XVIII. I cannot refrain from laughter, when I hear men discourse in this manner, who, from their education, ought to know and reason better. The maxims of tyrannic policy are as antient in the world, as government or dominion. Machiavelianism owes its first existence to the most antient princes of the earth, and only to Machiavel its name. It is rooted in our nature, and it does not require ages, as moments, when fit occasions present themselves, are equal to bring forth its malignant productions. Nor is the passion of domineering more natural to man, than that of amplifying and extending his dominion. An ambitious man, by attaining to be a prince, does not find his ambition satisfied; but is always desirous of extending his power, exteriorly with respect to the subjects of other states, and interiorly with regard to his own. The love of independence can seldom be contained within reasonable bounds. He who is free from all subjection to other men, aspires at being independent of the laws also. SECT. IV. XIX. I am so far from thinking that Machiavel has made the world worse in this respect, or from supposing that the princes of these times, have refined upon the iniquitous politics of Machiavel, that I firmly believe, if we limit our enquiries precisely to Europe, we shall find the sovereigns of it in general, much better than those of the remote ages. XX. Now-a-days, if it is in contemplation to impose some new burthen on the subject, or to wage war with a neighbouring state, divines and lawyers are consulted upon the justice and propriety of the measure; an enquiry is made, how the laws stand with respect to the subject matter in question, and the archives and records are examined and turned over; and although it often happens, that from the ambitious adulation of the people consulted, a right is attributed to their prince, which in reality does not belong to him, their malice does not impeach his good faith. In former times this was not the case. If a prince was disposed to trample on the rights of his subjects, or to subdue his neighbours, he consulted nobody, nor made any other enquiry or examination, than whether he had force and power sufficient to accomplish what he meditated; and the question was always decided, by his ability or inability to execute what he designed. In times not very distant from our own, and even in the most polished kingdoms, where the true religion has humanized people’s minds, when the person invaded by a powerful prince his neighbour, has represented to him, that his pretensions to what he possesses are just and legal; the invader has laughed at the representation, and answered savagely, in the language that was then become proverbial in the mouths of kings and ministers of state, that the rights of princes were not to be determined by old rolls of parchment, but by burnished arms. SECT. V.