Machiavelli's Virtue.

Harvey C. Mansfield. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. xvi + 371 pp. $29.95. ISBN: 0-2265-0368-2.

Machiavelli's Virtue is "Machiavellian" in more ways than one: in order to move things forward, it leads us back to beginnings, and its virtue is not what it may seem. The tide refers properly to the only original part of the book, chapter 1. The rest consists of twelve previously published articles: "Necessity in the Beginnings of Cities," "Burke and Machiavelli on Principles in Politics," "Machiavelli and the Idea of Progress," "An Introduction to Machiavelli's Florentine Histories," "Party and Sect in Machiavelli's Florentine Histories," "An Introduction to The Prince," "An Introduction to Machiavelli's Art of War," "Strauss's Machiavelli," "Machiavelli's New Regime," "Machiavelli's Political Science," "Machiavelli's Stato and the Impersonal Modern State," "Machiavelli and the Modern Executive." All parts are equally stimulating, but there is, inevitably, a degree of repetitiveness. The real beginning for Mansfield is Leo Strauss's invitation to look behind the rhetorical gloss at Machiavelli's "indirect statements"; and the aim of the work is to make us feel uneasy once again about Machiavelli. Mansfield writes as a political scientist, not an historian, taking the long view (which leads, in this case, from Aristotle through Machiavelli to Hobbes and Burke), and removing Machiavelli from his immediate context. He thus plays down any chronological development between one work and the other, claiming that they all basically say the same thing, though in different rhetorical guises to different audiences. This renders the "Is Machiavelli republican?" debate essentially otiose. But in any case, the real difference for Machiavelli, we are told, is not between regimes, but between "humors" (rulers and ruled); republics also spawn princes, and all political men (i.e., all princes) are driven by the same motivation, necessity. Mansfield sees Machiavelli himself as taking the long view (out of hostility to his own times, and concern for mankind in general, rather than Florence or Italy), and therefore as founding modernity, by deliberately breaking with the Classics, casting aside Christianity and, as it were, knowingly anticipating Hobbes and Burke.

The most thought-provoking section is the one which gives the book its name. It argues that Machiavelli's virtue is not republican, not of the soul but of the body and spirit, not a habit but on the make, and never in itself. It is necessity, its end is acquisition, it must be impressive (show and be recognized), and it is politicized, i.e., understood by its political effects. Arguing thus, Machiavelli must dispense with (natural) justice, i.e., with that virtue which, according to Aristotle, would restrain politics. Moreover, virtue is what it gets you - but it will get you the wrong thing unless you compromise with evil. It is therefore distinct from goodness (although goodness is needed for its impressiveness). Mansfield wants, and manages, to be challenging, and he knows that not everyone will necessarily agree with him. This reviewer will simply presume to query his assumption that, whereas virtue is a notion whose meaning needs to be teased out, goodness, as Machiavelli uses it, is unambiguous: when Machiavelli talks of, say, good laws and good arms (Prince, chap. 12), is the notion, though, not equally ambiguous, or at least polyvalent? And could the goodness, for example, of Leo X (Prince, chap. 11) not also be said to be not "in itself," but rather in what it achieves, which would make it akin to virtue? Perhaps the least convincing theme of the book is the one which, on the grounds that a prince, real or potential, is anyone who can understand, and he who understands best must be the best prince, portrays Machiavelli as his own, ideal prince. This line of argument forces the author into an awkward corner. Since the only art expected of a prince is the art of war, Mansfield cannot but put the stress on art rather than war, assert that Machiavelli subsumes politics into the art of war, consider arms as a metaphor (for human reason or will), and claim that Machiavelli's "soldiers" are his readers, in particular the readers of the future, amongst whom he wished to "gain adherents" to his "conspiracy against Christianity," which was, it is claimed, his main mission.

Such a view certainly justifies the work of the critic, whose job it must indeed be to unravel the "indirect statements" of this "most subtle and difficult writer," but does it not suggest that Machiavelli failed where he most wanted to succeed, i.e., in being clear, convincing, and immediately useful to others? In order to accept this, one must accept that Machiavelli, as Mansfield would have it, was never really interested in those around him, and that, even before putting pen to paper, he had given up on the princes of Italy, in the sure knowledge, so to speak, that Hobbes would pick up where he had left off. This of course begs the question as to whether it is feasible to ignore the historical context and diachronic sequence of Machiavelli's works. Whatever about La Mandragola or Florentine Histories, can The Prince really be said to be the work of an author who is indifferent to whether or not his contemporaries will pay heed to what he says? But however much one may wish to argue with Mansfield, there is never any doubt about his mastery of Machiavelli. The excellent translation of the Discorsi is further proof of that. Naturally, since translations are made for the benefit of those who do not understand the original, they will tend to arouse the suspicions of those who do, as there is something much more final about them, stating as they seem to not only that "his is what X says," but also that "this is what X means." The translators however have managed to avoid this pitfall by providing a very "transparent" translation, which, while sounding English, is yet close to the original, and also gives the reader the keys to unlock it. Besides notes which explain any ambiguities in the text, it is accompanied by an extensive glossary, which allows one to go behind the English and check what particular word Machiavelli uses at any particular time, and how often that word recurs in the text. There is also an index of proper names and an introduction, which is a kind of summary of Machiavelli's Virtue. One may regret that the criteria for the composition of the glossary are not made more explicit (why for instance is "good" not included?), and that the exciting nature of Machiavelli's language, which manages to challenge even the laws of syntax, is often lost in a rendering which (inevitably) is too prosaic, but there can be no doubt that Mansfield and Tarcov's translation will become an indispensable tool for every serious, anglophone student of Machiavelli.

ERIC G. HAYWOOD University College, Dublin