Justification for Brutal Instincts 35 



"conforms to the order of things established by- 

 God," because the "order estabHshed by God" 

 corresponds perfectly to the "law of nature" of 

 which the sociologists and the "social Darwinians" 

 made use. 



Although it has received renewed popularity 

 from the immense success of Darwin's work, this 

 brutal aspect of the philosophy of force is of course 

 much older than Darwin. Its roots go back to the 

 sixth century before our era, when the famous 

 Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, gave 

 the philosophy of force a classic expression in the 

 famous dictum "war is the father of all things," — 

 xoXejxoi; xaxiQp xdvxwv. 



At the beginning of the sixteenth century 

 Machiavelli (1469-1527) based his science of 

 statesmanship upon the philosophy of force, which 

 he found dominant among the aristocratic ruling 

 classes of his time, and in The Prince laid down 

 rules which have affected the orthodox diplomacy 

 of the European nations ever since. Machiavelli 

 was seeking a remedy for the discord and anarchy 

 of Italy, and he found it in the tyranny of Cesare 

 Borgia, imposing his despotic will without regard 

 to moral scruples. Machiavelli holds that the 

 State is essentially non-moral, and in this view 

 we find a significant foreshadowing of a theory 

 which has not entirely disappeared from the 

 modem world. Any crime may be committed 

 in its name, he contends. The State knows no 

 law higher than necessity. Since mankind is 



