Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber's Note: The Introduction, by Jacob Viner, was first published without a copyright notice and, therefore, is in the public domain.

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 "honnêteté" 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 "honnêtes 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 outré_."[15]

[15] Cf. Denziger-Bannwart, _Enchiridion Symbolorum_. (See index
of any edition under "Baius," "Fénelon," "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 _honnêtes 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 charité & de l'amour-propre," "De la
grandeur," and "Sur l'évangile 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 _honnêtes hommes_
who are not of the elect and the outright rascals, see Pierre
Bayle, _Dictionaire historique et critiqué_. 5th ed., Amsterdam,
1740, "Éclaircissement sur les obscénités," 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 _honnête 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 "honnête homme" in 17th and 18th century usage as
intermediate between a knave and a saint, see M. Magendie, _La
politesse mondaine et les théories de l'honnêteté 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 "_Jansénistes 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'òu 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 défenseur du pouvoir invincible de la grâce, et devient à toute outrance le panégyriste de la plus étroite morale."[21]

[21] "Pensées diverses sur la foi, et sur les vices opposés,"
_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 rôle 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 Halévy calls the natural identity of interests is Bernard Mandeville" and that "What Mandeville did for the principle of the natural identity of interests Helvétius 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 Helvétius as an apostle of state intervention was not only not departing from Mandeville but was echoing him even as to language. Helvétius said that motives of personal temporal interest sufficed for the formation of a good society, provided they were "maniés avec adresse par un législateur habile."[23]

[22] John Plamenatz, _The British Utilitarians_, Oxford and New
York, 1949, pp. 48-49.

[23] Helvétius, _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: "ménagés avec dextérité 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.
Grégoire. _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 Helvétius 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 rôle 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.

_In the first Place, the Houses I speak of, are allow'd to be no where but in the most slovenly and unpolish'd Part of the Town, where Seamen and Strangers of no Repute chiefly lodge and resort. The Street, in which most of them stand, is counted scandalous, and the Infamy is extended to all the Neighbourhood round it. In the Second, they are only Places to meet and bargain in, to make Appointments, in order to promote Interviews of greater Secrecy, and no Manner of Lewdness is ever suffer'd to be transacted in them; which Order is so strictly observ'd, that, bar the Ill Manners and Noise of the Company that frequent them, you'll meet with no more Indecency, and generally less Lasciviousness there, than with us are to seen at a Play-House. Thirdly, the Female Traders, that come to these Evening-Exchanges, are always the Scum of the People, and generally such, as in the Day-Time carry Fruit and other Eatables about in Wheel-barrows. The Habits indeed they appear in at Night, are very different from their ordinaray ones; yet they are commonly so ridiculously gay, that they look more like the_ Roman _Dresses of strolling Actresses, than Gentlewomens Cloaths: If to this you add the Awkwardness, the hard Hands and course Breeding of the Damsels that wear them, there is no great Reason to fear, that many of the better Sort of People will be tempted by them._

_The Musick in these Temples of_ Venus _is perform'd by Organs, not out of Respect to the Deity that is worship'd in them, but the Frugality of the Owners, whose Business it is to procure as much Sound for as little Money as they can, and the Policy of the Government, which endeavours as little as is possible, to encourage the Breed of Pipers and Scrapers. All Sea-faring Men, especially the_ Dutch, _are, like the Element they belong to, much given to Loudness and Roaring, and the Noise of Half a Dozen of them, when they call themselves Merry, is sufficient to drown Twice the Number of Flutes or Violins; whereas with one Pair of Organs they can make the whole House ring, and are at no other Charge than the keeping of one scurvy Musician, which can cost them but little, yet notwithstanding the good Rules and strict Discipline that are observ'd in these Markets of Love, the Schout and his Officers are always vexing, mulcting, and, upon the least Complaint, removing the miserable Keepers of them: Which Policy is of two great Uses; First, it gives an Opportunity to a large Parcel of Officers, the Magistrates make use of on many Occasions, and which they could not be without, to squeeze a Living out of the immoderate Gains accruing from the worst of Employments, and at the same Time punish those necessary Profligates, the Bawds and Panders, whom, tho' they abominate, they desire yet not wholly to destroy. Secondly, as on several Accounts it might be dangerous to let the Multitude into the Secret, that those Houses and the Trade that is drove in them are conniv'd at, so, by this Means appearing unblameable, the wary Magistrates preserve themselves in the good Opinion of the weaker Sort of People, who imagine, that the Government is always endeavouring, tho' unable, to suppress what it actually tolerates: Whereas if they had a Mind to rout them out, their Power in the Administration of Justice is so sovereign and extensive, and they know so well how to have it executed, that one Week, nay one Night, might send them all a packing._