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

by Bernard Mandeville

Cleo. It is not easy to determine what instincts, properties, or capacities other creatures are either possessed or destitute of, when those qualifications fall not under our senses: But it is highly probable, that the principal and most necessary parts of the machine are less elaborate in animals, that attain to all the perfection they are capable of in three, four, five, or six years at furthest, than they are in a creature that hardly comes to maturity, its full growth and strength in five and twenty. The consciousness of a man of fifty, that he is the same man that did such a thing at twenty, and was once the boy that had such and such masters, depends wholly upon the memory, and can never be traced to the bottom: I mean, that no man remembers any thing of himself, or what was transacted before he was two years old, when he was but a novice in the art of thinking, and the brain was not yet of a due consistence to retain long the images it received: But this remembrance, how far soever it may reach, gives us no greater surety of ourselves, than we should have of another that had been brought up with us, and never above a week or a month out of sight. A mother, when her son is thirty years old, has more reason to know that he is the same whom she brought into the world than himself; and such a one, who daily minds her son, and remembers the alterations of his features from time to time, is more certain of him that he was not changed in the cradle, than she can be of herself. So that all we can know of this consciousness, is, that it consists in, or is the result of the running and rummaging of the spirits through all the mazes of the brain, and their looking there for facts concerning ourselves: He that has lost his memory, though otherwise in perfect health, cannot think better than a fool, and is no more conscious that he is the same he was a-year ago, than he is of a man whom he has known but a fortnight. There are several degrees of losing our memory; but he who has entirely lost it becomes, ipso facto, an idiot.

Hor. I am conscious of having been the occasion of our rambling a great way from the subject we were upon, but I do not repent of it: What you have said of the economy of the brain, and the mechanical influence of thought upon the grosser parts, is a noble theme for contemplation on the infinite unutterable wisdom with which the various instincts are so visibly planted in all animals, to fit them for the respective purposes they were designed for; and every appetite is so wonderfully interwove with the very substance of their frame. Nothing could be more seasonable, after you had showed me the origin of politeness, and in the management of self-liking, set forth the excellency of our species beyond all other animals so conspicuously in the superlative docility and indefatigable industry, by which all multitudes are capable of drawing innumerable benefits, as well for the ease and comfort, as the welfare and safety of congregate bodies, from a most stubborn and an unconquerable passion, which, in its nature, seems to be destructive to sociableness and society, and never fails, in untaught men, to render them insufferable to one another.

Cleo. By the same method of reasoning from facts à posteriori, that has laid open to us the nature and usefulness of self-liking, all the rest of the passions may easily be accounted for, and become intelligible. It is evident, that the necessaries of life stand not every where ready dished up before all creatures; therefore they have instincts that prompt them to look out for those necessaries, and teach them how to come at them. The zeal and alacrity to gratify their appetites, is always proportioned to the strength, and the degree of force with which those instincts work upon every creature: But, considering the disposition of things upon earth, and the multiplicity of animals that have all their own wants to supply, it must be obvious, that these attempts of creatures, to obey the different calls of nature, will be often opposed and frustrated, and that, in many animals, they would seldom meet with success, if every individual was not endued with a passion, that, summoning all his strength, inspired him with a transporting eagerness to overcome the obstacles that hinder him in his great work of self-preservation. The passion I describe is called anger. How a creature possessed of this passion and self-liking, when he sees others enjoy what he wants, should be affected with envy, can likewise be no mystery. After labour, the most savage, and the most industrious creature seeks rest: Hence we learn, that all of them are furnished, more or less, with a love of ease: Exerting their strength tires them; and the loss of spirits, experience teaches us, is best repaired by food and sleep. We see that creatures, who, in their way of living, must meet with the greatest opposition, have the greatest share of anger, and are born with offensive arms. If this anger was to employ a creature always, without consideration of the danger he exposed himself to, he would soon be destroyed: For this reason, they are all endued with fear; and the lion himself turns tail, if the hunters are armed, and too numerous. From what we observe in the behaviour of brutes, we have reason to think, that among the more perfect animals, those of the same species have a capacity, on many occasions, to make their wants known to one another; and we are sure of several, not only that they understand one another, but likewise that they may be made to understand us. In comparing our species with that of other animals, when we consider the make of man, and the qualifications that are obvious in him, his superior capacity in the faculties of thinking and reflecting beyond other creatures, his being capable of learning to speak, and the usefulness of his hands and fingers, there is no room to doubt, that he is more fit for society than any other animal we know.

Hor. Since you wholly reject my Lord Shaftsbury’s system, I wish you would give me your opinion at large concerning society, and the sociableness of man; and I will hearken to you with great attention.

Cleo. The cause of sociableness in man, that is, his fitness for society, is no such abstruse matter: A person of middling capacity, that has some experience, and a tolerable knowledge of human nature, may soon find it out, if his desire of knowing the truth be sincere, and he will look for it without prepossession; but most people that have treated on this subject, had a turn to serve, and a cause in view, which they were resolved to maintain. It is very unworthy of a philosopher to say, as Hobbes did, that man is born unfit for society, and allege no better reason for it, than the incapacity that infants come into the world with; but some of his adversaries have as far overshot the mark, when they asserted, that every thing which man can attain to, ought to be esteemed as a cause of his fitness for society.

Hor. But is there in the mind of man a natural affection, that prompts him to love his species beyond what other animals have for theirs; or, are we born with hatred and aversion, that makes us wolves and bears to one another?

Cleo. I believe neither. From what appears to us in human affairs, and the works of nature, we have more reason to imagine, that the desire, as well as aptness of man to associate, do not proceed from his love to others, than we have to believe that a mutual affection of the planets to one another, superior to what they feel to stars more remote, is not the true cause why they keep always moving together in the same solar system.

Hor. You do not believe that the stars have any love for one another, I am sure: Then why more reason?

Cleo. Because there are no phenomena plainly to contradict this love of the planets; and we meet with thousands every day to convince us, that man centres every thing in himself, and neither loves nor hates, but for his own sake. Every individual is a little world by itself, and all creatures, as far as their understanding and abilities will let them, endeavour to make that self happy: This, in all of them, is the continual labour, and seems to be the whole design of life. Hence it follows, that in the choice of things, men must be determined by the perception they have of happiness; and no person can commit, or set about an action, which, at that then present time, seems not to be the best to him.

Hor. What will you then say to, video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor?