When it comes to human nature, there are two major themes that can be found in Machiavelli’s work.

The first is that human nature is unchangeable. As a student of history, he believed that humanity had not changed in any meaningful way since time immemorial nor would we change in the future.

The next major theme was that humans are more prone to do evil than to do good.It is from that idea that Machiavelli based his argument for good government as a counterweight to humanity’s naturally destructive tendencies. It is also one reason that Machiavelli has gotten a bad reputation as a advocate for unethical behavior since he believed that in a world of sharks, you sometimes had to be just as vicious.