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

by Bernard Mandeville

Cleo. We have some tolerable ideas of matter and motion; or, at least, of what we mean by them, and therefore we may form ideas of things corporeal, though they are beyond the reach of our senses; and we can conceive any portion of matter a thousand times less than our eyes, even by the help of the best microscopes, are able to see it: but the soul is altogether incomprehensible, and we can determine but little about it, that is not revealed to us. I believe that the difference of capacities in men, depends upon, and is entirely owing to the difference there is between them, either in the fabric itself, that is, the greater or lesser exactness in the composure of their frame, or else in the use that is made of it. The brain of a child, newly born, is carte blanche; and, as you have hinted very justly, we have no ideas, which we are not obliged for to our senses. I make no question, but that in this rummaging of the spirits through the brain, in hunting after, joining, separating, changing, and compounding of ideas with inconceivable swiftness, under the superintendency of the soul, the action of thinking consists. The best thing, therefore, we can do to infants after the first month, besides feeding and keeping them from harm, is to make them take in ideas, beginning by the two most useful senses, the sight and hearing; and dispose them to set about this labour of the brain, and by our example encourage them to imitate us in thinking; which, on their side, is very poorly performed at first. Therefore the more an infant in health is talked to and jumbled about, the better it is for it, at least, for the first two years; and for its attendance in this early education, to the wisest matron in the world, I would prefer an active young wench, whose tongue never stands still, that should run about, and never cease diverting and playing with it whilst it was awake; and where people can afford it, two or three of them, to relieve one another when they are tired, are better than one.

Hor. Then you think children reap great benefit from the nonsensical chat of nurses?

Cleo. It is of inestimable use to them, and teaches them to think, as well as speak, much sooner and better, than with equal aptitude of parts they would do without. The business is to make them exert those faculties, and keep infants continually employed about them; for the time which is lost then, is never to be retrieved.

Hor. Yet we seldom remember any thing of what we saw or heard, before we were two years old: then what would be lost, if children should not hear all that impertinence?

Cleo. As iron is to be hammered whilst it is hot and ductile, so children are to be taught when they are young: as the flesh and every tube and membrane about them, are then tenderer, and will yield sooner to slight impressions, than afterwards; so many of their bones are but cartilages, and the brain itself is much softer, and in a manner fluid. This is the reason, that it cannot so well retain the images it receives, as it does afterwards, when the substance of it comes to be of a better consistence. But as the first images are lost, so they are continually succeeded by new ones; and the brain at first serves as a slate to cypher, or a sampler to work upon. What infants should chiefly learn, is the performance itself, the exercise of thinking, and to contract a habit of disposing, and with ease and agility managing the images retained, to the purpose intended; which is never attained better than whilst the matter is yielding, and the organs are most flexible and supple. So they but exercise themselves in thinking and speaking, it is no matter what they think on, or what they say, that is inoffensive. In sprightly infants, we soon see by their eyes the efforts they are making to imitate us, before they are able; and that they try at this exercise of the brain, and make essays to think, as well as they do to hammer out words, we may know from the incoherence of their actions, and the strange absurdities they utter: but as there are more degrees of thinking well, than there are of speaking plain, the first is of the greatest consequence.

Hor. I wonder you should talk of teaching, and lay so great a stress on a thing that comes so naturally to us, as thinking: no action is performed with greater velocity by every body: as quick as thought, is a proverb, and in less than a moment a stupid peasant may remove his ideas from London to Japan, as easily as the greatest wit.

Cleo. Yet there is nothing, in which men differ so immensely from one another, as they do in the exercise of this faculty: the differences between them in height, bulk, strength, and beauty, are trifling in comparison to that which I speak of; and there is nothing in the world more valuable, or more plainly perceptible in persons, than a happy dexterity of thinking. Two men may have equal knowledge, and yet the one shall speak as well off-hand, as the other can after two hours study.

Hor. I take it for granted, that no man would study two hours for a speech, if he knew how to make it in less; and therefore I cannot see what reason you have to suppose two such persons to be of equal knowledge.

Cleo. There is a double meaning in the word knowing, which you seem not to attend to. There is a great difference between knowing a violin when you see it, and knowing how to play upon it. The knowledge I speak of is of the first sort; and if you consider it in that sense, you must be of my opinion; for no study can fetch any thing out of the brain that is not there. Suppose you conceive a short epistle in three minutes, which another, who can make letters and join them together as fast as yourself, is yet an hour about, though both of you write the same thing, it is plain to me, that the slow person knows as much as you do; at least it does not appear that he knows less. He has received the same images, but he cannot come at them, or at least not dispose them in that order, so soon as yourself. When we see two exercises of equal goodness, either in prose or verse, if the one is made ex tempore, and we are sure of it, and the other has cost two days labour, the author of the first is a person of finer natural parts than the other, though their knowledge, for ought we know, is the same. You see, then, the difference between knowledge, as it signifies the treasure of images received, and knowledge, or rather skill, to find out those images when we want them, and work them readily to our purpose.

Hor. When we know a thing, and cannot readily think of it, or bring it to mind, I thought that was the fault of the memory.