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. But, according to the advocates of _Realpolitik_, facts and realities mean nothing but the sole rule of interest, selfishness, ruthlessness, force, cunning and contempt for all foreign rights; whereas fairness, justice, the curbing and suppression of one's own desires, consideration for one's neighbour, love of mankind--all these are phrases, or let us rather say ideals, which are to be found, not in the world, but in the brains of a small minority of enthusiasts without influence. He who confesses to such views, to whom the worst impulses alone are real, while he relegates Morality to the sphere of the unreal, of visions far from reality, is a pessimist as long as his convictions remain theory; but if he puts them into practice, or urges the leaders of the state to do so, then he is an evildoer who breaks the moral law as soon as it appears unaccompanied by the police, the prison and the gallows. In private life a man with such views is a criminal who obeys his evil instincts whenever he may hope to evade the law of the state. The bandit, who is clever enough to manage so that police and court of justice cannot touch him, is a practical politician, for the riches he acquires by theft, robbery and murder are realities; the criminal code is but a scrap of paper, something visionary, as long as its minions do not seize him by the collar.