Model answer & approach
- “Fortune favours the brave.” In the light of this statement, discuss Machiavelli’s concepts of ‘virtue’ and ‘fortune’. (Answer in 250 words)
Introduction
For Machiavelli politics is the contest between what men can do and what circumstance does to them. Virtu is the capacity to act decisively upon events; fortuna is the ungoverned residue. The proverb is his own conclusion, but it states a strategy, not a law.
Body
1. Virtu is not virtue: it is energy, courage, foresight and flexibility — the qualities that found and preserve states. Christian humility, he argues in the Discourses, has made the world weak.
2. Fortune governs half: in The Prince, chapter 25, he concedes that fortune arbitrates roughly half our actions, leaving the other half to us, which is precisely the space virtu occupies.
3. The river image: fortune is a torrent that destroys where it is unprepared for, but dykes raised in calm weather contain it. Prudence is preparation, so virtu partly manufactures its own luck.
4. Occasione: Moses, Cyrus, Romulus and Theseus received only opportunity from fortune; the rest was their own. Cesare Borgia had abundant virtu and still fell to an illness he could not foresee.
5. Boldness over caution: Machiavelli prefers the impetuous, because fortune is a woman and yields to the audacious. Julius II succeeded by rashness because the times suited it.
6. Adapting to the times: the deeper teaching is that men fail because they cannot change their mode of proceeding when circumstances change.
7. The republican answer: in the Discourses the durable defence against fortuna is not a prince but good laws, citizen armies and a mixed constitution.
Conclusion
Fortune favours the brave captures Machiavelli's confidence that agency can master circumstance. But he is no simple voluntarist: virtu works only within the space fortune concedes, and greatness lies in reading necessity rather than defying it.
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