ter, Vol. XVIII, Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophic der
INTRODUCTION XUl providence) that some are endowed with kingdoms and others are subject to kings." ^
It is in his account of how pohtical regimes are formed and maintained, or undermined and destroyed, that St. Augustine appears to anticipate the views of Machiavelli on statecraft. Of course, long before St. Augustine's time, very similar views had already been well formulated —though not so shockingly expressed—for political science, particularly by Aristotle and Polybius. To the classical account, St. Augustine adds the insight of Christian pessimism. Like the author of the Prince, he tears away the veil of respectability that successful political regimes hang, or try to hang, over their origins. His purpose is not, however, like Machiavelli's, to provide a manual of politically useful maxims for a new "founding father." He means to show how, with all the sweat, blood, and tears, with all the class struggles, ideological arguments, elaborate schemes for insuring domestic tranquillity, providing for the common defense, and promoting the general welfare, at home, by means of law and education, abroad, by means of trade, diplomacy, and war, it is nevertheless not the will of men, but the will of God that is accomplished in history. Machiavelli hints at a similar doctrine in his concept of fortuna; but the experience St. Augustine means to provide for his readers is rather that of Spinoza's "insight into necessity," or, more precisely—as has already been suggested —that of Hegel's "List der Vernumft." »
8. De civ., XVIII, 2.
9. G. W. F. Hegel, Sdmtliche Werke, ed. J. Hoffmeister, Vol. XVIII, Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophic der Weltgeschichte, I. Teilband, Einleitung: Die Vernumft in der Geschichte, Hamburg, 1955, p. 105.