The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits

by Bernard Mandeville

Cleo. Yet nothing is more true; but where pride is so much indulged, and yet to be so carefully kept from all human view, as it is in persons of honour of both sexes, it would be impossible for mortal strength to endure the restraint, if men could not be taught to play the passion against itself, and were not allowed to change the natural home-bred symptoms of it, for artificial foreign ones.

Hor. By playing the passion against itself, I know you mean placing a secret pride in concealing the barefaced signs of it: but I do not rightly understand what you mean by changing the symptoms of it.

Cleo. When a man exults in his pride, and gives a loose to that passion, the marks of it are as visible in his countenance, his mien, his gait and behaviour, as they are in a prancing horse, or a strutting turkey-cock. These are all very odious; every one feeling the same principle within, which is the cause of those symptoms; and man being endued with speech, all the open expressions the same passion can suggest to him, must for the same reason be equally displeasing: these, therefore, have in all societies been strictly prohibited by common consent, in the very infancy of good manners; and men have been taught, in the room of them, to substitute other symptoms, equally evident with the first, but less offensive, and more beneficial to others.

Hor. Which are they?

Cleo. Fine clothes, and other ornaments about them, the cleanliness observed about their persons, the submissions that is required of servants, costly equipages, furniture, buildings, titles of honour, and every thing that men can acquire to make themselves esteemed by others, without discovering any of the symptoms that are forbid: upon a satiety of enjoying these, they are allowed likewise to have the vapours, and be whimsical, though otherwise they are known to be in health and of good sense.

Hor. But since the pride of others is displeasing to us in every shape, and these latter symptoms, you say, are equally evident with the first, what is got by the change?

Cleo. A great deal: when pride is designedly expressed in looks and gestures, either in a wild or tame man, it is known by all human creatures that see it; it is the same, when vented in words, by every body that understands the language they are spoken in. These are marks and tokens that are all the world over the same: nobody shows them, but to have them seen and understood, and few persons ever display them without designing that offence to others, which they never fail to give: whereas, the other symptoms may be denied to be what they are; and many pretences, that they are derived from other motives, may be made for them, which the same good manners teach us never to refute, nor easily to disbelieve: in the very excuses that are made, there is a condescension that satisfies and pleases us. In those that are altogether destitute of the opportunities to display the symptoms of pride that are allowed of, the least portion of that passion is a troublesome, though often an unknown guest; for in them it is easily turned into envy and malice, and on the least provocation, it sallies out in those disguises, and is often the cause of cruelty; and there never was a mischief committed by mobs or multitudes, which this passion had not a hand in: whereas, the more room men have to vent and gratify the passion in the warrantable ways, the more easy it is for them to stifle the odious part of pride, and seem to be wholly free from it.

Hor. I see very well, that real virtues requires a conquest over untaught nature, and that the Christian religion demands a still stricter self-denial: it likewise is evident, that to make ourselves acceptable to an omniscient Power, nothing is more necessary than sincerity, and that the heart should be pure. But setting aside sacred matters, and a future state, do not you think that this complaisance and easy construction of one another’s actions, do a great deal of good upon earth; and do not you believe that good manners and politeness make men more happy, and their lives more comfortable in this world, than any thing else could make them without those arts?

Cleo. If you will set aside what ought to employ our first care, and be our greatest concern; and men will have no value for that felicity and peace of mind, which can only arise from a consciousness of being good, it is certain, that in a great nation, and among a flourishing people, whose highest wishes seem to be ease and luxury, the upper part could not, without those arts, enjoy so much of the world as that can afford; and that none stand more in need of them than the voluptuous men of parts, that will join worldly prudence to sensuality, and make it their chief study to refine upon pleasure.

Hor. When I had the honour of your company at my house, you said that nobody knew when or where, nor in what king’s or emperor’s reign the laws of honour were enacted; pray, can you inform me when or which way, what we call good manners or politeness came into the world? what moralist or politician was it, that could teach men to be proud of hiding their pride?