If you love life there is a chance that you will understand it. Whereas if you do not, there is very little chance that you ever will. Take Niccolo Machiavelli, a man embittered by what he called a cruel fate, but a man with such marvellous understanding of the way that society works that his little book The Prince is still essential reading for every politician today. Yet is it to be supposed that he would have understood the thoughts and actions of Gustavus Adolphus when he landed in Northern Germany with his 6000 Swedes to defy the whole might of Imperial Austria, and rescue Protestantism from the evils of the counter-reformation? Still less would he have understood how that Prince among men should have decided that he must sacrifice his life and die the most sordid death, in order to save the world.

The trouble about Machiavelli is that he knew too much about men's shame, and not enough about men's honour. No one is embarrassed if they are caught reading Clausewitz's On War, in the way they are if caught reading The Prince. In the same way, it is useless to ask a man, who does not enjoy human nature, to expound his views on human nature. He will tell you of man's weakness, not of his strength. He will tell you man is doomed to die, not of his…