Professorial wisdom has formulated pedantically what practical politicians, the heads of states and leading ministers have thought, said and done. Napoleon remarked at St. Helena to Count de Las Cases, who respectfully notes the fact in his "_Mémorial de Sainte Hélène_": "The actions of a ruler who labours for the community, must be distinguished from those of a private individual who is free to indulge his feelings; policy permits, nay, commands, the one to do what in the case of the other would often be inexcusable." Perhaps it was under the influence of this remark, with which he, no doubt, was familiar, that Professor Nisard one day in a lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris propounded the theory that there was a dual Morality, one public or political, the other private, and that these two did not follow the same rules. That was shortly after the Coup d'Etat of Napoleon III, and it was easy to descry, in the words of the celebrated professor of literary history, obsequiousness towards the new Emperor and the effort of a courtier to excuse the violence which the Emperor had just done to the constitution he had sworn to uphold. Nisard was one of the ornaments of the university, a teacher of youth, who was as popular as he was respected. But the sound ethical feeling of his hearers revolted against the depravity of the principles he had just enunciated, and the violent expression of their indignation drove him in shame and disgrace from his chair and out of the lecture hall. Macchiavelli is the most famous advocate of the Immorality of the State and the right of politics to be unethical, and his name is identified with this infamous theory. An enormous amount has been written about the Florentine statesman, his book of the "Prince" and the doctrines he advances in it; among these works those in which his theories are endorsed preponderate to a horrifying extent over those which oppose and refute them. Mohl and Paul Janet have furnished us with the best abstracts of these very numerous writings, and I refer the reader to them. Here I can only dwell on the main points of the investigation. Macchiavelli writes: "A man who wishes to be perfectly good is without doubt in danger among those who are not good. It is therefore advisable that a prince should learn not always to be good, so as to be able to put these rules of life into practice, or not, as circumstances may demand." "A prince cannot maintain loyalty to a treaty if it become dangerous to his interests." In short, the prince not only may, but must, do what is in his own interests. He need not stop to think whether his actions are honest. The only measure of their worth and appropriateness is the profit they promise. Their success always justifies them, only their failure proves them to be bad.