X. This is the very excuse which Bocalini puts in the mouth of Machiavel, when he supposes him to be speaking in his own defence before Apollo. He says, I do not pretend to defend my works, but rather to arraign, and condemn them as impious, and full of cruel and execrable documents for the government of states; but provided the doctrine I have written shall appear to be new, or the invention of my brain, I am ready at this moment, to submit to the execution of any sentence, the judges shall think proper to fulminate against me. On the other hand, if my writings contain nothing more than those political precepts, and those rules of state, which I have deduced from the actions and conduct of some princes, the speaking ill of whom would formerly have been punished with death, and, if you will be pleased to permit me, I can now name; I say if this be the case, what justice, what reason can there be, for respecting those as little less than divinities, who have been the authors and inventors of all the furious and desperate maxims of policy which appear in my writings; and of treating me, who have done nothing more than republish them, as an abandoned vagabond, and an Atheist I certainly cannot conceive, why the original should be adored as a saint, and the copy execrated; nor why I deserve to be so persecuted, when the reading of histories, not only tolerated, but recommended, are sufficient to convert to Machiavels, all those who peruse them with a political view. SECT. III. XI. But not to leave the reader in suspence, or not to give him occasion to think that I propose these three opinions as problems, I will here declare the judgement I entertain of them. The first is false, shocking, abominable, and only worthy of a second Machiavel. What reason, I won’t say can dictate, but even endure the detestable maxims, that a prince owes more to himself than to the republic? that this last was instituted by nature for the convenience of the prince, and not the prince for the good of the republic? that the right to govern with tyrannic sway, is an appendage, appertaining to the prerogative of the crown? that the untimely and disgraceful deaths of tyrants, ought to be attributed to chance, and not to the divine vengeance or judgements? with others of the same sort.