the many arguments that Dante uses in favor of his position are, from a purely formal point of view, both good and bad, mostly bad; but, from the point of view of actual political conditions in the actual world of space and time and history, they are almost without exception completely irrelevant. They consist of pointless metaphysical and logical distinctions, distorted analogies, garbled historical references, appeals to miracles and arbitrarily selected authorities. In the task of giving us information about how men behave, about the nature and laws of political life, about what steps may
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