that which is neither yours nor your people’s can be bestowed more liberally, as it is agreed was done by Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander. For that which you expend from the goods of others does not take away your reputation but rather increases it; but loss comes to you when your own resources are consumed.”
In chapter 17 he advises the prince to act so that he is feared rather than loved, and says that a prince already engaged with an army and possessing the management of a multitude must determine entirely to reckon the name of inhumanity as nothing. Accordingly, he even attributes Hannibal’s achievements to that man’s savage cruelty. In chapter 18 he also teaches him to deceive and dissemble.
These things are drunk in by ready ears; they were practiced of old even without a teacher. Yet they are altogether false and ruinous to the commonwealth, and we shall have to treat them rather often in this book and the following one.
§ 2. I shall now proceed against him from his own words. In chapter 9 of Discourses on Livy, he thinks that Romulus’s deed is excused by the successful result that followed the killing of Remus. Let us establish that these things be introduced into morals, and that Machiavelli himself be killed so that his colleague may alone be secretary to the Florentine Republic. Let there also be a right to kill others, seize property, and swear falsely for the sake of a kingdom; and let us concede these things not only to kings, but to praetors, senators, and nobles. What peace can exist in so great a disturbance of the commonwealth?
Let him himself decide the question—eloquent against himself—in chapter 17: “Unless the kings had immediately been expelled from Rome, it was necessary, as it assuredly seems to me, that the city be weakened and lose its former virtue and strength. For consider how depraved and corrupt in morals those kings already were at that time. But if the same corruption had been propagated as far as a third successor, it would readily have crept also into the people; and with them infected, the city could never have been restored and recovered its strength and virtue. But because this destruction had indeed occupied the head of the commonwealth, while the other members were not yet infected, the remaining members could, once that destructive head had been removed, be healed and the liberty acquired be preserved.
“For it must be established as certain that a city which has grown accustomed to obey the command of a prince and in which the morals of the people are wholly depraved cannot preserve liberty for itself if it should obtain it, not even if that prince’s entire family should be extirpated; but it will continually be compelled to obey new lords, who will expel one another, while without a prince it will never subsist—unless perhaps some one citizen should arise in it whose heroic virtue and goodness preserve it for some time. But not even this could last longer than the life of him who preserves it, as we know befell the Syracusans, who at different times preserved liberty by the virtue of Dion and Timoleon, but, when these had died, returned beneath the ancient yoke of tyranny.
“But the most evident example of all is that of the Romans, who, after the Tarquins had been cast out, immediately grasped the method of preserving liberty; but after Gaius Caesar had been killed, and Gaius Caligula and Nero removed together with the whole stock of the Caesars, they were able neither to preserve liberty nor to introduce any beginning of it. The cause of so great a difference depended solely upon the fact that in the time of the Tarquins the morals of the Roman people were not corrupt, as they afterward were in the age of Gaius Caesar, Caligula, and Nero. This can be gathered even from the fact that at that time, to preserve the people’s zeal against tyranny, the oath by which they swore that they would never consent that anyone should reign at Rome sufficed. But after Gaius Caesar had been killed, neither the authority and severity of Brutus nor the legions stationed in the East could move the people to defend with a constant and firm mind the liberty which Brutus had introduced into the city in imitation of the first Brutus.
“So great a corruption had by then infected the morals of the Roman people, especially of those who had belonged to the Marian faction; and when Gaius Caesar had obtained leadership in that faction, he had won over the plebs to himself and gradually subjected them with so great an artifice that they did not feel the yoke being placed upon their necks. This example of the Romans is most suitable to the proposed disputation, but examples are also not lacking of peoples to whom the same thing that befell the Romans has occurred in our own age. For the Milanese and Neapolitans, in whatever manner they may be freed from the yoke of servitude, can never preserve liberty; and this befalls them because of the depraved and corrupt morals of all. The Milanese themselves, after Filippo Visconti had died, had obtained liberty and wished to introduce a method of preserving it, but they could not preserve it. It was therefore auspicious and fortunate for the Romans that their kings quickly began to grow insolent and to be depraved in morals; for thus it came about that they were expelled before that corruption of morals could also creep into the people. If it had infected them also, the many contentions of plebs and senate which afterward arose could not have obtained so happy an end that they profited the city rather than bringing any loss upon it.”
§ 3. Indeed, in chapter 18 he also denies that liberty can be restored to a people if it is corrupt in morals. But I conclude in like manner that a kingdom also cannot be preserved when the corruption of morals is extreme. For why can the liberty of the people not be preserved amid extreme corruption? He answers: “Because scarcely any laws can curb the extreme corruption of a people. For neither are good morals preserved in a city without good laws, nor good laws except through people of good morals.” Entirely excellent—but on behalf of truth and against his own propositions. Good laws therefore need a good guardian and a good avenger; but such is not an evil prince.
In the time of Caligula there was extreme corruption, good laws, and the worst morals; there came in addition a most shameful prince, who exhausted the treasury, killed two hundred thousand soldiers, and cut down the senate. What if he had been able to live and command longer—with need pressing, lusts increasing, and cruelty grown savage? Would he not have reduced Rome to a solitude? Vices therefore destroy the commonwealth; virtues preserve and fortify it. Let us hear the voice of nature: she will testify that vices are against God and nature, and therefore cannot subsist unless they are mingled with virtues.
Moreover, there are two kinds of sins: some are seen in the corruptions of disgraceful acts, others in deeds of doing harm. Both overturn the commonwealth by their own wickedness, but more swiftly those that are injurious to others. For since these are hateful and give offense, they necessarily violate charity, stir up enmities and wars, and commit the human race to hatred and fury. Hence therefore arises the vengeance of those injured—or flight, if vengeance is despaired of or believed likely to cost dearly. Show me a divided household or army, a city turned against itself, and you will understand that it can be preserved only by peace; but crimes are troublesome to all, often even to those whom they profit.
If therefore virtue is in exile, if all in the commonwealth are unjust, avaricious, lustful, and timid, if judgments are predatory and laws conquered, a city cannot stand amid these vices. Seneca speaks elegantly and wisely in book 2 of On Anger, chapter 31: “It is impious to harm the fatherland; therefore also a citizen, for he is a part of the fatherland. The parts are sacred if the whole is venerable; therefore human being is sacred to human being, for he is a citizen with you in the greater city. What if the hands should wish to harm the feet, or the eyes the hands? As all the members agree with one another because the preservation of the whole concerns each one, so human beings will spare individuals because we have been born for union. Society, however, cannot remain safe except through the love and guardianship of its parts. We would not even crush vipers and water-snakes, and any things that harm by bite or blow, if we could tame them as we can other animals, or bring it about that they should not be a danger to us or to others. Therefore we shall not harm a human being because he has sinned, but lest he sin; punishment will never be referred to the past but to the future. For it is not angry, but takes precaution. For if everyone whose nature is depraved and disposed to evil must be punished, punishment will except no one.”
§ 4. Experience supports the reasoning. If vices are once admitted and approved because they are thought sometimes to have profited, they assuredly cannot be endured when they grow. In the ancient age, luxury played with water in little Rome; to have worn a gold ring, built a suburban villa, or dined for ten asses was a great thing. But afterward pearls were trodden underfoot, royal structures were cast into the sea, and the revenues of provinces were heaped together for a single dinner: thus pomp, thus plunder, thus cruelties grew. What then? Can the commonwealth remain safe even while evils so mature and so great reign? If it cannot, let them be met at their beginnings, because once strengthened they either conquer or are conquered at greater loss.
Cities and kingdoms have this property: that when they have withdrawn too far from virtue, they burst like excessively swollen bodies. Vices have this property: that they do not stand still. It is an ancient complaint that wickedness reigns, that human affairs slip toward worse things and rush into every impiety. Vices do not remain in place, but through practice and imprudence acquire confidence. Vices are needy; they are nourished only by injury to others. They advance and increase until they are crushed by divine vengeance. Since therefore nature recommends virtue and exercises her force within us to such a degree that even what we cannot or will not do we nevertheless judge to have been rightly done in others—and Juvenal truly said,
Never will nature say one thing, wisdom another—
he therefore fights against nature and against the judgment of all wise persons who introduces crimes and the simulation of virtue into the commonwealth.