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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
It is impossible to understand the significance of Machiavelli's work if one does not understand, to begin with, the concept of man and of the world which dominates it.
Too frequently the image of Machiavelli is limited only to a study of the procedures, tricks, string-pulling, ropes (and even ropes around the neck) which he prescribes for the attainment and maintainance of power, all of this well embellished with a psychology which is either praised or deprecated.
1 Perficit, says St. Thomas; one could translate: it carries nature to the point of supreme perfection and maturity, while remaining at the same time, as the source of this transformation, superior to nature.
2 Pico della Mirandola, again, has clearly seen this. In his Oratio, God says to man: "On coming into the world, the animals were given everything they needed… But you, you can grow and develop as you like."
3 Macaulay seems to have been the first to apply the fantastic epithet of Old Nick to the devil, around 1880. (E.N.).
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