IT seems odd that a man, any man, would wish to resist fortune, but Machiavelli is referring to chance and not the kind of fortune that is ordinarily associated with good luck.

Whilst accepting that a large number of people still believe in divine intervention, either from a monotheistic god or an entire pantheon of supernatural beings, he does not believe that everything should be left in the hands of fate:

I am in some degree inclined to their opinion. Nevertheless, in order not to destroy our free will, I believe that fortune decides half of our actions, but that she still leaves the other half, or perhaps a little less, for us to direct.

By describing how a devastating flood that destroys everything in its path must always be followed by a diligent effort on the part of local people to ensure that new canals and defences prevent the same thing from happening again, Machiavelli provides a very good analogy between the unpredictability of external influences and that which lies firmly within our own power.

A prince, he continues, can

be happy today and ruined tomorrow without having shown any change of attitude or character. This, I believe, arises firstly from causes that have already been discussed at length, namely, that the prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when it changes. I also believe that he will be successful if he directs his actions according to the spirit of the times, and that if his actions do not accord with the times, he will not be successful.

Furthermore, the kind of free will to which Machiavelli is alluding can adopt a wide variety of different forms. That which is good for one man, therefore, may well be disastrous for another. It depends on the circumstances involved, too, although a great deal must also depend on personal character.

Using the example of Pope Julius II, a man who – as we have seen – brought about the downfall of his great hero, Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli explains that the Pontiff nonetheless used the favourable conditions in which he found himself to his own advantage. The personal bravery and determination which Julius displayed in the campaign against Bologna, with neither the support of the Venetians nor the King of Spain, led to a unexpected victory. Timing was also essential.

As he concludes this section, Machiavelli describes the struggle against the winds of fortune as an assertion of masculinity, considering that

it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman. If you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and treat her badly. She allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, like a woman, a lover of young men because they are less cautious, more violent, and command her with more boldness.

Frederick begins by tackling the age-old question of free will itself, as well as the origins of evil, something which has intensely preoccupied some of the best minds for millennia. As expected, he does not believe that God should be held responsible for the apparent sinfulness that lies within man and suggests that many people waste their efforts by trying to get to the bottom of what remains one of the great mysteries of religion. The problem, in many ways, is further compounded:

It is like, by avoiding the whirlpool of Charybdis, one approaches too close to the she-monster Scylla; the philosophers mutually push themselves into abyssmal nonsense, while the theologians work their tight grip in a dark room, and then condemn themselves to be human, and show charity to their fellow creatures. These parties are trapped in a war without victory, like where the Carthaginians and the Romans once found themselves.

Frederick claims that important matters such as human freedom and predestination are converted by Machiavelli into weapons of policy, something which leaves him on very thin ground as a result of the fact that one cannot account for chance. Seeking to offer advice to a prince who, in turn, simple cannot legislate in the face of such unpredictability seems pointless. Naturally, the German also dislikes the pseudo-pagan connotations of Machiavelli’s terminology:

Fortune and Chance are meaningless words, which all known evidence shows that their source is the times of deep ignorance in which humanity’s role in the world was to stagnate, the time when one gave vague names to the effects whose causes were unknown.

That Frederick struggles to evaluate Il Principe when it is removed from the context of his own Christianity is not surprising, but Machiavelli did at least make an attempt to explain that fortune is only partly responsible for the affairs of humankind and can hardly be regarded as a pagan. In fact it appears as though Frederick prefers not to dwell on such matters:

As long as we are only men, with instruments, senses and minds that are limited, we will never be higher in certain of these areas than what is called the blows of fortune. We must let life rapture us every now and then, and gather what knowledge we can, sometimes randomly, according to events. Even if we were to overcome this chaos, our lives are simply too short for us to see all, and our spirits too narrow to combine them.

Machiavelli’s non-theological discussion of chance leads Frederick to temporarily set aside his religious proclivities and frame his reply in a more practical fashion, claiming that unpredictable circumstances often alter the course of history. At the Battle of Cremona in February 1702, for example, during the War of Spanish Succession, Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736) had marched to the Italian city alongside Leopold I (1640-1705), the Holy Roman Emperor, and his Austrian army. As a result, the French garrison was caught entirely by surprise, but a series of unfortunate circumstances led to Eugene being forced back out of the city:

(a) Intelligence reports that the city was defenceless soon proved unfounded as a heavily armed Swiss Guard managed to repel the invaders until French reinforcements arrived,

(b) the contact responsible for handing over the keys to the city gates was misdirected, and

(c) a discussion about the history of a pair of gloves led the Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744) to change her wartime allegiances and, as a direct result, caused her to side with the Tories against the Whigs and use her influence to ensure that Britain went on to make peace with its French neighbours:

In this occasion, the cattiness of women saved Louis XIV from a step which even his wisdom and his power could not prevent a possible downfall, and obliged his allies to make peace in spite of him.

Frederick provides other examples, too, all of which illustrate how history can appear to balance on the head of a pin and that it is often the case that a ship can only navigate its way through a stormy sea if it is guided by a skilful and capable leader:

All species of great men need to have the winds of time blowing in their favour, without which all their talents are more crippling than advantageous for them. Any reasonable man, and mainly those which the Spirit has moulded to control others, should make a plan of control as well reasoned – and as bounded – as a geometrical demonstration; to follow their system in all circumstances, always keep it as the base of their subsequent actions, and never to deviate from their goal. Using this, they could spring back from setbacks and bad luck, from the routing of their plans, and would also help others to carry out the projects which they themselves might have achieved – for the good of their State.

Machiavelli would no doubt agree, but Frederick also believes that there is far more value in accepting the fluctuating fortunes of chance, be they religiously inspired or otherwise, than in placing ourselves in the hands of a liar-philosopher. No prince is free from imperfection, he says, but is he is just then he must be forgiven on account of his failings:

The happiest country is that where this mutual forgiveness and charity between the sovereign and his subjects spread this softness onto the country, without which lives are weighed down by a load which grows imperceptibly heavier with time, until the world becomes a valley of bitternesses, and not a theatre of joys.

TO BE CONTINUED…