326 MORE POT-POURRI 



it changes quarter. He says of Machiavelli : ' In our 

 age, when we think of the chequered course of human 

 time, of the shocks of irreconcilable civilisations, of war, 

 trade, faction, revolution, empire, laws, creeds, sects, we 

 seek a clue to the vast maze of historic and prehistoric 

 fact. Machiavelli seeks no clue to his distribution of 

 good and evil. He never tries to find a moral interpre- 

 tation for the mysterious scroll. We obey laws that we 

 do not know, but cannot resist. We can only make an 

 effort to seize events as they whirl by, and to extort 

 from them a maxim, a precept, or a principle, to serve 

 our immediate turn. Fortune, he says that is, Provi- 

 dence, or else circumstances, or the stars is mistress of 

 more than half we do. What is her deep secret, he 

 shows no curiosity to fathom. He contents himself 

 with a maxim for the practical man ("Prince," xxv.), 

 that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, for 

 Fortune is a woman and, to be mastered, must be boldly 

 handled.' 



Mr. Morley's defence of Machiavelli is on the lines of 

 his concluding words : ' It is true to say that Machiavelli 

 represents certain living forces in our actual world; that 

 science, with its survival of the fittest, unconsciously 

 lends him illegitimate aid ; that "he is not a vanishing 

 type, but a constant and contemporary influence." This 

 is because energy, force, will, violence, still keep alive in 

 the world their resistance to the control of justice and 

 conscience, humanity and right. In so far as he repre- 

 sents one side in that eternal struggle, and suggests one 

 set of considerations about it, he retains a place in the 

 literature of modern political systems and European 

 morals. 7 



I wind up by taking from my list of books that were 

 recommended to me a few I have not yet had time to 

 read: 'Christ's Folk in the Apennine,' by Miss Alex- 



