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

by Bernard Mandeville

Cleo. There is one thing of great moment, which has not been named yet; and until that comes to pass, no considerable numbers can ever be made happy; what signify the strongest contracts when we have nothing to show for them; and what dependence can we have upon oral tradition, in matters that require exactness; especially whilst the language that is spoken is yet very imperfect? Verbal reports are liable to a thousand cavils and disputes that are prevented by records, which every body knows to be unerring witnesses; and from the many attempts that are made to wrest and distort the sense of even written laws, we may judge how impracticable the administration of justice must be among all societies that are destitute of them. Therefore the third and last step to society, is the invention of letters. No multitudes can live peaceably without government; no government can subsist without laws; and no laws can be effectual long, unless they are wrote down: the consideration of this is alone sufficient to give us a great insight into the nature of man.

Hor. I do not think so: the reason why no government can subsist without laws, is, because there are bad men in all multitudes; but to take patterns from them, when we would judge of human nature, rather than from the good ones that follow the dictates of their reason, is an injustice one would not be guilty of to brute beasts; and it would be very wrong in us, for a few vicious horses, to condemn the whole species as such, without taking notice of the many fine spirited creatures that are naturally tame and gentle.

Cleo. At this rate I must repeat every thing that I have said yesterday and the day before: I thought you was convinced, that it was with thought as it is with speech; and that though man was born with a capacity beyond other animals, to attain to both, yet, whilst he remained untaught, and never conversed with any of his species, these characteristics were of little use to him. All men uninstructed, whilst they are let alone, will follow the impulse of their nature, without regard to others; and therefore all of them are bad, that are not taught to be good; so all horses are ungovernable that are not well broken: for what we call vicious in them, is, when they bite or kick, endeavour to break their halter, throw their rider, and exert themselves with all their strength to shake off the yoke, and recover that liberty which nature prompts them to assert and desire. What you call natural, is evidently artificial, and belongs to education: no fine-spirited horse was ever tame or gentle, without management. Some, perhaps, are not backed until they are four years old; but then long before that time, they are handled, spoke to, and dressed; they are fed by their keepers, put under restraint, sometimes caressed, and sometimes made to smart; and nothing is omitted whilst they are young, to inspire them with awe and veneration to our species; and make them not only submit to it, but likewise take a pride in obeying the superior genius of man. But would you judge of the nature of horses in general, as to its fitness to be governed, take the foals of the best bred mares and finest stallions, and turn an hundred of them loose, fillies and colts together, in a large forest, till they are seven years old, and then see how tractable they will be.

Hor. But this is never done.

Cleo. Whose fault is that? It is not at the request of the horses, that they are kept from the mares; and that any of them are ever gentle or tame, is entirely owing to the management of man. Vice proceeds from the same origin in men, as it does in horses; the desire of uncontrouled liberty, and impatience of restraint, are not more visible in the one than they are in the other; and a man is then called vicious, when, breaking the curbs of precepts and prohibitions, he wildly follows the unbridled appetites of his untaught or ill-managed nature. The complaints against this nature of ours, are every where the same: man would have every thing he likes, without considering whether he has any right to it or not; and he would do every thing he has a mind to do, without regard to the consequence it would be of to others; at the same time that he dislikes every body, that acting from the same principle, have in all their behaviour not a special regard to him.

Hor. That is, in short, man naturally will not do as he would be done by.

Cleo. That is true; and for this, there is another reason in his nature: all men are partial in their judgments, when they compare themselves to others; no two equals think so well of each other, as both do of themselves; and where all men have an equal right to judge, there needs no greater cause of quarrel, than a present amongst them, with an inscription of detur digniori. Man in his anger behaves himself in the same manner as other animals; disturbing, in the pursuit self-preservation, those they are angry with; and all of them endeavour, according as the degree of their passion is, either to destroy, or cause pain and displeasure to their adversaries. That these obstacles to society are the faults, or rather properties of our nature, we may know by this, that all regulations and prohibitions that have been contrived for the temporal happiness of mankind, are made exactly to tally with them, and to obviate those complaints, which I said were every where made against mankind. The principal laws of all countries have the same tendency; and there is not one that does not point at some frailty, defect, or unfitness for society, that men are naturally subject to; but all of them are plainly designed as so many remedies, to cure and disappoint that natural instinct of sovereignty, which teaches man to look upon every thing as centring in himself, and prompts him to put in a claim to every thing he can lay his hands on. This tendency and design to mend our nature, for the temporal good of society, is no where more visible, than in that compendious as well as complete body of laws, that was given by God himself. The Israelites, whilst they were slaves in Egypt, were governed by the laws of their masters; and as they were many degrees removed from the lowest savages, so they were yet far from being a civilized nation. It is reasonable to think, that, before they received the law of God, they had regulations and agreements already established, which the ten commandments did not abolish; and that they must have had notions of right and wrong, and contracts among them against open violence, and the invasion of property, is demonstrable.

Hor. How is that demonstrable?

Cleo. From the decalogue itself: all wise laws are adapted to the people that are to obey them. From the ninth commandment, for example, it is evident, that a man’s own testimony was not sufficient to be believed in his own affair, and that nobody was allowed to be a judge in his own case.

Hor. It only forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour.