[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][01.08]

hugeseaUID：190158

今天发一篇关于政治的，选自<political crime>一书的conclusion.

文章可能比较长，不求大家对文章里面的每一句都理解；发这篇文章的目地是因为这篇文章的语言非常好。我比较喜欢这篇文章里面的排比，例如：“ Liberty is not to be imposed by the guillotine; fraternity is not established by the extermination of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded by popular or judicial massacres.”
而且文章中还有一些拟人化的用法，也比较好，比方说：A lofty sentiment does not spoil politics.

文章中还有很多很好的语言，大家看看就知道了。

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Political Crime
Chapter XI Conclusion

By Louis Proal

Politics have become discredited by the employment of culpable expedients and the adoption of immoral maxims; for their reputation to be retrieved they must be brought into accord with morality. After having resorted for so long to cunning and falsehood, to intrigue and violence, politics, were it only for the novelty of the thing, should try the effect of fair dealing, tolerance, and justice. Today, more than at any period, novelty is liked. And what greater novelty could there be than politics conducted on moral lines? It is possible that people will end by recognizing that in public as in private life honesty is the most effective and the most skilful policy. Not only should Machiavellism be loathed by honorable people, but it should be regarded as fatal to the true interests of nations. A great policy cannot be immoral. Craft and violence may score ephemeral successes, but they do not assure the greatness and prosperity of a country. The successes achieved by an immoral policy are not lasting; sooner or later nations, like individuals, politicians, just as private persons, are punished for the evil or rewarded for the good they do. Political crimes are punished more often than is supposed. Those who put their adversaries to death by poison or upon the scaffold often undergo a like fate; those who send others into exile are exiled in their turn.

There is more immorality than profoundness in Machiavellism. It was not a shifty and violent policy that was pursued by Saint Louis, L'Hopital, Henry IV., Sully, Turgot, Franklin, or Washington. Their example shows that it is possible to be a great King, a great Minister, a great citizen, and at the same time an honest man. On the other hand, mighty geniuses have been the ruin of the peoples they have governed, because they despised justice and pursued a Machiavellian policy. Napoleon I., who was solely guided by reasons of State, lost his senses in the end and embarked upon the war in Spain and the Russian campaign. Danton and Robespierre, who did not lack talent, brought the Republic to ruin through trying to save it by the Terror. Liberty is not to be imposed by the guillotine; fraternity is not established by the extermination of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded by popular or judicial massacres.

The disciples of Machiavelli declare that politicians should resort to violence and even to crime, if to do so be necessary for the safety of the people, but what they call the safety of the people is often nothing more than the safety of their rule. The authors of the 18th Fructidor, who carried out that coup d’état（政变） under pretext of saving the Republic, violated the law solely with a view to escaping a personal danger; and far from saving the Republic, by demanding the intervention of a general they created a precedent for the 18th Brumaire. The public safety is an excuse for all violence and every iniquity. Moreover, when a political crime is really committed to assure the safety of the people, there is no proof that the crime is necessary, or that the people might not have been saved by other means. The safety of the people lies rather in respect for legality than in its violation. A people that does its duty can await the future with confidence; if it suffers for the moment in the cause of justice it is rare that the day of reparation does not dawn, for in the case of nations, as in that of individuals, it is virtues that elevate them and vices that debase them.

A Machiavellian policy is not a great policy; to practice it a great genius is not necessary. It is easier to govern by expedients than by principles. What is more, there has ceased to be any necessity for a policy of this sort in modern societies. It is comprehensible that Machiavelli's prince, that is to say, an absolute sovereign, should find it to his interest to sow division among his subjects in order to rule them; on the other hand, the maxim, "Promote division in order to reign," is out of place in a free Government that is supported by opinion and whose interest it is to unite and not to divide the community. Terror may be an instrument of government for a popular or military dictator, but it becomes inapplicable under a government of opinion. This being the case, instead of saying, as under the old system of politics, "Cunning, still cunning, and always cunning; audacity, again audacity, and always audacity," the watchword ought to be under the modern system of politics, "Straightforwardness, still straightforwardness, and always straightforwardness; justice, still justice, and always justice."

Diplomatic dissimulation becomes more difficult with the publication of parliamentary debates. This publicity, which has its inconveniences, offers the advantage that it is profitable to morality. It is impossible for a Minister to confess in a public discussion that he harbors unjust projects. Moreover, as public opinion becomes more enlightened, and acquires greater weight, its sound common sense takes the place of the finessing of the diplomatists. A crafty policy is not always the most skilful. Henry IV. did not have recourse to craft. A diplomatist who is in &not;the habit of resorting to falsehood ceases to inspire confidence and at once loses the greater part of his authority.

A policy based upon immorality is antiquated and unworthy of modern society; it pre-supposes contempt for humanity, and an antagonism that ought not to exist between those who govern and those who are governed. The policy of free peoples ought not to resemble the policy of absolute sovereigns; it is founded upon the respect of legality.

Whatever the skeptics may say, craft and violence are not necessities of politics. As society becomes more enlightened, politics may attain to greater perfection. Corruption is not an indispensable method of government: liberty can exist without license, it is allowable to hope for a state of things in which the administration will be impartial, the legislation equitable, the elections sincere, and in which industry and merit will be rewarded. The European Governments show better faith in respect to their financial engagements at the present day than in the past; they are conscious that it is to their interest not to tamper with their coinage, and not to go bankrupt, and for the reason that public confidence in their credit is their principal force. Why should they not arrive at understanding that they ought to have the same respect for liberty and human life as for the public debt?

The progress of public reasonableness is most of all to be counted upon to render politics more straightforward and more in accordance with equity. Politicians, assemblies, and sovereigns, knowing that they will be called upon to give an exact account of their conduct before the tribunal of public opinion, will become more circumspect in the employment of expedients of a kind to arouse public indignation. Politics should serve an educational purpose as well as maintain order and protect material interests. Men are governed by ideas and sentiments as well as by appeals to their interests and to force. A lofty sentiment does not spoil politics. The great advances made in the sphere of politics have been advances of a philosophical order and have been due to an application of Christian philosophy. Unprincipled politics are Pagan politics, and their result is not the progress of society. The true policy consists in an application of reason to the affairs of the State.

Skepticism has brought into existence at the present day a generation of politicians who set more store upon palpable realities than upon principles. A policy of expedients and of vulgar satisfactions is the outcome of skepticism. The change that has taken place in our political morals has deep and remote causes. A people that used to be chivalrous, that despised money, that was fired with ardor for noble causes, now for political liberty, now for military glory, does not become positively skeptical, indifferent to principles, and attached to material interests in a day. This change of character is the result of the numerous deceptions it has experienced, of the frequent revolutions it has undergone, but also of the weakening of spiritual beliefs.

"When a republic is corrupt," says Montesquieu, "none of the evils that crop up can be remedied, except by removing the corruption and reinstating principles; any other corrective is useless or a fresh evil." The suppression of the parliamentary regime would not be a remedy; the establishment of a dictatorship would be a fresh evil and a worse evil. The true remedy consists in a return to principles. Politics, like human life, need to be spiritualized unless they are to fall into the mire and to remain there. To change the persons composing the political world would be insufficient, unless a moral reform be affected at the same time. Clearly if the new politicians were as devoid of principles as the old, all that would have been done would have been to exchange fat for lean kine, who in turn would wish to wax fat. Between fatted skeptics and lean skeptics the difference is but slight, or if there be any difference it is rather in favor of the former. Obviously satiated skeptics are less dangerous than skeptics whose appetites are keen, because it may be hoped that, having looked after their own interests, they will at last look after those of the country. This, according to Saint Simon, was the cynical remark made by Maison when the direction of the finances was taken from him. "They are making a mistake," he exclaimed, "for I had looked after my own interests and was going to look after theirs."

A return to principles and moral beliefs and the substitution of ideas for appetites are, in consequence, the true remedies for that hideous malady political corruption. It is only in the power of great passions to drive petty passions from the field. As long as noble sentiments, love of country and of liberty and purifying beliefs, are not revived in a country the parliamentary atmosphere will remain vitiated.

Doubtless to exercise authority it is not sufficient to be above reproach; a clear intellect, tact, and experience are necessary. Talent, however, without morality is insufficient, and mere intelligence is no preservative against moral backslidings. Nobody would entrust his daughters or his fortune to the care of a clever but dissolute and extravagant man. Why then confide the country and the public fortune to the care of men of pleasure, who easily develop into men whose sole concern is money? When a money- and pleasure-loving man declares himself a friend of the people, who can believe in his sincerity? Affection is not proved by words, but by acts. The true sentiments of politicians are not to be judged by their professions of faith or their humanitarian speeches, but by their character and their habitual conduct. The probity expected of the head of a Government involves not only his own personal integrity, but the choice on his part of men of integrity for his Ministers. "If we would pass for men of integrity," says Cicero, "we should not only display probity ourselves, but exact it of those about us."

Statesmen would avoid many political errors if they were more respectful of justice; their political errors are often moral errors; their good sense and their skillfulness suffer in proportion as they swerve from the dictates of equity: they abandon themselves to passions that cloud their intelligence. Just ideas and wise resolutions are inspired by an upright conscience, whose qualities influence the intelligence. To be a man of good sense it is sufficient to be an honest man.

By again becoming moral, politics would be brought back into unison with common-sense, and would be cured of two serious diseases called the Socialist madness and the Anarchist madness that are the result of the sophisms by which we are inundated, and of the letting loose of evil passions. We lack reasonableness at the present day; our brains are disordered; our good sense, a quality that used to be particularly distinctive of the French, has been affected by innumerable philosophical, economical, and political sophisms that reach us from Germany, Italy, England, the East, and even from India. Good sense has ceased to guide our thoughts and actions since we have adopted German pessimism and socialism, English evolutionism, Italian skepticism, Russian Nihilism, and Asiatic Buddhism. Let us become Frenchmen again and Christians, let us return to the school of good sense and morality.

The malady from which contemporary society suffers is a moral disease rather than a political or economical disease. It is doubtless useful to improve institutions and to reform abuses but how much more necessary it is to reform morals and to give tone to men's minds by healthy ideas and moral beliefs. If society is to be saved from the corruption by which it is invaded, and from the revolutionary barbarism by which it is threatened, spiritualist teachings must be restored to the place they formerly occupied in men's minds and in politics; this is the only way to save them from the clutches of envy and hatred.

The sentiment of duty and of personal responsibility must be re-established in the public mind and in the education of the young. It is necessary to fight against the sophisms which lead to the absorption of the individual by the State, and to the conversion of every citizen into a part of a colossal machine that produces wealth and distributes it according to each man's needs. The true remedy for the crises we are traversing is a return to the old morality, which teaches that working-men in common with their employers are intended to do their duty, and to labor, and have their responsibilities. What other doctrine will teach the rich the spirit of sacrifice, and the voluntary renunciation of what is superfluous, and the poor the obligation of personal effort, the merit of patience, and respect for legality?

It is not by encouraging atheism and materialism that a Government effects an improvement in morals, that it stills passions and relieves wretchedness. Hostility to religion is contrary to sound politics. Merely from the utilitarian point of view the blindness and perversity are incomparable of those incredulous fanatics who would rob their fellows of the beliefs in which they find consolation. Who can deny that the religious sentiment conduces to morality? The more religious citizens there are in a State, the fewer are the restless spirits, the Socialists and the Anarchists. In a period of skepticism, materialism, positivism, evolutionism, and nihilism, who can dream of denying the immense services rendered by Christianity in inculcating the dignity of human nature and the obligatory character of duty, and in opposing the worship of an ideal to the worship of the golden calf? In a society in which there is talk of nothing else but of the struggle for life, of the rights conferred by might, of the elimination of the weak, of the disgrace of poverty, of the all-powerfulness of wealth, religion teaches self-sacrifice, respect, and love for the poor, and responsibility before God and before the conscience. At a period in which Socialism, grown more and more threatening, demands that the State should be omnipotent, Christianity again performs a useful work in standing out for the rights of the human being and the rights of the conscience, and in setting limits to the action of the State. If spiritual beliefs were not regaining &not;their hold over men's minds one would be forced to tremble for the future of society, for "there comes a day when truths that have been scorned announce themselves by thunder-claps."

Nations, too, in their mutual relations, have every interest not to separate politics from morality. A sound policy, no less than morality, dictates to them justice and charitableness, which are alone capable of preserving peace and with it the benefits it carries in its train. The policy that teaches nations that they should envy, hate, and injure each other, that their conduct should be solely guided by their interests, and that the difficulties that crop up between them should be settled by force alone, such a policy is criminal and mistaken. The statesmen who counsel this narrow and egoistical, this envious and malevolent policy, are shortsighted, they are merely alive to the interests of the moment that are a source of division, but they are blind to the interests which the peoples have in common, and above all to the disastrous consequences of antagonism and war; they do not keep in view the benefits of peace and the horrors of war.

How far preferable to an envious and ambitious policy that divides nations would be a just, friendly, and moderate policy that would bring them together! How far happier the nations would be if they would cease to lend themselves to a revengeful and high-handed policy! What a pitch of prosperity Europe would have reached if, realizing the project of Henry IV., it had applied to politics the rules of good sense and Christian morality. The aspect of the world would be changed if the nations, considering themselves members of the same family, would banish violence and craft from their councils. The policy of Christian peoples is still Pagan: it must become Christian if the world is to enjoy peace.

Carried away by his somewhat excessive enthusiasm for military glory, M. Thiers has remarked: “What purpose would the strength of nations serve if it were not expended in attempts to gain the mastery over each other?" It seems to me, however, that the strength of nations might be more usefully employed than in realizing dreams of conquest, which are so dearly paid for in money and blood, and which end in disasters and catastrophes. Every time that a nation has sought to conquer other nations, it has caused torrents of blood to flow without profit to itself. All those who have entertained dreams of conquest have met with failure. To establish their supremacy Charles V. and Napoleon I. caused millions of men to perish, and they were unable to attain their goal: the former died in a convent, the latter on the rocks of Saint Helena; Spain and France were ruined by their ambitious policy. To how many conquerors may not these words of the Bible be applied: "The hammer that shattered the nations of the universe has itself been broken in pieces."

A policy that aims at international equilibrium &not;is better than a policy of conquest. Empires that are too vast cannot last; they succumb, sooner or later, to a coalition between the other nations. That one nation should rule over another is always a danger to the common liberty, for a nation that is too powerful, like a too powerful sovereign, has a difficulty in keeping within the limits of a wise moderation. If the desire for domination be of value as a motive force in politics, why should not moral domination achieved through science, literature, and institutions be made the object of the activity of nations?

Skeptics are disposed to smile when they hear moralists express the hope that international wars will cease, and that arbitration will take the place of recourse to force. Lord Salisbury, however, who at one time considered this hope a dream, is now of opinion that it is realizable. "Civilization," he has said, "has substituted law court decisions for duels between private persons and conflicts between the great. International wars are destined in the same way to give place to the courts of arbitration of a more advanced civilization." In 1883 Switzerland and the &not;United States pledged themselves to submit to a court of arbitration all difficulties arising between them during a period of thirty years. In 1888 France contracted a similar engagement with the Equatorial Republic. In 1890 the plenipotentiaries of seventeen American Republics, assembled at Washington, admitted the principle of permanent arbitration.

It may be hoped, in consequence, that war will become rarer and rarer in proportion to the progress of civilization and of the moral and economical solidarity existing between different nations. The new engines of war, the destructive force of which augments every day, also contribute to the maintenance of peace, because peoples and sovereigns recoil in terror from the frightful consequences of a war waged with such formidable engines of destruction. The tendency of public opinion is more and more to compel Governments to maintain peace. It may be hoped in consequence that war, which is already more civilized, will become of rare occurrence.

Still, as peoples and sovereigns have a tendency to become intoxicated by success, historians and moralists ought to unite their efforts to combat their unruly impulses. Historians, who habitually admire success, too often forget, when narrating wars, to inquire into their morality and utility; they almost always exalt the conquerors, and in this way corrupt public opinion, by accustoming it to allow itself to be dazzled by success. They should keep a little of the admiration they lavish upon conquerors for the upright men who have given evidence of their love of humanity and of their respect for human life.

As to the moralists, it is necessary that they should unceasingly combat the sophisms of immoral politics by declaring that reasons of State are the negation of reason; that the object of government is not to divide but to unite; that the lesser morality does not destroy the higher morality, because there are not two moralities; that public safety lies in justice alone: that the end does not justify the means; that illegitimate means result in the end being unattained; that right is superior to might; that justice is the supreme law; that the maxim that right is on the side of the strongest is a maxim good enough for wolves but not for men.

Science without conscience, Rabelais has said, is the ruin of the soul. Politics without morality are the ruin of society.

sunflower_irisUID：2720580

SUPPLEMENT

Machiavelli was in many respects not an innovator. His largest political work seeks to bring back a rebirth of the Ancient Roman Republic; its values, virtues and principles the ultimate guiding authority of his political vision. Machiavelli is essentially a restorer of something old and forgotten. The republicanism he focused on, especially the theme of civic virtue, became one of the dominant political themes of the modern world, and was a central part of the foundation of American political values.
Machiavelli studied the way people lived and aimed to inform leaders how they should rule and even how they themselves should live. To an extent he admits that the old tradition was true - men are obliged to live virtuously as according to Aristotles Virtue Ethics principle. However, he denies that living virtuously necessarily leads to happiness. Machiavelli viewed misery as one of the vices that enables a prince to rule Machiavelli states boldly in The Prince, The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. In much of Machiavelli's work, it seems that the ruler must adopt unsavory policies for the sake of the continuance of his regime.
Hans Baron was the most influential scholar to study Machiavelli. Najemy (1996) examines Baron's ambivalent portrayal, arguing that Baron tended to see Machiavelli simultaneously as the cynical debunker and the faithful heir of civic humanism. By the mid-1950s, Baron had come to consider civic humanism and Florentine republicanism as early chapters of a much longer history of European political liberty, a story in which Machiavelli and his generation played a crucial role. This conclusion led Baron to modify his earlier negative view of Machiavelli. He tried to bring the Florentine theorist under the umbrella of civic humanism by underscoring the radical differences between The Prince and the Discourses and thus revealing the fundamentally republican character of the Discourses. However, Baron's inability to come to terms with Machiavelli's harsh criticism of early 15th-century commentators such as Leonardo Bruni ultimately prevented him from fully reconciling Machiavelli with civic humanism.
Pocock (1981) traces the Machiavellian belief in and emphasis upon Greco-Roman ideals of unspecialized civic virtue and liberty from 15th-century Florence through 17th-century England and Scotland to 18th-century America. Thinkers who shared these ideals tended to believe that the function of property was to maintain an individual's independence as a precondition of his virtue. Consequently, in the last two times and places mentioned above, they were disposed to attack the new commercial and financial regime that was beginning to develop. However, Paul Rahe (1992) takes issue with Pocock on the origins and argues Machiavelli's republicanism was not rooted in antiquity but was is entirely novel and modern. Scholars have argued that [[James Madison followed Machiavelli's republicanism when he (and Jefferson) set up the Democratic-Republican Party in the 1790s to oppose what they saw as the emerging aristocracy that they feared Alexander Hamilton was creating with the Federalist Party. Conservative historians likewise conclude that Thomas Jefferson's republicanism was "deeply in debt" to Machiavelli, whom he praised.
Realist or evil?
For four centuries scholars have debated whether Machiavelli was the theorist of evil or just being realistic. The Prince made the word "Machiavellian" a byword for deceit, despotism, and political manipulation. Some historians argue Machiavelli had a secret (or very subtle) message that explains away the ugly implications of the plain text, saying that Machiavelli really favored virtue after all and was just trying to trick princes into policies that would lead to their overthrow, not their triumph.
Leo Strauss, the American political philosopher, declared himself more inclined toward the traditional view that Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil," since he counsels the princes to avoid the values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception. Italian anti-fascist philosopher Benedetto Croce (1925) concludes Machiavelli is simply a "realist" or "pragmatist" who accurately states that moral values in reality do not greatly affect the decisions that political leaders make.[17] German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1946) held that Machiavelli simply adopts the stance of a political scientist—a Galileo of politics—in distinguishing between the "facts" of political life and the "values" of moral judgment.
Thoughts on the State
Machiavelli was not a political philosopher in the ordinary sense. He did not try either to define the State or to justify its existence. His views about the State are implied as matter of course when he describes how a ruler may retain or acquire control, how he is liable to lose it, which qualities are necessary for a republic to remain strong, or how precarious a Republic’s liberty can be at times. Medieval thinkers had taken the political authority of any prince or king in the community of Christendom to be necessarily limited – by the Emperor (In the case of the Holy Roman Empire), by the power of the Roman Catholic Church in spiritual matters and by the power of natural law (Universal moral principles) that determine the boundaries of justice. Machiavelli did not challenge this long held traditional position. He ignored it, writing as a matter of fact that the state had absolute authority. He thought that the value of religion lies in its contribution to social order and the rules of morality must be dispensed with if security required it.
Machiavelli further differed from medieval thinkers in taking for granted that the power of the state is a single whole and can be centrally controlled, irrespective of whether the state is a monarchy or a republic. He preferred a republic because he preferred liberty. However, he believed that in order for the liberty of republicanism to function, it needed a citizenry who were independent and courageous (Virtuous). Machiavelli believed these qualities were rare and existed hardly anywhere in the Europe of his day since the Romans.
Impact on America
The Founding Fathers read Machiavelli closely. In his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, Adams praised Machiavelli, with Algernon Sidney and Montesquieu, as a philosophic defender of mixed government. For Adams, Machiavelli restored empirical reason to politics, while his analysis of factions was commendable. Adams likewise agreed with the Florentine that human nature was immutable and driven by passions. He also accepted Machiavelli's belief that all societies were subject to cyclical periods of growth and decay. For Adams, Machiavelli lacked only a clear understanding of the institutions necessary for good government.
Most recently, Michael A. Ledeen, holder of the "Freedom Chair" at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was instrumental in uniting neoconservatives with the new Christian Right. An admirer of the political philosophy of Machiavelli, he used Christian fundamentalism as a political tool to advance the candidacy and help ground the presidency of George W. Bush, producing what political scientist David Domke has called "political fundamentalism." Ledeen's theoretical ideas have influenced the policies of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Karl Rove.

hugeseaUID：190158

郁闷，沙发没占到
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The most beautiful sentence in the above essay is：Science without conscience is the ruin of the soul. Politics without morality are the ruin of society.  （科学无良知即是灵魂的毁灭，政治无道德即是社会的毁灭）Thus，how can we say: "If a goal is worthy, then any means taken to attain it is justifiable"(issue 212), or "the ends justify the means"?

The above essay is also very useful for all of us to concieve an article on  Issue 169"Those who treat politics and morality as though they were separate realms fail to understand either the one or the other."

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I will go outside town on a biz trip, and will come back 2 or 3 days later. I will write my comments when i am back.

doodaUID：2712643

占座，呵呵

windandrain2004UID：2597690

挑一些我比较喜欢的句子，正如大海所说，尤其是排比
1. if it suffers for the moment in the cause of justice it is rare thatthe day of reparation does not dawn, for in the case of nations, as inthat of individuals, it is virtues that elevate them and vices thatdebase them.
2. Terror may be an instrument of government for a popular or militarydictator, but it becomes inapplicable under a government of opinion.
3. Politics, like human life, need to be spiritualized unless they are to fall into the mire and to remain there.


Comment
People always consider politician as immoral. For a nation, politician always act as a role urging for money and power. And sometimes, even all the time, public right is not that important to them, and political crimes are committed.
Just as the author puts it, inside a nation, political immorality may act as failing to serve the people, while outside a nation, we usually regard conquering as political immorality. The leader, the king, or the emperor, look conquering other nations as a pride. But what does conqueror usually get?failure, soldiers' death, or even loss of power.
So, what is morality?Or, what kind of things are moral and others are immoral?No one can clearly define this, neither does the author. Different persons have different definitions, different levels of morality, and what should be done is also various. even if we want others to be moral, we have no ability and also no right to use our morality to rule others, isn't it?

correct words
wrong        correct
conquor     conquer
politicist     politician
emporer     emperor

AdelineShenUID：2630498

占~顶大海GG~

plukaUID：2721764

Political Crime
Chapter XI Conclusion

By Louis Proal

Politics have become discredited by the employment of culpable expedients and the adoption of immoral maxims; for their reputation to be retrieved they must be brought into accord with morality.（倒装+被动，词组） After having resorted for so long to cunning and falsehood, to intrigue and violence, politics, were it only for the novelty of the thing, should try the effect of fair dealing, tolerance, and justice. Today, more than at any period, novelty is liked. And what greater novelty could there be than politics conducted on moral lines? It is possible that people will end by recognizing that in public as in private life honesty is the most effective and the most skilful policy. Not only should Machiavellism be loathed by honorable people, but it should be regarded as fatal to the true interests of nations. A great policy cannot be immoral. Craft and violence may score ephemeral successes, but they do not assure the greatness and prosperity of a country. The successes achieved by an immoral policy are not lasting; sooner or later nations, like individuals, politicians, just as private persons, are punished for the evil or rewarded for the good they do. Political crimes are punished more often than is supposed. Those who put their adversaries to death by poison or upon the scaffold often undergo a like fate; those who send others into exile are exiled in their turn. 

There is more immorality than profoundness in Machiavellism. It was not a shifty and violent policy that was pursued by Saint Louis, L'Hopital, Henry IV., Sully, Turgot, Franklin, or Washington. Their example shows that it is possible to be a great King, a great Minister, a great citizen, and at the same time an honest man. On the other hand, mighty geniuses have been the ruin of the peoples they have governed, because they despised justice and pursued a Machiavellian policy. Napoleon I., who was solely guided by reasons of State, lost his senses in the end and embarked upon the war in Spain and the Russian campaign. Danton and Robespierre, who did not lack talent, brought the Republic to ruin through trying to save it by the Terror. Liberty is not to be imposed by the guillotine; fraternity is not established by the extermination of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded by popular or judicial massacres. 

The disciples of Machiavelli declare that politicians should resort to violence and even to crime, if to do so be necessary for the safety of the people, but what they call the safety of the people is often nothing more than the safety of their rule. The authors of the 18th Fructidor, who carried out that coup d’état（政变） under pretext of saving the Republic, violated the law solely with a view to escaping a personal danger; and far from saving the Republic, by demanding the intervention of a general they created a precedent for the 18th Brumaire. The public safety is an excuse for all violence and every iniquity. Moreover, when a political crime is really committed to assure the safety of the people, there is no proof that the crime is necessary, or that the people might not have been saved by other means. The safety of the people lies rather in respect for legality than in its violation. A people that does its duty can await the future with confidence; if it suffers for the moment in the cause of justice it is rare that the day of reparation does not dawn, for in the case of nations, as in that of individuals, it is virtues that elevate them and vices that debase them. 

A Machiavellian policy is not a great policy; to practice it a great genius is not necessary. It is easier to govern by expedients than by principles. What is more, there has ceased to be any necessity for a policy of this sort in modern societies. It is comprehensible that Machiavelli's prince, that is to say, an absolute sovereign, should find it to his interest to sow division among his subjects in order to rule them; on the other hand, the maxim, "Promote division in order to reign," is out of place in a free Government that is supported by opinion and whose interest it is to unite and not to divide the community. Terror may be an instrument of government for a popular or military dictator, but it becomes inapplicable under a government of opinion. This being the case, instead of saying, as under the old system of politics, "Cunning, still cunning, and always cunning; audacity, again audacity, and always audacity," the watchword（暗语口令格言） ought to be under the modern system of politics, "Straightforwardness, still straightforwardness, and always straightforwardness; justice, still justice, and always justice." 

Diplomatic dissimulation（掩饰虚伪装糊涂） becomes more difficult with the publication of parliamentary debates. This publicity, which has its inconveniences, offers the advantage that it is profitable to morality. It is impossible for a Minister to confess in a public discussion that he harbors unjust projects. Moreover, as public opinion becomes more enlightened, and acquires greater weight, its sound common sense takes the place of the finessing of the diplomatists. A crafty policy is not always the most skilful. Henry IV. did not have recourse to craft. A diplomatist who is in ¬the habit of resorting to falsehood ceases to inspire confidence and at once loses the greater part of his authority. 

A policy based upon immorality is antiquated and unworthy of modern society; it pre-supposes contempt for humanity, and an antagonism that ought not to exist between those who govern and those who are governed. The policy of free peoples ought not to resemble the policy of absolute sovereigns; it is founded upon the respect of legality. 

Whatever the skeptics may say, craft and violence are not necessities of politics. As society becomes more enlightened, politics may attain to greater perfection. Corruption is not an indispensable method of government: liberty can exist without license, it is allowable to hope for a state of things in which the administration will be impartial, the legislation equitable, the elections sincere, and in which industry and merit will be rewarded. The European Governments show better faith in respect to their financial engagements at the present day than in the past; they are conscious that it is to their interest not to tamper with（干预玩弄） their coinage, and not to go bankrupt, and for the reason that public confidence in their credit is their principal force. Why should they not arrive at understanding that they ought to have the same respect for liberty and human life as for the public debt? 

The progress of public reasonableness is most of all to be counted upon to render politics more straightforward and more in accordance with equity. Politicians, assemblies, and sovereigns, knowing that they will be called upon to give an exact account of their conduct before the tribunal of public opinion, will become more circumspect in the employment of expedients of a kind to arouse public indignation. Politics should serve an educational purpose as well as maintain order and protect material interests. Men are governed by ideas and sentiments as well as by appeals to their interests and to force. A lofty sentiment does not spoil politics. The great advances made in the sphere of politics have been advances of a philosophical order and have been due to an application of Christian philosophy. Unprincipled politics are Pagan politics, and their result is not the progress of society. The true policy consists in an application of reason to the affairs of the State. 

Skepticism has brought into existence at the present day a generation of politicians who set more store upon palpable realities than upon principles. A policy of expedients and of vulgar satisfactions is the outcome of skepticism. The change that has taken place in our political morals has deep and remote causes. A people that used to be chivalrous, that despised money, that was fired with ardor for noble causes, now for political liberty, now for military glory, does not become positively skeptical, indifferent to principles, and attached to material interests in a day. This change of character is the result of the numerous deceptions it has experienced, of the frequent revolutions it has undergone, but also of the weakening of spiritual beliefs. 

"When a republic is corrupt," says Montesquieu, "none of the evils that crop up can be remedied, except by removing the corruption and reinstating principles; any other corrective is useless or a fresh evil." The suppression of the parliamentary regime would not be a remedy; the establishment of a dictatorship would be a fresh evil and a worse evil. The true remedy consists in a return to principles. Politics, like human life, need to be spiritualized unless they are to fall into the mire and to remain there. To change the persons composing the political world would be insufficient, unless a moral reform be affected at the same time. Clearly if the new politicians were as devoid of principles as the old, all that would have been done would have been to exchange fat for lean kine, who in turn would wish to wax fat. Between fatted skeptics and lean skeptics the difference is but slight, or if there be any difference it is rather in favor of the former. Obviously satiated skeptics are less dangerous than skeptics whose appetites are keen, because it may be hoped that, having looked after their own interests, they will at last look after those of the country. This, according to Saint Simon, was the cynical remark made by Maison when the direction of the finances was taken from him. "They are making a mistake," he exclaimed, "for I had looked after my own interests and was going to look after theirs." 

A return to principles and moral beliefs and the substitution of ideas for appetites are, in consequence, the true remedies for that hideous malady political corruption. It is only in the power of great passions to drive petty passions from the field. As long as noble sentiments, love of country and of liberty and purifying beliefs, are not revived in a country the parliamentary atmosphere will remain vitiated. 

Doubtless to exercise authority it is not sufficient to be above reproach; a clear intellect, tact, and experience are necessary. Talent, however, without morality is insufficient, and mere intelligence is no preservative against moral backslidings. Nobody would entrust his daughters or his fortune to the care of a clever but dissolute and extravagant man. Why then confide the country and the public fortune to the care of men of pleasure, who easily develop into men whose sole concern is money? When a money- and pleasure-loving man declares himself a friend of the people, who can believe in his sincerity? Affection is not proved by words, but by acts. The true sentiments of politicians are not to be judged by their professions of faith or their humanitarian speeches, but by their character and their habitual conduct. The probity expected of the head of a Government involves not only his own personal integrity, but the choice on his part of men of integrity for his Ministers. "If we would pass for men of integrity," says Cicero, "we should not only display probity ourselves, but exact it of those about us."

Statesmen would avoid many political errors if they were more respectful of justice; their political errors are often moral errors; their good sense and their skillfulness suffer in proportion as they swerve from the dictates of equity: they abandon themselves to passions that cloud their intelligence. Just ideas and wise resolutions are inspired by an upright conscience, whose qualities influence the intelligence. To be a man of good sense it is sufficient to be an honest man. 

By again becoming moral, politics would be brought back into unison with common-sense, and would be cured of two serious diseases called the Socialist madness and the Anarchist madness that are the result of the sophisms by which we are inundated, and of the letting loose of evil passions. We lack reasonableness at the present day; our brains are disordered; our good sense, a quality that used to be particularly distinctive of the French, has been affected by innumerable philosophical, economical, and political sophisms that reach us from Germany, Italy, England, the East, and even from India. Good sense has ceased to guide our thoughts and actions since we have adopted German pessimism and socialism, English evolutionism, Italian skepticism, Russian Nihilism, and Asiatic Buddhism. Let us become Frenchmen again and Christians, let us return to the school of good sense and morality. 

The malady from which contemporary society suffers is a moral disease rather than a political or economical disease. It is doubtless useful to improve institutions and to reform abuses but how much more necessary it is to reform morals and to give tone to men's minds by healthy ideas and moral beliefs. If society is to be saved from the corruption by which it is invaded, and from the revolutionary barbarism by which it is threatened, spiritualist teachings must be restored to the place they formerly occupied in men's minds and in politics; this is the only way to save them from the clutches of envy and hatred. 

The sentiment of duty and of personal responsibility must be re-established in the public mind and in the education of the young. It is necessary to fight against the sophisms which lead to the absorption of the individual by the State, and to the conversion of every citizen into a part of a colossal machine that produces wealth and distributes it according to each man's needs. The true remedy for the crises we are traversing is a return to the old morality, which teaches that working-men in common with their employers are intended to do their duty, and to labor, and have their responsibilities. What other doctrine will teach the rich the spirit of sacrifice, and the voluntary renunciation of what is superfluous, and the poor the obligation of personal effort, the merit of patience, and respect for legality? 

It is not by encouraging atheism and materialism that a Government effects an improvement in morals, that it stills passions and relieves wretchedness. Hostility to religion is contrary to sound politics. Merely from the utilitarian point of view the blindness and perversity are incomparable of those incredulous fanatics who would rob their fellows of the beliefs in which they find consolation. Who can deny that the religious sentiment conduces to（导致，有利于） morality? The more religious citizens there are in a State, the fewer are the restless spirits, the Socialists and the Anarchists. In a period of skepticism, materialism, positivism, evolutionism, and nihilism, who can dream of denying the immense services rendered by Christianity in inculcating the dignity of human nature and the obligatory character of duty, and in opposing the worship of an ideal to the worship of the golden calf? In a society in which there is talk of nothing else but of the struggle for life, of the rights conferred by might, of the elimination of the weak, of the disgrace of poverty, of the all-powerfulness of wealth, religion teaches self-sacrifice, respect, and love for the poor, and responsibility before God and before the conscience. At a period in which Socialism, grown more and more threatening, demands that the State should be omnipotent, Christianity again performs a useful work in standing out for the rights of the human being and the rights of the conscience, and in setting limits to the action of the State. If spiritual beliefs were not regaining ¬their hold over men's minds one would be forced to tremble for the future of society, for "there comes a day when truths that have been scorned announce themselves by thunder-claps."

Nations, too, in their mutual relations, have every interest not to separate politics from morality. A sound policy, no less than morality, dictates to them justice and charitableness, which are alone capable of preserving peace and with it the benefits it carries in its train. The policy that teaches nations that they should envy, hate, and injure each other, that their conduct should be solely guided by their interests, and that the difficulties that crop up between them should be settled by force alone, such a policy is criminal and mistaken. The statesmen who counsel this narrow and egoistical, this envious and malevolent policy, are shortsighted, they are merely alive to the interests of the moment that are a source of division, but they are blind to the interests which the peoples have in common, and above all to the disastrous consequences of antagonism and war; they do not keep in view the benefits of peace and the horrors of war. 

How far preferable to an envious and ambitious policy that divides nations would be a just, friendly, and moderate policy that would bring them together! How far happier the nations would be if they would cease to lend themselves to a revengeful and high-handed policy! What a pitch of prosperity Europe would have reached if, realizing the project of Henry IV., it had applied to politics the rules of good sense and Christian morality. The aspect of the world would be changed if the nations, considering themselves members of the same family, would banish violence and craft from their councils. The policy of Christian peoples is still Pagan: it must become Christian if the world is to enjoy peace. 

Carried away by his somewhat excessive enthusiasm for military glory, M. Thiers has remarked: “What purpose would the strength of nations serve if it were not expended in attempts to gain the mastery over each other?" It seems to me, however, that the strength of nations might be more usefully employed than in realizing dreams of conquest, which are so dearly paid for in money and blood, and which end in disasters and catastrophes. Every time that a nation has sought to conquer other nations, it has caused torrents of blood to flow without profit to itself. All those who have entertained dreams of conquest have met with failure. To establish their supremacy Charles V. and Napoleon I. caused millions of men to perish, and they were unable to attain their goal: the former died in a convent（女修道院）, the latter on the rocks of Saint Helena; Spain and France were ruined by their ambitious policy. To how many conquerors may not these words of the Bible be applied: "The hammer that shattered the nations of the universe has itself been broken in pieces." 

A policy that aims at international equilibrium is better than a policy of conquest. Empires that are too vast cannot last; they succumb, sooner or later, to a coalition between the other nations. That one nation should rule over another is always a danger to the common liberty, for a nation that is too powerful, like a too powerful sovereign, has a difficulty in keeping within the limits of a wise moderation. If the desire for domination be of value as a motive force in politics, why should not moral domination achieved through science, literature, and institutions be made the object of the activity of nations? 

Skeptics are disposed to（有...倾向） smile when they hear moralists express the hope that international wars will cease, and that arbitration will take the place of recourse to force. Lord Salisbury, however, who at one time considered this hope a dream, is now of opinion that it is realizable. "Civilization," he has said, "has substituted law court decisions for duels between private persons and conflicts between the great. International wars are destined in the same way to give place to the courts of arbitration of a more advanced civilization." In 1883 Switzerland and the United States pledged themselves to submit to a court of arbitration all difficulties arising between them during a period of thirty years. In 1888 France contracted a similar engagement with the Equatorial Republic. In 1890 the plenipotentiaries（全权大使） of seventeen American Republics, assembled at Washington, admitted the principle of permanent arbitration. 

It may be hoped, in consequence, that war will become rarer and rarer in proportion to the progress of civilization and of the moral and economical solidarity existing between different nations. The new engines of war, the destructive force of which augments every day, also contribute to the maintenance of peace, because peoples and sovereigns recoil in terror from the frightful consequences of a war waged with such formidable engines of destruction. The tendency of public opinion is more and more to compel Governments to maintain peace. It may be hoped in consequence that war, which is already more civilized, will become of rare occurrence. 

Still, as peoples and sovereigns have a tendency to become intoxicated（喝醉的，极其兴奋的） by success, historians and moralists ought to unite their efforts to combat their unruly impulses. Historians, who habitually admire success, too often forget, when narrating wars, to inquire into their morality and utility; they almost always exalt the conquerors, and in this way corrupt public opinion, by accustoming it to allow itself to be dazzled by success. They should keep a little of the admiration they lavish upon conquerors for the upright men who have given evidence of their love of humanity and of their respect for human life. 

As to the moralists, it is necessary that they should unceasingly combat the sophisms of immoral politics by declaring that reasons of State are the negation of reason; that the object of government is not to divide but to unite; that the lesser morality does not destroy the higher morality, because there are not two moralities; that public safety lies in justice alone: that the end does not justify the means; that illegitimate means result in the end being unattained; that right is superior to might; that justice is the supreme law; that the maxim that right is on the side of the strongest is a maxim good enough for wolves but not for men. 

Science without conscience, Rabelais has said, is the ruin of the soul. Politics without morality are the ruin of society.
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COMMENT

This essay is so thought-provocative that instead of picking out good sentences, phrases and expressions, I'd rather keep it as it is, with its fluidity and integrity. 

While reading the article (and being filled with admiration), I suddenly came up with a man: a man who plays with tricks and juggleries, coaxes the public, flirts with business and media, and unconcernedly yet freely tiptoe dances at the political stage. His name is, of course, Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister of Italy. Though his fame has been (or has long been) tarnished and reputation tainted with unceasing scandals and inappropriate performances in public, there are still ardent supporters who believe he is man to steer Italy towards the prosperity. He is crafty, and capable as well; he shows apparent, if not unbridled, sexism, regarding and promoting his women subordinates according to appearance and their affinity with him; he behaviors unbelievably frivolous in serious international meetings, drawing women's bra and showing it to other presidents and prime ministers. Well, this man is out of rule. He's notorious as a politician, yet somehow holds an almost irresistible charm to some people. Humm, that's interesting.

Thx hugesea for sharing so enlightening an essay! Learned a lot. And I love this kind of topics~smile~

domudomuUID：2670967

Politics have become discredited by the employment of culpable应收谴责的，应受处罚的） expedients（应急有效的，权宜之计的） and the adoption of immoral maxims; for their reputation to be retrieved they must be brought into accord with morality. After having resorted for so long to cunning and falsehood, to intrigue（搞阴谋诡计） and violence, politics, were it only for the novelty of the thing, should try the effect of fair dealing, tolerance, and justice. Today, more than at any period, novelty is liked. And what greater novelty could there be than politics conducted on moral lines? It is possible that people will end by recognizing that in public as in private life honesty is the most effective and the most skilful policy. Not only should Machiavellism be loathed（憎恨，不喜欢） by honorable people, but it should be regarded as fatal to the true interests of nations. A great policy cannot be immoral. Craft and violence may score ephemeral（短暂的） successes, but they do not assure the greatness and prosperity of a country. The successes achieved by an immoral policy are not lasting; sooner or later nations, like individuals, politicians, just as private persons, are punished for the evil or rewarded for the good they do. Political crimes are punished more often than is supposed. Those who put their adversaries（对手，敌手） to death by poison or upon the scaffold（脚手架，断头台） often undergo a like fate; those who send others into exile（流放） are exiled in their turn.

There is more immorality than profoundness in Machiavellism. It was not a shifty and violent policy that was pursued by Saint Louis, L'Hopital, Henry IV., Sully, Turgot, Franklin, or Washington. Their example shows that it is possible to be a great King, a great Minister, a great citizen, and at the same time an honest man. On the other hand, mighty geniuses have been the ruin of the peoples they have governed, because they despised（鄙视，看不起） justice and pursued a Machiavellian policy. Napoleon I., who was solely guided by reasons of State, lost his senses in the end and embarked upon the war in Spain and the Russian campaign. Danton and Robespierre, who did not lack talent, brought the Republic to ruin through trying to save it by the Terror. Liberty is not to be imposed by the guillotine（断头台）; fraternity（群体，同会） is not established by the extermination of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded by popular or judicial massacres.

The disciples of Machiavelli declare that politicians should resort to（诉诸于） violence and even to crime, if to do so be necessary for the safety of the people, but what they call the safety of the people is often nothing more than the safety of their rule. The authors of the 18th Fructidor, who carried out that coup d’état（政变） under pretext of saving the Republic, violated the law solely with a view to escaping a personal danger; and far from saving the Republic, by demanding the intervention of a general they created a precedent for the 18th Brumaire. The public safety is an excuse for all violence and every iniquity（邪恶，极不公正）. Moreover, when a political crime is really committed to assure the safety of the people, there is no proof that the crime is necessary, or that the people might not have been saved by other means. The safety of the people lies rather in respect for legality than in its violation. A people that does its duty can await the future with confidence; if it suffers for the moment in the cause of justice it is rare that the day of reparation does not dawn, for in the case of nations, as in that of individuals, it is virtues that elevate them and vices that debase them.

A Machiavellian policy is not a great policy; to practice it a great genius is not necessary. It is easier to govern by expedients（权宜之计） than by principles. What is more, there has ceased to be any necessity for a policy of this sort in modern societies. It is comprehensible that Machiavelli's prince, that is to say, an absolute sovereign（君主，元首，金币）, should find it to his interest to sow division among his subjects in order to rule them; on the other hand, the maxim, "Promote division in order to reign," is out of place in a free Government that is supported by opinion and whose interest it is to unite and not to divide the community. Terror may be an instrument of government for a popular or military dictator, but it becomes inapplicable under a government of opinion. This being the case, instead of saying, as under the old system of politics, "Cunning, still cunning, and always cunning; audacity, again audacity, and always audacity," the watchword（口号，暗语） ought to be under the modern system of politics, "Straightforwardness, still straightforwardness, and always straightforwardness; justice, still justice, and always justice."

Diplomatic dissimulation becomes more difficult with the publication of parliamentary（议会的，国会的） debates. This publicity, which has its inconveniences, offers the advantage that it is profitable to morality. It is impossible for a Minister to confess in a public discussion that he harbors unjust projects. Moreover, as public opinion becomes more enlightened, and acquires greater weight, its sound common sense takes the place of the finessing of the diplomatists. A crafty policy is not always the most skilful. Henry IV. did not have recourse to craft. A diplomatist who is in &not;the habit of resorting to falsehood ceases to inspire confidence and at once loses the greater part of his authority.

A policy based upon immorality is antiquated（过时的，老式的） and unworthy of modern society; it pre-supposes contempt for humanity, and an antagonism that ought not to exist between those who govern and those who are governed. The policy of free peoples ought not to resemble the policy of absolute sovereigns; it is founded upon the respect of legality.

Whatever the skeptics may say, craft and violence are not necessities of politics. As society becomes more enlightened, politics may attain to greater perfection. Corruption（堕落，腐败） is not an indispensable method of government: liberty can exist without license, it is allowable to hope for a state of things in which the administration will be impartial, the legislation equitable, the elections sincere, and in which industry and merit will be rewarded. The European Governments show better faith in respect to their financial engagements at the present day than in the past; they are conscious that it is to their interest not to tamper（窜改，干预） with their coinage, and not to go bankrupt, and for the reason that public confidence in their credit is their principal force. Why should they not arrive at understanding that they ought to have the same respect for liberty and human life as for the public debt?

The progress of public reasonableness is most of all to be counted upon to render politics more straightforward and more in accordance with equity. Politicians, assemblies, and sovereigns, knowing that they will be called upon to give an exact account of their conduct before the tribunal（审理委员会，特别法庭） of public opinion, will become more circumspect（谨慎小心，周到的） in the employment of expedients of a kind to arouse public indignation（愤怒，愤慨）. Politics should serve an educational purpose as well as maintain order and protect material interests. Men are governed by ideas and sentiments as well as by appeals to their interests and to force. A lofty sentiment does not spoil politics. The great advances made in the sphere of politics have been advances of a philosophical order and have been due to an application of Christian philosophy. Unprincipled politics are Pagan politics, and their result is not the progress of society. The true policy consists in an application of reason to the affairs of the State.

Skepticism has brought into existence at the present day a generation of politicians who set more store upon palpable（可触摸的明显的） realities than upon principles. A policy of expedients and of vulgar satisfactions is the outcome of skepticism. The change that has taken place in our political morals has deep and remote causes. A people that used to be chivalrous（对女人，彬彬有礼）, that despised money, that was fired with ardor for noble causes, now for political liberty, now for military glory, does not become positively skeptical, indifferent to principles, and attached to material interests in a day. This change of character is the result of the numerous deceptions it has experienced, of the frequent revolutions it has undergone, but also of the weakening of spiritual beliefs.

"When a republic is corrupt," says Montesquieu, "none of the evils that crop up can be remedied, except by removing the corruption and reinstating principles; any other corrective is useless or a fresh evil." The suppression of the parliamentary regime would not be a remedy; the establishment of a dictatorship（独裁国家） would be a fresh evil and a worse evil. The true remedy consists in a return to principles. Politics, like human life, need to be spiritualized unless they are to fall into the mire（泥潭） and to remain there. To change the persons composing the political world would be insufficient, unless a moral reform be affected at the same time. Clearly if the new politicians were as devoid（缺乏没有） of principles as the old, all that would have been done would have been to exchange fat for lean kine（传说中的比喻句吧，是指改变没有精瘦的黄牛吗？）, who in turn would wish to wax fat. Between fatted skeptics and lean skeptics the difference is but slight, or if there be any difference it is rather in favor of the former. Obviously satiated （充满满足）skeptics are less dangerous than skeptics whose appetites are keen, because it may be hoped that, having looked after their own interests, they will at last look after those of the country. This, according to Saint Simon, was the cynical（愤世嫉俗，只顾及自己） remark made by Maison when the direction of the finances was taken from him. "They are making a mistake," he exclaimed, "for I had looked after my own interests and was going to look after theirs."

A return to principles and moral beliefs and the substitution of ideas for appetites are, in consequence, the true remedies for that hideous malady（弊端的） political corruption. It is only in the power of great passions to drive petty passions from the field. As long as noble sentiments, love of country and of liberty and purifying beliefs, are not revived in a country the parliamentary atmosphere will remain vitiated.

Doubtless to exercise authority it is not sufficient to be above reproach; a clear intellect, tact, and experience are necessary. Talent, however, without morality is insufficient, and mere intelligence is no preservative against moral backslidings. Nobody would entrust his daughters or his fortune to the care of a clever but dissolute and extravagant man. Why then confide the country and the public fortune to the care of men of pleasure, who easily develop into men whose sole concern is money? When a money- and pleasure-loving man declares himself a friend of the people, who can believe in his sincerity? Affection is not proved by words, but by acts. The true sentiments of politicians are not to be judged by their professions of faith or their humanitarian speeches, but by their character and their habitual conduct. The probity expected of the head of a Government involves not only his own personal integrity, but the choice on his part of men of integrity for his Ministers. "If we would pass for men of integrity," says Cicero, "we should not only display probity ourselves, but exact it of those about us."

Statesmen would avoid many political errors if they were more respectful of justice; their political errors are often moral errors; their good sense and their skillfulness suffer in proportion as they swerve from the dictates of equity: they abandon themselves to passions that cloud their intelligence. Just ideas and wise resolutions are inspired by an upright conscience, whose qualities influence the intelligence. To be a man of good sense it is sufficient to be an honest man.

By again becoming moral, politics would be brought back into unison with common-sense, and would be cured of two serious diseases called the Socialist madness and the Anarchist madness that are the result of the sophisms（诡辩） by which we are inundated（洪泛的）, and of the letting loose of evil passions. We lack reasonableness at the present day; our brains are disordered; our good sense, a quality that used to be particularly distinctive of the French, has been affected by innumerable philosophical, economical, and political sophisms that reach us from Germany, Italy, England, the East, and even from India. Good sense has ceased to guide our thoughts and actions since we have adopted German pessimism and socialism, English evolutionism, Italian skepticism, Russian Nihilism, and Asiatic Buddhism. Let us become Frenchmen again and Christians, let us return to the school of good sense and morality.

The malady from which contemporary society suffers is a moral disease rather than a political or economical disease. It is doubtless useful to improve institutions and to reform abuses but how much more necessary it is to reform morals and to give tone to men's minds by healthy ideas and moral beliefs. If society is to be saved from the corruption by which it is invaded, and from the revolutionary barbarism（野蛮状态货行为） by which it is threatened, spiritualist teachings must be restored to the place they formerly occupied in men's minds and in politics; this is the only way to save them from the clutches of envy and hatred.

The sentiment of duty and of personal responsibility must be re-established in the public mind and in the education of the young. It is necessary to fight against the sophisms which lead to the absorption of the individual by the State, and to the conversion of every citizen into a part of a colossal machine that produces wealth and distributes it according to each man's needs. The true remedy for the crises we are traversing is a return to the old morality, which teaches that working-men in common with their employers are intended to do their duty, and to labor, and have their responsibilities. What other doctrine will teach the rich the spirit of sacrifice, and the voluntary renunciation of what is superfluous, and the poor the obligation of personal effort, the merit of patience, and respect for legality?

It is not by encouraging atheism（无神论） and materialism that a Government effects an improvement in morals, that it stills passions and relieves wretchedness（可怜悲惨）. Hostility to religion is contrary to sound politics. Merely from the utilitarian point of view the blindness and perversity are incomparable of those incredulous fanatics who would rob their fellows of the beliefs in which they find consolation. Who can deny that the religious sentiment conduces to morality? The more religious citizens there are in a State, the fewer are the restless spirits, the Socialists and the Anarchists. In a period of skepticism, materialism, positivism, evolutionism, and nihilism, who can dream of denying the immense services rendered by Christianity in inculcating the dignity of human nature and the obligatory character of duty, and in opposing the worship of an ideal to the worship of the golden calf? In a society in which there is talk of nothing else but of the struggle for life, of the rights conferred by might, of the elimination of the weak, of the disgrace of poverty, of the all-powerfulness of wealth, religion teaches self-sacrifice, respect, and love for the poor, and responsibility before God and before the conscience. At a period in which Socialism, grown more and more threatening, demands that the State should be omnipotent, Christianity again performs a useful work in standing out for the rights of the human being and the rights of the conscience, and in setting limits to the action of the State. If spiritual beliefs were not regaining &not;their hold over men's minds one would be forced to tremble for the future of society, for "there comes a day when truths that have been scorned announce themselves by thunder-claps."

Nations, too, in their mutual relations, have every interest not to separate politics from morality. A sound policy, no less than morality, dictates to them justice and charitableness, which are alone capable of preserving peace and with it the benefits it carries in its train. The policy that teaches nations that they should envy, hate, and injure each other, that their conduct should be solely guided by their interests, and that the difficulties that crop up between them should be settled by force alone, such a policy is criminal and mistaken. The statesmen who counsel this narrow and egoistical, this envious and malevolent policy, are shortsighted, they are merely alive to the interests of the moment that are a source of division, but they are blind to the interests which the peoples have in common, and above all to the disastrous consequences of antagonism and war; they do not keep in view the benefits of peace and the horrors of war.

How far preferable to an envious and ambitious policy that divides nations would be a just, friendly, and moderate policy that would bring them together! How far happier the nations would be if they would cease to lend themselves to a revengeful and high-handed policy! What a pitch of prosperity Europe would have reached if, realizing the project of Henry IV., it had applied to politics the rules of good sense and Christian morality. The aspect of the world would be changed if the nations, considering themselves members of the same family, would banish violence and craft from their councils. The policy of Christian peoples is still Pagan: it must become Christian if the world is to enjoy peace.

Carried away by his somewhat excessive enthusiasm for military glory, M. Thiers has remarked: “What purpose would the strength of nations serve if it were not expended in attempts to gain the mastery over each other?" It seems to me, however, that the strength of nations might be more usefully employed than in realizing dreams of conquest, which are so dearly paid for in money and blood, and which end in disasters and catastrophes. Every time that a nation has sought to conquer other nations, it has caused torrents of blood to flow without profit to itself. All those who have entertained dreams of conquest have met with failure. To establish their supremacy Charles V. and Napoleon I. caused millions of men to perish, and they were unable to attain their goal: the former died in a convent, the latter on the rocks of Saint Helena; Spain and France were ruined by their ambitious policy. To how many conquerors may not these words of the Bible be applied: "The hammer that shattered the nations of the universe has itself been broken in pieces."

A policy that aims at international equilibrium &not;is better than a policy of conquest. Empires that are too vast cannot last; they succumb, sooner or later, to a coalition between the other nations. That one nation should rule over another is always a danger to the common liberty, for a nation that is too powerful, like a too powerful sovereign, has a difficulty in keeping within the limits of a wise moderation. If the desire for domination be of value as a motive force in politics, why should not moral domination achieved through science, literature, and institutions be made the object of the activity of nations?

Skeptics are disposed to smile when they hear moralists express the hope that international wars will cease, and that arbitration will take the place of recourse to force. Lord Salisbury, however, who at one time considered this hope a dream, is now of opinion that it is realizable. "Civilization," he has said, "has substituted law court decisions for duels between private persons and conflicts between the great. International wars are destined in the same way to give place to the courts of arbitration of a more advanced civilization." In 1883 Switzerland and the &not;United States pledged themselves to submit to a court of arbitration all difficulties arising between them during a period of thirty years. In 1888 France contracted a similar engagement with the Equatorial Republic. In 1890 the plenipotentiaries of seventeen American Republics, assembled at Washington, admitted the principle of permanent arbitration.

It may be hoped, in consequence, that war will become rarer and rarer in proportion to the progress of civilization and of the moral and economical solidarity existing between different nations. The new engines of war, the destructive force of which augments every day, also contribute to the maintenance of peace, because peoples and sovereigns recoil in terror from the frightful consequences of a war waged with such formidable engines of destruction. The tendency of public opinion is more and more to compel Governments to maintain peace. It may be hoped in consequence that war, which is already more civilized, will become of rare occurrence.

Still, as peoples and sovereigns（主权） have a tendency to become intoxicated（喝醉的，极其兴奋的） by success, historians and moralists ought to unite their efforts to combat their unruly impulses. Historians, who habitually admire success, too often forget, when narrating wars, to inquire into their morality and utility; they almost always exalt the conquerors, and in this way corrupt public opinion, by accustoming it to allow itself to be dazzled by success. They should keep a little of the admiration they lavish upon conquerors for the upright men who have given evidence of their love of humanity and of their respect for human life.

As to the moralists, it is necessary that they should unceasingly combat the sophisms of immoral politics by declaring that reasons of State are the negation of reason; that the object of government is not to divide but to unite; that the lesser morality does not destroy the higher morality, because there are not two moralities; that public safety lies in justice alone: that the end does not justify the means; that illegitimate means result in the end being unattained; that right is superior to might; that justice is the supreme law; that the maxim that right is on the side of the strongest is a maxim good enough for wolves but not for men.

Science without conscience, Rabelais has said, is the ruin of the soul. Politics without morality are the ruin of society.

qisaimanUID：2703629

political crime
this is a wonderful article, fully demonstrating the critical thinking and beautiful wording.
the author calls for a reform of the politics, a returning to the moral obligation. first by interpreting the machiacellism, the falsehood of those who declared violence for the safety of people is proven by the eloquence. due to the increasing awareness and weight of public opinion , crafty policy brings nothing but being discarded.  only those supported by people can last politically. the progress of public reasonableness is the main force to render politics
more honest and impartial.  what does a remedy look like?
what kind of character needed for a qualified politic man? honest, free from envy and hatred,
fight against the sophisms  the relationship of politics and religion:
the purpose of the nation :

retrieve 挽回
intrigue 密谋
loathe 厌恶
ephemeral  短暂的
scaffold 绞架，
despise 藐视
embark 从事
guillotine 断头台
fraternity 友爱
adversaries 对手
reign 统治
disciple 信徒
precedent 判例 前例
reparation 款项
elevate 提升
audacity 无耻
watchword 口号
antagonism 对立
tamper 干扰 损害
tribunal 法庭 制裁
circumspect 细心的
Christian philosophy 文明的
palpable 露骨的
vulgar 世俗的
ardor ：passion
remedy 补救 = retrieve
wax 增大
malady  弊病
vitiate 使道德败坏
dissolute 放荡的
extravagant 奢侈的
inundate 淹没
barbarism 未开化
sophism 诡辩
superfluous 多余的
atheism 无神论
omnipotent 全能的
malevolent 恶毒的
plenipotentiaries 全权大使

prettywraithUID：197049

Comments (2010-01-08):

Finishing this long passage is not easy work for me. Finally, with some questions, I have read the whole passage. Mr.Poral, the author, asserts the politics would corrupt the society without morality. In his eyes, Christian morality may be one perfect choice to save the fallen politics. In his passage, he shows us a lot of evidence and examples to prove his standpoint.
I acknowledge that, as one ideal political view, his perspective is correct. But he does not tell us the standards of morality. Is it the Christian morality? People living in different nations have various standards about morality. First of all, Mr. Poral should give us a definition of the "morality" he have discussed, and if his definition adapt to every nations' people. He could have done this work in other part in the book. After all, I only have read the selected part(or excerpt) of the book. Even if author has described "morality" clearly, I also do not believe that his conclusion could be accepted by the ruler or society nowadays. In other words, Mr. Poral's assertion is not practical for the ancient or contemporary politics, and it may be very useful in future.

There are so many good sentences deserving to remember, and I do not show them in there. If I am free later, I would read it again.

Wrong spelling:

describe   Descripe
governor  Governer
nowadays Nowdays
practical     pratical

kulewy531UID：2603031

占之

adammaksimUID：2675466

It is possible that people will end by recognizing that in public as in private life honesty is the most effective and the most skilful policy.


Those who put their adversaries to death by poison or upon the scaffold often undergo a like fate; those who send others into exile are exiled in their turn.

fraternity n.兄弟会，社团

parliamentary adj.议会的，国会的


coinage n. 钱币，货币制度


antiquated  adj.陈旧的，过时的


circumspect adj.慎重的


malady n.疾病，不正之风


golden calf   According to the Hebrew Bible, the golden calf (עֵגֶּל הַזָהָב ‘ēggel haz&acirc;h&acirc;ḇ) was an idol (a cult image) made by Aaron to satisfy the Israelites during Moses' absence, when he went up to Mount Sinai.A metaphoric interpretation emphasizes the "gold" part of "golden calf" to criticize the pursuit of wealth.

comments:
The article sounds like a political bible and after denying so many ismes in his work, the author should definite himself as a utopian or idealist. Though fluent the sentences are I have to say I cannot applaud for author's eloquence. As an old Chinese saying "To impress others by morality.” morality has its power to make our society better. However, it does not work in any condition and it's hard to believe everyone in our society can be noble man through a moral reform. No one can figure out what humanity is created from, virtue, wick or both. Machiavelli did not pre-suppose contempt for humanity, but the existing condition led him to.

"Politics is a war with no blood, and the war is bleeding politics.” Politics itself is a war about nation, group or individual interest and in a war, any people with reason should not hope for any morality form the enemy. Until someday politics disappears, the crime of politics will haunt on human’s head forever.

豆腐店的86UID：2512956

Political Crime
Chapter XI Conclusion

By Louis Proal
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Politics have become discredited by the employment of culpable expedients and the adoption of immoral maxims（因..名声败坏）; for their reputation to be retrieved（为了重拾名誉） they must be brought into accord with morality. After having resorted for so long to cunning and falsehood, to intrigue and violence, politics, were it only for the novelty of the thing, should try the effect of fair dealing, tolerance, and justice. Today, more than at any period, novelty is liked.（短句的力度） And what greater novelty could there be than politics conducted on moral lines? It is possible that people will end by recognizing that in public as in private life honesty is the most effective and the most skilful policy. Not only should Machiavellism be loathed by honorable people, but it should be regarded as fatal to the true interests of nations. A great policy cannot be immoral. Craft and violence may score ephemeral successes（阶段性胜利）, but they do not assure the greatness and prosperity of a country. The successes achieved by an immoral policy are not lasting; sooner or later nations, like individuals, politicians, just as private persons, are punished for the evil or rewarded for the good they do. Political crimes are punished more often than is supposed. Those who put their adversaries to death by poison or upon the scaffold often undergo a like fate; those who send others into exile are exiled in their turn.

There is more immorality than profoundness in Machiavellism. It was not a shifty and violent policy that was pursued by Saint Louis, L'Hopital, Henry IV., Sully, Turgot, Franklin, or Washington. Their example shows that it is possible to be a great King, a great Minister, a great citizen, and at the same time an honest man. On the other hand, mighty geniuses have been the ruin of (毁掉了。。。)the peoples they have governed, because they despised justice and pursued a Machiavellian policy. Napoleon I., who was solely guided by reasons of State, lost his senses in the end and embarked upon the war in Spain and the Russian campaign. Danton and Robespierre, who did not lack talent, brought the Republic to ruin through trying to save it by the Terror. Liberty is not to be imposed by the guillotine; fraternity is not established by the extermination of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded by popular or judicial massacres. （好排比！）

The disciples of Machiavelli declare that politicians should resort to violence and even to crime, if to do so be necessary for the safety of the people, but what they call the safety of the people is often nothing more than the safety of their rule. The authors of the 18th Fructidor, who carried out that coup d’état（政变） under pretext of saving the Republic, violated the law solely with a view to escaping a personal danger; and far from saving the Republic, by demanding the intervention of a general they created a precedent for the 18th Brumaire. The public safety is an excuse for all violence and every iniquity. Moreover, when a political crime is really committed to assure the safety of the people, there is no proof that the crime is necessary, or that the people might not have been saved by other means.（从句表述） The safety of the people lies rather in respect for legality than in its violation. A people that does its duty can await the future with confidence; if it suffers for the moment in the cause of justice it is rare that the day of reparation does not dawn, for in the case of nations, as in that of individuals, it is virtues that elevate them and vices that debase them.

A Machiavellian policy is not a great policy; to practice it a great genius is not necessary. It is easier to govern by expedients than by principles. What is more, there has ceased to be any necessity for a policy of this sort in modern societies. It is comprehensible that Machiavelli's prince, that is to say, an absolute sovereign, should find it to his interest to sow division among his subjects in order to rule them; on the other hand, the maxim, "Promote division in order to reign," is out of place in a free Government that is supported by opinion and whose interest it is to unite and not to divide the community. Terror may be an instrument of government for a popular or military dictator, but it becomes inapplicable under a government of opinion. This being the case, instead of saying, as under the old system of politics, "Cunning, still cunning, and always cunning; audacity, again audacity, and always audacity," the watchword ought to be under the modern system of politics, "Straightforwardness, still straightforwardness, and always straightforwardness; justice, still justice, and always justice."

Diplomatic dissimulation becomes more difficult with the publication of parliamentary debates. This publicity, which has its inconveniences, offers the advantage that it is profitable to morality. It is impossible for a Minister to confess in a public discussion that he harbors unjust projects. Moreover, as public opinion becomes more enlightened, and acquires greater weight, its sound common sense takes the place of the finessing of the diplomatists. A crafty policy is not always the most skilful. Henry IV. did not have recourse to craft. A diplomatist who is in &not;the habit of resorting to falsehood ceases to inspire confidence and at once loses the greater part of his authority.

A policy based upon immorality is antiquated and unworthy of modern society; it pre-supposes contempt for humanity, and an antagonism that ought not to exist between those who govern and those who are governed. The policy of free peoples ought not to resemble the policy of absolute sovereigns; it is founded upon the respect of legality.

Whatever the skeptics may say, craft and violence are not necessities of politics. As society becomes more enlightened, politics may attain to greater perfection. Corruption is not an indispensable method of government: liberty can exist without license, it is allowable to hope for a state of things in which the administration will be impartial, the legislation equitable, the elections sincere, and in which industry and merit will be rewarded. The European Governments show better faith in respect to their financial engagements at the present day than in the past; they are conscious that it is to their interest not to tamper with their coinage, and not to go bankrupt, and for the reason that public confidence in their credit is their principal force. Why should they not arrive at understanding that they ought to have the same respect for liberty and human life as for the public debt?

The progress of public reasonableness is most of all to be counted upon to render politics more straightforward and more in accordance with equity. Politicians, assemblies, and sovereigns, knowing that they will be called upon to give an exact account of their conduct before the tribunal of public opinion, will become more circumspect in the employment of expedients of a kind to arouse public indignation. Politics should serve an educational purpose as well as maintain order and protect material interests. Men are governed by ideas and sentiments as well as by appeals to their interests and to force. A lofty sentiment does not spoil politics. The great advances made in the sphere of politics have been advances of a philosophical order and have been due to an application of Christian philosophy. Unprincipled politics are Pagan politics, and their result is not the progress of society. The true policy consists in an application of reason to the affairs of the State.

Skepticism has brought into existence at the present day a generation of politicians who set more store upon palpable realities than upon principles. A policy of expedients and of vulgar satisfactions is the outcome of skepticism. The change that has taken place in our political morals has deep and remote causes. A people that used to be chivalrous, that despised money, that was fired with ardor for noble causes, now for political liberty, now for military glory, does not become positively skeptical, indifferent to principles, and attached to material interests in a day. This change of character is the result of the numerous deceptions it has experienced, of the frequent revolutions it has undergone, but also of the weakening of spiritual beliefs.

"When a republic is corrupt," says Montesquieu, "none of the evils that crop up can be remedied, except by removing the corruption and reinstating principles; any other corrective is useless or a fresh evil." The suppression of the parliamentary regime would not be a remedy; the establishment of a dictatorship would be a fresh evil and a worse evil. The true remedy consists in a return to principles. Politics, like human life, need to be spiritualized unless they are to fall into the mire and to remain there. To change the persons composing the political world would be insufficient, unless a moral reform be affected at the same time. Clearly if the new politicians were as devoid of principles as the old, all that would have been done would have been to exchange fat for lean kine, who in turn would wish to wax fat. Between fatted skeptics and lean skeptics the difference is but slight, or if there be any difference it is rather in favor of the former. Obviously satiated skeptics are less dangerous than skeptics whose appetites are keen, because it may be hoped that, having looked after their own interests, they will at last look after those of the country. This, according to Saint Simon, was the cynical remark made by Maison when the direction of the finances was taken from him. "They are making a mistake," he exclaimed, "for I had looked after my own interests and was going to look after theirs."

A return to principles and moral beliefs and the substitution of ideas for appetites are, in consequence, the true remedies for that hideous malady political corruption. It is only in the power of great passions to drive petty passions from the field. As long as noble sentiments, love of country and of liberty and purifying beliefs, are not revived in a country the parliamentary atmosphere will remain vitiated.

Doubtless to exercise authority it is not sufficient to be above reproach; a clear intellect, tact, and experience are necessary. Talent, however, without morality is insufficient, and mere intelligence is no preservative against moral backslidings. Nobody would entrust his daughters or his fortune to the care of a clever but dissolute and extravagant man. Why then confide the country and the public fortune to the care of men of pleasure, who easily develop into men whose sole concern is money? When a money- and pleasure-loving man declares himself a friend of the people, who can believe in his sincerity? Affection is not proved by words, but by acts. The true sentiments of politicians are not to be judged by their professions of faith or their humanitarian speeches, but by their character and their habitual conduct. The probity expected of the head of a Government involves not only his own personal integrity, but the choice on his part of men of integrity for his Ministers. "If we would pass for men of integrity," says Cicero, "we should not only display probity ourselves, but exact it of those about us."

Statesmen would avoid many political errors if they were more respectful of justice; their political errors are often moral errors; their good sense and their skillfulness suffer in proportion as they swerve from the dictates of equity: they abandon themselves to passions that cloud their intelligence. Just ideas and wise resolutions are inspired by an upright conscience, whose qualities influence the intelligence. To be a man of good sense it is sufficient to be an honest man.

By again becoming moral, politics would be brought back into unison with common-sense, and would be cured of two serious diseases called the Socialist madness and the Anarchist madness that are the result of the sophisms by which we are inundated, and of the letting loose of evil passions. We lack reasonableness at the present day; our brains are disordered; our good sense, a quality that used to be particularly distinctive of the French, has been affected by innumerable philosophical, economical, and political sophisms that reach us from Germany, Italy, England, the East, and even from India. Good sense has ceased to guide our thoughts and actions since we have adopted German pessimism and socialism, English evolutionism, Italian skepticism, Russian Nihilism, and Asiatic Buddhism. Let us become Frenchmen again and Christians, let us return to the school of good sense and morality.

The malady from which contemporary society suffers is a moral disease rather than a political or economical disease. It is doubtless useful to improve institutions and to reform abuses but how much more necessary it is to reform morals and to give tone to men's minds by healthy ideas and moral beliefs. If society is to be saved from the corruption by which it is invaded, and from the revolutionary barbarism by which it is threatened, spiritualist teachings must be restored to the place they formerly occupied in men's minds and in politics; this is the only way to save them from the clutches of envy and hatred.

The sentiment of duty and of personal responsibility must be re-established in the public mind and in the education of the young. It is necessary to fight against the sophisms which lead to the absorption of the individual by the State, and to the conversion of every citizen into a part of a colossal machine that produces wealth and distributes it according to each man's needs. The true remedy for the crises we are traversing is a return to the old morality, which teaches that working-men in common with their employers are intended to do their duty, and to labor, and have their responsibilities. What other doctrine will teach the rich the spirit of sacrifice, and the voluntary renunciation of what is superfluous, and the poor the obligation of personal effort, the merit of patience, and respect for legality?

It is not by encouraging atheism and materialism that a Government effects an improvement in morals, that it stills passions and relieves wretchedness. Hostility to religion is contrary to sound politics. Merely from the utilitarian point of view the blindness and perversity are incomparable of those incredulous fanatics who would rob their fellows of the beliefs in which they find consolation. Who can deny that the religious sentiment conduces to morality? The more religious citizens there are in a State, the fewer are the restless spirits, the Socialists and the Anarchists. In a period of skepticism, materialism, positivism, evolutionism, and nihilism, who can dream of denying the immense services rendered by Christianity in inculcating the dignity of human nature and the obligatory character of duty, and in opposing the worship of an ideal to the worship of the golden calf? In a society in which there is talk of nothing else but of the struggle for life, of the rights conferred by might, of the elimination of the weak, of the disgrace of poverty, of the all-powerfulness of wealth, religion teaches self-sacrifice, respect, and love for the poor, and responsibility before God and before the conscience. At a period in which Socialism, grown more and more threatening, demands that the State should be omnipotent, Christianity again performs a useful work in standing out for the rights of the human being and the rights of the conscience, and in setting limits to the action of the State. If spiritual beliefs were not regaining &not;their hold over men's minds one would be forced to tremble for the future of society, for "there comes a day when truths that have been scorned announce themselves by thunder-claps."

Nations, too, in their mutual relations, have every interest not to separate politics from morality. A sound policy, no less than morality, dictates to them justice and charitableness, which are alone capable of preserving peace and with it the benefits it carries in its train. The policy that teaches nations that they should envy, hate, and injure each other, that their conduct should be solely guided by their interests, and that the difficulties that crop up between them should be settled by force alone, such a policy is criminal and mistaken. The statesmen who counsel this narrow and egoistical, this envious and malevolent policy, are shortsighted, they are merely alive to the interests of the moment that are a source of division, but they are blind to the interests which the peoples have in common, and above all to the disastrous consequences of antagonism and war; they do not keep in view the benefits of peace and the horrors of war.

How far preferable to an envious and ambitious policy that divides nations would be a just, friendly, and moderate policy that would bring them together! How far happier the nations would be if they would cease to lend themselves to a revengeful and high-handed policy! What a pitch of prosperity Europe would have reached if, realizing the project of Henry IV., it had applied to politics the rules of good sense and Christian morality. The aspect of the world would be changed if the nations, considering themselves members of the same family, would banish violence and craft from their councils. The policy of Christian peoples is still Pagan: it must become Christian if the world is to enjoy peace.

Carried away by his somewhat excessive enthusiasm for military glory, M. Thiers has remarked: “What purpose would the strength of nations serve if it were not expended in attempts to gain the mastery over each other?" It seems to me, however, that the strength of nations might be more usefully employed than in realizing dreams of conquest, which are so dearly paid for in money and blood, and which end in disasters and catastrophes. Every time that a nation has sought to conquer other nations, it has caused torrents of blood to flow without profit to itself. All those who have entertained dreams of conquest have met with failure. To establish their supremacy Charles V. and Napoleon I. caused millions of men to perish, and they were unable to attain their goal: the former died in a convent, the latter on the rocks of Saint Helena; Spain and France were ruined by their ambitious policy. To how many conquerors may not these words of the Bible be applied: "The hammer that shattered the nations of the universe has itself been broken in pieces."

A policy that aims at international equilibrium &not;is better than a policy of conquest. Empires that are too vast cannot last; they succumb, sooner or later, to a coalition between the other nations. That one nation should rule over another is always a danger to the common liberty, for a nation that is too powerful, like a too powerful sovereign, has a difficulty in keeping within the limits of a wise moderation. If the desire for domination be of value as a motive force in politics, why should not moral domination achieved through science, literature, and institutions be made the object of the activity of nations?

Skeptics are disposed to smile when they hear moralists express the hope that international wars will cease, and that arbitration will take the place of recourse to force. Lord Salisbury, however, who at one time considered this hope a dream, is now of opinion that it is realizable. "Civilization," he has said, "has substituted law court decisions for duels between private persons and conflicts between the great. International wars are destined in the same way to give place to the courts of arbitration of a more advanced civilization." In 1883 Switzerland and the &not;United States pledged themselves to submit to a court of arbitration all difficulties arising between them during a period of thirty years. In 1888 France contracted a similar engagement with the Equatorial Republic. In 1890 the plenipotentiaries of seventeen American Republics, assembled at Washington, admitted the principle of permanent arbitration.

It may be hoped, in consequence, that war will become rarer and rarer in proportion to the progress of civilization and of the moral and economical solidarity existing between different nations. The new engines of war, the destructive force of which augments every day, also contribute to the maintenance of peace, because peoples and sovereigns recoil in terror from the frightful consequences of a war waged with such formidable engines of destruction. The tendency of public opinion is more and more to compel Governments to maintain peace. It may be hoped in consequence that war, which is already more civilized, will become of rare occurrence.

Still, as peoples and sovereigns have a tendency to become intoxicated by success, historians and moralists ought to unite their efforts to combat their unruly impulses. Historians, who habitually admire success, too often forget, when narrating wars, to inquire into their morality and utility; they almost always exalt the conquerors, and in this way corrupt public opinion, by accustoming it to allow itself to be dazzled by success. They should keep a little of the admiration they lavish upon conquerors for the upright men who have given evidence of their love of humanity and of their respect for human life.

As to the moralists, it is necessary that they should unceasingly combat the sophisms of immoral politics by declaring that reasons of State are the negation of reason; that the object of government is not to divide but to unite; that the lesser morality does not destroy the higher morality, because there are not two moralities; that public safety lies in justice alone: that the end does not justify the means; that illegitimate means result in the end being unattained; that right is superior to might; that justice is the supreme law; that the maxim that right is on the side of the strongest is a maxim good enough for wolves but not for men.

Science without conscience, Rabelais has said, is the ruin of the soul. Politics without morality are the ruin of society.
--------------------------------

tequilawineUID：2702008

这篇文章太长了！

acquires greater weight有影响力, its sound common sense takes the place of the finessing of the diplomatists

1 After having resorted for so long to cunning and falsehood, to intrigue and violence, politics, were it only for the novelty of the thing, should try the effect of fair dealing, tolerance, and justice. 并列结构是什么成分呀？
2 Those who put their adversaries to death by poison or upon the scaffold often undergo a like fate; those who send others into exile are exiled in their turn. 恶有恶报 因果循环
3 Liberty is not to be imposed by the guillotine; fraternity is not established by the extermination of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded by popular or judicial massacres.
4 The disciples of Machiavelli declare that politicians should resort to violence and even to crime, if to do so be necessary for the safety of the people, but what they call the safety of the people is often nothing more than the safety of their rule.
5 This being the case, instead of saying, as under the old system of politics, "Cunning, still cunning, and always cunning; audacity, again audacity, and always audacity," the watchword ought to be under the modern system of politics, "Straightforwardness, still straightforwardness, and always straightforwardness; justice, still justice, and always justice." 这句话怎么翻译好呀？
6 it is allowable to hope for 并不是遥不可及a state of things in which the administration will be impartial, the legislation equitable, the elections sincere, and in which industry and merit will be rewarded.
7 The European Governments show better faith in respect to their financial engagements at the present day than in the past; they are conscious that it is to their interest not to tamper with their coinage, and not to go bankrupt, and for the reason that public confidence in their credit is their principal force. Why should they not arrive at understanding that they ought to have the same respect for liberty and human life as for the public debt? 类比反问，效果好。
8 A lofty sentiment does not spoil politics.
9 A people that used to be chivalrous, that despised money, that was fired with ardor for noble causes, now for political liberty, now for military glory, does not become positively skeptical, indifferent to principles, and attached to material interests in a day.
10 "If we would pass for men of integrity," says Cicero, "we should not only display probity ourselves, but exact it of those about us."
11 Good sense has ceased to guide our thoughts and actions since we have adopted German pessimism and socialism, English evolutionism, Italian skepticism, Russian Nihilism, and Asiatic Buddhism.
12 this is the only way to save them from the clutches of envy and hatred.
13 In a society in which there is talk of nothing else but of the struggle for life, of the rights conferred by might, of the elimination of the weak, of the disgrace of poverty, of the all-powerfulness of wealth, religion teaches self-sacrifice, respect, and love for the poor, and responsibility before God and before the conscience.

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Should politics accord with morality? Answer comes from the author is obvious approval. The reason why we should combine them comes from the following dialogue offering for us, and with that, we can clearly get the mind of what is the inner relationship between them---humanity evolves with society by justice, liberty and so forth in moral spirituality. And only through this way, we can attain to what we want—a peaceful society--- a wonderful world for kindness human.
And from the passage, I get familiar with the famous philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, perceived to be the most versatile mind of Rome, whose whole life are fraught with tribulation, leaving us abundance of great works.

jinziqiUID：2387034

discredited  cause to be distrusted or disbelieved
culpable  有罪的
expedient  a means to an end
maxims  a saying that is widely accepted on its own merits 格言 普遍真理
cunning 狡猾的  = crafty 狡诈的
falsehood 谎言
intrigue 引起…极大兴趣
ephemeral 短暂的
scaffold 脚手架
despised  look down on with disdain
Machiavellian 为达目的而耍手段阴谋的
guillotine 断头台
fraternity  a social club for male undergraduates
massacres  the savage and excessive killing of many people
intervention 插入;介入
precedent 先例
iniquity 邪恶不公正之举
reign 统治
audacity 大胆
finessing  subtly skillful handling of a situation
ceases  put an end to a state or an activity
impartial 公平的
tamper 篡改；干预
tribunal 法庭
circumspect 审慎的
chivalrous 骑士精神的
regime 政权
mire 泥沼；困境
devoid 空的
satiated 饱足的
preservative 有保护能力的
confide 吐露
probity 正直
swerve 突然改变方向
colossal 巨大的
atheism 无神论
conduces 导致
calf 牛犊
omnipotent 全能的
succumb 屈从

It is possible that people will end by recognizing that in public as in private life honesty is the most effective and the most skilful policy.
What is more, there has ceased to be any necessity for a policy of this sort in modern societies.
A policy based upon immorality is antiquated and unworthy of modern society; it pre-supposes contempt for humanity, and an antagonism that ought not to exist between those who govern and those who are governed.
To change the persons composing the political world would be insufficient, unless a moral reform be affected at the same time.
We lack reasonableness at the present day;our brains are disordered; our good sense, a quality that used to be particularly distinctive of the French, has been affected by innumerable philosophical, economical, and political sophisms that reach us from Germany,Italy, England, the East, and even from India.

I have to say that this article indeed helps me a lot in reciting GRE words. Most new words are GRE words, which I don't know. Well, this topic is so profound that it is beyond my understanding which is related to politics and history.