Machiavelli's Ideal Ruler, based off his book: "The Prince".

Essay by SERVICEj87College, Undergraduate December 2005

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Governing countries and states properly has been a difficult task from the beginning of time. In every country there will be people who are unhappy and will disagree with the rules put in place, causing the system to fail. So, century after century, people have tried new ways to make their politics appeal to everyone's needs. However, the art of politics is a complicated issue that will always be challenging. "The Prince", written by Machiavelli, was a guide for all the rulers (the book was intended for Lorenzo de Medici) of his time who wanted to gain power and to find solutions to their political problems. Machiavelli's writings in The Prince are concerned with the principles on how a state is founded and by what means the state can then be implemented and maintained. In the book many themes were expressed in order to fulfill the role of a prince but only an important few will be discussed in the following essay.

During Machiavelli's time, it was commonly thought that events were ruled by fate and by God only. Not only that, but men could do nothing to stop or protect themselves from those events. Machiavelli did believe in fate, but he did not believe in the fact the fate controlled all events that occurred. If he did believe that it would mean that princes rule by chance. Machiavelli proves this when he states he is not unaware that many have held and hold the opinion that the events are controlled by fortune, because of this, one would conclude that there is no point in sweating over things, but that they should submit to the rulings of chance. Machiavelli argued that fate controlled one half a person's life but the other half was governed by...