Anti-Machiavellism as constitutionalism: Hermann Conrings commentary onMachiavellis The Prince

Noah Dauber

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jou r nal h o mep age: w ww.els evier . co m/lo c ate /h i s t eur o ideasIntroduction

When Hermann Conring published a revised translation ofMachiavellis The Prince in 1660 and a commentary to accompany itthe next year, he wrote in the wake of the Treaty of Westphalia,when the position of the territorial states was strengthened vis-a`-vis those of the cities and the Holy Roman Empire.1 It was at thismoment, perhaps more than any other, that the decisive blow tothe tradition of urban liberty and popular government which soconcerned Machiavelli was struck. The sovereignty of theterritorial princes was the key concept on which the religiouspeace was settled; the famous principle of cuius regio, eius religiomeant that popular government had come to be perceived as athreat to public order and religious peace.

Conring (16061681) was a professor of Politics and Medicineat the university in Helmstedt, best known for his historicalresearch on German law and the constitution of the Holy RomanEmpirewhich he, contrary to conventional wisdom, distin-guished from the Roman Empireand for his early championingof William Harveys theory of the circulation of the blood.2

Helmstedt was a small, but important, university which ourishedunder the patronage and relatively free rein of the Dukes ofBrunswick-Luneburg. Above all it was known for its ecumenicismand tolerance in religion, which attracted talent out of proportionwith the size of the university.3

In the history of political thought, Conring is known, aside fromhis writings on the Empire, as one of the founders of scientia politica,of an empirical science of politics.4 It is partly this reputation whichhas led to an interest in his treatment of Machiavelli, sinceMachiavelli has long been considered one of the originators ofmodern social science. This theme has been emphasized by HorstDreitzel, who has suggested that Conring be considered a German

2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

E-mail address: ndauber@colgate.edu.1 The revised translation and commentary are: N. Machiavelli, Nicolai Machiavelli

Princeps Aliaque Nonnulla ex Italico Latine nunc demum partim versa, partim innitis

locis sensus melioris ergo castigata, trans. H. Conring (Helmstedt, 1660); H. Conring,

Animadversiones Politicae In Nicolai Machiavelli Librum De Principe (Helmstedt,

1661). The edition which will be used here is H. Conring, Animadversiones

politicae in Nicolai Machiavelli librum de Principe, in Opera, ed. J. Wilhelm von

Goebel, vol. 2, reprint (Aalen, 1970), 9731072. On the revised translation and

commentary, see R. Schito, Zum Machiavelli Hermann Conrings, in Machiavel-

lismus in Deutschland, vol. 51, Historische Zeitschrift (2010), 95107; R. De Pol,

Lebens-und Regierungs-Maximen eines Fursten. Die erste gedruckte deutsche

Ubersetzung des Principe, Daphnis-Zeitschrift fur Mittlere Deutsche Literatur 3, no. 4

(2003), 559610; M. Stolleis, Machiavellismus und Staatsrason: Ein Beitrag zu

Conrings politischem Denken, in Hermann Conring (16061681): Beitrage zu Leben

und Werk (Berlin, 1983), 17899.

2 M. Stolleis, Geschichte des offentlichen Rechts in Deutschland (Munich, 1988), 1:

2323.3 On Helmstedt, see M. Scattola, Dalla virtu` alla scienza: la fondazione e la

trasformazione della disciplina politica nelleta` moderna (Milan, 2003); H. Dreitzel,

Protestantischer Aristotelismus und absoluter Staat. Die Politica d. Henning Arnisaeus

(ca. 15751636) (Wiesbaden, 1970).4 On Conrings political thought, see M. Stolleis, ed., Hermann Conring (1606

1681): Beitrage zu Leben und Werk (Berlin, 1983); C. Fasolt, The limits of history

(Chicago, 2004); H. Dreitzel, Hermann Conring Und Die Politische Wissenschaft

Seiner Zeit, in Stolleis, ed., Hermann Conring (16061681), 13572.

0191-6599/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2011.01.005Department of Political Science, Colgate University, Persson Hall, Hamilton, NY 13346, U

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:

Available online 5 March 2011

Keywords:

Machiavelli

Hermann Conring

Aristotle

The state

Popular sovereignty

A B S T R A C T

In his Animadversiones on M

the early modern German

Machiavellis The Prince, fol

previous generation such a

analysis of tyranny and his

science but a dangerous pre

concession to sin. Conring

empirical constitutional ana

the state (i.e. the people ov

explained the necessity for

view of human nature and ted States

chiavellis The Prince (1661), Hermann Conring, one of the most famous of

rofessors of politics, further developed the constitutional reading of

wing in the footsteps of Bodin and the German political theorists of the

Arnisaeus, Contzen, and Besold. For Conring, Machiavellis exaggerated

eavy emphasis on popular liberty offered not so much a realist political

de to the monarchomachic theory of popular sovereignty and a fatalistic

committed Aristotelian with Arminian sympathies, preferred a more

sis (and a theory of the state) which did not favor any particular faction of

r the nobility) as the unique source of stability or instability and which

ickedness as the result of poor constitutional design rather than a realistic

te.

Machiavelli for his championing of the autonomy of politics fromtheology and ethics. Dreitzel has argued that Conrings scientiapolitica was just one of the several attempts to achieve the autonomyof the political in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, includingreason of state, political economy, and politische Klugheit. Ofthese, scientia politica had the advantages of being rather complexand neither succumbing to the state system, nor allowing itself tobe overcome by the despair of its inhuman tendencies.5

For Dreitzel, Machiavelli taught Conring the importance ofutilitas, of the common good, though Conring blended and adaptedit to harmonize it with the teaching of Aristotle on the proper endsof the state.6Michael Stolleis has told a similar story, though he hasemphasized state-building as much as political science. Stolleis hasargued that the idea of reason of state was gradually naturalizedand adopted for the uses of state-building of the territorial princesafter Westphalia. After initially being dismissed as Machiavel-lism, reason of state gradually became understood as necessitas,and thus became a justication for state conscation, taxation, and

Conrings aim in the commentary

By the time that Conring published his revision of SilvestroTeglis Latin translation of The Prince in 1660, the monarcho-machic arguments had lost much of their power with therecognition of Calvinism as one of three ofcial confessions inthe treaties which ended the Thirty Years War. Nevertheless theyretained some relevance as the arguments were recycled bythe local nobility and territorial Estates in their struggle with theprincely consolidation of power.11 For Conring, the text of ThePrince did not map perfectly onto these conicts. Yet it was verymuch, perhaps too much for Conrings taste, about liberty and

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112 103other moves against the Estates by the territorial princes. Stolleishas argued that Conring participated in this process, playing animportant role in the rehabilitation of Machiavelli, especially in hisessay on De Ratione Status (1651), but also in his commentary onThe Prince.7 For Stolleis, the commentary, while naturallyregistering disagreement, was primarily a defense of Machiavelliand another attempt to normalize Machiavellian realism inEuropean politics.8

In this essay, I argue that Conring is not centrally concernedwith these issues in his commentary, but rather with constitu-tional issues and the importance of liberty. While I agree thatConring concedes to Machiavelli that the honestum is sometimeswhat is utile for the state, and that it is sometimes necessary for aprince to use force to preserve his position, he sees these views aseither commonplaces from antiquity or poorly executed politicalscience.9 I argue that Conring believed that The Prince, andMachiavellis approach more generally, belonged to the overheateddiscourse of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, wherepolitical thought was too often reduced to an overdrawn contrastbetween tyranny and popular liberty. The Prince continued to berelevant in that tyranny and liberty were still very much at play inthe English Civil War and the struggles between the estates andterritorial princes in Germany, but it was a work which was morein keeping with the sixteenth century than with the politicalscience that he was developing. Machiavelli did practice a sort ofempirical constitutionalism, of the kind which had become soimportant since the reception of Bodins theory of sovereignty inGermany, but he was very partisan in his analysis and thusmisleading in his conclusions.10

5 Dreitzel, Conring, 1712.6 Dreitzel, Conring, 1667.7 Stolleis, Geschichte des offentlichen Rechts, 1: 20911.8 Stolleis, Machiavellismus und Staatsrason, 18594.9 Stolleis argued that Conring used the supposed antiquity of Machiavellis

arguments as a means of domesticating his way of thinking. Stolleis, Machia-

vellismus und Staatsrason, 187. This is an important, and perhaps, by now, the

standard interpretation. While I certainly agree that Conring believed that

Machiavelli was far less sinister than most anti-Machiavellians had made it seem

in the sixteenth century, I believe that he also was far more critical and dismissive of

Machiavelli.10 This interpretation, while departing from Dreitzel and Stolleis on Conrings

interpretation of Machiavelli, and thus, in a preliminary way, from their broad

interpretations of Machiavellism and the character of the origins of the science of

politics, still owes much to their interpretations of early modern German political

thought in general and Conrings political thought in particular, as the notes will

show. While my interpretation differs over the Machiavellian character of Conrings

political thought, it continues to emphasize the importance of sovereignty theory, a

major theme in both scholars work, and which Dreitzel, building on the work of

Otto von Gierke, showed, to my mind, to be the controlling narrative of early

modern German political thought in his Protestantischer Aristotelismus.tyranny.In the decade prior to the publication of his commentary to The

Prince, Conring had become fully absorbed in politics, turningaway from medicine in his writing and teaching. In 164950, heheld courses on civil prudence; in 1651, he supervised adissertation on reason of state; and in 16589, he offered courseson Machiavellis Prince. Finally, in 1660, he would nish hisrevision of the Latin translation of The Prince, with a commentarythe next year.12

At the same time, Conring became more active as an adviser toprinces. In 1660, he was named privy counselor to the Duke ofBrunswick-Wolfenbuttel in recognition of his services. It istempting to connect this activity with the commentary, especiallysince it was dedicated to Hugues de Lionne, the foreign minister ofFrance.13 Lionnes view of Machiavelli can be gathered from hisresponse to Conrings letter of dedication:

Regarding Machiavelli, whom you have chosen, and with whomyou are wrestling, you will achieve fame in accordance with thegreatness of your adversary. From which you detract nothing byyour candor, so different from those, who so often wishing topresent to us the image of a wicked man, are accustomed to putforward Machiavellis Prince, as if he were created out of acallousness of morality, a contempt of all laws, out of wickedtricks and a faithlessness from the long practice of wickedness,which certainly was not his intention. But it is your [intention]to explain these things at greater length; and it is mine to givethanks that you wished to adorn the front of your book with theinscription of our name.14

I believe in saying this, Lionne was responding to the prefatorymaterial in which Conring defended Machiavelli against the absurdaccusations of the sort leveled by Possevino, and against theapproach taken by those such as Gentillet, who wished to makeMachiavellis work a discussion of the proper virtues of a prince.Rather, Conring argued, as we shall soon see, that Machiavelli was apolitical theorist, engaged in constitutional questions, not inquestions of personal morality. Conring emphasized this aspect ofhis interpretation in his letter asking Lionnes permission for thededication, where he wrote that he dared to contend withMachiavelli not in moral philosophy or the sacred eld of

11 Dreitzel, Conring, 161.12 C. Fasolt, The Limits of History (Chicago, 2004), 80, 88.13 C. Fasolt, From Helmstedt via Mainz to Paris: Hermann Conring and Hugues de

Lionne, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History 16

(1989), 12634.14 H. de Lionne, Epistola Hugonis de Lionne ad Conringium, in Conring, Opera, ii,

982: Quantum ad Machiavellum, quem eligisti, cum quo luctareris, ex

magnitudine adversarii laudem assequeris. Cui tamen per candorem tuum nihil

detrahis, multum ab illis remotus, qui, quoties nobis gurare virum pessimum

volunt, ponere solent Principem Machiavelli, tanquam ex obdurato probitatis &

legum omnium contemptu, ex dolis malis & perdia per longam scelerum

consuetudinem constatum; quae certe non fuit illius mens: sed haec latius exsequi

tuum est; meum autem gratias agere, quod frontem libri tui nominis nostri

praescriptione honestare volueris.

theologians, as has been done by others, but in the arena of politicsitself, which up until now no one has tried.15 Both Conring andLionne realized that Machiavelli offered a political theory whichcould be grappled with, and even rejected, without resorting to thesort of broad attacks which had preceded them.

The language of Conrings letter to Lionne shows at once hisregard for Machiavelli as an opponent worthy of respect, but onewho is still an opponent. Conring admitted that I had to battle notwith a beginner, but a veteran, a practiced master at arms and acareful teacher of the murmillones of politicians.16 Conring wasclearly concerned that he would be confused with Machiavelli,

Conring believed that The Prince was properly a work on theacquisition and conservation of principalities, and more speci-cally of tyrannies. Like Arnold Clapmar, the author of a work onarcana imperii, before him, Conring thought that describing themethods of tyrants was not new or especially shocking.20 Aristotlehad already treated the issue in Book V of the Politics, to whichClapmar and Conring referred freely.21

Conring was therefore not terribly shocked by The Prince and hethought that those who pretended to be so were overreacting.Rather, his criticisms of Machiavelli were professional, as from

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112104such that among the dangers he listed in engaging in battle withMachiavelli are those secrets of rule themselves which are verydifferent from the common conscience.17 Conring clearly in somesense thought of himself as offering advice on how to rule whichmight be confused by those with a simplistic view of morality asbeing identical to Machiavelli. Conring hoped that Hugues deLionne could defend him from such accusations and, given hisexperience as an adviser to Louis XIV, evaluate the efcacy andmorality of his views versus Machiavellis.

While this was a rehabilitation of Machiavelli, it was therehabilitation of Machiavelli as a political thinker without anendorsement of his conclusions. In some sense this amounts to theautonomy of the political, but in a weaker sense than that arguedby Stolleis and Dreitzel. It does not amount to a blanket admissionthat wicked means are necessary in politics. Rather it is arecognition that one can discuss when wickedness might benecessary in politics, and engage Machiavelli as a constitutionalisttheorist of tyrannyalbeit a tendentious onerather than as theteacher of personal immorality. Conring endorsed Machiavellisempirical constitutional analysis as following in the tradition ofAristotles regime analysis and thus worthy of study andconsideration, if not wholehearted approval.

What Conring was sure The Prince was not about was religiouscontroversy. In the prefatory material to the translation andcommentary, Conring dismissed most of the usual controversiesabout Machiavelli, which centered on his impiety and anticlerical-ism, as fundamentally unserious. Conring traced these charges backto the papacy of Clement VIII (15921605) and the Jesuit AntonioPossevino, whose charges against Machiavelli in his BibliothecaSelecta of 1592 were widely and uncritically repeated. Conringaccused Possevino of barely reading Machiavellis work, and of beingconfused about which work of Machiavellis was which. He addedthat there was no reason to take the papal ban seriously, since therewere seventeen popes who preceded Clement VIII and who hadendorsed Machiavelli, and only seven since who had condemnedhim. Furthermore, in 1531 it was the Pope, Clement VII, who gave theprinter Antonio Blado the copyright to publish Machiavellis worksfor ten years, specically naming The Prince.18

In his commentary, Conring mostly focused on constitutionalthemes, neglecting the issue of Machiavellis piety, except in thefamous chapter 25, on the role of fortune in human affairs, wherehe duly notes that Machiavelli neglected Gods role in history,substituting the murky concept of fortune for divine providence.19

15 Conring, Letter to Hugues de Lionne, in Opera, ii, 9812: ausus cum Machiavelli

Principe contendere, non in moralis philosophiae aut sacro Theologorum campo,

ceu factum ab aliis, sed in ipsamet politica arena, quod conatus hactenus est nemo.16 Conring, Letter to Hugues de Lionne, 981: Quo sane apparet, certandum mihi

fuisse non cum tyrone, sed veterano, imo cum lanista exercitatissimo & cauto

politicorum myrmillonum magistro.17 Conring, Letter to Hugues de Lionne, 981: denique sunt ipsa imperandi arcana

a vulgi conscientia multum semota.18 Conring, Animadversiones, 9705. The copyright document is available in

scanned form, transcribed, and translated as Antonio Blados privilege for

Machiavellis works (1531), Primary Sources on Copyright (14501900), ed. L.

Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org.19 Conring, Animadversiones, 1071, litt. D.one student of politics to another. He insists that his criticisms in theAnimadversiones, which are thorough, are critical in part because hebelieved that this was what his role as a commentator required. Forexample, admiring Machiavellis discussion of mental exercises forkeeping one prepared for war, he wrote, since it is not appropriateto praise Machiavelli in a commentary, we do not wish to dwell onsuch matters.22

Conring also denied that Machiavellis method was especiallyrevolutionary, despite Machiavellis insistence to the contrary.Conring, along with other Aristotelians, noted that looking to theeffectual truth of things, to things how they are, not as theyshould be, as Machiavelli put it, was a traditional activity ofpolitical theory. While Conring admitted that some have made anattempt to lay out the ideal of the prince, and that Aristotle did asmuch when he described the universal king (panbasileus),23

Conring himself was unsure that there ever was such a king,and if there had been, they were so few that their names could beengraved on a single ring. Most authors of mirrors of princes werethus concerned not only with describing such ideal kingship, asMachiavelli had charged, but with exploring the different sorts ofprinces who t different conditions.24

What Conring did believe was that Machiavelli had exaggeratedthe two poles of The Prince, liberty and princely rule. In Conringseyes, Machiavelli overstated the signicance of liberty and populargovernment on the one hand, and the cruelty of princely rule on theother. The effect of this, Conring implied, was to suggest that thedesire for liberty made it necessary for princes to turn to methodswhich either Machiavelli unfairly painted in the colors of tyranny,or methods which were in fact tyrannical, but which were not infact necessary, or only on the rarest of occasions. Machiavelli had inessence caricatured both popular government and princely rule,depicting them in broad, blunt strokes, and in so doing haddiscredited princely rule.

In the end Conring argued for mixed monarchy or a mixedconstitution. It is by taking all of the relevant forces intoconsideration, including the aristocracy, which was so badlyneglected by Machiavelli, that one could ensure the stability ofthe state. This support for the mixed constitution was bothtraditional Aristotelian political theory on the one hand and up-to-date monarchical theory on the other, being offered by Charles I inhis answer to the Nineteen Propositions (1642) and by other Englishwriters. In so far as Conring was supportive of state-building efforts,constitutional arrangements were of greater importance to thestability of the state than other considerations such as militarycapacity. Conring found in The Prince then both the monarchomachic

20 On Clapmar, see M. Stolleis, Arcana imperii und Ratio status: Bemerkungen zur

politischen Theorie des fruhen 17. Jahrhunderts (Gottingen, 1980), and R. Tuck,

Philosophy and Government (Cambridge, 1993), 1247.21 E.g. Conring, Animadversiones, 1025, litt. A,1043, litt. B, 1049, litt. B.22 Conring, Animadversiones, 1044, litt. B: Quum laude vero Machiavellica

haec digna sint non Animadversione, nolumus iis immorari. Conring repeats this

view on 1059, litt. C.23 Aristotle, Politics, 3.12 [In Conrings division].24 Conring, Animadversiones, 1044, litt. C: At vero talis aliquis nescio an

unquam fuerit; certe si qui tales fuere, eorum nomina uni annulo inscribi possunt,

ut ille Mimus ajebat.

theory of popular sovereignty and the tyrannical methods ofabsolutists like Cromwell (as he considered him), but not thetraditional constitutional arrangements for the stability of the state.

From De Tyranno to a theory of the state

As the seventeenth century began, the interpretations ofMachiavellis analyses of liberty and tyranny became moresophisticated in the wake of Jean Bodins theory of sovereignty.28

Bodin, though protesting against Machiavellis atheism andimmorality, revisited many of his themes, and even particularquestions and episodes in Roman history in light of his newconstitutional approach to political power.29 In Bodins Germanstudents, the critique of Machiavelli became even more purelyconstitutional. While Machiavelli was still seen as primarily a

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112 105In the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Machiavellisworks were read in the context of the wars of religion and thetheories of tyranny and resistance. Resistance theorists, whetherCatholic or Calvinist, believed that labeling a prince a tyrant wasoften the rst step in legitimating resistance. In the context ofmonarchies and principalities, the discussion of tyranny becameshorthand for discussing the legitimacy of the state, and resistance,a shorthand for discussing political power.

It all began with the St. Bartholomews Day Massacre of 1572,when Huguenots were slaughtered in the streets of Paris byCatholics, possibly at the insistence of Catherine de Medici, themother of King Charles IX. The Huguenots attacked the Catholics ina pair of dialogues, the Reveille-matin des Francois (1573), accusingthem, among other charges, of Machiavellism. The Huguenotlawyer Innocent Gentillet followed suit, and a few years later, in1576, published his Contre-Machiavel, which appeared in a Germantranslation in 1580.25 Gentillet argued that Machiavelli taughttyrannical maxims, confusing vice and virtue, and teaching theprince to pursue personal attributes that would only lead to thefailure of the state and personal unhappiness.

In an introduction to the third edition of Silvestro Teglis Latintranslation (1589), the publisher Pietro Perna complained aboutthese monarchomachic critics of The Prince. Perna and Teglibelonged to a group of heterodox Italians, who had chafed underreligious conformity, rst of Italy, and then of Geneva. Theytranslated and published The Prince for the rst time in Basel in1560, but now, after the widespread inuence of Gentillets Contre-Machiavel, felt the need to defend themselves more strongly:

They indeed do not wish to leave a kingdom or principality inpeace, but incite the people to arms and revolt throughpamphlets, letters, gatherings, arms, anything (as is obvious),under the pretext of freedom of conscience. But what is theresult in the end? They have completely overturned con-sciences, the most noble families, the people, in the end, theentire kingdom, as everyone can see. Therefore, I ask youreaders, who then is the better teacher, Machiavelli, whoteaches one to acquire a principality and hold it in peace, withthe ruin of no one or a few, or those who are neither able norknow how to rule themselves, and who for so many years,dispatched so many thousands of souls and bodies in ghtingand killing them, and laid waste to cities and territories, neversetting a limit to the waste?26

Though it is this statist view that we have come to associatewith the reception of Machiavelli in Germany in the nineteenthand twentieth centuries, neither this view nor the Huguenot viewof Machiavelli as the teacher of tyrants came to prevail inseventeenth-century Germany. Resistance theorists, such as theReformed syndic of Emden, Johannes Althusius, seized onMachiavellis Discourses, since his discussion of the conspiracy ofthe nobles against the prince so closely resembled Calvinistresistance theory in which the magistrates served as the arbiters ofthe legitimacy of the resistance against a tyrant.27

25 S. Anglo, Machiavelli - the First Century: Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and

Irrelevance (Oxford, 2005), 229324; Stolleis, Geschichte des offentlichen Rechts, 1:91.26 Cited in W. Kaegi, Machiavelli in Basel, in his Historische Meditationen (Zurich,

19421946), I, 11981, 163, 180 n. 34.27 J. Althusius, Politica (Indianapolis, [1603] 1995), ch. 38; N. Machiavelli,

Disputationum de Repvblica, quas Discursus nuncupauit, Libri III ([S.l.], 1588), 3.6.student of tyranny, tyranny was no longer to be understood inpersonalistic terms, but rather in constitutional or political terms.Already by 1606, Henning Arnisaeus, Conrings predecessor atHelmstedt, noted that most prior criticisms of tyrannyincludingthe famous description of the tyrant in Bartoluss De Tyranno,which was later adopted by Gentilletwere not to the point sincethey addressed what for the most part are private vices.30 ForArnisaeus the tyrant is a public gure, and his behavior needs tobe discussed in political terms, not private ones. In his discussion ofthe causes of political change, it was stability, not personalmorality, which became the relevant criterion. Still, like Conringafter him, he believed that Machiavelli was mistaken according tothat criterion as well: Machiavelli was wrong to maintain that theEmperor or prince ought to be feared, since fear is the cause not ofthe preservation, but the corruption of states.31

Of all the natural and supernatural causes of political change,Arnisaeus believed that Machiavelli as a student of tyranny wasonly concerned with a few, namely discord, hatred, contempt,cruelty, conspiracies, and their remedies. Despite his turn to abroader constitutional analysis, Arnisaeus still discussed some ofthese causes and remedies in the personalistic idiom of the mirrorsof princes. This is evident in how he dealt with the issue of cruelty(contumelia), the Aristotelian cause under which the Machiavellianuse of cruelty fell. Abuse for Arnisaeus meant the physical injury ofsubjects bodies or goods. The prince, Arnisaeus wrote, citingGentillet and Ammirato, must work to make his subjects faithful,avoiding the use of too much cruelty and cultivating the royalvirtues.32

In 1620, the Jesuit confessor to Maximilian of Bavaria, AdamContzen, whose Politica would become a centerpiece of Germanpolitical thought in the seventeenth century, typied the Germanresponse to Machiavelli. Machiavelli had now clearly come to beunderstood as a partisan of popular liberty, and Contzen, like somany Germans after him, found Machiavellis obsession with theItalian citystates frustrating and misleading. Machiavelli iscompletely mistaken, Contzen argued, if he thinks that the peopleare better off in a popular regime. Utility does not favor popularregimes, since democratic regimes have always been worse offmaterially than monarchies. In a reversal of the republican Asiandespotism arguments, Contzen argued that the citystates ofancient Italy were scarcely comparable to the great capitals of theancient monarchies of Babylon, Ecbatana, Nineveh, and Persepolis.In Italy, in Samnia, in Campania, in Latium, there were free people,but certainly, small, rustic, and poor cities, such that I should trulycall them uncivilized rather than free. Contzen complained thatMachiavelli has too unsophisticated a concept of liberty, which ledhim to understand the only sort of liberty as that which belongs to

28 On the German reception of Bodin, see Stolleis, Geschichte des offentlichen Rechts,

vol. 1; Dreitzel, Protestantischer Aristotelismus.29 I. D. Evrigenis, Fear of Enemies and Collective Action (Cambridge, 2008), 815.30 H. Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica (Leiden, 1643), 257. Sed hae maximam partem

aut vitia privata sunt, quaeque ad Tyrannidem non pertinent: aut etiam Tyrannis

natura posteriora.31 Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica, 482. Non recte igitur Machiavellus vult metui

Imperatorem vel Principem debere, cum metus non conservationis, sed corruptio-

nis Rerumpublicarum causa sit.32 Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica, 565.

a democratic regime. There are many cities in Europe today,Contzen argued, which though governed by nobles, such as Venice,or in other cases, subject to the emperor, are nonethelessconsidered free. Indeed, liberty is varied and what must beadmitted above all is that the kind which is found in democracy isclearly the worst of them all.33

The critique of popular liberty

As for Contzen, there was no question in Conrings mind thatMachiavelli had overstated the importance of popular liberty.Conring was unimpressed with the examples of courageous andstubborn city-republics and he thought that Machiavellis insis-tence that the prince cultivate public opinion and the popular willwas mistaken. Liberty simply did not play the role in history thatMachiavelli (or centuries later, the Whigs) thought it did. Tobelieve this was to fundamentally misunderstand the nature ofpolitical change. And to emphasize the popular willin a waywhich must have reminded Conring of the monarchomarchic andnatural law appeals to popular sovereigntywas to pretend that an

cities of Achaea were subjugated by the Roman general Mummiuswithout the destruction of their citizenry. While Conring under-stood that the change from a popular to an oligarchic form ofgovernment seemed of great importance to Machiavelli, Conringdid not see this as the end of an epoch, a singularly great moment incivilization, but rather a typical example of political change.37

Conring was committed to the Aristotelian model of regimechange, in which the transition from a popular regime to anoligarchical or monarchical one could be easily envisioned. In fact,Machiavelli believed this as well, as is apparent from his Discourseson Livy, where he argued that the three pure forms of regimes werecorrupted easily and were thus liable to quick transformationsfrom one to the other. It is difcult to say why Conring did not takethe argument of the Discourses into greater account when writinghis commentary on The Prince. The Discourses were available inLatin translation in Germany, and Conring cited it on rareoccasions.38 Nevertheless, Conring did not consider Machiavellismore thorough treatment of liberty, political change, or the mixed

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112106unstable and amoral entity could be the basis of stable govern-ment.

In chapter ve of The Prince Machiavelli had insisted that it wasdifcult to conquer cities which were accustomed to liberty. Clearlymoved by the way in which the Romans subjugated the Greek citystates, an episode which must have resonated overwhelminglyduring the French invasions of Italy of his day, Machiavelli arguedthat the citystates had to be completely destroyed because theywere accustomed to liberty and would never agree to be subjugatedfor long. Conring, however, with no particular attachment to citystates (or perhaps to the claims of the free imperial cities of his day),wrote that it was not the popular form of government which wasdecisive in the examples given by Machiavelli, but the particularlyferocious character of those people.34 Furthermore, the reason thatthe Romans reduced several of the Greek cities was not because theywere ungovernable on account of their popular form of government,but because those particular cities would have served as badexamples to other cities.35

And it only came to such destruction on rare occasions, Conringnoted. This is not always the case; rather, it very frequentlyhappens that peoples which were formerly accustomed to libertysubmit to rule, and bear it with not unwilling spirits, whether theywere overcome by the princes by arms and force or by benets, asis shown by innite examples.36 In fact, according to Pausanias, heexplained, even in the case of the Greek citystates, most of the

33 A. Contzen, Politicorum Libri Decem (Cologne, 1629), 55. In Italia, in Samnio, in

Campania, in Latio errant liberi populi, at certe civitates exiguae, rusticae, pauperes,

& ut vere dicam barbarae potius, quam liberae. . ..Varia est enim libertas, & quae

maxima putatur, estque in Democratia, plane est omnium deterrima.34 Conring, Animadversiones, 1011, litt. B. Conring was unimpressed by the

warlike republics which were so venerated in the republican tradition. He wrote

that the institutions of the state cannot be optimized for both peace and war. Those

states which were geared up exclusively for war should not serve as models. So,

Conring wrote that Aristotle had correctly criticized Sparta, the same criticism

which, he added, certainly applied to the old Roman republic, since both were

organized best for the waging of war, but not the business of peace, as is evident

from history. Conring, Animadversiones, 1035, litt. E: utramque ad res bellicas

fuisse optime constitutam, non tamen ad negotia pacis, ex historia palam est.

Elsewhere, Conring recognized that too long a peace could lead to military

unpreparedness, and he recommended the method of the Swiss cities, which

allowed its citizens to serve as soldiers elsewhere, i.e. as mercenaries, as long as

they swore to return home quickly when called. H. Conring, Dissertatio politica de

bello et pace, in Opera (Aalen, 1970), iv, 980.35 Conring, Animadversiones, 101011, litt. C, citing Pausanias, Description of

Greece ([c. 14361 CE] 1824), ii, 188.36 Conring, Animadversiones, 1011, litt. B: Non semper hoc solere; sed

frequentissime eri, ut populi hactenus libertati adsueti dominatum subeant,

ferantque animis haud invitis; sive armis & vi, sive beneciis, a Principibus exi

fuerint; innitis exemplis ostendere est.regime, which appears there. It may be that he had not studied thework in sufcient detail, or it may be that he willfully ignored it inorder to read the theory of popular sovereignty into the work.

Conring was skeptical that the Italian love of liberty was reallyas potent as Machiavelli imagined. Machiavelli believed that thespirit of liberty would always resurface eventually. He pointed tothe example of Pisa, which rebelled in 1494 after almost a hundredyears of Florentine rule. Conring argued on the contrary that thePisans only rebelled since Florence was in disarray, and they weresoon forced to obey once again. They had long since accustomedthemselves to Florentine rule, and came to obey less unwilling-ly.39 This, he believed, was the common lot of the Italian cityrepublics; it was not just the Pisans, he argued, but the Milanese,the Paduans, the Veronese, the Bolognese, the Florentines, theSienese, and other formerly very free and powerful republics whichtoday obey princes, by no means unwillingly, except in the casewhere they are ruled by lords who are too weak.40

There is good reason to believe that Conring was thinking aboutbroader issues of popular sovereignty when commenting on thesesections of The Prince. In 1654 Conring used very similar languagewhen addressing the question of whether a kingdom or territorycould be alienated along with its subject populace withoutconsulting the populace.41 A number of natural lawyers andjurists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,including Ferdinand Vasquez, Andreas Gail, and Hugo Grotius, hadargued that it was not possible for an entire kingdom or territory tobe alienated without the approval of the people of that territory.42

This was a limit case of sorts, which to their minds, showed that allgovernment was for the good of the people, and thus that all

37 Conring, Animadversiones, 1011: Ne in eo quidem, quod regimen urbium ex

populari factum sit oligarchicum, videtur adeo Mummius vim dominatus

collocasse, quam in aliis illis quae itidem adhibuit. Etsi Machiavello illa mutatio

magni adeo momenti visa sit.38 E.g. Disputationum De Republica, Quas Discursus Nuncupavit, Libri III. Quo Modo In

Rebusp. ad antiquorum Romanorum imitationem actiones omnes bene maleve

instituantur; Ex Italico Latini Facti (Frankfurt, 1619). Conring briey praised the

Discourses in his discussion of works on Roman history in De Autoribus politicis ([n.p.,

n.d.]) in Opera, iii, 1733, 20.39 Conring, Animadversiones, 1011, litt. D: minus invite. . ..40 Conring, Animadversiones, 1011, litt. D: Mediolanenses, Patavini, Vero-

nenses, Bononienses, Florentini, Senenses, aliaeque liberrimae quondam & potentes

respublicae parent hodie Principibus, haud iniquo animo; nisi quando a dominis

impotenter nimis reguntur.41 On Conrings criticism of Vazquez on this question, see Dreitzel, Conring, 160.42 F. Vazquez, Controversiarvm Illvstrivm (Frankfurt, 1572), 1.5.5; A. Gail, De pace

publicae et proscriptis, sive bannitis imperii: libri duo, in Practicarum Observa-

tionum, tam ad Processum Judiciarium, prsertim Imperialis Camer, quam causarum

Decisiones pertinentium, Libri duo (Cologne, 1578), 2.15.1314; H. Grotius, De Iure

belli ac pacis libri 3. In quibus jus naturae et gentium: item juris publici praecipua

explicantur, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 1631), 2.6.4.

regimes ultimately depended on popular sovereignty, regardless oftheir form of government.43

German authors after Westphalia were uncomfortable with thisposition. The religious peace was settled not on the basis of theconsent of the governed, but on multilateral agreements betweenprinces. It was evidently against the interests of the newlystrengthened principalitiesand the peaceto suggest thatprinces were incapable of changing the political disposition of agiven territory without consulting their subjects. It was also areduction of all politics to the case of the popular or democratic

contraryAristotle had already made the distinction between theforma reipublicae and forma gubernandi. This distinction did nottherefore invalidate the theory of the mixed constitution, but wasanother, related, phenomenon.48

The engagement with Bodin led to a thorough rethinking of thenature of constitutional arrangements in general, and theinvestigation of the constitutional arrangements of individualstates in particular. They wished to know whether a given

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112 107regime. Johann von Felden thus argued in his 1653 commentary toGrotiuss De iure belli ac pacis that the degree of liberty of thepopulace needed to be taken into account when considering thisquestion of the alienation of territory. He concluded that one whoenjoys lordly rule may legitimately alienate a territory and itspeople without consulting them.44

Conring agreed. Furthermore, he argued that there were manycases of populations voluntarily alienating their own territories,that is, subjecting themselves to the rule of another, a claim whichGrotius had explicitly denied. Liberty, Conring argued, was not thesole concern or aim of politics, and could willingly be traded forother goods. This might occur because the people were notcapable of defending themselves against an enemy, or becausethose worn down by civil discord prefer to obey others, or becausethose who are oppressed by poverty are compelled voluntarily, asit were, to purchase the means to sustain themselves with theirown servitude.45

Class struggle and the logic of constitutionalism

The reception of Bodin, as has already been mentioned, led to athorough reevaluation of German constitutional and politicalthought in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In time itled to a sophisticated blend of Bodins sovereignty theory, publiclaw, and Aristotelian political thought, but it began withcontroversy over the nature of the mixed regime. In the latesixteenth century, the theory of the mixed constitution, thoughheld up as an ideal for centuries, was attacked by Jean Bodin, whodenied that there were any mixed constitutions. Distinguishingbetween the forma reipublicae and the forma gubernandi, he arguedthat though there were forms of government which resembledmixed constitutions, the underlying sovereignty was alwaysunitary and resided in one of the three simple constitutions. ThusBodin argued that France was a monarchy, but, given the role of theparlements, had oligarchic elements in the form of its govern-ment.46

While Bodins inuence on German political thought wasincalculable, his views were not always accepted uncritically. Hisrejection of the theory of the mixed constitution was met witherce resistance by German jurists like Arumaeus, Limnaeus, Ottoand Besold, who were accustomed to thinking about the Empire asa mixed constitution.47 Philipp Scherb and Michael Piccart,professors at the university of Altdorf, founders of the sort ofAristotelian political theory practiced by Arnisaeus and Conring atHelmstedt, argued simply thatdespite Bodins protests to the

43 O. F. von Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 1500 to 1800, 1st ed.

(Boston, 1957), 262.44 J. von Felden, Annotata in Hug. Grotium de jure belli et pacis (Amsterdam, 1653),

150.45 H. Conring, De nibus Imperii Germanici (1654), in Opera, ed. J. W. von Goebel

(Aalen, 1970), i, 267. Puta quod vel sibi ab hoste defendendis non sufcient, vel

discordia civili defatigatis intersit parere potius aliis, vel pressi egestate emere quasi

spontanea servitute sibi cogantur copiam qua se sustentent.46 Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society; Dreitzel, Protestantischer

Aristotelismus, 2878; Stolleis, Geschichte des offentlichen Rechts, 1 et passim.47 Stolleis, Geschichte des offentlichen Rechts, 1:180.compromise between the estates and the prince was on the level ofsovereignty or government, and how that compromise had comeabout. Advocates of popular sovereignty, such as Althusius andPhilipp Hoenonius (15761649), argued that sovereignty alwaysresided with the people and that the varied forms of governmentwere just that, forms of government. Arnisaeus and Conringbelieved, contrary to Bodin, that sovereignty could be shared, thatthere was a range of rights which was often distributed among thegroups in a society after a constitutional struggle.49 According toArnisaeus, and Conring after him, the constitutional struggle wasliterally constitutional, in which tensions between social groupswere played out in the fundamental laws of the state.50

It was a version of this struggle that Conring found inMachiavellis The Prince. Conring believed that Machiavellisversion of constitutional struggle sounded, despite the differencein idiom, like a version of popular sovereignty. Indeed, Machiavelliportrayed a popularly sanctioned prince as the product of apartisan struggle between the plebs and the optimates. InMachiavellis model, each group, when realizing that they cannotdefeat the other group, supports a leader who will be acceptable tothe other party, but will still champion their interests. Thepopularly elected or appointed leader is thus a moderatinginuence.51 In this account, Conring must have heard echoes ofpopular sovereignty of the sort championed by Althusius andHoenonius, which distinguished between the majestas realis thatremained with the people and the majestas personalis which couldbe conferred on a prince.

Conring was skeptical that popularly sanctioned leadership wasthe usual outcome of some sort of compromise. Arnisaeus, alwaysthe opponent of the advocates of popular sovereignty, had,following Aristotle, written at length of the horrors of democraticregimes and the ease with which they turn into tyrannies. Conringdid not consider a popularly supported prince a compromise, butrather a tyranny. Echoing Arnisaeuss conclusion that there waseternal hatred between the nobility and the populace, Conringresponded to Machiavelli that the parties often support leaderswho wish to oppress the other party. Conring believed that the bestrecent example of this phenomenon was the popular support ofCromwell, whom he considered a model tyrant.52 Cromwell servedas the perfect example for Conrings generation that theirsuspicions were correct; popular government would quicklydegrade into tyranny, as Aristotle had predicted.

In the rare cases where the warring parties did support princelypower as a compromise measure and not to oppress each other,Conring wrote, this was done as much on the part of the nobility asthe populace. The nobility was equally capable of endowing theprince with absolute power, if they thought that this wasnecessary to save them from being wronged by the masses. And,contrary to Machiavellis claim that one cannot by fair dealing,

48 P. Scherb, Discursus Politici In Aristotelis de Republica Libros (Frankfurt, 1610), on

Aristotle, Politics, 4.5; B. Cellarius, Politicae succinctae (Jena, 1658), 98.49 Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 236; Dreitzel, Protestantischer

Aristotelismus, 2902; H. Conring, De differentiis regnorum, in Opera, vol. 3 (Aalen,

1970), 888.50 Dreitzel, Protestantischer Aristotelismus, 2923.51 Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 9.52 Conring, Animadversiones, 1026, litt. B. Henning Arnisaeus, De Republica

(Strasbourg, 1636), 7.2, 93844.

and without injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfythe people, for their object is more righteous than that of thenobles, the latter wishing to oppress, whilst the former only desirenot to be oppressed, Conring insisted that their cause is no lessworthy than that of the masses, since the honorable desire of thenobility to be safe from the wrongs of the masses is equal to that ofthe masses not to be oppressed by the nobles.53

Conring insisted that appealing to the populace alone was not asure route to political stability. If one had to choose between pleasingthe populace and the nobility, Conring grudgingly admitted that onewas better off with the populace, but this was by and large a falsechoice. It was important to please the aristocracy as well as the

amoral. Commenting on Machiavellis claim that hatred isacquired through good deeds as well as bad ones (The Prince,ch. 19), Conring wrote: This is certainly the case, since some menhate virtue, others love it. Thus, if you wish to please them it isnecessary to relinquish virtue.58 There is, then, nothing moralabout appealing to public opinion.

The one occasion on which Conring thought that Machiavelliactually managed to get it right was not one of a trueconstitutional settlement, but rather a strategic concession onthe part of the prince. Commenting on Machiavellis praise of theparlements of Paris as an institution to judge and moderate theambition of the nobility (The Prince, ch. 19), Conring wrote:Finally, the advice of Machiavelli is helpful, since it considers thethinking of the nobles no less than the masses.59 As we have seen,Bodin considered the case of the parlements, arguing that they did

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112108populace, in keeping with Aristotles theory of the mixed constitu-tion, if one wanted to preserve stability.

Conring rejected Machiavellis low view of the importance ofthe nobility for the stability of the state. In The Prince the nobility isalways getting trounced by some prince or another. As Conringnoted, this is a common theme of Machiavellisthe strategy ofdestroying all the nobility at the start of ones rule. Conring wasskeptical that the nobility was so easily destroyed. Again and againin his commentary, he argued that the nobility was not so easilydismissed, that they would resist, and that they are as resistant asthe people, who Machiavelli insists are erce in their love forliberty.

In avoiding hatred and the danger which arises from it, whichshould be feared by princes, Conring wrote,

it is not sufcient that the populace does not hate the prince.But care should be taken such that he avoids the hatred of all theothers who are of noble spirit. Certainly their hatred is sufcientto bring down princes if not the principality. After all, how manykings and princes were killed by the few on their own initiative,no matter that they were not hatedbut even lovedby thepopulace?54

Conring was not a partisan for the nobility. In his analysis offactions, his worry was more that Machiavelli had shortchangedthem. In fact, Machiavelli had argued just the opposite in theDiscourses, namely, that the nobility was frequently behind theconspiracies which unseated princes. In commenting on thispassage in the Discourses, Arnisaeus had likewise argued thatMachiavelli was most stupid to say that those who haveconspired are all great men, or familiars of the Prince.55 Conringwas thus concerned, following Aristotle on the mixed regime, thatthe analysis be complete. He thus concluded that when givingadvice to a prince in a factional society, the most important advice,again following Aristotle, is that the prince cultivate the middleclasses who make it possible to quiet factional conict.56

It was then not so much Conrings intent to specically criticizepopular sovereignty as to show that it had no special claim. EvenMachiavelli acknowledged that the techniques of force and fraudcould be used to gain power in republics as well as principalities,Conring noted.57 And the general method of avoiding hatred was

53 Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 9, translation of W. K. Marriott (New York, 1908);

Conring, Animadversiones, 1026, litt. C: quum aeque sit honestum nobilium

desiderium, quo sint tuti ab iniuria plebis, atque plebis est, ne opprimantur ab

Optimatibus.54 Conring, Animadversiones, 1053, litt. D: Ad hoc non satis est ad evitandum

odium aut periculum quod ex odio nascitur & Principibus est metuendum, si

multitudo non oderit Principem, sed etiam danda est opera, ut vitet odium omnium

aliorum qui generosiore sunt animo. Horum certe odium, si non principatus, saltim

Principes perdere est idoneum. Quot sane caesi sunt Reges & Principes ab ejus

ingenii paucis, quamvis nullo essent in multitudinis odio, imo a multitudine

diligerentur?55 Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica, 476.56 Conring, Animadversiones, 1028, litt. C.57 Conring, Animadversiones, 1023, litt. A, citing Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.12.not represent shared sovereignty, but simply the form of Frenchgovernment. Arnisaeus agreed.60 Besold associated the distinc-tion between forma reipublicae and forma gubernandi withMachiavellis view that sometimes forms of government fromprevious regimes were kept on in a monarchy to placate thesubjects.61 Conring, putting the two together, explained in adiscussion of mixed monarchy that wherever there are parlia-ments or estates, there is not necessarily mixed monarchy, sincesometimes the institutions of the previous regime which arereally nothing, but mere shadows survive into the new regime,and so the representative assemblies of democracies or aristocra-cies can survive. Such is the case with Cromwell today, Conringwrote, who pretends that parliament can act freely, though reallyeverything depends on his command.62

Tyranny as the method of war

One of the traditional explanations for the development of themodern state is the theory of the military revolution, thedevelopment of new technologies of warfare and a new sort ofmodel army.63 Conring was aware of these developments,especially as exemplied in the work of Justus Lipsius, but rejectedthem.64 In his commentary on The Prince, Conring alludes to suchdevelopments, in distinguishing between the methods of war andpeace. To use the methods of war during peacetime is to act like atyrant, not a head of state.

Since there are two main categories of civil affairs, Conringbegan,

war and peace, a prince can earn for himself a great reputationin both categories or if he is better than the other princes andkings in both or at least one of the categories, and performssome great deed which is hardly imitable by the others. Also,warlike deeds usually garner a better reputation and notoriety

58 Conring, Animadversiones, 1057, litt. D: Ita sane est: idque quoniam

hominum alii oderunt virtutem, alii amant. Proinde illis quidem si placere studeas

necessum est virtutem relinquere.59 Conring, Animadversiones, 1056, litt. A: Hoc demum Machiavelli consilium

salutare est; ut scilicet non Procerum minus quam vulgi ratio habeatur.60 Dreitzel, Protestantischer Aristotelismus, 289.61 C. Besold, Discursus Politici, in Operis Politici Editio Nova (Strasbourg, 1626),

iii, 4, citing Machiavelli, Discourses 1.25.62 Conring, De differentiis regnorum, 888. Quemadmodum enim aliis

rebuspublicis mutatis, ad vitandam invidiam multa ex veteri statu servari solent,

quae tamen revera nihil aliud sunt, quam merae umbrae.63 O. Hintze, Military Organization and the Organization of States, in The

Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, ed. F. Gilbert (New York, 1975), 178215; G.

Oestreich, Neostoicism and the Early Modern State, ed. H. G. Koenigsberger

(Cambridge, 1982); G. Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the

Rise of the West, 15001800 (2nd ed., New York, 1996); F. Tallett, War and Society in

Early-Modern Europe, 14951715 (London, 1992), Chapter 5.64 Dreitzel, Conring, 165.

among the masses, while the arts of peace do so among thewise. Certainly Solomon and Numa Pompilius of the Romansmade great names for themselves for generations through thearts of peace alone.65

This distinction between the arts of war and peace was atraditional way of discussing the proper place of force andviolence in the state. Some authors thought that there wascontinuity between the two, that force was necessary even in thestate of peace. Thus, the noted jurist and famed author of a DeRepublica (1586), Pierre Gregoire, wrote, Indeed, in times ofpeace military strength is used against the disobedient in order toforce obedience. Laws are said to be armed in order to pursuevengeance on crimes, magistrates have the right to use force, andthe power to punish either the mind or the body; the sword is theavenger of iniquity.66 Conring following his teacher, the famoustheologian Georg Calixt, who in turn drew on Valentine ForstersHistory of Roman Law (1565), made the distinction more black andwhite. Calixt, unlike the rst generation of Reformers, was

power and keep it.71 Conring took some comfort in the thoughtthat like other tyrants, Cromwell relied so much on his reputationand personal character that his sons were incapable of sustainingthe tyranny.72

Politics and theology blended in Conrings portrait of Cromwellas a tyrant riding high on the backs of a gullible people. His critiqueof Cromwell followed his teacher Georg Calixts account ofPuritanism in England, which in turn depended on Dutch andearlier English critics.73 Calixt wrote about the Puritan leaders thatthey strive to lodge sovereignty over all things with the people,since they lead the people by the ears.74 Luther and Melanchthonhad worried in their day about such charismatic movements led byschwarmerei and this critique merged in the minds of Aristotelianpolitical theorists like Conring with the traditional Aristotelianview of the easy transition from democracy to tyranny.

In fact, tyranny was a poor choice if one was interested in long-term stability. This, for Conring, was evident in the case of Cesare

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112 109unimpressed with Roman law. He thought that it was geared moreto the arts of war than the art of peace, and so was lled withcontradictory laws and poor civil procedure. Calixt, and Conringafter him, preferred a homegrown German law given by a princeemploying prudence to make laws which met the needs andchallenges of the day.67

The trouble with Machiavelli, Conring complained, is that hedid not distinguish between these two categories and thus showedno sensitivity to the changing needs of a given state. Furthermore,by recommending the arts of war in times of peace, Machiavelliwas really teaching the method of tyranny. Thus, despite whatMachiavelli thought (The Prince, ch. 20), discord should generallynot be used as a method to control the citizenry during peacetime,only enemies in a time of war.68

Once again, Conring argued that Cromwell exempliedMachiavellis teaching on tyranny. Cromwell, Conring wrote,relied at once on popular opinion and military force to securehis position. Cromwell, Conring believed, was one of thosepopularly supported leaders whose aim was to oppress thenobility. In the end, he managed to maintain his power, for eventhough he has rendered the nobles hostile, he is safe because of thegood will of the people.69 It was not just public opinion, however,that kept him in power, but military force: In England theCromwellian tyranny certainly originated chiey through thesupport of the professional military, and is propped up by ittoday.70 It is men like Cromwell, that is, tyrants, who followMachiavellis advice to fabricate military threats in order to take

65 Conring, Animadversiones, 1064, litt. A: Cum duo sint praecipua genera

civilium negotiorum, belli alia, alia pacis; potest Princeps utroque ex genere

ingentem sibi existimationem comparare, si nempe utroque vel saltem alterutro in

ordine prae aliis Principibus ac Regibus excellat, atque eximium aliquid aliis haud

imitabile praestet. Ac solent quidem bellica in vulgo plus parere opinionis & gloriae,

apud sapientes vero artes pacis. Certe Salomon, & apud Romanos Numa Pompilius,

solis pacis artibus ingens nomen omne in aevum invenere.66 P. Gregoire, De Repvblica, Libri Sex Et Viginti (Frankfurt, 1609), 363a: Quinimo

tempore pacis contra contumaces, militari manu proceditur ad coactionem

obedientiae. Armari leges dicuntur pro criminibus ulciscendis, & magistratus

cum imperio habere ius gladii, & in animam seu vitam advertendi potestatem, ultor

iniquitatum gladius est. For each of these phrases, Gregoire cited a Roman law

supporting the claim. The discussion of the art of war and peace was thus

considered a way of discussing the role of force in the state, even in the legal idiom.67 I. Mager, Georg Calixts Theologische Ethik Und Ihre Nachwirkungen, Studien zur

Kirchengeschichte Niedersachsens 19 (Gottingen, 1969), 130.68 Conring, Animadversiones, 1061, litt. D.69 Conring, Animadversiones, 1026, litt. C: Quod ipsum observare hodie est,

etiam a Cromwellio: qui Optimates infestos etsi habeat, populi tamen benevolentia

tutus est.70 Conring, Animadversiones, 1059, litt. E: Et in Anglia cromwelliana tyrannis

utique conductitii potissimum militis favore enata est, hodieque sustentatur.Borgia, one of Machiavellis most extended and most notoriousexamples. Conring was not convinced by Machiavellis account inwhich it was only Borgias ill health which brought him to an end.Rather, Conring argued that Borgia was not as successful asMachiavelli had said in any of the aspects which had earned himMachiavellis praise. Borgia had not in reality killed off all of thenobles; many survived and were bitter foes of Borgias. Borgia hadwon over some of the cardinals in the College, but really only theSpanish ones; the others were opposed to him and his father.Guicciardini had a more accurate estimate of Borgias position,which showed that he only held a few fortresses in the Romagna bythis time.75 This all showed, Conring argued, that it was not simplyBorgias ill health, or a misstep in allowing Julius to be named Pope,but rather a reversal of fortune due to Gods will, for God does notindulge crimes of such a kind for long with impunity, but pursuessuch sins soon with severe vengeance.76

For Conring, the methods of the tyrant, of war, were not themethods of a realistic prince who wished to, for example, enforce areligious peace on his subjects. The tyrant who was content todisarm his people, to keep them in line with a professionalizedmilitary, and to keep the peace through sowing discord, was notbeing realistic, but shortsighted.77

The rejection of realism

Conring wished to show that the constitutional dilemmaconstructed by Machiavelli in The Princethat for stability a regimecould either choose popular government or resort to tyrannywasfalse. This meant in turn showing that it was possible for princelygovernment to be both thoroughly moral, and thus not a tyranny,and stable. Conring rejected realism in the strict sense of the term,

71 Conring, Animadversiones, 1062, litt. B. Conring thus rejected the idea that an

external threat was useful for social solidarity, a key Machiavellian concept to

which many other critics of Machiavelli, including Bodin, had subscribed. For

Ioannis Evrigenis, agreement with Machiavelli on the importance of such negative

association is a litmus test of the extent of an authors rejection of Machiavellism.

See Evrigenis, Fear of Enemies and Collective Action, 76.72 Conring, Animadversiones, 1043, litt. B.73 G. Horn, De statu ecclesiae Britannicae hodierno Liber commentarius: Una cum

append. eorum, quae in Synodo Glasguensi contra Episcopos decreta sunt, 1647.74 G. Calixt, Apparatus Theologicus, in Werke in Auswahl: Georg Calixt, ed. I.

Mager (Gottingen, 1978), i, 3389: Id igitur operam dant, ut suprema rerum

omnium potestas sit penes populum, nam populum ipsi auribus ducunt, et quo

visum est impellunt.75 Conring, Animadversiones, 1021, litt. A, col. B.76 Conring, Animadversiones, 1022, litt. A, col. A: cum soleat Deus perfre-

quenter ejusmodi criminibus non longam indulgere impunitatem. Sed illa scelera

mox severa ultione prosequi.77 For the disarming of ones own people as a method of tyrants, see Conring,

Animadversiones, 1061, litt. B.

namely, that stable government would always require wickednessat some point.78

The trouble with Machiavelli, Conring thought, was that he wasat once too categorical about the necessity of learning how to usewicked means, and too conventional in his understanding ofwickedness. While Machiavelli did not mean by virtue the trueand exact virtue and morality, but rather industry, an aptitude forgetting things done, cunning, and military valor,79 he neverthelessupheld traditional valuations of good and bad. Thus Machiavellicalled Agathocles wicked, arguing that he should not be praised forvirtue.80

Conring explained, citing Ciceros third book of De Ofciis, that incivil affairs there were actions which were actually virtuous despitebeing thought otherwise, since they were useful for the state. Somethings are not only useful for the administration of the state,Conring wrote, but even necessary, which are commonly, and evenby some who are known for their learning, judged to be remote from

In the commentary, Conring wrote that Machiavelli did notdraw the crucial distinction between regimes which were foundedjustly and unjustly. There were certainly some kinds of regimeswhich required violence and cruelty to be founded, Conringacknowledged. Such regimes might at some later date require stillmore violence to preserve them. Regimes which were foundedjustly, however, did not require such cruelty or wickedness. Thereis no need to ever resort to unjust force or wicked deceptions topreserve regimes which were founded justly or are being acquired

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112110virtue, though they are really by no means of such a kind.81

It is likely that Conrings understanding of Ciceros De Ofciiswas consistent with that of the jurist and moral philosopherSamuel Rachel. Rachel had come to Helmstedt in the mid-1650s asthe tutor of two young nobles. While there, he attended courses ofConrings on jurisprudence and became closer to Georg Calixt, thefamous theologian and mentor of Conrings. At the recommenda-tion of Conring he went to Frankfurt to teach at a new Gymnasium,which failed a few months later. Staying on in Frankfurt, he becamethe secretary of an ambassador from Braunschweig-Luneburg,whose recommendation secured Rachel the professorship of moralphilosophy at Helmstedt, doubtless with the support of Conring.82

In this capacity, Rachel wrote commentaries on the Nicoma-chean Ethics (1660) and Ciceros De Ofciis (1661), both of whichwere published in Helmstedt. Rachels commentary to book threeof the De Ofciis brings together many of the themes discussedhereliberty and tyranny, the honestum and the utile, as well asmany of the sources which interested Conring, including Aristotle,Grotius, Gentili, and others.

The identity of the honestum and utilethat nothing is useful,which is not at the same time virtuouswas for Rachel at once oneof the chief principles and chief errors of the De Ofciis. To acceptthis premise would be to accept a host of mistaken conclusionswhich follow from it. Nevertheless, Rachel noted that there wasstill much of value in Cicero, since he seems at times to haveforgotten this basis as it were.83

Rachel reminded the reader that Aristotle divided the good intothe moral, the useful, and the pleasurable. These can coincide. Thusthe good man according to Aristotle nds moral actions pleasur-able. They do not always coincide, however. Health is useful andpleasurable but not moral.84

78 Conring, Animadversiones, 1045, litt. D, col. B.79 Conring, Animadversiones, 1012, litt. B: Observandum vero est, virtutis voce

hoc loco non signicari veram atque exactam virtutem honestatemque, sed potius

industriam, dexteritatem agendarum rerum, calliditatem & fortitudinem bellicam.80 Conring, Animadversiones, 1024, litt. B.81 Conring, Animadversiones, 1045, litt. D, col. B: nonnulla ad omnem

reipublicae administrationem non utilia duntaxat, sed necessaria etiam esse, quae

tamen in vulgus, imo etiam a nonnullis doctrinae nomine eminentibus,

existimantur ab honesto abire cum reapse tamen nequaquam sint talia. Conring

(at least in the edition of the Animadversiones included in Opera, ed. Goebel) cited

Samuel Rachels commentary on Ciceros De Ofciis. For background on the

reception of the Ciceronian arguments about the honestum and the utile, see Tuck,

Philosophy and Government, 67.82 E. Carstens, Rachel, Samuel, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 27 (1888), 104

5, http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd117684244.html; C. Ruhland, Rachel,

Samuel, in Biographische Lexicon fur Schleswig-Holstein und Lubeck, 6, 1982.83 S. Rachel, De ofciis: libri tres (Gerlach, 1668), 273: Nihil esse utile, quod non

idem sit honestum. . .Fateor tamen, saepissime Ciceronem illius fundamenti quasi

oblitum. . .solidissimas de plurimis rebus utilibus conclusiones posuisse.84 Rachel, De ofciis, 267. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2.3.14 and 1.8.21.thusly, Conring wrote. However, in those which were notacquired with a good title, or where it is advised to acquire them,such unpraiseworthy remedies are sometimes necessary.85

According to Conring, in principalities which were justly founded,there was no need for men to use the methods of the lion and thefox in the famous image of chapter 18 of The Prince. In suchprincipalities, there is no place for such beasts.86

Conring insisted that Machiavelli should have applied hisconclusions about the virtues in chapters 1518 only to regimesfounded unjustly. Signally for Conring, this was a mistake not onlyof moral philosophy, but political philosophy. In other words, thetrouble with Machiavelli is not so much that he is a realist whereothers are not, and that he believes in the autonomy of thepolitical; Conring noted that many teachers of politics, includingAristotle, admitted that occasionally wicked methods had to beresorted to in the case of regimes which were not the best.87 Thetrouble is that he misunderstands the cause of true wickedness inpolitics. He either implies that there is wickedness where there isnot (since the action is necessary for the common good as perCicero), or that true wickedness is an unavoidable corollary ofprincely (if not, more generally, political) rule. Machiavellisfamous adage that it is therefore necessary for the prince, if hewishes to maintain himself, to know how not to be a good man,only applies in the case of unjustly founded regimes. Again, thetrouble is that Machiavelli is not really as good a political scientistas he ought to be. He does not understand that true wickedness isthe consequence of a wicked founding, not of the essence of rule.88

Again, some sense of what Conring was up to can be gleanedfrom Rachels commentary. Rachel noted, following Aristotle, thatevery society is constituted by justice of some kind. The useful andthe just coincide in certain cases, such as in the special case inwhich one is thinking of universal justice and the human species,where the two go hand in hand, presumably in natural law. Naturallaw or justice is the same as the useful in this case, since both aimat the preservation of the species. This is the case for other naturalrelationships, such as the marital relationship, in which the justand the useful are one and the same. Again, the presumption is thatin such a relationship, where nature is the guide for justice, it isboth just and useful.89

All this is in keeping with Rachels (and Conrings) generalAristotelian and Christian orientation in which the natural isidentied with the good, and where it is our sin which introduceswickedness. The Stoics say that these are adiaphora, thingsindifferent, not goods, which may be used well or abused dependingon our voluntas.90 Rachel disagreed with this position of the Stoics:Therefore riches, health, strength, agility, good health, well-functioning senses, beauty, glory, power, and such are never wicked

85 Conring, Animadversiones, 1049, litt. B: Ad vim iniustam & dolos malos non

opus est ut unquam confugiatur, in conservationem imperiorum quae iuste parta

sunt vel parantur: in iis tamen quae bono titulo non sunt acquisita vel consilium est

acquirere, talia illaudabilia remedia nonnunquam requiruntur.86 Conring, Animadversiones, 1050, litt. A: In principatibus juste partis,

exempla isthaec belluarum vere non inveninunt locum.87 Conring, Animadversiones, 1024, litt. B.88 Conring, Animadversiones, 1045, litt. D & A.89 Rachel, De ofciis, 2734.90 Rachel, De ofciis, 270.

except by our fault; so, to speak correctly, these are never wicked,but we who abuse them wickedly are wicked.91

The picture becomes slightly cloudier in purely human, political,relationships. The just and the useful can still be considered the samein communities or institutions which are not natural but which arenot repugnant to nature, the category in which Rachel classiesAristotles good regimes of monarchy, aristocracy, and polity. Thisremains the case even though justice is different in three regimes. Inthe deviant regimes of tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, however,justice and the useful can only be understood relationally, suchthat it is something just or useful to this or that state, according to itscondition, quality, and form, which often, looking at it universally, isunjust and not useful.92

For Rachel, the key was to have the correct perspective on life, toaim for truly good ends which were not repugnant to nature, andwere pleasing to God. The son of a Lutheran pastor, and brother toanother pastor and deacon,93Rachel believed that Ciceros denitionof the useful and the non-useful as those things which are helpful

We know that Conring, despite attending Lutheran Helmstedtand teaching there for much of his life, was not a strictly orthodoxLutheran. He developed Arminian sympathies when as a youngman he had been sent temporarily from war torn Helmstedt toLeiden to continue his studies. Even after the hostilities inHelmstedt ended and the university reopened, he tried to securea stipend in order to stay in Holland (he wrote Barlaeus inAmsterdam) rather than face signing the Confessio Augustana andCorpus Doctrinae, the confessional statements of orthodox Luther-anism, upon returning to Helmstedt.100

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112 111and unhelpful to men is insufcient because the ultimate end of manis God. Civil happiness is merely a means to this greater end. Whenwe aim to do something for a wicked end, duein an echo of originalsinto our failing (vitio nostro), then the means to those endscannot be considered useful in any true sense.94

In their theologically charged age, the ancient debates betweenStoics and Aristotelians echoed strongly in the contemporarydebates on predestination, free will, and original sin. From early onin the Reformation, Lutherans had opposed Stoicism for its strictversion of fate,95 which opposed the Christian teaching on free willand apatheia, or freedom from the passions, which precluded theChristian passion of love.96 As time wore on, the Lutherans,including Rachel, came to believe that the Stoic position on fate andmoral reasoning was actually incoherent, that at times it presenteda positive view of providence and providential order (as in theposition articulated by Balbus in the second book of Ciceros DeNatura Deorum) and at times suggested that the natural world wasa harsh place in which the only good is virtue and the properresponse to the world is withdrawal.97

Conring found this same attitude towards fate in Machiavelli.98

Conring and Rachel clearly both believedwith Aristotle, and withMelanchthon, Calvin, and other Reformersthat naturally theworld was good. There was broad consensus on this. The questionwas how corrupted we were by original sin (and sin moregenerally) and what could be done about it. For Rachel, a voluntaswhich is hardly corrupted, but considered in a correct state ofnature will aim at moral ends and means.99 This leaves thequestion open, which is unsurprising, since the answer to thisquestion could label one an Arminian or Socinian or worse.

91 Rachel, De ofciis, 272: Non igitur divitiae, sanitas, robur & agilitas, rma

valetudo, sensuum Integritas, pulchritude, Gloria, potentia, ejusque generis alia nisi

vitio nostro mala sunt: seu, ut rectius dicam, non illa unquam mala sunt, sed nos,

qui vitiose iis abutimur, mali sumus.92 Rachel, De ofciis, 274. Ut Justum aliquod sit & Utile huic aut S[t]atui, pro sua

conditione, qualitate ac forma, quod absolute spectatum saepe sit injustum &

inutile.93 Ruhland, Rachel, Samuel.94 Rachel, De ofciis, 276.95 P. Melanchthon, On the Soul [1553] in P. Keen, ed. A Melanchthon Reader (New

York, 1988), 272. Liber de Anima, in P. Melanchthon, Corpus Reformatorum Philippi

Melanthonis opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. K.G. Bretschneider and H.E. Bindseil (28

vols., 183460; reprint, New York, 1963), 13: 12087.96 P. Melanchthon, Summary of Ethics (1532) in Keen, A Melanchthon Reader,

216; Epitome Ethices in Die alteste Fassung, von Melanchthons Ethik, ed. H. Heineck

(Berlin, 1893).97 Rachel, De ofciis, 271.98 M. Stolleis, Machiavellismus und Staatsrason: Ein Beitrag zu Conrings

politischem Denken, in Stolleis, ed., Hermann Conring, 17899.99 Rachel, De ofciis, 269: Minime corrupta, sed in recto Naturae statu

consideretur.Later on, Conring did not commit himself to a position ondogmatic issues in writing, except in passing. In his Aristotelislaudatio of 1623, he linked theology to Aristotelian moral philoso-phy, in something of an Arminian key.101 But by 1662, essentially atthe same time he wrote the commentary on The Prince, he deniedvociferously that he was an Arminian when Boineburg accused himof it.102 What is clear is that though he believed that there waspredestination, election, in accordance with Gods foreknowledge,he did not believe that this was an absolute ruling.103

In political terms what this amounted to was an intermediateposition on realism. It was possible to commit ourselves throughprior choice to a course of action which would require futurewickedness, but this is not strictly speaking necessary, since we didnot need to make those original choices. On a political level this is theforce of Conrings saying that justly founded regimes will not requireunjust means. This is very different from Machiavellis more tragicview, in which wickedness is a necessary corollary of rule. AsAristotelians and Lutherans, they believed that the Stoics (in the caseof Rachel) and Machiavelli (in the case of Conring) failed toappreciate that the general predisposition, the general tendency oflife and nature, is towards the good. It is difcult to say whetherConring, in his heart of hearts, was ever willing, even as young man inLeiden, to countenance the more thoroughly utopian politics ofKeckermann or Alsted, in which man could be reborn and reunitedwith his uncorrupted nature.104 Later on, he was content simply toshow that an uncorrupted politics was possible, if not probable.

Those, like Conring, who believed in the possibility of genuinelygood princely rule, had to make it possible for princely rule to beconsistent with virtue, even if it was virtue rightly understood, thatis, virtue as understood in book three of De Ofciis. When he cameclosest to the Lutheran absolutism advocated by orthodoxLutherans, Conring wrote that it must be possible for one to be aruler without resorting to wickedness, for otherwise the Biblewould not have praised some kings and magistrates withoutqualication.105 For Conring, devoted to an empirical scienticapproach to politics, unlike the orthodox Lutheran devotees topolitica christiana, it was not sufcient to refer to the Bible forpolitical argument; there needed to be a political science whichshowed that realism was in fact false.

Critique of the humanist method of political science

Conring believed that Machiavelli was not empirical enough,that he was pursuing an exemplary and sentential science ratherthan a truly empirical science. Conring built here on several years

100 I. Mager, Hermann Conring als theologischer Schriftstellerinbesondere in

seinem Verhaltnis zu Georg Calixt, in Stolleis, ed., Hermann Conring, 589.101 Mager, Hermann Conring, 63.102 Mager, Hermann Conring, 64.103 Mager, Hermann Conring, 65.104 H. Hotson, Johann Heinrich Alsted, 15881638: Between Renaissance, Reformation,

and Universal Reform (Oxford, 2000).105 Conring, Animadversiones, 1045, litt. D, col. B. For the arguments of orthodox

Lutherans, see Dreitzel, Protestantischer Aristotelismus; Die Philosophie des 17.

Jahrhunderts. Band 4: Das Heilige Romische Reich Deutscher Nation. Nord- und

Ostmitteleuropa, eds. R. Rohbeck & H. Holzhey (Zurich, 2001).

of methodological dissertations, which would soon be gathered intohis masterwork of methodology, the De Civili Prudentia of 1662.Conring was dissatised with the method of humanists like Lipsius,who he felt illegitimately converted statements based on a singleexample into universal pronouncements. This was a kind of naiveempiricism which did not really understand how induction orscientic statements were constructed.106 Conring thought thatsuch a method should be replaced by one in which a series ofobservations were used to form a hypothesis which would be held asa probable hypothesis, until it was falsied by a counterexample.107

Conring hammered away at this critique of humanist method inhis commentary on The Prince, arguing that where Machiavelli oftenwrites that something is always the case, or that it is necessary, itis usually not always the case, but often, or mostly the case. Thuswhen Machiavelli writes about armed prophets, Conring commen-ted that you almost never read of any true prophet who wasinstructed in the use of arms.108 When commenting on theproblems that a new prince faced who gained power only by fortuneor the aid of his friends experiences, Conring noted that thesedifculties did not always cause disturbances, but only some-

it is the most useful of all things, but that it is necessary is refutedthrough everyday experience.112

Conclusion

As Horst Dreitzel has written, Conring opposed the ideal ofmixed monarchy, of Aristotelian political science, to two alterna-tive traditions of state building: the monarchomachic theory ofpopular sovereignty and the military domination of absolutistgovernment.113 I have argued here that Conring found these sametraditions in Machiavellis The Prince, in Machiavellis insistence onappeasing the populace on the one hand, and in his depiction oftyrannical domination, on the other. To these, Conring opposed inhis commentary the ideal of mixed monarchy and the reality ofconstitutional struggle.

Though Conring cannot be said to have been a supporter of thecause of the nobility after the Peace of Westphalia per se, hisconstitutional views reect the persistence of patrimonialgovernment, and its importance to the early modern state.114

Thus, even if it is the case that Conring supported a professional-izing early modern bourgeois culture in the academies which was

N. Dauber / History of European Ideas 37 (2011) 102112112times, a distinction which, Conring noted, Machiavelli did notobserve.109 Conring agreed that princes who are supported by thepopular party rather than the nobility are always more secure, but henoted that the reasons given by Machiavelli were not always therelevant reasons.110

In his commentary to Machiavellis consideration of whether aprince should disarm his own citizens, Conrings methodologicalcritique is especially evident: Therefore what is said here byMachiavelli that generally (plaerumque) a new prince ought not todisarm his own men is excellently proven, nevertheless it is notdemonstrated (demonstrant) that it always ought [not] to bedone.111 The terminology here is exactly that of the De CiviliPrudentia, throughout which Conring was concerned with limits ofwhat can or cannot be demonstrated in a science of civil affairs.

In insisting over and over again that Machiavelli was mistaken inthinking that it was possible for some rule of prudence to be alwaysor necessarily the case, Conring was not being pedantic. He insistedon correcting Machiavelli, on providing historical counterexampleafter counterexample, to show that the cruel methods whichMachiavelli insisted were necessary were not necessary after all, foras a matter of fact there are no such necessary propositions in civilscience. Commenting on Machiavellis observation that it isnecessary that a prince have prudence to choose counselors wisely(The Prince, ch. 23), Conring noted, [i]ndeed no one would deny that

106 Conring, De Civili Prudentia in Opera, vol. 3, 280421, Ch. 7, Sec. 2.107 Conring, De Civili Prudentia, Ch. 10, Sec. 5.108 Conring, Animadversiones, 1015, litt. D: Verorum Prophetarum quempiam

armis instructum, haud legas.109 Conring, Animadversiones, 1017, litt. E: Caeterum illae quidem difcultates

istius generis principatus non semper turbant, sed interdum dumtaxat. Quod

discrimen non observatum est a Machiavello.110 Conring, Animadversiones, 1026, litt. C.111 Conring, Animadversiones, 1026, litt. B: Quae hic itaque disseruntur a

Machiavello, id quidem egregie probant, plaerumque Principem novum non debere

suis arma detrahere, non demonstrant tamen, semper ita agendum esse.more interested in training minor nobles to serve in the emergingbureaucracies of the territorial princes than supporting thetraditional claims of the aristocrats and the territorial estates,he still as a matter of analysis recognized the importance of thenobility for the stability of the state.115 By pursuing the ideal of themixed constitution in his commentary, Conring was sensitive notonly to the Aristotelian tradition of constitutional analysis, but ofthe political realities of his day as well.

What Machiavelli offered, what Machiavellism meant toConring, was not a moral theory which equated the honestumwith what was utile for the commonwealth. This was thecommon heritage of antiquity, and was clearly stated in bookthree of Ciceros De Ofciis. Nor was it the description of thetreacherous methods of the tyrant. These, to Conring, wereadequately described by Aristotle in book ve of the Politics. Norwas it a new political science; for Conring, Machiavellis ThePrince was a far cry from the standards of science of the day.What The Prince did offer was a vivid and partial theory of politicsin which liberty played a powerful role, the nobility was writtenout of the story, and the mounting demands of an unjustlyacquired principality were spelled out in their erce and gorydetail. The book was clearly deeply awed in Conrings eyes, butequally fascinating.

112 Conring, Animadversiones, 1070: Id quidem utilissimum esse, nemo negaverit:

necessarium vero esse, refellitur quotidiano rerum usu.113 Dreitzel, Conring, 161, 165.114 For the persistence of the nobility in the early modern state, see T. Ertman, Birth

of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

(Cambridge, 1997).115 For the claim that Conring, among many others, was involved in the training of a

professional class of advisers, see Dreitzel, Protestantischer Aristotelismus; W.

Weber, What a Good Ruler Should Not Do: Theoretical Limits of Royal Power in

European Theories of Absolutism, 15001700, Sixteenth Century Journal 26: 4

(1995): 897915; W. Weber, Prudentia Gubernatoria: Studien Zur Herrschafts-lehre in

der Deutschen Politischen Wissenschaft des 17. Jahrhunderts (Tubingen, 1992), 33.

Anti-Machiavellism as constitutionalism: Hermann Conring's commentary on Machiavelli's The PrinceIntroductionConring's aim in the commentaryFrom De Tyranno to a theory of the stateThe critique of popular libertyClass struggle and the logic of constitutionalismTyranny as the method of warThe rejection of realismCritique of the humanist method of political scienceConclusion