Bernard Mandeville - The Fable of the Bees

The meanest wretch puts an inestimable value upon himself, and the highest wish of the ambitious man is to have all the world, as to that particular, of his opinion: so that the most insatiable thirst after fame that ever heroe was inspired with, was never more than an ungovernable greediness to engross the esteem and admiration of others in future ages as well as his own; and (what mortification soever this truth might be to the second thoughts of an Alexander or a Cæsar) the great recompense in view, for which the most exalted minds have with so much alacrity sacrificed their quiet, health, sensual pleasures, and every inch of themselves, has never been any thing else but the breath of man, the aerial coin of praise. Who can forbear laughing when he thinks on all the great men that have been so serious on the subject of that Macedonian madman, his capacious soul, that mighty heart, in one corner of which, according to Lorenzo Gratian, the world was so commodiously lodged, that in the whole there was room for six more? Who can forbear laughing, I say, when he compares the fine things that have been said of Alexander, with the end he proposed to himself from his vast exploits, to be proved from his own mouth; when the vast pains he took to pass the Hydaspes forced him to cry out? Oh ye Athenians, could you believe what dangers I expose myself to, to be praised by you! To define then, the reward of glory in the amplest manner, the most that can be said of it, is, that it consists in a superlative felicity which a man, who is conscious of having performed a noble action, enjoys in self-love, whilst he is thinking on the applause he expects of others.

But here I shall be told, that besides the noisy toils of war and public bustle of the ambitious, there are noble and generous actions that are performed in silence; that virtue being its own reward, those who are really good, have a satisfaction in their consciousness of being so, which is all the recompence they expect from the most worthy performances; that among the heathens there have been men, who, when they did good to others, were so far from coveting thanks and applause, that they took all imaginable care to be for ever concealed from those on whom they bestowed their benefits, and consequently that pride has no hand in spurring man on to the highest pitch of self-denial.

In answer to this, I say, that it is impossible to judge of a man’s performance, unless we are thoroughly acquainted with the principle and motive from which he acts. Pity, though it is the most gentle and the least mischievous of all our passions, is yet as much a frailty of our nature, as anger, pride, or fear. The weakest minds have generally the greatest share of it, for which reason none are more compassionate than women and children. It must be owned, that of all our weaknesses, it is the most amiable, and bears the greatest resemblance to virtue; nay, without a considerable mixture of it, the society could hardly subsist: but as it is an impulse of nature, that consults neither the public interest nor our own reason, it may produce evil as well as good. It has helped to destroy the honour of virgins, and corrupted the integrity of judges; and whoever acts from it as a principle, what good soever he may bring to the society, has nothing to boast of, but that he has indulged a passion that has happened to be beneficial to the public. There is no merit in saving an innocent babe ready to drop into the fire: the action is neither good nor bad, and what benefit soever the infant received, we only obliged ourselves; for to have seen it fall, and not strove to hinder it, would have caused a pain, which self preservation compelled us to prevent: Nor has a rich prodigal, that happens to be of a commiserating temper, and loves to gratify his passions, greater virtue to boast of, when he relieves an object of compassion with what to himself is a trifle.

But such men, as without complying with any weakness of their own, can part from what they value themselves, and, from no other motive but there love to goodness, perform a worthy action in silence: such men, I confess, have acquired more refined notions of virtue than those I have hitherto spoke of; yet even in these (with which the world has yet never swarmed) we may discover no small symptoms of pride, and the humblest man alive must confess, that the reward of a virtuous action, which is the satisfaction that ensues upon it, consists in a certain pleasure he procures to himself by contemplating on his own worth: which pleasure, together with the occasion of it, are as certain signs of pride, as looking pale and trembling at any imminent danger, are the symptoms of fear.

If the too scrupulous reader should at first view condemn these notions concerning the origin of moral virtue, and think them perhaps offensive to Christianity, I hope he will forbear his censures, when he shall consider, that nothing can render the unsearchable depth of the Divine Wisdom more conspicuous, than that man, whom Providence had designed for society, should not only by his own frailties and imperfections, be led into the road to temporal happiness, but likewise receive, from a seeming necessity of natural causes, a tincture of that knowledge, in which he was afterwards to be made perfect by the true religion, to his eternal welfare.

Table of Contents

Line 45. Whilst others follow’d mysteries,

To which few folks bind ’prentices.

In the education of youth, in order to their getting of a livelihood when they shall be arrived at maturity, most people look out for some warrantable employment or other, of which there are whole bodies or companies, in every large society of men. By this means, all arts and sciences, as well as trades and handicrafts, are perpetuated in the commonwealth, as long as they are found useful; the young ones that are daily brought up to them, continually supplying the loss of the old ones that die. But some of these employments being vastly more creditable than others, according to the great difference of the charges required to set up in each of them, all prudent parents, in the choice of them, chiefly consult their own abilities, and the circumstances they are in. A man that gives three or four hundred pounds with his son to a great merchant, and has not two or three thousand pounds to spare against he is out of his time to begin business with, is much to blame not to have brought his child up to something that might be followed with less money.

There are abundance of men of a genteel education, that have but very small revenues, and yet are forced, by their reputable callings, to make a greater figure than ordinary people of twice their income. If these have any children, it often happens, that as their indigence renders them incapable of bringing them up to creditable occupations, so their pride makes them unwilling to put them out to any of the mean laborious trades, and then, in hopes either of an alteration in their fortune, or that some friends, or favourable opportunity shall offer, they from time to time put off the disposing of them, until insensibly they come to be of age, and are at last brought up to nothing. Whether this neglect be more barbarous to the children, or prejudicial to the society, I shall not determine. At Athens all children were forced to assist their parents, if they came to want: But Solon made a law, that no son should be obliged to relieve his father, who had not bred him up to any calling.

Some parents put out their sons to good trades very suitable to their then present abilities, but happen to die, or fail in the world, before their children have finished their apprenticeships, or are made fit for the business they are to follow: A great many young men again, on the other hand, are handsomely provided for and set up for themselves, that yet (some for want of industry, or else a sufficient knowledge in their callings, others by indulging their pleasures, and some few by misfortunes) are reduced to poverty, and altogether unable to maintain themselves by the business they were brought up to. It is impossible but that the neglects, mismanagements, and misfortunes I named, must very frequently happen in populous places, and consequently great numbers of people be daily flung unprovided for into the wide world, how rich and potent a commonwealth may be, or what care soever a government may take to hinder it. How must these people be disposed of? The sea, I know, and armies, which the world is seldom without, will take off some. Those that are honest drudges, and of a laborious temper, will become journeymen to the trades they are of, or enter into some other service: such of them as studied and were sent to the university, may become schoolmasters, tutors, and some few of them get into some office or other: But what must become of the lazy, that care for no manner of working, and the fickle, that hate to be confined to any thing?