to the new
order of things builds a short-lived state." (Disc. I. c. 16). And
further on "the dictatorial authority helped and did not harm the
Roman republic" (Disc. I. c. 34), and "Kings and republics lacking in
national troops both for offense and defense should be ashamed of
their existence." (Disc. I. c. 21). And again: "Money not only does
not protect you but rather it exposes you to plundering assaults. Nor
can there be a more false opinion than that which says that money is
the sinews of war. Not money but good soldiers win battles." (Disc. I.
II. c. 10). "The country must be defended with ignominy or with glory
and in either way it is nobly defended." (Disc. III. c. 41). "And with
dash and boldness people often capture what they never would have
obtained by ordinary means." (Disc. III. c. 44). Machiavelli was not
only a great political authority, he taught the mastery of energy and
will. Fascism learns from him not only its doctrines but its action as
well.

Different from Machiavelli's, in mental attitude, in cultural
preparation, and in manner of presentation, G.B. Vico must yet be
connected with the great Florentine from whom in a certain way he
seems to proceed. In the heyday of "natural law" Vico is decidedly
opposed to _ius naturale_ and in his attacks against its advocates,
Grotius, Seldenus and Pufendorf, he systematically assails the
abstract, rationalistic, and utilitarian principles of the XVIII
century. As Montemayor justly says:[4] "While the 'natural jurists',
basing justice and state on utility and interest and grounding human
certitude on reason, were striving to draft permanent codes and
construct the perfect state, Vico strongly asserted the social nature
of man, the ethical character of the juridical consciousness and its
growth through the history of humanity rather than in sacred history.
Vico therefore maintains that doctrines must begin with those subjects
which take up and explain the entire course of civilization.
Experience and not ratiocination, history and not reason must help
human wisdom to understand the civil and political regimes which were
the result not of reason or philosophy, but rather of common sense, or
if you will of the social consciousness of man" and farther on (pages
373-374), "to Vico we owe the conception of history in its fullest
sense as magistra vitae, the search after the humanity of history, the
principle which makes the truth progress with time, the discover