But how a name colors or discolors a political
cause!
But of all who thought it possible to construct a State, the greatest
beyond all comparison was Machiavelli. He treats existing forces as
living and active, takes a large and accurate view of alternative
possibilities, and seeks to mislead neither himself nor others. No man
could be freer from vanity or ostentation; indeed, he does not write
for the public, but either for princes and administrators or for
personal friends. The danger for him does not lie in an affectation of
genius or in a false order of ideas, but rather in a powerful
imagination which he evidently controls with difficulty. The
objectivity of his political Judgement is sometimes appalling in its
sincerity; but it is the sign of a time of no ordinary need and peril,
when it was a hard matter to believe in right, or to credit others with
just dealing Virtuous indignation at his expense is thrown away on us,
who have seen in what sense political morality is understood by the
statesmen of our own century. Machiavelli was at all events able to
forget himself in his cause. In truth, although his writing s, with the
exception of very few words, are altogether destitute of enthusiasm,
and although the Florentines themselves treated him at last as a
criminal, he was a patriot in the fullest meaning of the word.
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