4/23 It is not to be confounded with the doctrine of the immutability of human things assumed by Machiavelli. The human scene has vastly changed since the primitive age of man; "if that so-called golden age could be revoked and compared with our own, we should consider it iron." [Footnote: Methodus, cap.VII.p. 353.] For history largely depends on the will of men, which is always changing; every day new laws, new customs, new institutions, both secular and religious, come into being, and new errors. I.p. |