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

by Bernard Mandeville

Hor. What is it upon an hypocrite that dares to be perjured?

Cleo. No man’s oath is ever taken, if it is known that once he has been forsworn; nor can I ever be deceived by an hypocrite, when he tells me that he is one; and I shall never believe a man to be an atheist, unless he owns it himself.

Hor. I do not believe there are real atheists in the world.

Cleo. I will not quarrel about words; but our modern deism is no greater security than atheism: for a man’s acknowledging the being of a God, even an intelligent first Cause, is of no use, either to himself or others, if he denies, a Providence and a future state.

Hor. After all, I do not think that virtue has any more relation to credulity, than it has to want of faith.

Cleo. Yet it would and ought to have, if we were consistent with ourselves; and if men were swayed in their actions by the principles they side with, and the opinion they profess themselves to be of, all atheists would be devils, and superstitious men saints: but this is not true; there are atheists of good morals, and great villains superstitious: nay, I do not believe there is any wickedness that the worst atheist can commit, but superstitious men may be guilty of it; impiety not excepted; for nothing is more common amongst rakes and gamesters, than to hear men blaspheme, that believe in spirits, and are afraid of the devil. I have no greater opinion of superstition than I have of atheism; what I aimed at, was to prevent and guard against both; and I am persuaded that there is no other antidote to be obtained by human means, so powerful and infallible against the poison of either, as what I have mentioned. As to the truth of our descent from Adam, I would not be a believer, and cease to be a rational creature: what I have to say for it, is this. We are convinced that human understanding is limited; and by the help of every little reflection, we may be as certain that the narrowness of its bounds, its being so limited, is the very thing, the sole cause, which palpably hinders us from diving into our origin by dint of penetration: the consequence is, that to come at the truth of this origin, which is of very great concern to us, something is to be believed: but what or whom to believe is the question. If I cannot demonstrate to you that Moses was divinely inspired, you will be forced to confess, that there never was any thing more extraordinary in the world, than that, in a most superstitious age, one man brought up among the grossest idolaters, that had the vilest and most abominable notions of the Godhead, should, without help, as we know of, find out the most hidden and most important truths by his natural capacity only; for, besides the deep insight he had in human nature, as appears from the decalogue, it is manifest that he was acquainted with the creation out of nothing, the unity and immense greatness of that Invisible Power that has made the universe; and that he taught this to the Israelites, fifteen centuries before any other nation upon earth was so far enlightened: it is undeniable, moreover, that the history of Moses, concerning the beginning of the world and mankind, is the most ancient and least improbable of any that are extant; that others, who have wrote after him on the same subject, appear most of them to be imperfect copiers of him; and that the relations which seem not to have been borrowed from Moses, as the accounts we have of Sommona-codam, Confucius, and others, are less rational, and fifty times more extravagant and incredible, than any thing contained in the Pentateuch. As to the things revealed, the plan itself, abstract from faith and religion; when we have weighed every system that has been advanced, we shall find; that, since we must have had a beginning, nothing is more rational or more agreeable to good sense, than to derive our origin from an incomprehensible creative Power, that was the first Mover and Author of all things.

Hor. I never heard any body entertain higher notions, or more noble sentiments of the Deity, than at different times I have heard from you; pray, when you read Moses, do not you meet with several things in the economy of Paradise, and the conversation between God and Adam, that seem to be low, unworthy, and altogether inconsistent with the sublime ideas you are used to form of the Supreme Being.

Cleo. I freely own, not only that I have thought so, but likewise that I have long stumbled at it: but when I consider, on the one hand, that the more human knowledge increases, the more consummate and unerring the Divine Wisdom appears to be, in every thing we can have any insight into; and on the other, that the things hitherto detected, either by chance or industry, are very inconsiderable both in number and value, if compared to the vast multitude of weightier matters that are left behind and remain still undiscovered: When, I say, I consider these things, I cannot help thinking, that there may be very wise reasons for what we find fault with, that are, and perhaps ever will be, unknown to men as long the world endures.

Hor. But why should he remain labouring under difficulties we can easily solve, and not say with Dr. Burnet, and several others, that those things are allegories, and to be understood in a figurative sense?

Cleo. I have nothing against it; and shall always applaud the ingenuity and good offices of men, who endeavour to reconcile religious mysteries to human reason and probability; but I insist upon it, that nobody can disprove any thing that is said in the Pentateuch, in the most literal sense; and I defy the wit of man to frame or contrive a story, the best concerted fable they can invent, how man came into the world, which I shall not find as much fault with, and be able to make as strong objections to, as the enemies of religion have found with, and raised against the account of Moses: If I may be allowed to take the same liberty with their known forgery, which they take with the Bible, before they have brought one argument against the veracity of it.