Bernard Le Bouyer de Mandeville

“ We are often influenc'd by our Love, or our Hatred, before we are aware of it our selves. I have met with several good Judges of Books, who disliked, and spoke very slightingly of your Alciphron; and I found, the chief Reason was, because you attack'd all Free Thinkers, without Exception. But I declare, that I think your Book, for the Generality, to be well wrote; tho' you have us'd me most unmercifully, and not acted, if you had read The Fable of the Bees, like an honest Man. When a Person has a handsome Face, I can't be so stupid as to believe him ugly, because he has us'd me ill. ”

“ He has not the delicacy to find fault with a man’s breath, who has just blown out his pipe, or a greasy head of hair that is rubbing against his chops: Dirt and sweat he has been used to from his cradle, and it is no disturbance to him to hear half a score people, some of them at his ear, and the furthest not five foot from him, bawl out as if he was hundred yards off: He is conscious that he makes no less noise when he is merry himself, and is secretly pleased with their boisterous usages. ”

“ While a man is inquiring into the occupation of vast multitudes, I cannot see why he may not say all this and much more, without being accused of depreciating and speaking slightly of the gifts and munificence of heaven; when, at the same time, he demonstrates, that without rain and sunshine this globe would not be habitable to creatures like ourselves. It is an out-of-the-way subject, and I would never quarrel with the man who should tell me that it might as well have been let alone: yet I always thought it would please men of any tolerable taste, and not be easily lost. ”

“ It is humanity bids us have compassion with the sufferings of others; and reason tells us, that whether a thing be far off or done in our sight, our sentiments concerning it ought to be the same, and we should be ashamed to own, that we felt no commiseration in us when any thing requires it. He is a cruel man, he has no bowels of compassion; all these things are the effects of reason and humanity, but nature makes no compliments; when the object does not strike, the body does not feel it ”

“ The virtuous possessions of the mind are neither charge nor burden: A man may bear misfortunes with fortitude in a garret, forgive injuries a-foot, and be chaste, though he has not a shirt to his back: and therefore I shall never believe, but that an indifferent sculler, if he was intrusted with it, might carry all the learning and religion that one man can contain, as well as a barge with six oars, especially if it was but to cross from Lambeth to Westminster; or that humility is so ponderous a virtue, that it requires six horses to draw it. ”

“ To try the truth of this, let them talk as much bawdy as they please in the room next to the same virtuous young woman, where she is sure that she is undiscovered, and she will hear, if not hearken to it, without blushing at all, because then she looks upon herself as no party concerned; and if the discourse should stain her cheeks with red, whatever her innocence may imagine, it is certain that what occasions her colour, is a passion not half so mortifying as that of shame ”

“ Charitable opinions are often stupidly false; when men are dead and gone, we ought to judge of their actions, as we do of books, and neither wrong their understanding nor our own. The British Æsculapius was undeniably a man of sense, and if he had been influenced by charity, a public spirit, or the love of learning, and had aimed at the good of mankind in general, or that of his own profession in particular, and acted from any of these principles, he could never have made such a will ”

“ Indeed I am, and would have been glad to have heard you speak of kings and other sovereigns with the same candour, as well as freedom, with which you have treated prime ministers, and their envious adversaries. When I see a man entirely impartial, I shall always do him that justice, as to think, that if he is not in the right in what he says, at least he aims at truth. The more I examine your sentiments, by what I see in the world, the more I am obliged to come into them ”

“ I do not think, that by so saying, I bid men be vicious, any more than I bid them be quarrelsome or covetous, when I affirm, that the profession of the law could not be maintained in such numbers and splendour, if there was not abundance of too selfish and litigious people.” A caution of the same nature I had already given towards the end of the Preface, on account of a palpable evil inseparable from the felicity of London. To search into the real causes of things, imports no ill design, nor has any tendency to do harm. A man may write on poisons, and be an excellent physician. ”

“ Every thing is easy to the Deity; but to speak after an human manner, it is evident, that in forming this earth, and every thing that is in it, no less wisdom or solicitude was required, in contriving the various ways and means, to get rid and destroy animals, than seems to have been employed in producing them; and it is as demonstrable, that our bodies were made on purpose not to last beyond such a period, as it is, that some houses are built with a design not to stand longer than such a term of years. But it is death itself to which our aversion by nature is universal ”

“ What I have said last, makes me think on another way of inviting customers, the most distant in the world from what I have been speaking of, I mean that which is practised by the watermen, especially on those whom, by their mien and garb, they know to be peasants. It is not unpleasant to see half a dozen people surround a man they never saw in their lives before, and two of them that can get the nearest, clapping each an arm over his neck, hug him in as loving and familiar a manner, as if he was their brother newly come home from an East India voyage ”

“ My second reason will prove to us, that if the person in question was capable of examining himself, it is yet highly improbable, that he would ever set about it: for, it must be granted, that, in order to search into ourselves, it is required we should be willing as well as able; and we have all the reason in the world to think, that there is nothing which a very proud man of such high qualifications would avoid more carefully than such an inquiry: because, for all other acts of self-denial, he is repaid in his darling passion ”

“ By lumping together the "vices" of the knave and the honest man, Mandeville could without serious risk of civil or ecclesiastical penalties make rigorism of any degree seem ridiculous and thus provide abundant amusement for himself and for like-minded readers; he could then proceed to undermine all the really important systems of morality of his time by applying more exacting standards than they could meet. Against a naturalistic and sentimental system, like Shaftesbury's, he could argue that it rested on an appraisal of human nature too optimistic to be realistic. ”

“ 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 metaphysics may easily throw himself into an enthusiasm, and really believe that he does not fear death while it remains out of sight. But should he be asked, why, having this intrepidity either from nature, or acquired by philosophy, he did not follow arms when his country was involved in war ”

“ A dutiful pretty young gentleman newly come from his travels, lies at the Briel waiting with impatience for an easterly wind, to waft him over to England, where a dying father, who wants to embrace and give him his blessing before he yields his breath, lies hoaning after him, melted with grief and tenderness: in the mean while a British minister, who is to take care of the Protestant interest in Germany, is riding post to Harwich, and in violent haste to be at Ratisbone before the diet breaks up. ”

“ The effects of his education, and his aversion to infamy, had always been strong enough to keep him from turpitude; but this he ascribed to his vanity, which he complained was in such full possession of his heart, that he knew no gratification of any appetite from which he was able to exclude it. Having always been a man of unblameable behaviour, the sincerity of his belief had made no visible alteration in his conduct to outward appearances; but in private he never ceased from examining himself. As no man was less prone to enthusiasm than himself, so his life was very uniform ”

“ Gentlemen very seldom have occasion to show their courage before they are sixteen or seventeen years of age, and rarely so soon: they are not put to the trial, till, by conversing with men of honour, they are confirmed in their pride: in the affair of a quarrel they have their friends to consult, and these are so many witnesses of their behaviour, that awe them to their duty, and in a manner oblige them to obey the laws of honour: all these things conspire to increase their fear of shame ”

“ After all, you have advanced Nothing in the second Dialogue concerning me, which it may not be proved to have been said or insinuated over and over in Pamphlets, Sermons and News-Papers of all Sorts and Parties. I can help you to another very good Reason why a Man of Sense might not mistrust the ill Report, that has been spread about The Fable of the Bees, and write against it in general Terms, tho' he had not read it. Every body knows, what Pains our Party-writers take in contradicting one another, and that there are few Things, which if the one praises, the other does not condemn. ”

“ We both agree, that no Nation or large Society can be well govern'd without Religion. I ask'd you the Reason of this: You tell me, because the Vulgar could not be kept in Awe without it. In Reply to this, I point at a Thousand Instances, where Religion is not of the Efficacy, and shew you withal that this End of keeping Men in Awe is much better obtain'd by the Laws and temporal Punishment; and that it is the Fear of them, which actually restrains great Numbers of wicked People ”

“ Libertines say the same of Women, and with equal Justice; yet relying on this pitiful Reason, they will eat and drink as deliciously as they can: No Pleasure is denied them, forsooth, that is used with Moderation; and in Cloaths, Houses, Furniture, Equipages and Attendance, they may live in perfect Conformity with the most vain and luxurious of the fashionable People; only with this Difference, that their Hearts must not be attach'd to these Things, and their grand Hope be in Futurity. This notable Proviso being once made, tho' in Words only, all is safe ”

“ It would be hard, a Man should not dare to affirm, that it is hot in the East-Indies, without having made a tedious Voyage thither and felt it. The more therefore I reflect, Sir, on your second Dialogue, and the Manner you treat me in, the more I am convinced, that you never read the Book I speak of, I mean, not read it through, or at least not with Attention. If Dion had inform'd himself concerning The Fable of the Bees, as he might have done, he must have met with my Vindication of it in some Shape or other. ”

“ You wonder, I know, which way I arrogate to myself such a superlative degree of penetration, as to know an artful cunning man better than he does himself, and how I dare pretend to enter and look into a heart, which I have [317] owned to be completely well concealed from all the world; which in strictness is an impossibility, and consequently not to be bragged of but by a coxcomb.
Hor. You may treat yourself as you please, I have said no such thing; but I own that I long to see it proved, that you have this capacity. ”

“ I defy the wit of man to carry the affront to the Divine Majesty higher. Barely to deny his being, is not half so daring, as it is to do this after you have owned him to exist. No Atheism——
Hor. Hold, Cleomenes; I can no longer resist the force of truth, and I am resolved to be better acquainted with myself for the future. Let me become your pupil.
Cleo. Do not banter me, Horatio; I do not pretend to instruct a man of your knowledge ”

“ The wild man, if gratitude moved him, would much sooner pay his respects to the tree he gathers his nuts from, than he would think of an acknowledgment to him who had planted it; and there is no property so well established, but a civilized man would suspect his title to it sooner, than a wild one would question the sovereignty he has over his own breath. Another reason, why fear is an elder motive to religion than gratitude, is, that an untaught man would never suspect that the same cause, which he received good from, would ever do him hurt ”

“ Invariably these scenes have a merit and interest beyond that owing to their function in the argument. They are lively, vivid, picturesque, humorous or touching in their own right. The reader can scarcely doubt that Mandeville enjoyed composing them—he admits as much in the Preface to the Enquiry when he acknowledges, in defending the "lowness" of his subject, the "Pleasure [iv] there is in imitating Nature in what Shape soever." ”

“ Unless his pride affects him in an extraordinary manner, he must always be [339] poor, and nothing but some share of vanity can hinder him from being despicably so. If he be a man of sense, he will be strictly honest, and a middling stock of covetousness will never divert him from it. In the active stirring man, that is easily reconciled to the bustle of the world, we shall discover quite different symptoms, under the same circumstances; and a very little avarice will egg him on to pursue his aim with eagerness and assiduity: small scruples are no opposition to him ”