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12 INTRODUCTION.
II. THE PURPOSE OF 'THE PRINCE.'
The task of interpreting Machiavelli's writings in general,
and The _Prince in particular, has been compared to the famous
old problem of 'squaring the circle.' That opinions should
diffcr, and that incompatible and even contradictory views of
Machiavelli's purpose should have found favour with various
critics at all periods since the publication of The _Prflwe, is indeed
hardly to be wondered at, when the peculiar character
of the work is taken into consideration: none the less it is a
curious, and at first sight puzzling fact, that these discrepancies
of judgment should occur precisely in a case where the author
has taken the greatest pains to avoid ambiguity, and to say
exactly what he means. Machiavelli's writings are throughout
characterised by straightforward simplicity; his style is clearness
itself; and yet for three centuries the question of his
meaning and intention has been debated without any result
being arrived at, which is admitted on all hands to be final and
definitive. Either there must, after all, be something peculiarly
enigmatical in Machiavelli's writings, or else their interpretation
must have been rendered impossible by their arbitrary application
to given moments in subsequent history, or, finally, criticism
must have been unnaturally perverse.
Some account of the leading views which have been held at
different periods concerning the interpretation of The _Prince
will be given in the third section of the present Introduction.
In order to fix the principles upon which our own judgment
is finally to be based, an attempt will here be made to trace
to their origin the causes to which this great variety of
opinion has been due. It will be found that a large number at
least of these causes were altogether out of the control of the
critics, that their operation was in a certain degree inevitable,
and that what are to us now the most elementary ideas on the
subject were only arrived at after a long and complicated process
of thought and research.
W'hoever has followed the course of Machiavellian criticism
before the beginning of the eighteenth century can hardly have
failed to be struck by the fact that both opponents and apologists
alike appear to have formed an estimate of Machiavelli's writings