expedient; they are adopted only as a means of deception, and he is most
applauded and respected whose cunning is most efficient and secure. On
this account bad men are received with the approbation due to virtue,
and good ones are regarded only in the light of fools.

"And certainly in the cities of Italy all that is corruptible and
corrupting is assembled. The young are idle, the old lascivious, and
each sex and every age abounds with debasing habits, which the good
laws, by misapplication, have lost the power to correct. Hence arises
the avarice so observable among the citizens, and that greediness,
not for true glory, but for unworthy honors; from which follow hatred,
animosities, quarrels, and factions; resulting in deaths, banishments,
affliction to all good men, and the advancement of the most
unprincipled; for the good, confiding in their innocence, seek neither
safety nor advancement by illegal methods as the wicked do, and thus
unhonored and undefended they sink into oblivion.

"From proceedings such as these, arise at once the attachment for and
influence of parties; bad men follow them through ambition and avarice,
and necessity compels the good to pursue the same course. And most
lamentable is it to observe how the leaders and movers of parties
sanctify their base designs with words that are all piety and virtue;
they have the name of liberty constantly in their mouths, though their
actions prove them her greatest enemies. The reward which they desire
from victory is not the glory of having given liberty to the city, but
the satisfaction of having vanquished others, and of making themselves
rulers; and to attain their end, there is nothing too unjust, too cruel,
too avaricious for them to attempt. Thus laws and ordinances, peace,
wars, and treaties are adopted and pursued, not for the public good, not
for the common glory of the state, but for the convenience or advantage
of a few individuals.

"And if other cities abound in these disorders, ours is more than any
infected with them; for her laws, statutes, and civil ordinances are
not, nor have they ever been, established for the benefit of men in a
state of freedom, but according to the wish of the faction that has
been uppermost at the time. Hence it follows that, when one party is
expelled, or faction extinguished, another immediately arises; for, in
a city that is governed by parties rather than by laws, as soon as one
becomes dominant and unopposed,