Here are four passages. You must write a brief comment in the form of an essay on each

one. This should explain what the passage is about, how the passage fits into the general

argument with which it is concerned, and anything else you consider to be important and

relevant.

Keep in mind, the following are the three general levels of analysis I’m looking for:

Keep in mind, the following are the three general levels of analysis I’m looking for:

• What does this quote mean? (Textual Analysis)

• What is the argument from which this quote was taken? How does this quote fit into

that argument? (Argumentative/Logical Analysis)

• Why is the author making that argument? (Contextual/Rhetorical Analysis)
I – Niccolò Machiavelli:
“The gap between how people actually behave and how they ought to behave is so great that anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover he has been taught how to destroy himself…..”
“So it is necessary for a ruler, if he wants to hold on to power, to learn how not to be good, and to know when it is and when it is not necessary to use this knowledge.”

II – Martin Luther:
“Neither is enough for the world without the other. Without the spiritual government of Christ no-one can be made just in the sight of God by secular government alone. Christ’s spiritual government does not extend to everyone; on the contrary, Christians are at all times the fewest in numbers and live in the midst of the Unchristian. Conversely, where the secular government or law rules on its own, mere hypocrisy must prevail even if it were God’s own commandments. For no-one becomes without the Holy Spirit [.i.e. Gods’ Grace] in his heart, however good his works.”
Thus: “It is right and necessary that all princes should be good Christians.”

III – Jean Calvin:
“It may be that there are in our days popular magistrates established to restrain the licentiousness of kings, corresponding to those ‘Ephors,’ which were set against the authority of the kings of the Spartans, or the Tribunes of the People, set over against the Roman consuls, or the ‘Demarchs’, set up against the Council of the Athenians. And perhaps in current circumstances, the authority exercised by the three estates in individual kingdoms when they hold their principal assemblies is of the same kind.”
IV – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne:
“The laws of conscience which we say are born of nature, are born of custom; since man inwardly venerates the opinions and the manners approved and received about him, he cannot, without remorse, free himself from them nor apply himself to them without self- approbation.”

V- Thomas Hobbes: “A commonwealth is said to be instituted when a multitude of men do agree and covenant every one with every one, that to whatsoever man or assembly of men shall be given by the major part the right to present the person of them all (that is to say, to be their representative).” “I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in a like manner.” “Every one, as well he that voted for it, as he that voted against it, shall authorize all the actions and judgments of that man or assembly of men, in the same manner as if they were his own, to the end [the purpose] to live peaceable amongst themselves and be protected against other men.”
VI – John Locke “Though in a constituted commonwealth, standing upon its own basis, and acting according to its own nature, that is acting for the preservation of the community, there can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them.”

VII – Jean Jacques Rousseau: “From the moment one man began to stand in need of another’s assistance [in a state of dependance]; from the moment it appeared an advantage to one man to possess enough provisions for two, equality vanished; property was introduced, labour became necessary; and boundless forests became smiling fields, which had to be watered with human sweat, and in which slavery and misery soon began to sprout and grow with the harvests.”

VIII – Immanuel Kant: The cosmopolitan right (“ius cosmopoliticum”) – the right held by all citizens of all states “to try to establish community with all and, to this end, to visit all regions of the world” – makes “it possible for 1 [strangers] to enter into relations with the native inhabitants. In this way, continents distant from each other can enter into peaceful mutual relations which may eventually be regulated by public laws, thus bringing the human race nearer and nearer to a cosmopolitan existence.” Entering into relations allows for commerce, and with commerce a “mutual understanding, community of interests and peaceful relations even with the most distant of their fellows.” “The spirit of commerce sooner or later takes hold of every people, and it cannot exist side by side with war and sooner or later this spirit dominates all people. For among all those powers (or means) that belong to a nation, financial power may be the most reliable in forcing nations to pursue the noble cause of peace (although not from moral reasons).”