to arms except for purposes of self-defence.  Instead of trying to excuse themselves by telling public and official lies, which are almost more revolting than war itself, they should take their stand, as bold as brass, on Macchiavelli’s doctrine.  The gist of it may be stated to be this:  that whereas between one individual and another, and so far as concerns the law and morality of their relations, the principle, Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t like done to yourself, certainly applies, it is the converse of this principle which is appropriate in the case of nations and in politics:  What you wouldn’t like done to yourself do to others.  If you do not want to be put under a foreign yoke, take time by the forelock, and put your neighbour under it himself; whenever, that is to say, his weakness offers you the opportunity.  For if you let the opportunity pass, it will desert one day to the enemy’s camp and offer itself there.  Then your enemy will put you under his yoke; and your failure to grasp the opportunity may be paid for, not by the generation which was guilty of it, but by the next.  This Macchiavellian principle is always a much more decent cloak for the lust of robbery than the rags of very obvious lies in a speech from the head of the State; lies, too, of a description which recalls the well-known story of the rabbit attacking the dog.  Every State looks upon its neighbours as at bottom a horde of robbers, who will fall upon it as soon as they have the opportunity.

* * * * *

Between the serf, the farmer, the tenant, and the mortgagee, the difference is rather one of form than of substance.  Whether the peasant belongs to me, or the land on which he has to get a living; whether the bird is mine, or its food, the tree or its fruit, is a matter of little moment; for, as Shakespeare makes Shylock say: 

                              You take my life
  When you do take the means whereby I live.

The free peasant has, indeed, the advantage that he can go off and seek his fortune in the wide world; whereas the serf who is attached to the soil, glebae adscriptus, has an advantage which is perhaps still greater, that when failure of crops or illness, old age or incapacity, render him helpless, his master must look after him, and so he sleeps well at night; whereas, if the crops fail, his master tosses about on his bed trying to think how he is to procure bread for his men.  As long ago as Menander it was said that it is better to be the slave of a good master than to live miserably as a freeman.  Another advantage possessed by the free is that if they have any talents they can improve their position; but the same advantage is not wholly withheld from the slave.  If he proves himself useful to his master by the exercise of any skill, he is treated accordingly; just as in ancient Rome mechanics, foremen of workshops, architects, nay, even doctors, were generally slaves.