amp upon the
material of the commonwealth. His criticism is directed against lawyers,
not against philosophers and practical diplomatists.

[1] The language of this treatise is noteworthy. After discoursing
on the differences between republics and principalities, and showing
that Florence is more suited to the former, and Milan to the latter,
form of government, he says: 'Ma perche _fare_ principato dove
starebbe bene repubblica,' etc. ... 'si perche Firenze _e subietto
attissimo di pigliare questa forma_,' etc. The phrases in italics
show how thoroughly Machiavelli regarded the commonwealth as
plastic. We may compare the whole of Guicciardini's elaborate essay
'Del Reggimento di Firenze' (_Op. Ined._ vol. ii.), as well as the
'Discourses' addressed by Alessandro de' Pazzi, Francesco Vettori,
Ruberto Acciaiuoli, Francesco Guicciardini, and Luigi Guicciardini,
to the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, on the settlement of the
Florentine Constitution in 1522 (_Arch. Stor._ vol. i.). Not one of
these men doubted that his nostrum would effect the cure of the
republic undermined by slow consumption.

[2] _St. Fior._ lib. vi. cap. 4; vol. i. p. 294.

In this sense and to this extent were the republics of Italy the
products of constructive skill; and great was the political sagacity
educed among the Italians by this state of things. The citizens
reflected on the past, compared their institutions with those of
neighboring states, studied antiquity, and applied the whole of their
intelligence to the one aim of giving a certain defined form to the
commonwealth. Prejudice and passion distorted their schemes, and each
successive modification of the government was apt to have a merely
temporary object. Thus the republics, as I have already hinted, lacked
that safeguard which the Greek states gained by clinging each to its own
character. The Greeks were no less self-conscious in their political
practice and philosophy; but after the age of the Nomothetae, when they
had experienced nearly every phase through which a commonwealth can
pass, they recognized the importance of maintaining the traditional
character of their constitutions inviolate. Sparta adhered with singular
tenacity to the code of Lycurgus; and the Athenians, while they advanced
from step to step in the development of a democracy, were bent on
realizing the ideal they had set before them.

Religion, which in Gr