Bernard Mandeville

“ I do not mean, that little dawbers envy great masters, but most of them are tainted with this vice against those immediately above them. If the pupil of a famous artist is of a bright genius, and uncommon application, he first adores his master; but as his own skill increases, he begins insensibly to envy what he admired before. To learn the nature of this passion, and that it consists in what I have named, we are but to observe, that, if a painter, by exerting himself, comes not only to equal, but to exceed the man he envied, his sorrow is gone, and all his anger disarmed ”

“ 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 ”

“ No anger nor jealousy are ever to be seen at an opera, that distort the features; no flames that are noxious, nor is any love represented in them, that is not pure and next to seraphic; and it is impossible for the remembrance to carry any thing away from them, that can sully the imagination. Secondly, the company is of another sort: the place itself is a security to peace, as well as every one’s honour; and it is impossible to name another, where blooming innocence and irresistible beauty stand in so little need of guardians. ”

“ When a man is overwhelmed with shame, he observes a sinking of the spirits! the heart feels cold and condensed, and the blood flies from it to the circumference of the body; the face glows, the neck and part of the breast partake of the fire: he is heavy as lead; the head is hung down, and the eyes through a mist of confusion are fixed on the ground: no injuries can move him; he is weary of his being, and heartily wishes he could make himself invisible: but when, gratifying his vanity, he exults in his pride, he discovers quite contrary symptoms ”

“ What I named last is not the only passion that mocks and resembles charity; pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together. Men are so tenacious of their possessions, and selfishness is so riveted in our nature, that whoever can but any ways conquer it shall have the applause of the public, and all the encouragement imaginable to conceal his frailty, and sooth any other appetite he shall have a mind to indulge. ”

“ These things may seem strange to you, Madam, but they are of immense use to the public: the higher we can carry the excellency of our species, the more those beautiful images will fill noble minds with worthy and suitable ideas of their own dignity, that will seldom fail of spurring them on to virtue and heroic actions. There is a grandeur to be expressed in things that far surpasses the beauties of simple nature. You take delight in operas, Madam, I do not question; you must have minded the noble manner and stateliness beyond nature, which every thing there is executed with. ”

“ Whilst men are pleased, self-liking has every moment a considerable share, though unknown, in procuring the satisfaction they enjoy. It is so necessary to the well-being of those that have been used to indulge it, that they can taste no pleasure without it; and such is the deference, and the submissive veneration they pay to it, that they are deaf to the loudest calls of nature, and will rebuke the strongest appetites that should pretend to be gratified at the expence of that passion. It doubles our happiness in prosperity, and buoys us up against the frowns of adverse fortune. ”

“ I have often wondered formerly how an Englishman that pretended to have the honour and glory, as well as the welfare of his country at heart, could take delight in the evening to hear an idle tenant that owed him above a year’s rent, ridicule the French for wearing wooden shoes, when in the morning he had had the mortification of hearing the great King William, that ambitious monarch, as well as able statesman, openly own to the world, and with grief and anger in his looks, complain of the exorbitant power of France. ”

“ How comes it, then, that a man of honour should so easily accept of a challenge, though at thirty and in perfect health? It is his pride that conquers his fear: For, when his pride is not concerned, this fear will appear most glaringly. If he is not used to the sea, let him but be in a storm, or, if he never was ill before, have but a sore throat, or a slight fever, and he will show a thousand anxieties, and in them the inestimable value he sets on life. Had man been naturally humble and proof against flattery, the politician could never have had his ends, or known what to have made of him. ”

“ Religion commands you to leave all revenge to God; honour bids you trust your revenge to nobody but yourself, even where the law would do it for you: religion plainly forbids murder; honour openly justifies it: religion bids you not shed blood upon any account whatever; honour bids you fight for the least trifle: religion is built on humility, and honour upon pride: how to reconcile them must be left to wiser heads than mine. ”

“ At the opera, every thing charms and concurs to make happiness complete. The sweetness of voice, in the first place, and the solemn composure of the action, serve to mitigate and allay every passion; it is the gentleness of them, and the calm serenity of the mind, that make us amiable, and bring us the nearest to the perfection of angels; whereas, the violence of the passions, in which the corruption of the heart chiefly consists, dethrones our reason, and renders us more like unto savages. ”

“ Here, had I time, I could inveigh with warmth against those base, those wicked women, who calmly play their arts and false deluding charms against our strength and prudence, and act the harlots with their husbands! Nay, she is worse than whore, who impiously profanes and prostitutes the sacred rites of love to vile ignoble ends; that first excites to passion, and invites to joy with seeming ardour, then racks our fondness for no other purpose than to extort a gift, while full of guile in counterfeited transports, she watches for the moment when men can least deny. ”

“ When we compare some men to others, the word, I own, is often used in that sense: but when we speak of a quality peculiar to our species, and say, that man is a sociable creature, the word implies no more, than that in our nature we have a certain fitness, by which great multitudes of us cooperating, may be united and formed into one body; that endued with, and, able to make use of, the strength, skill and prudence of every individual, shall govern itself, and act on all emergencies, as if it was animated by one soul, and actuated by one will. ”

“ Nature furnishes us with all the substance of our food herself, nor does she trust to our wisdom for an appetite to crave it; to chew it, she teaches us by instinct, and bribes us to it by pleasure. This seeming to be an action of choice, and ourselves being conscious of the performance, we perhaps may be said to have a part in it; but the moment after, nature resumes her care, and again withdrawn from our knowledge, preserves us in a mysterious manner, without any help or concurrence of ours, that we are sensible of. ”

“ I lay down as a first principle, that in all societies, great or small, it is the duty of every member of it to be good, that virtue ought to be encouraged, vice discountenanced, the laws obeyed, and the transgressors punished. After this I affirm, that if we consult history, both ancient and modern, and take a view of what has passed in the world, we shall find that human nature, since the fall of Adam, has always been the same, and that the strength and frailties of it have ever been conspicuous in one part of the globe or other, without any regard to ages, climates, or religion. ”

“ This sorrow is incurable, while we continue our esteem for the thing we want: but as self-defence is restless, and never suffers us to leave any means untried how to remove evil from us, as far and as well as we are able; experience teaches us, that nothing in nature more alleviates this sorrow, than our anger against those who are possessed of what we esteem and want. This latter passion, therefore, we cherish and cultivate to save or relieve ourselves, at least in part, from the uneasiness we felt from the first.
Envy, then, is a compound of grief and anger ”

“ A strong fear of shame may gain so much upon the indolence of a man of sense, that he will bestir himself sufficiently to escape contempt; but it will hardly make him do any more; therefore he embraces frugality, as being instrumental and assisting to him in procuring his summum bonum, the darling quiet of his easy mind; whereas, the active man, with the same share of vanity, would do any thing rather than submit to the same frugality, unless his avarice forced him to it. Frugality is no virtue, when it is imposed upon us by any of the passions, and the contempt of riches is seldom sincere. ”

“ Should a Pythagorean, that was likewise a good master in mechanics, by the help of a microscope, pry into every minute part of this changeable creature, and duly consider the elegancy of its machinery, would he not think it great pity, that thousands of millions of animated beings, so nicely wrought and admirably finished, should every day be devoured by little birds and spiders, of which we stand in so little need? ”

“ One motive above all, which is none of the least with the most of them, is to be carefully concealed, I mean the satisfaction there is in ordering and directing: there is a melodious sound in the word governor, that is charming to mean people: every body admires sway and superiority; even imperium in belluas has its delights: there is a pleasure in ruling over any thing; and it is this chiefly that supports human nature in the tedious slavery of school-masters. But if there be the least satisfaction in governing the children, it must be ravishing to govern the school-master himself. ”

“ The reason why there are so few men of real virtue, and so many of real honour, is, because all the recompence a man has of a virtuous action, is the pleasure of doing it, which most people reckon but poor pay; but the self-denial a man of honour submits to in one appetite, is immediately rewarded by the satisfaction he receives from another, and what he abates of his avarice, or any other passion, is doubly repaid to his pride: besides, honour gives large grains of allowance, and virtue none. A man of honour must not cheat or tell a lie ”

“ If a man builds a fine house, though he has not one symptom of humility, furnishes it richly, and lays out a good estate in plate and pictures, we ought not to think that he does it out of vanity, but to encourage artists, employ hands, and set the poor to work for the good of his country: and if a man sleeps at church, so he does not snore, we ought to think he shuts his eyes to increase his attention. The reason is, because in our turn we desire that our utmost avarice should pass for frugality; and that for religion, which we know to be hypocrisy. ”

“ The whole earth being cursed, and no bread to be had but what we eat in the sweat of our brows, vast toil must be undergone before man can provide himself with necessaries for his sustenance, and the bare support of his corrupt and defective nature, as he is a single creature; but infinitely more to make life comfortable in a civil society, where men are become taught animals, and great numbers of them have, by mutual compact, framed themselves into a body politic; and the more man’s knowledge increases in this state, the greater will be the variety of labour required to make him easy. ”

“ A good house, rich furniture, a fine garden, horses, dogs, ancestors, relations, beauty, strength, excellency in any thing whatever; vices as well as virtue, may all be accessary to make men long for society, in hopes that what they value themselves upon will at one time or other become the theme of the discourse, and give an inward satisfaction to them. Even the most polite people in the world, and such as I spoke of at first, give no pleasure to others that is not repaid to their self-love, and does not at last centre in themselves, let them wind it and turn it as they will. ”

“ A man may carefully avoid every thing that in the eye of the world, is esteemed to be the result of pride, without mortifying himself, or making the least conquest of his passion. It is possible that he only sacrifices the insipid outward part of his pride, which none but silly ignorant people take delight in, to that part we all feel within, and which the men of the highest spirit and most exalted genius feed on with so much ecstacy in silence. ”