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The Augustan Reprint Society
BERNARD MANDEVILLE
_A Letter to Dion_
(1732)
With an Introduction by Jacob Viner
Publication Number 41
Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1953
GENERAL EDITORS
H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
RALPH COHEN, _University of California, Los Angeles_
VINTON A. DEARING, _University of California, Los Angeles_
ASSISTANT EDITOR
W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
ADVISORY EDITORS
EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
LOUIS BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
JOHN BUTT, _King's College, University of Durham_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
EARNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
EDNA C. DAVIS, _Clark Memorial Library_
INTRODUCTION
The _Letter to Dion_, Mandeville's last publication, was, in form, a
reply to Bishop Berkeley's _Alciphron: or, the Minute Philosopher_. In
_Alciphron_, a series of dialogues directed against "free thinkers" in
general, Dion is the presiding host and Alciphron and Lysicles are the
expositors of objectionable doctrines. Mandeville's _Fable of the Bees_
is attacked in the Second Dialogue, where Lysicles expounds some
Mandevillian views but is theologically an atheist, politically a
revolutionary, and socially a leveller. In the _Letter to Dion_,
however, Mandeville assumes that Berkeley is charging him with all of
these views, and accuses Berkeley of unfairness and misrepresentation.
Neither _Alciphron_ nor the _Letter to Dion_ caused much of a stir. The
_Letter_ never had a second edition,[1] and is now exceedingly scarce.
The significance of the _Letter_ would be minor if it were confined to
its role in the exchange between Berkeley and Mandeville.[2] Berkeley
had more sinners in mind than Mandeville, and Mandeville more critics
than Berkeley. Berkeley, however, mere than any other critic seems to
have gotten under Mandeville's skin, perhaps because Berkeley alone
made effective use against him of his own weapons of satire and
ridicule.[3]
[1] In its only foreign language translation, the _Letter_,
somewhat abbreviated, is appended to the German translation of
_The Fable of the Bees_ by Otto Bobertag, _Mandevilles
Bienenfabel_, Munich, 1914, pp. 349-398.
[2] Berkeley again criticized Mandeville in _A Discourse
Addressed to Magistrates_, [1736], _Works_, A. C. Fraser ed.,
Oxford, 1871, III. 424.
[3] _A Vindication of the Reverend D---- B--y_, London, 1734,
applies to _Alciphron_ the comment of Shaftesbury that reverend
authors who resort to dialogue form may "perhaps, find means to
laugh gentlemen into their religion, who have unfortunately been
laughed out of it." See Alfred Owen Aldridge, "Shaftesbury and
the Deist Manifesto," _Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society_, New Series, XLI (1951), Part 2, p. 358.
Berkeley came to closest grips with _The Fable of the Bees_ when he
rejected Mandeville's grim picture of human nature, and when he met
Mandeville's eulogy of luxury by the argument that expenditures on
luxuries were no better support of employment than equivalent spending
on charity to the poor or than the more lasting life which would result
from avoidance of luxury.[4]
[4] Francis Hutcheson, a fellow-townsman of Berkeley, had
previously made these points against Mandeville's treatment of
luxury in letters to the _Dublin Journal_ in 1726, (reprinted in
Hutcheson, _Reflections upon Laughter, and Remarks upon the Fable
of the Bees_, Glasgow, 1750, pp. 61-63, and in James Arbuckle,
_Hibernicus' Letters_, London, 1729, Letter 46). In _The Fable of
the Bees_, Mandeville concedes that gifts to charity would
support employment as much as would equivalent expenditures on
luxuries, but argues that in practice the gifts would not be
made.
Of the few contemporary notices of the _Letter to Dion_, the most
important was by John, Lord Hervey. Hervey charged both Berkeley and
Mandeville with unfairness, but aimed most of his criticism at
Berkeley. He claimed that _Alciphron_ displayed the weaknesses of
argument in dialogue form, that it tended either to state the
opponent's case so strongly that it became difficult afterwards to
refute it or so weakly that it was not worth answering. He found fault
with Berkeley for denying that Mandeville had told a great many
disagreeable truths--presumably about human nature and its mode of
operation in society--and with Mandeville for having told them in
public. He held, I believe rightly, that Mandeville, in associating
vice with prosperity, deliberately blurred the distinction between vice
as an incidental consequence of prosperity and vice as its cause: vice,
said Hervey, "is the child of Prosperity, but not the Parent; and ...
the Vices which grow upon a flourishing People, are not the Means by
which they become so."[5]
[5] [Lord Hervey], _Some Remarks on the Minute Philosopher_,
London, 1732, pp. 22-23, 42-50.
T. E. Jessop, in his introduction to his edition of _Alciphron_,
characterizes Berkeley's account of the argument of _The Fable of the
Bees_ as "not unfair," and says: "I can see no reason for whitewashing
Mandeville. The content and manner of his writing invite retort rather
than argument. Berkeley gives both, in the most sparkling of his
dialogues. Mandeville wrote a feeble reply, A _Letter to Dion_."[6] F.
B. Kaye, on the other hand, says of the exchange between Berkeley and
Mandeville that "men like ... Berkeley, who may be termed the
religious-minded ... in their anguish, threw logic to the winds, and
criticized him [i.e., Mandeville] for the most inconsistent reasons."[7]
[6] _Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher_, T. E. Jessop, ed., in
_The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne_. Edited by A. A.
Luce and T. E. Jessop. London, etc., III. (1950), 9-10.
[7] In his edition of _The Fable of the Bees_, Oxford, 1924, II.
415-416. All subsequent references to _The Fable of the Bees_
will be to this edition.
Objective appraisal of the outcome of the debate between Berkeley and
Mandeville would presumably lead to a verdict somewhere between those
rendered, with appropriate loyalty to their authors, by their
respective editors. It is mainly for other reasons, however, that the
_Letter to Dion_ is still of interest. There is first its literary
merit. More important, the _Letter_ presents in more emphatic and
sharper form than elsewhere two essential elements of Mandeville's
system of thought, the advocacy, real or pretended, of unqualified
rigorism in morals, and the stress on the role of the State, of the
"skilful Politician," in evoking a flourishing society out of the
operations of a community of selfish rogues and sinners. The remainder
of this introduction will be confined to comments on these two aspects
of Mandeville's doctrine. Since the publication in 1924 of F. B. Kaye's
magnificent edition of _The Fable of the Bees_, no one can deal
seriously with Mandeville's thought without heavy reliance on it, even
when, as is the case here, there is disagreement with Kaye's
interpretation of Mandeville's position.
It was Mandeville's central thesis, expressed by the motto, "Private
Vices, Publick Benefits," of _The Fable of the Bees_, that the
attainment of temporal prosperity has both as prerequisite and as
inevitable consequence types of human behavior which fail to meet the
requirements of Christian morality and therefore are "vices." He
confined "the Name of Virtue to every Performance, by which Man,
contrary to the impulse of Nature, should endeavour the Benefit of
others, or the Conquest of his own Passions out of a Rational Ambition
of being good."[8] If "out of a Rational Ambition of being good" be
understood to mean out of "charity" in its theological sense of
conscious love of God, this definition of virtue is in strict
conformity to Augustinian rigorism as expounded from the sixteenth
century on by Calvinists and, in the Catholic Church, by Baius,
Jansenius, the Jansenists, and others. Mandeville professes also the
extreme rigorist doctrine that whatever is not virtue is vice: in
Augustinian terms, _aut caritas aut cupiditas_. Man must therefore
choose between temporal prosperity and virtue, and Mandeville insists,
especially in the _Letter to Dion_, that on his part the choice is
always of virtue:
... the Kingdom of Christ is not of this World, and ... the
last-named is the very Thing a true Christian ought to renounce.
(p. 18)[9]
[8] _Fable of the Bees_, I. 48-49.
[9] All page references placed in the main text of this
introduction are to the _Letter to Dion_.
"Tho' I have shewn the Way to Worldly Greatness, I have, without
Hesitation, preferr'd the Road that leads to Virtue." (p. 31)
Kaye concedes: that Mandeville's rigorism "was merely verbal and
superficial, and that he would much regret it if the world were run
according to rigoristic morality;" that "emotionally" and "practically,
if not always theoretically," Mandeville chooses the "utilitarian" side
of the dilemma between virtue and prosperity; and that "Mandeville's
philosophy, indeed, forms a complete whole without the extraneous
rigorism."[10] Kaye nevertheless insists that Mandeville's rigorism was
sincere, and that it is necessary so to accept it to understand him. It
seems to me, on the contrary, that if Mandeville's rigorism were
sincere, the whole satirical structure of his argument, its provocative
tone, its obvious fun-making gusto, would be incomprehensible, and
there would be manifest inconsistency between his satirical purposes
and his procedures as a writer.
[10] _Fable of the Bees_, II. 411. I, lxi, I, lvi.
Kaye argues that rigorism was not so unusual as of itself to justify
doubt as to its genuineness in the case of Mandeville; rigorism was "a
contemporary point of view both popular and respected, a view-point not
yet extinct." To show that rigorism was "the respectable orthodox
position for both Catholics and Protestants," Kaya cites as rigorists,
in addition to Bayle, St. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Daniel Dyke (the
author of _Mystery of Selfe-Deceiving_, 1642), Thomas Fuller
(1608-1661), William Law, and three Continental moralists, Esprit and
Pascal, Jansenists, and J. F. Bernard, a French Calvinist.[11]
[11] _Ibid._, I. li, I. lv, I. cxxi.
Christian rigorism by Mandeville's time had had a long history. From and
including St. Augustine on, it had undergone many types of doctrinal
dilution and moderation even on the part of some of its most ardent
exponents. In Mandeville, and in Kaye, it is presented only in its barest
and starkest form. Kaye, however, required by his thesis to show that
Mandeville's doctrine was "in accord with a great body of contemporary
theory,"[12] while accepting it as "the code of rigorism" treats it as
if it were identical with any moral system calling for any measure of
self-discipline or associated with any type of religious-mindedness.[13]
He also identifies it with rationalism in ethics as such, as if any
rationalistic ethics, merely because it calls for some measure of
discipline of the passions by "reason," is _ipso facto_ "rigorist."[14]
[12] _Ibid._ I. cxxiv, note.
[13] For example, Kaye cites from Blewitt, a critic of
Mandeville, this passage: "nothing can make a Man honest or
virtuous but a Regard to _some_ religious or moral Principles"
and characterizes it as "precisely the rigorist position from
which Mandeville was arguing when he asserted that our so-called
virtues were really vices, because not based _only_ on this
regard to principle." (_Ibid._ II. 411. The italics in both cases
are mine). The passage from Blewitt is not, of itself, manifestly
rigoristic, while the position attributed to Mandeville is
rigorism at its most extreme.
As further evidence of the prevalence of rigorism, Kaye cites
from Thomas Fuller the following passage: "corrupt nature (which
without thy restraining grace will have a Vent.)" _Ibid._ I.
cxxi, note. But in Calvinist theology "restraining grace," which
was not a "purifying" grace, operated to make some men who were
not purged of sin lead a serviceable social life. (See John
Calvin, _Institutes of the Christian Religion_, Bk. II, Ch. III,
() 3, pp. I. 315-316 of the "Seventh American Edition,"
Philadelphia, n.d.) As I understand it, the role of "restraining
grace" in Calvinist doctrine is similar to that of "honnetete" in
Jansenist doctrine, referred to _infra_. The rascals whom
Mandeville finds useful to society are not to be identified
either with those endowed with the "restraining grace" of the
Calvinists or with the "honnetes hommes" of the Jansenists.
For other instances of disregard by Kaye of the variations in
substance and degree of the rigorism of genuine rigorists, see
_ibid._ II. 403-406, II. 415-416.
[14] See especially F. B. Kaye, "The Influence of Bernard
Mandeville," _Studies in Philology_, XIX (1922), 90-102.
Mandeville was presumably directing his satire primarily at contemporary
Englishmen, not at men who had been dead for generations nor at
participants in Continental theological controversies without real
counterpart in England, at least since the Restoration. If this is
accepted, then of the men cited by Kaye to show the orthodoxy and the
contemporaneity of rigorism only William Law has any relevance. But Law
was an avowed "enthusiast," and in the England of Mandeville's time this
was almost as heretical as to be an avowed sceptic. Calvinism in its
origins had been unquestionably--though not unqualifiedly--rigoristic. By
Mandeville's time, however, avowed Calvinism was almost extinct in
England; even in Geneva, in Scotland, in Holland, its rigorism had been
much softened by the spread of Arminianism and by a variety of procedures
of theological accommodation or mediation between the life of grace and
the life of this sinful world. On the Continent, Jansenists were still
expounding a severe rigorism. But Jansenist rigorism was not "orthodox."
Though not as extreme as Mandeville's rigorism, it had repeatedly been
condemned by Catholic authorities as "_rigorisme outre_."[15]
[15] Cf. Denziger-Bannwart, _Enchiridion Symbolorum_. (See index
of any edition under "Baius," "Fenelon," "Iansen," "Iansenistae,"
"Quesnell.")
To take seriously Mandeville's rigorism, the narrowness with which he
defines "virtue," the broadness with which he defines "vice," his
failure to recognize any intermediate ground between "virtue" and
outright "vice," or any shades or degrees of either, the positiveness
with which he assigns to eternal damnation all who depart in any degree
from "virtue" as he defines it, is therefore to accept Mandeville as a
genuine exponent of a rigorism too austere and too grim not only for
the ordinary run of orthodox Anglicans or Catholics of his time but
even for St. Augustine (at times), for the Calvinists, and for the
Jansenists.
Kaye justifiably puts great stress on the extent of Mandeville's
indebtedness to Pierre Bayle. There is not the space here to elaborate,
but it could be shown, I believe, that Mandeville was also indebted
greatly, both indirectly through Bayle and directly, to the Jansenist,
Pierre Nicole, and that Mandeville's rigorism was a gross distortion
of, while Bayle's was essentially faithful to, Nicole's system.[16]
Nicole insisted that "true virtue" in the rigorist sense was necessary
for salvation, but at the same time expounded the usefulness for
society of behavior which theologically was "sinful." But it was the
"sinful" behavior of _honnetes hommes_, of citizens conforming to the
prevalent moral standards of their class, not of rogues and rascals,
which Nicole conceded to be socially useful.[17] Mandeville, on the
other hand, not only lumped the respectable citizens with the rogues
and rascals, but it was the usefulness for society of the vices of the
rogues and rascals more than--and rather than--those of honest and
respectable citizens which he emphasized. In the flourishing hive,
prior to its reform, there were:
... Sharpers, Parasites, Pimps, Players,
Pick-pockets, Coiners, Quacks, South-sayers,
* * *
These were call'd Knaves, but bar the Name,
The grave Industrious were the same.[18]
[16] The most pertinent writings of Nicole for present purposes
were his essays, "De la charite & de l'amour-propre," "De la
grandeur," and "Sur l'evangile du Jeudi-Saint," which in the
edition of his works published by Guillaume Desprez, Paris,
1755-1768, under the title _Essais de morale_, are to be found in
volumes III, VI, and XI.
[17] For a similar distinction by Bayle between _honnetes hommes_
who are not of the elect and the outright rascals, see Pierre
Bayle, _Dictionaire historique et critique_. 5th ed., Amsterdam,
1740, "Eclaircissement sur les obscenites," IV. () iv, p. 649.
[18] _Fable of the Bees_, I. 19.
The moral reform which brought disaster to the "Grumbling Hive"
consisted merely in abandonment of roguery and adoption of the
standards of the _honnete homme_.[19]
[19] In the French versions of 1740 and 1750, the title, _The
Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits_, is
translated as _La fable des abeilles ou les fripons devenus
honnestes gens_.
For the "honnete homme" in 17th and 18th century usage as
intermediate between a knave and a saint, see M. Magendie, _La
politesse mondaine et les theories de l'honnetete en France_,
Paris, n.d., (ca. 1925), and William Empson, _The Structure of
Complex Words_, London, 1951, ch. 9, "Honest Man."
The contrast between his general argument and that of Nicole or Bayle
throws light on the role which Mandeville's professed rigorism played
in the execution of his satirical purposes. It not only supports the
view of all his contemporaries that Mandeville's rigorism was a sham,
but also the view that he was not averse to having its insincerity be
generally detected, provided only that it should not be subject to
clear and unambiguous demonstration. 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. Against
current Anglican systems of morality, if they retained elements of
older rigoristic doctrine he could level the charge of hypocrisy, and
if they were latitudinarian in their tendencies he could object that
they were expounding an "easy Christianity" inconsistent with Holy Writ
and with tradition.
Mandeville clearly did not like clergymen, especially hypocritical
ones, and there still existed sufficient pulpit rigorism to provide him
with an adequate target for satire and a substantial number of readers
who would detect and approve the satire. As Fielding's Squire Western
said to Parson Supple when the latter reproved him for some misdeed:
"At'nt in pulpit now? when art a got up there I never mind what dost
say; but I won't be priest-ridden, nor taught how to behave myself by
thee." Only if it is read as a satire on rigorist sermons can there be
full appreciation of the cleverness of the "parable of small beer"
which Mandeville, with obvious contentment with his craftsmanship,
reproduces in the _Letter to Dion_ (pp. 25-29) from _The Fable of the
Bees_. Here the standard rigorist proposition that there is sin both in
the lust and in the act of satisfying it is applied to drink, where the
thirst and its quenching are both treated as vicious.[20]
[20] Kaye in a note to this parable, _Fable of the Bees_, I. 238,
cites as relevant, _I Cor. x. 31_; "Whether therefore ye eat, or
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Even
more relevant, I believe, is _Deut. xxix. 19_, where, in the King
James version, the sinner boasts: "I shall have peace, though I
walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to
thirst."
Mandeville, as Kaye interprets him, resembles the "_Jansenistes du
Salon_" who prided themselves on the fashionable rigor of their
doctrine but insisted on the practical impossibility of living up to it
in the absence of efficacious grace. In my interpretation, Mandeville
was both intellectually and temperamentally a "libertine" patently
putting on the mask of rigorism in order to be able at the same time to
attack the exponents of austere theological morality from their rear
while making a frontal attack on less exacting and more humanistic
systems of morality. The phenomenon was not a common one, but it was
not unique. Bourdaloue, the great seventeenth-century Jesuit preacher,
not very long before had called attention to libertines in France who
masqueraded in rigorist clothes in order to deepen the cleavages among
the members of the Church: "D'ou il arrive assez souvent, par
l'assemblage le plus bizarre et le plus monstrueux, qu'un homme qui ne
croit pas en Dieu, se porte pour defenseur du pouvoir invincible de la
grace, et devient a toute outrance le panegyriste de la plus etroite
morale."[21]
[21] "Pensees diverses sur la foi, et sur les vices opposes,"
_Oeuvres de Bourdaloue_, Paris, 1840, III. 362-363.
The _Letter to Dion_ has bearing also on another phase of Mandeville's
doctrine which is almost universally misinterpreted. Many scholars,
including economists who should know better, regard Mandeville as a
pioneer expounder of laissez-faire individualism in the economic field
and as such as an anticipator of Adam Smith. Kaye accepts this
interpretation without argument.
The evidence provided by _The Fable of the Bees_ in support of such an
interpretation is confined to these facts: Mandeville stressed the
importance of self-interest, of individual desires and ambitions, as
the driving force of socially useful economic activity; he held that a
better allocation of labor among different occupations would result, at
least in England, if left to individual determination than if regulated
or guided; he rejected some types of sumptuary legislation.
All of this, however, though required for laissez-faire doctrine, was
also consistent with mercantilism, at least of the English type. The
later exponents of laissez-faire did not invent the "economic man" who
pursued only his own interest, but inherited him from the mercantilists
and from the doctrine of original sin. English analysis of social
process had in this sense always been "individualistic," and in this
sense both mercantilism and the widely-prevalent theological
utilitarianism were at least as individualistic as later laissez-faire
economics. Englishmen, moreover, had long been jealous of governmental
power, and at the height of English mercantilism they insisted upon
limits to appropriate governmental intervention. It is not safe,
therefore, to label anyone before Adam Smith as an exponent of
laissez-faire merely on the ground that he would exempt a few specified
types of economic activity from interference by government. It would be
misleading also to apply to eighteenth-century writers modern ideas as
to the dividing line between "interventionists" and exponents of
"liberalism" or of "laissez faire." As compared to modern
totalitarianism, or even to modern "central economic planning," or to
"Keynesianism," the English mercantilism of the late seventeenth and
the eighteenth century was essentially libertarian. It is only as
compared to Adam Smith, or to English classical and the Continental
"liberal" schools of economics of the nineteenth century, that it was
interventionist.
Adam Smith is regarded as an exponent of laissez-faire because he laid
it down as a general principle (subject in practice to numerous and
fairly important specific exceptions) that the activities of government
should be limited to the enforcement of justice, to defense, and to
public works of a kind inherently unsuitable for private enterprise. He
based this doctrine partly on natural rights grounds, partly on the
belief that there was a pervasive natural and self-operating harmony,
providentially established, between individual interest and the
interest of the community, partly on the empirical ground that
government was generally inefficient, improvident, and unintelligent.
There is nothing of such doctrine in Mandeville; there is abundant
evidence in his writings that Mandeville was a convinced adherent of
the prevailing mercantilism of his time. Most English mercantilists
disapproved of some or all kinds of sumptuary regulations on the same
grounds as Mandeville disapproved of some of them, namely, the
existence of more suitable ways of accomplishing their objectives or
the mistaken character of their objectives. Mandeville's objection to
charity schools on the ground that they would alter for the worse the
supplies of labor for different occupations was based on his belief
that England, unlike some other countries, already had more tradesmen
and skilled artisans than it needed. Mandeville, in contrast to Adam
Smith, put great and repeated stress on the importance of the role of
government in producing a strong and prosperous society, through
detailed and systematic regulation of economic activity.
It is a common misinterpretation of Mandeville in this respect to read
his motto, "Private Vices, Publick Benefits," as a laissez-faire motto,
postulating the natural or spontaneous harmony between individual
interests and the public good. The motto as it appeared on title pages
of _The Fable of the Bees_ was elliptical. In his text, Mandeville
repeatedly stated that it was by "the skilful Management of the clever
Politician" that private vices could be made to serve the public good,
thus ridding the formula of any implication of laissez-faire.
This is made clear beyond reasonable doubt by the _Letter to Dion_.
Berkeley, in _Alciphron_, had made Lysicles say: "Leave nature at full
freedom to work her own way, find all will be well." Mandeville, taking
this as directed against himself, disavows it vigorously, and cites the
stress he had put on "laws and governments" in _The Fable of the Bees_.
(pp. 3-4; see also 55). He repeats from _The Fable of the Bees_ his
explanation that when he used as a subtitle the "Private Vices, Publick
Benefits" motto, "I understood by it, that Private Vices, by the
dexterous Management of a skilful Politician, might be turned into
Publick Benefits." (pp. 36-37). Later he refers to the role of the
"skilful Management" of the "Legislator" (p. 42), and to "the Wisdom of
the Politician, by whose skilful Management the Private Vices of the
Worst of Men are made to turn to a Publick Benefit." (p. 45). "They are
silly People," he says, "who imagine, that the Good of the Whole is
consistent with the Good of every Individual." (p. 49).
A recent work[22] provides indirectly unintentional support to my
denial that Mandeville was an exponent of laissez-faire. In this work
we are told that "The most famous exponent of what Halevy calls the
natural identity of interests is Bernard Mandeville" and that "What
Mandeville did for the principle of the natural identity of interests
Helvetius did for that of their artificial identity," that is, "that
the chief utility of governments consists in their ability to force men
to act in their own best interests when they feel disinclined to do
so." It so happens, however, that Helvetius as an apostle of state
intervention was not only not departing from Mandeville but was echoing
him even as to language. Helvetius said that motives of personal
temporal interest sufficed for the formation of a good society,
provided they were "manies avec adresse par un legislateur habile."[23]
[22] John Plamenatz, _The British Utilitarians_, Oxford and New
York, 1949, pp. 48-49.
[23] Helvetius, _De l'esprit_, Discours II. Ch. XXIV. In the
French version of _The Fable of the Bees_, the phrasing is almost
identical: See _La fable des abeilles_, Paris, 1750, e.g. II.
261: "menages avec dexterite par d'habiles politiques." When the
Sorbonne, in 1759, condemned _De l'esprit_, it cited _The Fable
of the Bees_ as among the works which could have inspired it. (F.
Gregoire. _Bernard De Mandeville_, Nancy, 1947, p. 206).
Kaye, in his "The Influence of Bernard Mandeville," (_loc. cit._,
p. 102), says that _De l'esprit_ "Is in many ways simply a French
paraphrase of _The Fable_." In his edition of _The Fable of the
Bees_, however, he says, "I think we may conclude no more than
that Helvetius had probably read _The Fable_." (_Fable of the
Bees_, I. CXLV, Note). Kaye systematically fails to notice the
significance of Mandeville's emphasis on the role of the "skilful
Politician."
Here also there is a close link between Mandeville, Bayle, and the
Jansenists, especially Nicole and Domat. All of them adopted a
Hobbesian view of human nature. All of them followed Hobbes in
believing that the discipline imposed by positive law and enforced by
government was essential if a prosperous and flourishing society was to
be derived from communities of individuals vigorously pursuing their
self-regarding interests. Mandeville's originality was in pretending
that in the interest of true morality he preferred that the individual
pursuit of prosperity be abandoned even at the cost of social disaster.
A
LETTER
TO
DION,
Occasion'd by his Book
CALL'D
ALCIPHRON,
OR
The MINUTE PHILOSOPHER.
_By the Author of the_ FABLE _of the_ BEES.
_LONDON:_
Printed and Sold by J. ROBERTS in _Warwick-Lane_.
M.DCC.XXXII.
_SIR_,
I have read your Two Volumes of _Alciphron_, or, The _Minute
Philosopher_ with Attention. As far as I am a Judge, the Language is
very good, the Diction correct, and the Style and whole Manner of
Writing are both polite and entertaining: All together bespeak the
Author to be a Man of Learning, good Sense and Capacity. My Design in
troubling you with this tedious Epistle in Print, which perhaps will be
longer than you could have wish'd it, is to rescue the Publick from a
vulgar Error, which Thousands of knowing and well-meaning People, and
your self, I see, among the Rest, have been led into by a common
Report, concerning _The Fable of the Bees_, as if it was a wicked Book,
wrote for the Encouragement of Vice, and to debauch the Nation. I beg
of you not to imagine, that I intend to blame you, or any other candid
Man like your self, for having rashly given Credit to such a Report
without further Examination. The _Fable of the Bees_ has been presented
by a Grand Jury more than once; and there is hardly a Book that has
been preach'd and wrote against with greater Vehemence or Severity.
When a Work is so generally exclaim'd against, a wise Man, who has no
Mind to mispend his Time, has a very good Reason for not reading it.
But as your second Dialogue is almost entirely levell'd at that Book
and its Author, and you have no where declar'd in Words at length (at
least, as I remember) that you never read _The Fable of the Bees_, it
is possible I might be ask'd, why I would take it for granted, that you
never had read it, when many of your Readers perhaps will believe the
contrary. If this Question was put to me, I would readily answer, that
I chose to be of that Opinion, because it is the most favourable I can
possibly entertain of _Dion_. It is not, Sir, believe me, out of
Disrespect, that I call you plain _Dion_; but because I would treat you
with the utmost Civility: It is the Name under which, I find, you are
pleas'd to disguise your self; and offering to guess at an Author, when
he chuses to be conceal'd, is, I think a Rudeness almost equal to that
of pulling off a Woman's Mask against her Will.
Whoever reads your second Dialogue, will not find in it any real
Quotations from my Book, either stated or examined into, but that the
wicked Tenets and vile Assertions there justly exposed, are either such
Notions and Sentiments, as first, my Enemies, to render me odious, and
afterwards Common Fame had already father'd upon me, tho' not to be met
with in any Part of my Book; or else, that they are spiteful
Inferences, and invidious Comments, which others before you, without
Justness or Necessity, had drawn from and made upon what I had
innocently said. I find no Fault with you, Sir; for whilst a Person
believes these Accusations against me to be true, and is entirely
unacquainted with the Book they point at, it is not impossible that he
might inveigh against it without having any Mischief in his Heart, tho'
it was the most useful Performance in the World. A Man may be credulous
and yet well disposed; but if a Man of Sense and Penetration, who had
actually read _The Fable of the Bees_, and with Attention perused every
Part of it, should write against it in the same strain, as _Dion_ has
done in his second Dialogue, then I must confess, I should be at a
Loss, what Excuse to make for him.
It is impossible that a Man of the least Probity, whilst he is writing
in Behalf of Virtue and the Christian Religion, should commit such an
immoral Act as to calumniate his Neighbour, and willfully misrepresent
him in the most atrocious Manner. If _Dion_ had read _The Fable of the
Bees_, he would not have suffer'd such lawless Libertines as
_Alciphron_ and _Lysicles_ to have shelter'd themselves under my Wings;
but he would have demonstrated to them, that my Principles differ'd
from theirs, as Sunshine does from Darkness. When they boasted of
setting Men free, and their abominable Design of ridding them of the
Shackles of Laws and Governments, he would have quoted to them the very
Beginning of my Preface. _Laws and Government are to the political
Bodies of civil Societies, what the vital Spirits and Life it self are
to the natural Bodies of animated Creatures._ From the same Preface he
would have shew'd those barefaced Advocates for all Manner of
Wickedness, the small Encouragement they were like to get from my Book;
and as soon as it appear'd, that by Liberty they meant Licentiousness,
and a Privilege to commit the most detestable Crimes with Impunity, he
would have quoted these Words: _When I assert, that Vices are
inseperable from great and potent Societies, and that it is impossible,
that 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 reproved, or not punish'd for them when they grew into
Crimes._ This he would have corroborated by several Passages in the
Book it self, and not have forgot what I say, page 255. _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 discountenanc'd, the Laws obey'd, and the
Transgressors punish'd._ If he had only read the first Edition, a
little Book in Twelves, a Man of _Dion's_ Virtue and Integrity could
not have stifled the Care I have taken in Fifty Places, nor the many
Cautions I have given, that I might not offend or be misunderstood: On
the Contrary, he would have made use of them, to undeceive his Friends,
and prevented their groundless Fears and senseless Insinuations. If
_Dion_ had read what I have said about the Fire of _London_, Nothing
but his Politeness could have hinder'd him from bursting out into a
loud Laughter at the judicious Remark of the Learned _Crito_, where he
points at the Probability, that the late Incendiaries had taken the
Hint of their Villainies from _The Fable of the Bees_.
I can't say, that there are not several Passages in that Dialogue,
which would induce one to believe, that you had dipt into _The Fable of
the Bees_; but then to suppose, that upon having only dipt in it, you
would have wrote against it as you have done, would be so injurious to
your Character, the Character of an honest Man, that I have not
Patience to reason upon such an uncharitable Supposition. I know very
well, Sir, that I am addressing my self to a Man of Parts, a Master in
Logick, and a subtle Metaphysician, not to be imposed upon by Sophistry
or false Pretences: Therefore I beg of you, carefully to examine what I
have said hitherto, and you'll be convinced; that my not believing you
to have read _The Fable of the Bees_, can proceed from Nothing but the
good Opinion I have of your Worth and Candour, which I hope I shall
never have any Occasion to alter. You are not the first, Sir, by five
hundred, who has been very severe upon _The Fable of the Bees_ without
having ever read it. I have been at Church my self when the Book in
Question has been preach'd against with great Warmth by a worthy
Divine, who own'd, that he had never seen it; and there are living
Witnesses now, Persons of unquestion'd Reputation, who heard it as well
as I.
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. Now, if we find the _London Journal_ have a
Fling at _The Fable of the Bees_ one Day, and _The Craftsman_ another,
it is a certain Sign that the ill Repute of the Book, must be well
establish'd and not to be doubted of. Then why might not an Author
write against it, without giving himself the Trouble of reading it? 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. First, it came out in a News-Paper; after
that, I publish'd it in a Six-penny Pamphlet, together with the Words
of the first Presentment of the Grand Jury and an injurious abusive
Letter to Lord C. that came out immediately after it; both which had
been the Occasion of my writing that Vindication. The Reason I gave for
doing this, was, that the Reader might be fully instructed in the
Merits of the Cause between my Adversaries and my Self; and because I
thought it requisite, that to judge of my Defence, he should know the
whole Charge, and all the Accusations against me at large. I took Care
to have this printed in such a Manner, as to the Letter and Form, that
for the Benefit of the Buyers, it might conveniently be bound up, and
look of a Piece with the then last, which was the second Edition. Ever
since the whole Contents of this Pamphlet have been added to the Book,
and are at the End of the third, the fourth, and the fifth, as well as
this last Impression of 1732. If _Dion_ had seen and approved of this
Vindication, he would not have wrote against me at all; and if he had
thought my Answers not satisfactory, and that I had not clear'd my self
from the Aspersions, which had been cast upon me, it was unkind, if not
a great Disregard to the Publick, not to take Notice of it, and shew
the Insufficiency of my Defence, which from his own Writings it is
evident, that great Numbers of the _beau monde_ must have acquiesc'd
in, or not thought necessary.
Give me Leave, then, Sir, for your own Sake, to treat you, as if you
never had read _The Fable of the Bees_ and in Return I give you my
Word, that I shall make no use of it to your Disadvantage; on the
Contrary, I take it for granted, that from the bad Character you had
heard of the Book from every Quarter, you had sufficient Reason to
write against it, as you have done, without any further Enquiry. This
being settled, I shall attempt to shew you the Possibility, that a Book
might come into such a general Disrepute without deserving it. An
Author, who dares to expose Vice, and the Luxury of the Time he lives
in, pulls off the Disguises of artful Men, and examining in to the
false Pretences, which are made to Virtue, lays open the Lives of
those, _Qui Curios simulant & Bacchanalia vivunt_: An Author, I say,
who dares to do this in a great, and opulent, and flourishing Nation,
can never fail of drawing upon him a great Number of Enemies. Few Men
can bear with Patience, to see those Things detected, which it is their
Interest, and they take Pains to conceal. As to Grand Juries, what they
go upon is, the Testimony of others; they don't judge of Books from
their own Reading; and many have been presented by them, which none, or
at least the greatest Part of them had never seen before. Yet when ever
the Publisher of a Book is presented by a Grand Jury, it is counted a
publick Censure upon the Author, a Disgrace not easily wiped off.
The News-Writers, whose chief Business it is, to fill their Papers and
raise the Attention of their Readers, never forget any Scandal which
can be publish'd with Impunity. By this Means a Book, which once this
Indignity has been put upon, is in a few Days render'd odious, and in
less than a Fortnight comes to be infamous throughout the Kingdom
without any other Demerit; Those Polemick Authors among them, who are
Party-Men, and write either for or against Courts and Ministers, have a
greater Regard to what will serve their Purpose, than they have to
Truth or Sincerity. As they subsist by vulgar Errors, and are kept
alive by the Spirit of Strife and Contention, so it is not their
Business to rectify Mistakes in Opinion, but rather to encrease them
when it serves their Turn. They know, that whoever would ingratiate
themselves with Multitudes and gain Credit amongst them, must not
contradict them; which is the Reason that, how widely soever these
Party-Writers may differ from One another in Principles and Sentiments,
they will never differ in their Censure or Applause, when they touch
upon such Notions which are generally receiv'd.
If you'll consider, Sir, what I have said in the two last Paragraphs,
you will easily see the Possibility that Books may get into an ill
Repute and a very bad Character without deserving it. The next I shall
endeavour to demonstrate to you, is, that this has been the Case of
_The Fable of the Bees_, and that the Animosities which have been shewn
against it, were originally owing to another Cause, than what my
Adversaries pretended to be the true one. In order to this, I shall be
obliged to make several Quotations from the Book it self, and repeat
many Things, which I have already said in the Vindication hinted at
before: But as I design this only for your self and those who have
judged of the Book from Common Report, and never perused either the
First or the Second Part of it, these Citations will be as new to you
as any other Part of my Letter.
I am not ignorant of the Prejudice and real Hurt, which Authors do
themselves by making long Quotations. They interrupt the Sense, and
often break off the Thread of the Discourse; and many a Reader, when he
comes to the End of a long Citation, has forgot the main Subject, and
often the Thing it self, which that very Citation was brought in to
prove. For this Reason we see, that Judicious Writers avoid them as
much as possible; or that where they cannot do without, instead of
inserting them in the main Text of their Works, they make Place for
them in Notes or Remarks, which they refer to, or else an Appendix,
where many of them may be put together, and are never seen but by
Choice, and when the Reader is at Leisure. That this segregating all
extraneous Matter from the main Body of the Book, the Text it self, is
less disagreeable to most Readers, than the other, which I hinted at
first, is certain; but it is attended with this ill Consequence, which
the less engaging Method of Writing is not, to wit, that many curious
and often the most valuable Things, and which it is of the highest
Concern to the Author, that they should be known, are neglected and
never look'd into, only because they are put into Notes or Appendixes.
In my Case you'll find, Sir, that the long Quotations, some of them of
several Pages, which I am obliged to trouble you with, are more
material for the Vindication of my Book than all that can possibly be
said besides. For they will not only demonstrate to you, that I have
been shamefully misrepresented, but likewise give you a clear Insight
into the real Cause of the Anger, the Hatred, and Inveteracy, of my
Enemies, who first gave the Book an ill Name, and were the industrious
Authors of the false Reports, by which your self and many other good
Men, to my great Affliction, have been impos'd upon. You'll pardon me
then, Sir, if, consulting my own Interest in a just Defence, rather
than your Pleasure in reading it, I plant my strongest Evidences so
directly in your Way, that, if you'll do me the Favour of perusing this
Letter, it shall be impossible for you to remain ignorant any longer of
the Innocence of my Intentions, and the Injustice that has been done
me.
In the Presentment of the Grand Jury in 1723, it is insinuated that in
_The Fable of the Bees_ there are Encomiums upon Stews, which I can
assure you, Sir, is not true. What might have given a Handle to this
Charge, must be a Political Dissertation concerning the best Method to
guard and preserve Women of Honour and Virtue from the Insults of
dissolute Men, whose Passions are often ungovernable. As in this there
is a Dilemma between two Evils, which it is impracticable to shun both,
so I have treated it with the utmost Caution, and begin thus: _I am far
from encouraging Vice, and should think it an unspeakable Felicity for
a State, if the Sin of Uncleanness could be utterly banish'd from it;
but I am afraid it is impossible._ I give my Reasons, why I think it
so; and speaking occasionally of the Musick-Houses at _Amsterdam_, I
give a short Account of them, than which Nothing can be more harmless.
To prove this to those who have bought or are possess'd of _The Fable
of the Bees_, it would be sufficient to appeal and refer to the Book:
But as one great Reason of my printing this Letter, is to shew my
Innocence to such, who, as well as your self, neither have read nor
care to buy the Book, it is requisite I should transcribe the whole.
You'll see, Sir, that my Aim is to shew, that these Musick-Houses are
discountenanc'd, at the same Time they are tolerated.