good name among men, outward honour and distinction, and in doing so never allows himself to be led astray or induced to lose sight of his end by the charm of present pleasures or the satisfaction of defying the arrogance of the powerful, or the desire of revenging insults and undeserved humiliations he has suffered, or the attractions of useless aesthetic or philosophical occupations of the mind, or travels in interesting lands, but with great consistency works towards his one end, – who ventures to deny that such a philistine is in quite an extraordinary degree rational, even if he has made use of some means which are not praiseworthy but are yet without danger? Nay, more, if a bad man, with deliberate shrewdness, through a well-thought-out plan attains to riches and honours, and even to thrones and crowns, and then with the acutest cunning gets the better of neighbouring states, overcomes them one by one, and now becomes a conqueror of the world, and in doing so is not led astray by any respect for right, any sense of humanity, but with sharp consistency tramples down and dashes to pieces everything that opposes his plan, without compassion plunges millions into misery of every kind, condemns millions to bleed and die, yet royally rewards and always protects his adherents and helpers, never forgetting anything, and thus reaches his end, – who does not see that such a man must go to work in a most, rational manner? – that, as a powerful understanding was needed to form the plans, their execution demanded the complete command of the reason, and indeed properly of practical reason? Or are the precepts which the prudent and consistent, the thoughtful and far-seeing Machiavelli prescribes to the prince irrational?[1]
- ↑ By the way, Machiavelli's problem was the solution of the question how the prince, as a prince, was to keep himself on the throne in spite of internal and external enemies. His problem was thus by no means the ethical problem whether a prince, as a man, ought to will such things, but purely the political one how, if he so wills, he can carry it out. And the solution of this problem he gives just as one writes directions for playing chess, with which it would be folly to mix up the answer to the question whether from an ethical point of view it is advisable to play chess
