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Machiavelli, however, was a realist. He was concerned with how things were in reality, not how things could be if the world was perfect. He was greatly influenced by his failures in public life. He had served as head of the second chancery of the Florentine republic, but was dismissed after it fell in 1512. The Medici family was again ruling Florence, and a Medici also sat on the papal throne in Rome. The Prince was an attempt to prevent form those failures being repeated in the future. Machiavelli tried unsuccessfully to use this treatise to gain an advisory appointment either to the papacy or the court of the Duke. He was not concerned with moral virtue, if it meant the destruction and defeat of his state
Hume's obvious goal was to refute Descartes, and defend Berkely. He does an admirable job, considering any statement even remotely acknowledging Descartes' theory of thought as being the only thing we cannot disprove, would in turn disprove his own theories. However, Hume misses the boat, in his defense of his own beliefs. True knowledge is gained from the thought process and experience. It is the combination of these two factors that allows us to define truth. Descartes was half right, and Berkley was half right. Truth cannot be determined until the possible results have been rationalized, and the actual results of events have been measured.
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