GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE SPLIT 135
be maintained by similar means. The assumption throughout
is that the holder of power is not required to take
account of morals, expediency bring his sole guide to
conduct. Given that he has certain ends, security for his
person and unquestioned dominion over his subjects, by
what means, Machiavelli asks, may these ends be most
effectively realized?
But although the sole motive recognized throughout
Machiavelli's treatment of politics is that of self-interest,
it is not strictly correct to say that morals are left out
of the writer's purview. Machiavelli does treat of morals
and also of religion, but only as instruments to be used
to his advantage by the intelligent ruler. The foundations
of morals and religion are not objective principles or
factors in the universe existing independently of man
and recognized by him; there are, indeed, no such
principles and man cannot, therefore, recognize them,
or guide his conduct by reference to them. Morals being
excluded from the scheme of things, there can be no
guide to conduct except self-interest. Nevertheless morals,
though they possess no objective basis, may be usefully
invoked by rulers to induce in the common people reverence
and obedience. Morals have, in fact, as we should say
to-day, good publicity and propaganda value. All this,
it is clear, is neither ethics nor politics. It may, of course,
be the case that both these branches of study are in fact
will-o'-the-wisps; that there are no principles of right
and wrong which should govern human conduct, no
principles of justice which should guide the ruler of the
State. But if it be the case that ethics and politics own
some basis of principle other than that of pure expediency,
then it cannot be said that Machiavelli contributes to
their study. His work is, as he himself suggests, properly
to be regarded as a contribution to our knowledge of
natural, that is of human, history.
The Split Widens. It is, I think, sufficiently clear from
the foregoing examples of political thought in the Middle