n; Istorie fiorentine, v. ad init. For the
cycle of constitutions through which all states tend to move see
Discorsi, ii. 2 (here we see the influence of Polybius).]

It is obvious that in this view of history Machiavelli was inspired and
instructed by the ancients. And it followed from his premisses that the
study of the past is of the highest value because it enables men to
see what is to come; since to all social events at any period there are
correspondences in ancient times. "For these events are due to men, who
have and always had the same passions, and therefore of necessity the
effects must be the same." [Footnote: Discorsi, iii. 43.]

Again, Machiavelli follows his ancient masters in assuming as evident
that a good organisation of society can be effected only by the
deliberate design of a wise legislator. [Footnote: Ib. iii. 1. The
lawgiver must assume for his purposes that all men are bad: ib. i. 3.
Villari has useful remarks on these principles in his Machiavelli,
Book ii. cap. iii.] Forms of government and religions are the personal
creations of a single brain; and the only chance for a satisfactory
constitution or for a religion to maintain itself for any length of
time is constantly to repress any tendencies to depart from the original
conceptions of its creator.

It is evident that these two assumptions are logically connected. The
lawgiver builds on the immutability of human nature; what is good for
one generation must be good for another. For Machiavelli, as for Plato,
change meant corruption. Thus his fundamental theory excluded any
conception of a satisfactory social order gradually emerging by the
impersonal work of successive generations, adapting their institutions
to their own changing needs and aspirations. It is characteristic, and
another point of resemblance with ancient thinkers that he sought the
ideal state in the past--republican Rome.

These doctrines, the sameness of human nature and the omnipotent
lawgiver, left no room for anything resembling a theory of Progress.
If not held afterwards in the uncompromising form in which Machiavelli
presented them, yet it has well been pointed out that they lay at the
root of some of the most famous speculations of the eighteenth century.
[Footnote: Villari, loc. cit.]

Machiavelli's sameness of human nature meant that man would always have
the same passions and desires, weaknesses and vices. This assumption was
compatible with the widely prevail