The Fable of the Bees

Thus every Part was full of Vice, Yet the whole Mass a Paradice, he declares in a line which was the forerunner of his more famous phrase, ‘Private Vices, Publick Benefits’. The explanation for this paradox is that full employment, which is the basis of national prosperity, and a brisk trade, which is necessary to its continuance, are the immediate consequence of immorality. The commission of crime, for example, is responsible for keeping whole multitudes at work: lawyers, gaolers, turnkeys, sergeants, bailiffs, tipstaffs, locksmiths, and all those Officers, That squeeze a Living out of Tears. As for the vices of luxury, avarice, prodigality, pride, envy, and vanity displayed by the more respectable members of the community, these promote trade by creating wants which it is the business of merchants, tradesmen, and manufacturers to supply. (Location 265)

By the time he came to publish The Fable of the Bees, however, Mandeville had arrived at the realization that national greatness depends much less on crime than on other, more prevalent, vices which, while exempt from the law, are condemned by religion. Fully half the remarks in the Fable are concerned with this subject. Some, such as Remarks I, K, and M, argue the importance of avarice, prodigality, pride, and similar sins in insuring that the demand for consumer goods will always equal or exceed the supply. Others, such as Remarks L, P, and Y, insist that luxury, although accounted a sin, is responsible for most of the consumption which creates full employment and increases national wealth. (Location 323)

truly virtuous society, he argues repeatedly in the Fable, would be like that of the Spartans: frugal, abstemious, free of pride, luxury, prodigality, and the other vices, but also devoid of every comfort and pleasure that Englishmen have come to regard as no more than their due. Yet where is the man, he asks, who would be willing to pay such a price for virtue, or to forego the public benefits of vice? (Location 333)

Observing that those who were public-spirited and given the name of virtuous were held up to honour and praise while those who were selfish and labelled vicious were the objects of shame and detestation, men were forced by pride to curb their predatory impulses. Thus mankind owes its sociable qualities, Mandeville writes, not to nature, but to the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinc’d, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride. (Location 443)

soldier shows bravery under fire not because his reason has mastered his fear, but because his fear of shame is greater than his fear of death. The man who saves ‘an Innocent Babe ready to drop into the Fire’ obliges only himself, ‘for to have seen it fall, and not strove to hinder it, would have caused a Pain’ which his self-preservation compelled him to prevent. A man relieves a beggar because his importunities are an annoyance which can be most readily stopped with a coin. ‘Thus thousands give Money to Beggars from the same motive as they pay their Corn-cutter, to walk Easy.’ And so with all the other supposedly virtuous actions Mandeville examines. None is completely distinterested nor immune from some powerful passion. (Location 453)

not suggesting, of course, that all human conduct is vicious. None of the actions just described is ‘injurious to any of the Society’ or renders the man who performs them ‘less serviceable to others’. Quite the contrary, in fact. But if they deserve no blame, neither do they merit praise, since those who performed them were only interested in serving themselves. ‘All this I have nothing against,’ he observes in Remark O, ‘but I see no Self denial, without which there can be no Virtue.’ (Location 458)

Mandeville’s quarrel with the pagan and Christian Stoics is not against their estimate of the passions. Both sides agree that these appetites are selfish and turbulent. What he rejects is the notion that men’s passions can ever be controlled by reason, a weak and ineffectual faculty, in his view, which is no match against such sturdy rebels. ‘I believe Man’, he wrote in the ‘Introduction’ to The Fable of the Bees, ‘to be a Compound of various Passions, that all of them, as they are provoked and come uppermost, govern him by turns, whether he will or no.’ (Location 478)

better by any thing that could be said to them; but Mankind having for so many Ages remain’d still the same, notwithstanding the many instructive and elaborate Writings, by which their Amendment has been endeavour’d, I am not so vain as to hope for better success from so inconsiderable a Trifle. (Location 801)

When I assert, that Vices are inseparable from great and potent Societies, and that it is impossible their Wealth and Grandeur should subsist without, I do not say that the particular Members of them who are guilty of any, should not be continually reprov’d, or not be punish’d for them when they grow into Crimes. (Location 813)

All Mothers naturally love their Children: but as this is a Passion, and all Passions center in Self-Love, so it may be subdued by any Superiour Passion, to sooth that same Self-Love, which if nothing had interven’d, would have bid her fondle her Offspring. Common Whores, whom all the World knows to be such, hardly ever destroy their Children, nay even those who assist in Robberies and Murders seldom are Guilty of this Crime; not because they are less Cruel or more Virtuous, but because they have lost their Modesty to a greater degree, and the fear of shame makes hardly any impression upon them. (Location 1547)

Therefore the first and fiercest Appetite that Nature has given them is Hunger, the next is Lust; the one prompting them to procreate as the other bids them eat. Now if we observe that Anger is that Passion which is rais’d in us when we are cross’d or disturb’d in our Desires, and that as it sums up all the strength in Creatures, so it was given them that by it they might exert themselves more vigorously in endeavouring to remove, overcome, or destroy whatever obstructs them in the pursuit of Self-Preservation; we shall find that Brutes, unless themselves or what they love, or the Liberty of either are threatned or attack’d, have nothing worth notice that can move them to Anger but Hunger or Lust. (Location 3055)

Hitherto I have endeavour’d to demonstrate, that no Creature can fight offensively as long as his Fear lasts; that Fear cannot be conquer’d but by another Passion; that the most contrary to it, and most effectual to overcome it is Anger; that the two principal Appetites which disappointed can stir up this last named Passion are Hunger and Lust, and that in all Brute Beasts the proness to Anger and Obstinacy in fighting generally depend upon the violence of either or both those Appetites together: From whence it must follow, that what we call Prowess or natural Courage in Creatures, is nothing but the effect of Anger, and that all fierce Animals must be either very Ravenous or very Lustful, if not both. (Location 3094)

What I have said last must only be understood of Man in his Savage State; for if we examine him as a Member of a Society and a taught Animal, we shall find him quite another Creature: As soon as his Pride has room to Play, and Envy, Avarice and Ambition begin to catch hold of him, he is rous’d from his natural Innocence and Stupidity. As his Knowledge encreases, his Desires are enlarg’d, and consequently his Wants and Appetites are multiply’d: Hence it must follow, that he will be often cross’d in the pursuit of them, and meet with abundance more disappointment to stir up his Anger in this than his former Condition, and Man would in a little time become the most hurtful and noxious Creature in the World, if let alone, whenever he could over power his Adversary, if he had no Mischief to fear but from the Person that anger’d him. (Location 3104)

If therefore a Law giver or Politician, whom they have a great Veneration for, should tell them, that the generality of Men had within them a Principle of Valour distinct from Anger, or any other Passion, that made them to despise Danger and face Death itself with Intrepidity, and that they who had the most of it were the most valuable of their kind, it is very likely, considering what has been said, that most of them, tho’ they felt nothing of this Principle, would swallow it for Truth, and that the Proudest feeling themselves mov’d at this piece of Flattery, and not well vers’d in distinguishing the Passions, might imagine that they felt it heaving in their Breasts, by mistaking Pride for Courage. (Location 3142)

The great Art then to make Man Courageous, is first to make him own this Principle of Valour within, and afterwards to inspire him with as much horror against Shame, as Nature has given him against Death; and that there are things to which Man has, or may have, a stronger aversion than he has to Death, is evident from Suicide. (Location 3153)

So silly a Creature is Man, as that, intoxicated with the fumes of Vanity, he can feast on the thoughts of the Praises that shall be paid his Memory in future Ages with so much extasy, as to neglect his present Life, nay court and covet Death, if he but imagines that it will add to the Glory he had acquir’d before. (Location 3205)

I have made this Digression chiefly to shew the Strength of Humane Nature, and what meer Man may perform by Pride and Constitution alone. Man may certainly be as violently rous’d by his Vanity as a Lyon is by his Anger, and not only this, Avarice, Revenge, Ambition, and almost every Passion, Pity not excepted, when they are extraordinary, may, by overcoming Fear, serve him instead of Valour, and be mistaken for it even by himself; as daily Experience must teach every body that will examine and look into the Motives from which some Men act. But that we may more clearly perceive what this pretended Principle is really built upon, let us look into the management of Military Affairs, and we shall find that Pride is no where so openly encouraged as there. (Location 3224)

and that Humility, Content, Meekness, Obedience to reasonable Husbands, Frugality and all the Virtues together, if they were possess’d of them in the most eminent Degree, could not possibly be a thousandth Part so serviceable, to make an Opulent, powerful, and what we call a flourishing Kingdom, than their most hateful Qualities. I don’t question, but many of my Readers will be startled at this Assertion, when they look on the Consequences that may be drawn from it; and I shall be ask’d, whether People may not as well be virtuous in a populous, rich, wide, extended Kingdom, as in a small, indigent State or Principality, that is poorly inhabited: And if that be impossible, Whether it is not the Duty of all Sovereigns to reduce their Subjects, as to Wealth and Numbers, as much as they can. If I allow they may, I own my self in the wrong; and if I affirm the other, my Tenets will justly be call’d impious, or at least dangerous to all large Societies. As it is not in this Place of the Book only, but a great many others, that such Queries might be made even by a well-meaning Reader, I shall here explain my self, and endeavour to solve those Difficulties, which several Passages might have rais’d in him, in order to demonstrate the Consistency of my Opinion to Reason, and the strictest Morality. (Location 3377)

I never said nor imagin’d, that Man could not be virtuous as well in a rich and mighty Kingdom, as in the most pitiful Commonwealth; but I own it is my Sense that no Society can be rais’d into such a rich and mighty Kingdom, or so rais’d, subsist in their Wealth and Power for any considerable Time without the Vices of Man. (Location 3390)

More Money than Land, heavy Taxes and scarcity of Provisions, Industry, Laboriousness, an active and stiring Spirit, Ill Nature and a Saturnine Temper; Old Age, Wisdom, Trade, Riches acquired by our own Labour, and Liberty and Property well secured, are all things that dispose to Avarice. On the contrary, Indolence, Content, Good Nature, a Jovial Temper, Youth, Folly, Arbitrary Power, Money easily got, plenty of Provisions and the uncertainty of Possessions are Circumstances that render Men prone to Prodigality: Where there is the most of the first the prevailing Vice will be Avarice, and Prodigality where the other turns the Scale; but a National Frugality there never was nor never will be without a National Necessity. (Location 3657)

A Man that has been brought up in Ease and Affluence, if he is of a Quiet Indolent Nature, learns to shun every thing that is troublesome, and chuses to curb his Passions, more because of the inconveniencies that arise from the eager pursuit after Pleasure, and the yeilding to all the demands of our Inclinations, than any dislike he has to sensual Enjoyments; and it is possible, that a Person Educated under a great Philosopher,58 who was a Mild and good Natur’d as well as able Tutor, may in such happy Circumstances have a better Opinion of his inward State than it really deserves, and believe himself Virtuous, because his Passions lye dormant. He may form fine Notions of the Social Virtues, and the contempt of Death, write well of them in his Closet, and talk Eloquently of them in Company, but you shall never catch him Fighting for his Country, or Labouring to retrieve any National Losses. A Man that deals in Metaphysicks may easily throw himself into an Enthusiasm, and really believe that he does not fear Death whilst it remains out of Sight. But should he be ask’d, why having this Intrepidity either from Nature or acquired by Philosophy, he did not follow Arms when his Country was involv’d in War; or when he saw the Nation daily robb’d by those at the Helm, and the Affairs of the Exchequer perplex’d, why he did not go to Court and make use of all his Friends and Interest to be a Lord Treasurer, that by his Integrity and Wise Management he might restore the Publick Credit; It is probable he would answer that he lov’d Retirement, had no other Ambition than to be a Good Man, and never aspired to have any share in the Government, or that he hated all Flatery and Slavish Attendance, the Insincerity of Courts and Bustle of the World. (Location 4617)