“In the general,” Machiavelli finds, “men are ungrateful, inconstant, hypocritical, fearful of danger, and covetous of gain; whilst they receive any benefit by you, and the danger is at distance, they are absolutely yours, their Blood, their Estates, their Lives, and their Children (as I said before) are all at your Service, but when mischief is at hand, and you have present need of their help, they make no scruple to revolt.” (The Prince, Chap. 17.) “The people,” moody and changeable, “being deceived with a false imagination of good, do many times solicit their own ruin, and run the
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