Morals and the Evolution of Man

by Max Simon Nordau

This defence, however, is far from convincing. In the "Prince" Macchiavelli maintains the same unconcerned and cool note that prevails in his account of the treacherous assassinations perpetrated in Senigaglia by his hero Cæsar Borgia. The only personal feeling, which peeps out occasionally in both works, is a certain perverse, æsthetic satisfaction, experienced by the artist with the eye of a connoisseur who lingers over a work of nature, perfect in its way, and delights in the harmony of actions which, with absolute logic, almost with mathematical precision, result from the definite premise supplied by a certain character. Des Esseintes, the ideal æsthete invented by Joris Karl Huysmans, may appraise the worth of a monster solely by its beauty, without a thought for its morality. But by such appraisement he cuts himself off from the community of men, though he, in his arrogance, being morally insane, may abuse them as philistines.

Since it first appeared, Macchiavellism has found disciples and admirers in every age; and these, in liberating politics from all fetters of Morality, go further than its originator. The German jurist of the century of the Reformation, Schoppe (1576-1649), declares sententiously that politics differ from Morality and have their own principles, just as Morality has: he considers that the chief difference between them is that the latter takes as its subject of study that which should be; the former, that which is. For this one phrase this pedant, who has otherwise rightly deserved oblivion, has some claim to be remembered. For here he consigns Morality to the realm of pure thought, of theoretical and meditative idealism, while for politics he claims the sphere of practical reality and shows the first dim dawning of that practical policy (Realpolitik) which, two hundred and fifty years later, was to be as the light of the sun to statesmen.

The Frenchman, Gabriel Naudé, almost a contemporary of Schoppe's, constituted himself the champion of Coups d'Etat, if they promised political advantages; further, he justifies and praises the Night of Saint Bartholomew, a very energetic measure taken in his lifetime to put an end to the religious strife which was weakening France and causing the government much embarrassment; his only regret is that the happy idea of slaughtering all the Huguenots was not carried out more completely; in other words, that the massacre of the obnoxious Protestants was not continued until they had been completely wiped out.

Even in Descartes, who confessed to a somewhat shady opportunism in questions of state and, for instance, concedes reasonable and moral justification to Absolutism, we find the depressing statement: "Against the enemy one is, so to speak ('quasi'), permitted to do anything," a conscious and determined denial of the Christian commandment "Love thine enemies," which perhaps demands too much of the average man and can only be expected from saints, but which, anyway, contains an exhortation for all the world at least to be just to one's enemies and act according to the dictates of Morality.

D'Holbach does not beat about the bush, but declares roundly: "In politics the only crime is not to succeed." Even Macchiavelli did not express it as baldly as that. To quote the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, he at least pays virtue the compliment of hypocrisy, for he gives this advice: "Do (the evil which is profitable) and excuse it afterwards." This is a paraphrase of the old advice given by a pettifogging lawyer for the benefit of the criminal: "If you have done it, deny it," and of the well-known phrase of Frederick the Great which runs something like this: "If I have a desire for a foreign country, I begin by seizing it, then I send for lawyers who prove that I had a right to it." This, then, was the opinion of that king who wrote an "Anti-Macchiavelli," of whom, however, Paul Janet neatly remarks: "Nothing is more typical of Macchiavellism than as heir presumptive to the throne to refute Macchiavelli's principles, and then as ruling monarch to apply them with the more determination."

For the sake of the incorruptible Morality which Kant defends in his little work "Vom ewigen Frieden" ("Of Eternal Peace"), he may be forgiven for his weakly worldly wisdom in following up the "Critique of Pure Reason" with the "Critique of Practical Reason." In "Vom ewigen Frieden" he bravely demands harmony between Politics and Morality. More sweepingly than the English proverb, "Honesty is the best policy," he demonstrates that honesty is better than policy. It is an old tradition of all governments, and especially of diplomacy, to affect secrecy, since their inavowable intrigues shun the light of day and the eye of outsiders. To-day the democracy in all constitutional states demands that foreign policy should be given full publicity. Kant expressed his opinion shortly and sharply a hundred and fifty years ago: "All political actions which cannot be made public are unjust." In the eighteenth century, in which he lived and which began with the war of the Spanish Succession, went on to the wars of Frederick the Great, and ended with the war of the Coalition against the French Revolution, he does not dare to make a definite claim that force should be expelled from inter-state relations and Law put in its place, but he does say, if somewhat timidly, that one may "dream of" an ideal in which the quarrels of nations are adjusted, like those of private persons, by laws which have been framed and approved by all. Kant is a comforting exception amid the many teachers of constitutional law who are almost unanimously Macchiavellian in their attitude, and who regard his point of view with contemptuous and condescending leniency because he was an unworldly philosopher, a theorist in politics.

The English and Scottish moral philosophers, from Locke to J. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer, are all untainted by Macchiavellism and recognize only one Morality for the state as for the individual, for political as for private action. But it must be admitted that their doctrines have not yet been generally assimilated by the consciousness of their own people. Now, as ever, it is a fundamental principle of English law that "the king can do no wrong." That means that the king, the embodiment and epitome of the state, as the source of Law is Law itself, and is superior to all the laws of the country, which is a still more drastic paraphrase of the doctrine of the Digest: "quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem"; every whim of the potentate has the force of law, and the English have coined the horrible phrase, "My country, right or wrong," a dictum which allows ruthless deceivers of the people and destroyers of their country to hide their most appalling misdeeds beneath the mask of patriotism and to disguise deeds worthy of a criminal in the habiliments of virtue.

Real patriotism demands that a true citizen and an honourable man should with might and main, even at the price of his life, oppose any injustice about to be committed by his government and his misguided compatriots; and, further, that he should strive to maintain his country in the path of Right and Morality even if, as sometimes happens, in a dispute between his nation and a foreign one the latter has Right and Morality on its side. On the plea of inevitable partiality a judge may refuse to try a case in which a near relative of his is involved. That is a permissible concession to that human imperfection which causes reason to fall silent when feeling raises its voice; and justice does not suffer, for there are other judges who can take the seat that has been voluntarily vacated. No citizen has the right to evade the duty of judging his country, because, if he fails, there is no other judge who can be put in his place and fulfil his duty. Every citizen is personally responsible for the just and moral behaviour of his community, responsible to his own conscience, to his nation, to the world, to the present and to the future; and if he is powerless to prevent depravity and misdeeds, he must at least solemnly and loudly condemn them, as this is his only means of avoiding joint responsibility for the infamy. If he fails to do this, the public crime becomes his personal crime as well. The elder Brutus, so much and so justly admired by the Romans, is an example to all, for without mercy he handed his own flesh and blood over to the executioner, when according to the law his life was forfeit. The state has no greater claim to indulgence and mercy than had Brutus's son, if knowingly and intentionally it indulges in vice. For if you allow the dictum, "Right or wrong, my country," to be valid, then you must also apply it to the state of filibusterers that once existed in the Antilles, and must demand of its citizens that their patriotism should approve and defend theft, piracy, rape and assassination, for the systematic perpetration of which their state was founded.

In contrast with this wretched "My country, right or wrong," the inflexible dictum of the ancients stands out: "Fiat justitia, pereat mundus!" (Let justice be done though the world perish!). And what does most honour to the French Revolution is the phrase so often mocked by political profiteers: "Sooner shall the colonies perish than a principle!" That was the standpoint of the prophets of Israel, who truly did not love their people less than do the wretched scoundrels who shout "hurray!" and yell songs, when their country deals Morality and Right a brutal blow, because the leaders think that this will profit the country, or themselves.

Frederick the Great and Napoleon, as heads of the state, acted in accordance with Macchiavelli's views. At their time this was expressed by saying that they were guided by the necessities of the state. In the second half of the nineteenth century Macchiavellism received the name of practical policy (Realpolitik). The despisers of Morality, who call the misdeeds of the state Realpolitik, apparently do not know that this one word implies a very comprehensive admission. To their idea Realpolitik is a policy which reckons only with realities, not with desires, yearnings or hope, or as Schoppe brutally expresses it: with that which is, not with that which ought to be. It is active in the domain of facts, not in that of principles.