Machiavelli to Mussolini

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19759, 14 December 1935, Page 15 (Supplement)

Machiavelli to Mussolini

IT IS* AN INTERESTING and encouraging commentary on human nature that the word" Machiavellian has always had a sinister sound. The pessimist looking at history in the past or politics in the present may be surprised that the philosopher who wrote The Prince should have gone down to posterity with such Infamy to his name. For statesmen and diplomatists have been ready enough to follow his teaching when circumstances have given them much less excuse than he could plead. He lived in a society that was distracted by war and intrigue. On paper, as Dr. Gooch says in his brilliant lecture, “Politics and Morals,” Just published, “no theoretical distinction between public and private morality was recognised . . . the noble conception of a Republica Christiana coloured the thought of the Western world.” In practice Italy was the cockpit of petty princes and barbarian invaders who were utterly without scruple, and Machiavelli, looking at the confusion of his age, thought that Italy could only be rescued by a man who was More Skilful Than the Other Schemers In this cheating world, and had in addition the resolution and will of a Borgia. Contemporary rulers paid a lip service to Christianity, but in their lives they served the gods whom Machiavelli proclaimed. The new philosopher wanted to make these vices effective for a good end. “Virtu, Fortuna, Nccessita; here was the new trinity which Machiavelli substituted for the Christian creeds.” But he denounced bad rulers, and he regarded himself as a realist who hoped to make a better society by taking men as he found them and trying to give a higher purpose to their aims. It Is significant that all the great prophets of the doctrine of the absolute State ha\o arisen In societies where self-conscious unity was a late and difficult development. In Germanv and Italy, the countries of Ilegel, Treltscke, Bismarck, Hitler, Machiavelli and Mussolini, the survival of the international institutions of the Middle Ages long after they had lost effective power delayed and embarrassed the creation of the national State. The modern apostles of the doctrine that the State is an end In Itself with no higher duty than to maintain itself sec in nineteenth-century liberalism the same kind of disorder that their ancestors found in the debris of the Holy Roman Empire. The first effort towards unity In Germany was a liberal effort, and If it had succeeded the history of the nineteenth century would have been very different. Its failure gave Bismarck his opportunity, and his success gave a fatal prestige lo his methods and his doctrines. All the thinking that preceded the rlsorglmenlo in Italy was much more liberal and generous, and the course of tho rlsorglmenlo was much more promising for liberalism. But the new State at the beginning of ils career Sufforod a Torriblo Calamity. Of the three men who had made the new Italy two were no longer needed. Garibaldi would have lost none of his fame if'he had died in I SC. I: Mazzini would have escaped a biller old age passed in exile. Unhappily. tale spared them and removed Gavoui', who was still a young man with his u-m-k half done. If lie had survived, it is possible that the parliamentary system ho created would have endured the immense strain that the War and ils consequences put on such systems everywhere, a strain too severe for any hut the strongest. Dr. Gooch says justly that the doctrine

Public and Private Morality.

(J. L. Hammond in English Paper.)

of Mussolini and his school rest ultimately on their view of human nature. “The essence of a Stale,” said Treitscke, Is firstly, power; secondly, power; thirdly', power. Dr. Gooch contrasts with this Burke's description of the State as a partnership in all art, all science, all perfection. It is just because they believe that their view of human nature is truer, that liberals have faith in the ultimate success of political systems which allow of Its free play and exercise. But Dr. Gooch points out that the sphere of conflict is No Longer the Nation but the World. For science has thrown mankind into a unity which gives to the relations of States a greater significance than 'the unity created by the Christian theology of the Middle Ages. Or perhaps we may say that It has created a world in which civilisation must collapse unless it can bring to life the idea that underlay the old unity ol faith. For a series of national Stales, each puisuing its own selfish advantage as its one exclusive aim, must create in this world just such a confusion and discord as are produced in the State when different classes and different interests so behave. The world just before the "War presented in this aspect a spectacle not unlike that which faced Machiavelli when he looked at Italy four centuries earlier. From this disorder there are only two methods of escape open to mankind. Machiavelli's remedy would demand a superBorgia, able to create and control a universal Government, making of the world what a successful Borgia might have made of Italy. The alternative is to build up an international order in which what we call power-politics are controlled by organised moral force. In the nineteenth century efforts were made to substitute some kind of moral power for the rule of the stronger, by thinkers like 'Kant and the Abbe Saint Pierre, and by statesmen from the time of the Tsar Alexander to that of Gladstone. The shock of the War gave a new' strength to this demand, and the League of Nations is the result. Its weakness is the Inability of many who think themselves sincere In admiring and serving It to grasp all that is implied In it. Its main principle Is the establishment of public law'. No more than the law of the State does it demand Christian Perfection From all Its Members. Dr. Gooch has an interesting passage about (he difference between public and private morallly. “The Individual may sacrifice his life; the community must live on ... In oilier words, (lie action of a government within certain limits is determined by considerations of what we may call a biological rather Ilian a moral order." Rut public law must rest ultimately on a general eontldcnre in ils justice; it. creates a relationship between those who live under it which is not merely the relationship between power on one. side, and weakness on llio oilier; it implies an active spirit, of cooperation and sympathy. It may he doubled whether any statesman 10-diy is so ready as Gladstone was lo ask of his nation the ssrrillres that such a system involves. Tho most lamentable example of failure is provided by Hie country whose leader was !lie most energetic nposlle of (lie idea of the. League, and the. most active of ils friends at Paris. For unfortunately neither in America nor elsewhere had thinkers grasped Iho full range of liie demand that Ibis evolution was to make on human naturc and ils sense of properly and pride. There, as Dr. Gooch shows, lies the lln.u test for the League.