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x IL PRINCIPE.
mentioned. There is thus a want of proportion about the
whole, but this result could hardly have been avoided
without introducing much irrelevant matter.
But to know only what Machiavelli thought, and to
understand the circumstances under which he lived, is not
enough. We have to ask the further question, How was
Machiavelli led to form the ideas to which he gives
expression in The Prince ? He was perhaps more largely
influenced than any contemporary writer by what may be
called the classical prejudice of the Renaissance--the
attempt, that is, to adapt Greek and Roman ideas to the
needs of a new age, and the effort to engraft a modified
paganism upon a Christian world. In the recoil from
mediaevalism, and the tyranny of abstract ideas, men
endeavoured to work out a theory of life without reference
either to a priori truths or to the moral value of actions ;
and it was natural that they should draw their inspiration
from the ancient world, where action was more unfettered
and speculation more independent. The study of Greek
and Latin authors was pursued not in a critical spirit, but
in order to discover something that might be immediately
applied to contemporary life. Hence there were many
errors in the speculations of the Italian publicists of the
Renaissance, and conspicuously in Machiavelli. Aristotle
and Livy had become part of his mind, and his very
receptiveness led him into errors that a cooler and a
harder man might have avoided.
In the following notes I have endeavoured to show
what passages from ancient authors were imitated by
Machiavelli in The Prince. And even where there is no
question of direct verbal imitation, if there seems reason
to believe that Machiavelli's thought was influenced,
consciously or unconsciously, by reminiscence of any