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

by Bernard Mandeville

Hor. But whatever other purposes wild beasts were designed for, it still follows from your opinion, that the uniting of savages in common defence, must have been one; which to me seems clashing with our idea of the Divine Goodness.

Cleo. So will every thing seem to do, which we call natural evil; if you ascribe human passions to the Deity, and measure Infinite Wisdom by the standard of our most shallow capacity; you have been at this twice already; I thought I had answered it. I would not make God the author of evil, any more than yourself; but I am likewise persuaded, that nothing could come by chance, in respect to the Supreme Being; and, therefore, unless you imagine the world not to be governed by Providence, you must believe that wars, and all the calamities we can suffer from man or beast, as well as plagues and all other diseases, are under a wise direction that is unfathomable. As there can be no effect without a cause, so nothing can be said to happen by chance, but in respect to him who is ignorant of the cause of it. I can make this evident to you, in an obvious and familiar example. To a man who knows nothing of the tennis-court, the skips and rebounds of the ball seems to be all fortuitous; as he is not able to guess at the several different directions it will receive before it comes to the ground; so, as soon as it has hit the place to which it was plainly directed at first, it is chance to him where it will fall: whereas, the experienced player, knowing perfectly well the journey the ball will make, goes directly to the place, if he is not there already, where it will certainly come within his reach. Nothing seems to be more the effect of chance than a cast of the dice: yet they obey the laws of gravity and motion in general, as much as any thing else; and from the impressions that are given them, it is impossible they should fall otherwise than they do: but the various directions which they shall receive in the whole course of the throw being entirely unknown, and the rapidity with which they change their situation being such, that our slow apprehension cannot trace them, what the cast will be is a mystery to human understanding, at fair play. But if the same variety of directions was given to two cubes of ten feet each, which a pair of dice receive, as well from one another as the box, the caster’s fingers that cover it, and the table they are flung upon, from the time they are taken up until they lie still, the same effect would follow; and if the quantity of motion, the force that is imparted to the box and dice was exactly known, and the motion itself was so much retarded in the performance, that what is done in three or four seconds, should take up an hour’s time, it would be easy to find out the reason of every throw, and men might learn with certainty to foretell which side of the cube would be uppermost. It is evident, then, that the words fortuitous and casual, have no other meaning than what depends upon our want of knowledge, foresight, and penetration; the reflection on which will show us, by what an infinity of degrees all human capacity falls short of that universal intuitus, with which the Supreme Being beholds at once every thing without exception, whether to us it be visible or invisible, past, present, or to come.

Hor. I yield: you have solved every difficulty I have been able to raise; and I must confess, that your supposition concerning the first motive that would make savages associate, is neither clashing with good sense, nor any idea we ought to have of the Divine attributes; but, on the contrary, in answering my objections, you have demonstrated the probability of your conjecture, and rendered the wisdom and power of providence, in the scheme of this earth, both as to the contrivance and the execution of it, more conspicuous and palpable to me, than any thing I ever heard or read, had done before.

Cleo. I am glad you are satisfied; though far from arrogating to myself so much merit as your civility would compliment me with.

Hor. It is very clear to me now; that as it is appointed for all men to die, so it is necessary there should be means to compass this end; that from the number of those means, or causes of death; it is impossible to exclude either the malice of men, or the rage of wild beasts, and all noxious animals; and that if they had been actually designed by nature, and contrived for that purpose, we should have no more reason justly to complain of them, than we have to find fault with death itself, or that frightful train of diseases which are daily and hourly the manifest occasion of it.

Cleo. They are all equally included in the curse, which after the fall was deservedly pronounced against the whole earth; and if they be real evils, they are to be looked upon as the consequence of sin, and a condign punishment, which the transgression of our first parents has drawn and entailed upon all their posterity. I am fully persuaded, that all the nations in the world, and every individual of our species, civilized or savage, had their origin from Seth, Sham, or Japhet: and as experience has taught us, that the greatest empires have their periods, and the best governed states and kingdoms may come to ruin; so it is certain, that the politest people being scattered and distressed, may soon degenerate, and some of them by accidents and misfortunes, from knowing and well taught ancestors, be reduced at last to savages of the first and lowest class.

Hor. If what you are fully persuaded of, be true, the other is self-evident, from the savages that are still subsisting.

Cleo. You once seemed to insinuate, that all the danger men were in from wild beasts, would entirely cease as soon as they were civilized, and lived in large and well-ordered societies; but by this you may see, that our species will never be wholly exempt from that danger; because mankind will always be liable to be reduced to savages; for, as this calamity has actually befallen vast multitudes that were the undoubted descendants of Noah; so the greatest prince upon earth, that has children, cannot be sure, that the same disaster will never happen to any of his posterity. Wild beasts may be entirely extirpated in some countries that are duly cultivated; but they will multiply in others that are wholly neglected; and great numbers of them range now, and are masters in many places, where they had been rooted and kept out before. I shall always believe that every species of living creatures in and upon this globe, without exception, continues to be, as it was at first, under the care of that same Providence that thought fit to produce it. You have had a great deal of patience, but I would not tire it: This first step towards society, now we have mastered it, is a good resting place, and so we will leave off for to-day.

Hor. With all my heart: I have made you talk a great deal; but I long to hear the rest, as soon as you are at leisure.

Cleo. I am obliged to dine at Windsor to-morrow; if you are not otherwise engaged, I can carry you where the honour of your company will be highly esteemed: my coach shall be ready at nine; you know you are in my way.