Bossuet, a few pages later, arrives at the necessary and natural consequence of the murder of other animals, when he records that “the brutalised human race could no longer rise to the true contemplation of intellectual things.”[134]
The most paradoxical of moralists, born at Dort, in Holland. He was brought up to the profession of medicine, and took the degree of M.D. He afterwards settled and practised in London.
It was in 1714 that he published his short poem called _The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turned Honest_, to which he afterwards added long explanatory notes, and then republished the whole under the new and celebrated title of _The Fable of the Bees_. This work “which, however erroneous may be its views of morals and of society, is written in a proper style, and bears all the marks of an honest and sincere inquiry on an important subject, exposed its author to much obloquy, and met with answers and attacks.... It would appear that some of the hostility against this work, and against Mandeville generally, is to be traced to another publication, recommending the public licensing of ‘stews,’ the matter and manner of which are certainly exceptionable, though, at the same time, it must be stated that Mandeville earnestly and with seeming sincerity commends his plan as a means of diminishing immorality, and that he endeavoured, so far as lay in his power, by affixing a high price and in other ways, to prevent the work from having a general circulation.” In fact, Mandeville is one of those injudicious but well-meaning reformers who, by their propensity to perverse paradox, have injured at once their reputation and their usefulness for after times.
A second part of _The Fable_ appeared at a later period. Amongst other numerous writings were two entitled, _Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness_, and _An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour_, and the _Usefulness of Christianity in War_. He appears to have been enabled to pursue his literary career in great measure by the liberality of his Dutch friends, and he was a constant guest of the first Earl of Macclesfield. “_The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices Public Benefits_ may be received in two ways,” says the writer in the _Penny Cyclopædia_, whom we have already quoted, “as a satire on men, and as a theory of society and national prosperity. So far as it is a satire, it is sufficiently just and pleasant, but received in its more ambitious character of a theory of society, it is altogether worthless. It is Mandeville’s object to show that national greatness depends on the prevalence of fraud and luxury; and for this purpose he supposes ‘a vast hive of bees’ possessing in all respects institutions similar to those of men; he details the various frauds, similar to those among men, practised by bees one upon another in various professions.... His hive of bees having thus become wealthy and great, he afterwards supposes a mutual jealousy of frauds to arise, and Fraud to be, by common consent, dismissed; and he again assumes that wealth and luxury immediately disappear, and that the greatness of the society is gone.” For our part, in place of “greatness,” we should have rather written _misery_, as far as concerns the mass of communities.