《君主论·第十八章·君主应当如何守信·狮子与狐狸》第6节
For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody; because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on. One prince of the present time, whom it is not well to name, never preaches anything else but peace and good faith, and to both he is most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived him of reputation and kingdom many a time. Ferdinand of Aragon. “When Machiavelli was writing The Prince it would have been clearly impossible to mention Ferdinand’s name here without giving offence.” Burd’s “Il Principe,” p. 308.
注释摘要
这段文字处于《君主论》第十八章的收束位置，将前面关于“狮子与狐狸”的整套论证推向一个极为冷峻的结论：君主不必担心手段是否道德，只要他最终能征服并维持住国家，那些手段就会被大众视为正当，并赢得广泛赞誉。马基雅维利的推理链条在这里落到一个观察上——世上的“庸众”总会被事物的表象和结果牵着走，他们看到的是你显现出的样子、你达成的结局，而不是你私下如何运作。极少数…