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3 0 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3natural philosophy, and metaphysics and its “sister science” theology appearto be entirely beyond his ken. 63 Instead he comes forward to offer a teachingconcerning a new morality appropriate to his exclusive emphasis on the politicalas determined by combat. This new moral teaching, as directed to the aimsand shaped by the hard necessities of war, will be allowed to dispense withany appeal to the sacred and any divinity but the god or goddess of war—Fortuna.The new political science, while ostensibly taking men as they are, notas they ought to be, will offer a portrait of man unrestrained by the limits ofthe sacred and unconcerned, when properly aware of the universal sway ofnecessity, with any divine reward or retribution. 64The specifics of this teaching, however, will be, of necessity, determinedby the specific character of the opponent to be confronted and defeated.Machiavelli gives us a portrait of that opponent as determinative of his ownnew moral teaching in the figure of the “big fat pig.” The pig is the perfectlysatisfied and loyal subject of Circe’s subpolitical regime: he is convinced ofthe superior status of his bestial condition and the vicious defectiveness ofthe human. The pig, that is, represents the moral and political teaching ofChristianity detached from its association with its more “sublime” doctrines,for example, its eschatology and theology.The pig’s argument, given in rejection of the hero’s offer to return himto his human shape, is meant to demonstrate the extreme inferiority of thehuman in comparison to the animal. It is a condemnation of the humanthings. Though “all marked with shit and mud” the pig is capable of providinga lucidly ordered account and structures his argument tightly aroundthe roster of the cardinal virtues, proceeding to demonstrate that in the caseof, for example, prudence and courage, men are on all points defective incomparison to the natural perfection of animals. Man is above all morallydefective. One might grant the moral failings of men and yet still doubt thatanimals could possibly fulfill the requirements of the moral law. Accordingto the pig, however, nature tends towards and supports the moral good andthe virtuous dispositions of animals are evidence of this. The pig, therefore,offers his own version of a natural teleology, if one infinitely cruder andmore conventional than that offered by the beautiful woman. In the pig’s eye,63However, see Discourses, 2.5; also Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 208–23.64In Machiavelli’s writings, parricide and incest are taken to be unexceptional or even quotidian anda point is made of asserting that pious observance can never win a battle, nor prayer preserve a kingdom.Hobbes simply follows Machiavelli’s lead in constructing his prepolitical foundation of politicalsociety, the state of nature, along similar lines.