The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s1.25

c15.s1.25

Further, nobody who has handled the texts of Machiavelli can afford to ignore the "ideational" ethics and psychology etc. which Sorokin considers to be characteristic of Kauṭalya. The princes have been taught by Machiavelli in his *Discourses* (III, V) to believe that "from the hour they violate those laws, customs and usages under which men have lived for a great while, they begin to weaken the foundations of their authority." In the *Prince* (ch. XVIII) Machiavelli observes that nothing renders the ruler more contemptible than violence on the property and women of the subjects. The same chapter teaches that there are two methods of combat, the one by law, and the other by force. The first is declared by Machiavelli to be proper to men, and the second to beasts. In case it were necessary to coin a category like "sensatism mitigated by ideationalism" in order to understand Kauṭalya the same category might be employed generically and almost indifferently for the morals, manners and sentiments of Machiavelli.