شکوی الغریب

"It is commonly said, especially by those who follow Croce, that Machiavelli divided politics from morals – that he recommended, as politically necessary, courses which common opinion morally condemns: for example, treading over corpses for the benefit of the State. It seems to me that this is a false antithesis. What Machiavelli distinguishes is not specifically moral from specifically political values; what he achieves is not the emancipation of politics from ethics or religion, which Croce and many other commentators regard as his crowning achievement, that he institutes is something that cuts deeper sill – a differentiation between two incompatible ideals of life, and therefore two moralities. One is the morality of the pagan world. Its values are courage, vigour, fortitude in adversity, public achievement, order, discipline, happiness, strength, justice, above all assertion of one's proper claims and the knowledge and power needed to secure their satisfaction. Against this moral universe stands in the first and foremost place Christian morality. The ideals of Christianity are charity, mercy, sacrifice, love of God, forgiveness of enemies, contempt for the goods of this world, faith in the life hereafter, belief in the salvation of the individual soul as being of incomparable value – higher than, indeed wholly incommensurable with, any social or political or other terrestrial goal, any economic of military of aesthetic consideration. Machiavelli lays it down that out of men who believes in such ideals, and practice them, no satisfactory human community, in his Roman sense, can in principle be constructed. Machiavelli is convinced that what are commonly thought of as the central Christian virtues, whatever their intrinsic value, are insuperable obstacles to the buildings of the kind of society that he wishes to see; a society which, moreover, he assumes that it is natural for all normal men to want. If human beings were different from what they are, perhaps they could create an ideal Christian society. But he is clear that human beings would in that event have to differ too greatly from men as they have always been." Isiah Berlin, The Originality of Machiavelli.

"It is commonly said, especially by those who follow Croce, that Machiavelli divided politics from morals – that he recommended, as politically necessary, courses which common opinion morally condemns: for example, treading over corpses for the benefit of the State. It seems to me that this is a false antithesis. What Machiavelli distinguishes is not specifically moral from specifically political values; what he achieves is not the emancipation of politics from ethics or religion, which Croce and many other commentators regard as his crowning achievement, that he institutes is something that cuts deeper sill – a differentiation between two incompatible ideals of life, and therefore two moralities. One is the morality of the pagan world. Its values are courage, vigour, fortitude in adversity, public achievement, order, discipline, happiness, strength, justice, above all assertion of one's proper claims and the knowledge and power needed to secure their satisfaction. Against this moral universe stands in the first and foremost place Christian morality. The ideals of Christianity are charity, mercy, sacrifice, love of God, forgiveness of enemies, contempt for the goods of this world, faith in the life hereafter, belief in the salvation of the individual soul as being of incomparable value – higher than, indeed wholly incommensurable with, any social or political or other terrestrial goal, any economic of military of aesthetic consideration. Machiavelli lays it down that out of men who believes in such ideals, and practice them, no satisfactory human community, in his Roman sense, can in principle be constructed. Machiavelli is convinced that what are commonly thought of as the central Christian virtues, whatever their intrinsic value, are insuperable obstacles to the buildings of the kind of society that he wishes to see; a society which, moreover, he assumes that it is natural for all normal men to want. If human beings were different from what they are, perhaps they could create an ideal Christian society. But he is clear that human beings would in that event have to differ too greatly from men as they have always been." Isiah Berlin, The Originality of Machiavelli.

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