Think me not vain, for I cannot conceal my
opinion here; a commonwealth that is rightly instituted can never
swerve, nor one that is not rightly instituted be secured from
swerving by reduction to her first principles; wherefore it is no
less apparent in this place that Machiavel understood not a
commonwealth as to the whole piece, than where having told you
that a tribune, or any other citizen of Rome, might propose a law
to the people, and debate it with them, he adds, 'this order was
good while the people were good; but when the people became evil,
it became most pernicious.' As if this order (through which, with
the like, the people most apparently became evil) could ever have
been good, or that the people or the commonwealth could ever have
become good, by being reduced to such principles as were the
original of their evil.
"The disease of Rome was, as has been shown, from the native
inequality of her balance, and no otherwise from the empire of
the world, than as, this falling into one scale, that of the
nobility (an evil in such a fabric inevitable) kicked out the
people. Wherefore a man that could have made her to throw away
the empire of the world, might in that have reduced her to her
principles, and yet have been so far from rendering her immortal
that, going no further, he should never have cured her.
Pages:
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370