Frederick the Great - Anti-Machiavel (Neoreactionary Library)

Machiavel's The Prince is to ethics what the work of Spinoza is to faith. Spinoza sapped the fundamentals of faith, and drained the spirit of religion; Machiavel corrupted policy, and undertook to destroy the precepts of healthy morals: the errors of the first were only errors of speculation, but those of the other had a practical thrust. The theologians have sounded the alarm bell and battled against Spinoza, refuting his work in form and defending the Divinity against his attack, while Machiavel has only been badgered by moralists. In spite of them, and in spite of its pernicious morals, The Prince is very much on the pulpit of policy, even in our day.

I will defend humanity against this monster which wants to destroy it; I dare to oppose Reason and Justice to sophism and crime; and I ventured my reflections on Machiavel's Prince, chapter by chapter, so that the antidote is immediately near the poison.

I always have regarded The Prince as one of the most dangerous works which were spread in the world; it is a book which falls naturally into the hands of princes, and of those who have a taste for policy. It is all too easy for an ambitious young man, whose heart and judgement are not formed enough to accurately distinguish good from bad, to be corrupted by maxims which inflame his hunger for power.

If it is bad to debase the innocence of a private individual, whose influence on the affairs of the world is minimal, it is much more to pervert some prince who must control his people, administer justice, and set an example for their subjects; and must, by their kindness, magnanimity and mercy, be someone to be looked up to.

The floods which devastate regions, the fire of the lightning which reduces cities to ashes, the poison of the plague which afflicts provinces, are not as disastrous in the world as the dangerous morals and unrestrained passions of the kings: the celestial plagues last only for a time, they devastate only some regions, and these losses, though painful, are repaired. But the crimes of the kings are suffered, for a much longer time, by the whole people.

The kings have the capacity to do good when they have the will. In the same way they can also make evil. The lives of the people are sometimes pitiable, and they have very good reason to fear abuse of the sovereign power, when their goods are in prey when the prince's avarice asserts itself. Their freedom is at the mercy of his whims; their peace and security are vulnerable to his ambition and perfidy; and their very lives are subject to his cruelties! Machiavel's advice, if followed uncritically by a prince, may lead to real tragedies in the real world.

I should not finish this foreword without saying a word to people who believe that Machiavel wrote what the princes are, and not what they should be; or that, as has been said by many people, it is a satire.

Those who pronounce that Machiavel's Prince is a typical sovereign were undoubtedly swayed by the examples of some bad princes, which never leave the memory once their cruelties are seen or experienced. Or they may conclude this from the record of the contemporaries of Machiavel, quotes by the author, and the life of some tyrants who were the very opposite of human. I request these critics to think, that just as the seduction of power hunger is sometimes overwhelming, it is also possible to deploy more than one virtue to resist it. Thus, it is not astonishing that, among all princes, his is the bad one among the good. The Roman Empire did suffer under emperors such as Nero, Caligula, or Tiberius, but the universe greets with joy the virtues of Titus, Trajan, and Antonin.

There is a real injustice in concluding that the rotten apples are representative of all of them.

One should preserve in the history only the names of the good princes, and let those of the others die forever, along with their indolence, their injustices and their crimes. The books of history would be less accurate, but humanity would profit: a prince's reward for their virtue would be the honour of living in history, to see their names and examples live in the future centuries until eternity. The book of Machiavel would not infect any more the schools of policy; people would scorn its contradictions; and the world would be convinced that the true policy of the kings, founded only on justice, prudence and kindness, is preferable in any direction to the disjointed and arbitrary system, full of horror, that Machiavel had the effrontery to present to the public.