7o8 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the construction of a great navy, 

 the organization of a large stand- 

 ing army, and the erection of exten- 

 sive coast fortifications. But unpro- 

 ductive activity of this kind will 

 make life harder, provoke more dis- 

 content, and possibly lead to the 



same outbursts that have taken place 

 in Italy. Here, as elsewhere, such 

 occurrences will be the opportunity 

 for the military despot, and with 

 him will come the repression that 

 makes fiirther social evolution dif- 

 ficult or impossible. 



.^cteiitlfic %iXtxKXnxt. 



SPECIAL BOOKS. 



M. Louis Proal's Political Crime* the best volume of the Criminology 

 Series, is a needful contribution to the study of sociology. Few people 

 have any adequate conception of the amount of crime connected with poli- 

 tics. Still fewer appreciate the far reaching and deplorable consequences 

 of that crime. The reason is plain. An idea altogether too prevalent is 

 that in politics a coui'se of conduct may be pursued that would be regarded 

 as highly immoral and reprehensible in other forms of human activity. 

 In the interest of the public welfare it is permissible to practice a code of 

 ethics that differs in no wise from that practiced in war — a code that found 

 its most perfect and odious exposition in Machiavelli's Prince. M. Proal's 

 book is an energetic and scholarly protest against this view. '' Craft and 

 violence," he says, " may score ephemeral successes, but they do not assure 

 the greatness and pros^Jerity of a country. The successes achieved by an 

 immoral policy are not lasting; sooner or later nations, like individuals, 

 politicians just as private persons, are punished for the evil or rewarded for 

 the good they do." Again he says; "If a lengthy period be examined, one 

 is struck in a general way by the fact that failure attends an immoral 

 policy. A politician, face to face with a serious difficulty, thinks recourse 

 to an unjust expedient of immediate utility the simplest mode of escape 

 from it, but the future is not slow to teach him the drawbacks of injustice." 

 Never was there a time in our own history when it was more important 

 that such a lesson be learned, not only by politicians but by philanthro- 

 pists of the socialistic order, and scrupulously observed. 



At the outset M. Proal exposes the falsity of the current notion that the 

 philosophy invented to justify this form of crime originated with Machia- 

 velli. "Politics," he says, "did not await the advent of Machiavelli to 

 become shifty, violent, and sanguinary. Statesmen did not need the lessons 

 of the Italian writer to teach them to lie, to proscribe their adversaries, and 

 confiscate their belongings. The desire to rule, the exercise of authority," 

 he adds, explaining the cause of political crime and exposing its kinship 

 w^ith war, "teach fraud and violence." Even so great a philosopher as 

 Plato and so enlightened a statesman as Canning approved Machiavellian 

 principles. " It seems to me," wrote the Greek in his Politics, " that our 

 magistrates will often be obliged to have recourse to lying and deceit in the 

 interest of their fellow-citizens, and we have declared elsewhere that a lie 



* Political Crime. 

 $1.50. 



By Louis Proal. New York : D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 335. Price, 



