Western Civilization I / Unit 13 WC1 1235 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading The Prince: Three Claims and Their Break With Christian Advice
The idea
The exam may quote Machiavelli and ask what the passage assumes. The method is three questions: what does the ruler want, what does the author take human nature to be, and what older advice is being rejected. The Prince is read in translation from Fordham's Modern History Sourcebook.
In practice
Apply to three claims the course paraphrases. A prince should be feared rather than loved if he cannot be both. What the ruler wants: security of rule. Human nature: fickle, self-interested. Rejected: the medieval mirror-for-princes that told rulers to be loved for their virtue. A prince must learn how not to be good and use that knowledge as necessity requires. Wants: power kept. Nature: others are not good. Rejected: the idea that a ruler's private virtue guarantees public success. A prince should study war above all. Wants: survival among rivals. Nature: force decides. Rejected: the clerical ideal of the peaceful Christian king. The exam's question: what does the passage assume. Answer: that politics is judged by results, not by conformity to Christian morality.
Where people slip
Machiavelli does not say morality is worthless; he says it must not cost power. A distractor will make him an atheist or a monster. Keep to the text's own separation of political success from private virtue, which is why the anchor calls it a scandal.
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