58 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



Macaulay says that : — 



"We are acquainted with few writings which exhibit so 

 much elevation of sentiment^ so pure and warm a zeal for the 

 public good, or so just a view of the duties and rights of citizens as 

 those of Machiavelli. " 



, "Though a dangerous enemy and a still more dangerous 

 accomplice he could be a just and beneficent ruler. With so 

 much unfairness in his policy, there was an extraordinary fairness 

 in his intellect. Indifferent to truth in the transactions of life, 

 he was honestly devoted to truth in the researches of speculation. 

 Wanton cruelty was not his nature. On the contrary, where no 

 political object was at stake his disposition was soft and humane. 

 The susceptibilities of his nerves, and the activity of his imagina- 

 tion, inclined him to sympathise with the feelings of others, and to 

 delight in the charities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually 

 descending to actions which might seem to mark a mind diseased 

 through all its faculties, he had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility 

 both for the natural and for the moral and the sublime, for every 

 graceful and every lofty conception. He had the keenest enjoy- 

 ment of wit, eloquence, and poetry. The fine arts profited alike 

 by the severity of his judgment, and the liberality of his patron- 

 age. " 



I have said that Machiavelli was not a moralist : — 



"He did not at all deny the excellence of the moral virtues 

 but he refused to consider them as essential to, or conditions of, 

 the political virtues. Machiavelli's political man is as entirely 

 dissociated from all standards of conduct save success in the esta- 

 blishment and extension of governmental power, as is the 'econo- 

 mic man,' of the orthodox school, from all save success in the 

 creation of wealth " (a) . 



Or as Morley puts it : — 



"the application of moral standards to this business is as 

 little to the point as it would be in the navigation of a ship " (6) . 



"Always, thus, Machiavelli has in mind the necessity of the 

 existence of the state as the first principle of his philosophy. 

 The whole effect of this point of view is summed up in the dictates 

 of unscrupulous patriotism" (c). 



His achievements as a scholar and student and investigator 

 are of marked excellence : — 



(a) Dunoing, p. 298. 



(fc) Romanes Lecture, 1897, "Machiavelli," p. 47. 



(c) Dunning, p. 47. 



