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

by Bernard Mandeville

This natural courage, therefore, as soon as people begin to have more wit, must be soon exploded. In the first place, those that have felt the smart of the enemy’s blows, will not always believe what is said to undervalue him, and are often not easily provoked to anger. Secondly, anger consisting in an ebullition of the spirits, is a passion of no long continuance (ira furor brevis est), and the enemies, if they withstand the first shock of these angry people, have commonly the better of it. Thirdly, as long as people are angry, all counsel and discipline are lost upon them, and they can never be brought to use art or conduct in their battles. Anger then, without which no creature has natural courage, being altogether useless in a war to be managed by stratagem, and brought into a regular art, the government must find out an equivalent for courage that will make men fight.

Whoever would civilize men, and establish them into a body politic, must be thoroughly acquainted with all the passions and appetites, strength and weaknesses of their frame, and understand how to turn their greatest frailties to the advantage of the public. In the Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue, I have shown how easily men were induced to believe any thing that is said in their praise. If, therefore, a lawgiver or politician, whom they have a great veneration for, should tell them, that the generality of men had within them a principle of valour distinct from anger, or any other passion, that made them to despise danger, and face death itself with intrepidity, and that they who had the most of it were the most valuable of their kind, it is very likely, considering what has been said, that most of them, though they felt nothing of this principle, would swallow it for truth, and that the proudest, feeling themselves moved at this piece of flattery, and not well versed in distinguishing the passions, might imagine that they felt it heaving in their breasts, by mistaking pride for courage. If but one in ten can be persuaded openly to declare, that he is possessed of this principle, and maintain it against all gainsayers, there will soon be half a dozen that shall assert the same. Whoever has once owned it is engaged, the politician has nothing to do but to take all imaginable care to flatter the pride of those that brag of, and are willing to stand by it a thousand different ways: The same pride that drew him in first will ever after oblige him to defend the assertion, till at last the fear of discovering the reality of his heart, comes to be so great, that it outdoes the fear of death itself. Do but increase man’s pride, and his fear of shame will ever be proportioned to it: for the greater value a man sets upon himself, the more pains he will take, and the greater hardships he will undergo, to avoid shame.

The great art to make man courageous, is first to make him own this principle of valour within, and afterwards to inspire him with as much horror against shame, as nature has given him against death; and that there are things to which man has, or may have, a stronger aversion than he has to death, is evident from suicide. He that makes death his choice, must look upon it as less terrible than what he shuns by it; for whether the evil dreaded be present or to come, real or imaginary, nobody would kill himself wilfully but to avoid something. Lucretia held out bravely against all the attacks of the ravisher, even when he threatened her life; which shows that she valued her virtue beyond it: but when he threatened her reputation with eternal infamy, she fairly surrendered, and then slew herself; a certain sign that she valued her virtue less than her glory, and her life less than either. The fear of death did not make her yield, for she resolved to die before she did it, and her compliance must only be considered as a bribe, to make Tarquin forbear sullying her reputation; so that life had neither the first nor second place in the esteem of Lucretia. The courage, then, which is only useful to the body politic, and what is generally called true valour, is artificial, and consists in a superlative horror against shame, by flattery infused into men of exalted pride.

As soon as the notions of honour and shame are received among a society, it is not difficult to make men fight. First, take care they are persuaded of the justice of their cause; for no man fights heartily that thinks himself in the wrong; then show them that their altars, their possessions, wives, children, and every thing that is near and dear to them, is concerned in the present quarrel, or at least may be influenced by it hereafter; then put feathers in their caps, and distinguish them from others, talk of public-spiritedness, the love of their country, facing an enemy with intrepidity, despising death the bed of honour, and such like high-sounding words, and every proud man will take up arms and fight himself to death before we will turn tail, if it be by daylight. One man in an army is a check upon another, and a hundred of them, that single and without witness, would be all cowards, are, for fear of incurring one another’s contempt, made valiant by being together. To continue and heighten this artificial courage, all that run away ought to be punished with ignominy; those that fought well, whether they did beat or were beaten, must be flattered and solemnly commended; those that lost their limbs rewarded; and those that were killed, ought, above all to be taken notice of, artfully lamented, and to have extraordinary encomiums bestowed upon them; for to pay honours to the dead, will ever be a sure method to make bubbles of the living.

When I say, that the courage made use of in the wars is artificial, I do not imagine that by the same art, all men may be made equally valiant: as men have not an equal share of pride, and differ from one another in shape and inward structure, it is impossible they should be all equally fit for the same uses. Some men will never be able to learn music, and yet make good mathematicians; others will play excellently well upon the violin, and yet be coxcombs as long as they live, let them converse with whom they please. But to show that there is no evasion, I shall prove, that setting aside what I said of artificial courage already, what the greatest heroe differs in from the rankest coward, is altogether corporeal, and depends upon the inward make of man. What I mean is called constitution; by which is understood the orderly or disorderly mixture of the fluids in our body: that constitution which favours courage, consists in the natural strength, elasticity, and due contexture of the finer spirits, and upon them wholly depends what we call stedfastness, resolution, and obstinacy. It is the only ingredient that is common to natural and artificial bravery, and is to either what size is to white walls, which hinders them from coming off, and makes them lasting. That some people are very much, others very little frightened at things that are strange and sudden to them, is likewise altogether owing to the firmness or imbecility in the tone of the spirits. Pride is of no use in a fright, because while it lasts we cannot think, which, being counted a disgrace, is the reason people is always angry with any thing that frightens them, as soon as the surprise is over; and when at the turn of a battle the conquerors give no quarter, and are very cruel, it is a sign their enemies fought well, and had put them first into great fears.

That resolution depends upon this tone of the spirits, appears likewise from the effects of strong liquors, the fiery particles whereof crowding into the brain, strengthen the spirits; their operation imitates that of anger, which I said before was an ebullition of the spirits. It is for this reason, that most people when they are in drink, are sooner touched and more prone to anger, than at other times, and some raving mad without any provocation at all. It is likewise observed, that brandy makes men more quarrelsome at the same pitch of drunkenness than wine; because the spirits of distilled waters have abundance of fiery particles mixed with them, which the other has not. The contexture of spirits is so weak in some, that though they have pride enough, no art can ever make them fight, or overcome their fears; but this is a defect in the principle of the fluids, as other deformities are faults of the solids. These pusillanimous people, are never thoroughly provoked to anger, where there is any danger, and drinking makes them bolder, but seldom so resolute as to attack any, unless they be women or children, or such who they know dare not resist. This constitution is often influenced by health and sickness, and impaired by great losses of blood; sometimes it is corrected by diet; and it is this which the Duke de la Rochefoucauld means, when he says: vanity, shame, and above all constitution, make up very often the courage of men, and virtue of women.

There is nothing that more improves the useful martial courage I treat of, and at the same time shows it to be artificial, than practice; for when men are disciplined, come to be acquainted with all the tools of death, and engines of destruction, when the shouts, the outcries, the fire and smoke, the grones of wounded, and ghostly looks of dying men, with all the various scenes of mangled carcases and bloody limbs tore off, begin to be familiar to them, their fear abate apace; not that they are now less afraid to die than before, but being used so often to see the same dangers, they apprehend the reality of them less than they did: as they are deservedly valued for every siege they are at, and every battle they are in, it is impossible but the several actions they share in, must continually become as many solid steps by which their pride mounts up; and thus their fear of shame, as I said before, will always be proportioned to their pride, increasing as the apprehension of the danger decreases, it is no wonder that most of them learn to discover little or no fear: and some great generals are able to preserve a presence of mind, and counterfeit a calm serenity within the midst of all the noise, horror, and confusion, that attend a battle.

So silly a creature is man, as that, intoxicated with the fumes of vanity, he can feast on the thoughts of the praises that shall be paid his memory in future ages, with so much ecstacy, as to neglect his present life, nay, court and covet death, if he but imagines that it will add to the glory he had acquired before. There is no pitch of self-denial, that a man of pride and constitution cannot reach, nor any passion so violent but he will sacrifice it to another, which is superior to it; and here I cannot but admire at the simplicity of some good men, who, when they hear of the joy and alacrity with which holy men in persecutions have suffered for their faith, imagine that such constancy must exceed all human force, unless it was supported by some miraculous assistance from Heaven. As most people are willing to acknowledge all the frailties of their species, so they are unacquainted with the strength of our nature, and know not that some men of firm constitution may work themselves up into enthusiasm, by no other help than the violence of their passions; yet, it is certain, that there have been men who only assisted with pride and constitution to maintain the worst of causes, have undergone death and torments, with as much cheerfulness as the best of men, animated with piety and devotion, ever did for the true religion.

To prove this assertion, I could produce many instances; but one or two will be sufficient. Jordanus Bruno of Nola, who wrote that silly piece of blasphemy, called Spaccio della Bestia triumphante, and the infamous Vanini, were both executed for openly professing and teaching of atheism: the latter might have been pardoned the moment before the execution, if he would have retracted his doctrine; but rather than recant, he chose to be burnt to ashes. As he went to the stake, he was so far from showing any concern, that he held his hand out to a physician whom he happened to know, desiring him to judge of the calmness of his mind by the regularity of his pulse, and from thence taking an opportunity of making an impious comparison, uttered a sentence too execrable to be mentioned. To these we may join one Mahomet Effendi, who, as Sir Paul Ricaut tells us, was put to death at Constantinople, for having advanced some notions against the existence of a God. He likewise might have saved his life by confessing his error, and renouncing it for the future; but chose rather to persist in his blasphemies, saying, “Though he had no reward to expect, the love of truth constrained him to suffer martyrdom in its defence.”

I have made this digression chiefly to show the strength of human nature, and what mere man may perform by pride and constitution alone. Man may certainly be as violently roused by his vanity, as a lion is by his anger; and not only this, avarice, revenge, ambition, and almost every passion, pity not excepted, when they are extraordinary, may, by overcoming fear, serve him instead of valour, and be mistaken for it even by himself; as daily experience must teach every body that will examine and look into the motives from which some men act. But that we may more clearly perceive what this pretended principle is really built upon, let us look into the management of military affairs, and we shall find that pride is no where so openly encouraged as there. As for clothes, the very lowest of the commission officers have them richer, or at least more gay and splendid, than are generally wore by other people of four or five times their income. Most of them, and especially those that have families, and can hardly subsist, would be very glad, all Europe over, to be less expensive that way; but it is a force put upon them to uphold their pride, which they do not think on.