Machiavelli. He is interested in man in relation to political phenomena—that is, to the struggle for power; in man as he functions politically, not in man as he behaves toward his friends or family or God. It does not refute Machiavelli to point out that men do not always act as he says they act. He knows this. But many sides of man’s nature he believes to be irrelevant to political behavior. If he is wrong, he is wrong because of a false theory of politics, not because of a false idea of man.
