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

by Bernard Mandeville

What our common rogues, when they are going to be hanged, chiefly complain of, as the cause of their untimely end, is, next to the neglect of the Sabbath, their having kept company with ill women, meaning whores; and I do not question, but that among the lesser villains, many venture their necks to indulge and satisfy their low amours. But the words that have given occasion to this remark, may serve to hint to us, that among the great ones, men are often put upon such dangerous projects, and forced into such pernicious measures by their wives, as the most subtle mistress never could have persuaded them to. I have shown already, that the worst of women, and most profligate of the sex, did contribute to the consumption of superfluities, as well as the necessaries of life, and consequently were beneficial to many peaceable drudges, that work hard to maintain their families, and have no worse design than an honest livelihood. Let them be banished, notwithstanding, says a good man: When every strumpet is gone, and the land wholly freed from lewdness, God Almighty will pour such blessings upon it, as will vastly exceed the profits that are now got by harlots. This perhaps would be true; but I can make it evident, that, with or without prostitutes, nothing could make amends, for the detriment trade would sustain, if all those of that sex, who enjoy the happy state of matrimony, should act and behave themselves as a sober wise man could wish them.

The variety of work that is performed, and the number of hands employed to gratify the fickleness and luxury of women, is prodigious, and if only the married ones should hearken to reason and just remonstrances, think themselves sufficiently answered with the first refusal, and never ask a second time what had been once denied them: If, I say, married women would do this, and then lay out no money but what their husbands knew, and freely allowed of, the consumption of a thousand things, they now make use of, would be lessened by at least a fourth part. Let us go from house to house, and observe the way of the world only among the middling people, creditable shop-keepers, that spend two or three hundred a-year, and we shall find the women when they have half a score suits of clothes, two or three of them not the worse for wearing, will think it a sufficient plea for new ones, if they can say that they have never a gown or petticoat, but what they have been often seen in, and are known by, especially at church; I do not speak now of profuse extravagant women, but such as are counted prudent and moderate in their desires.

If by this pattern we should in proportion judge of the highest ranks, where the richest clothes are but a trifle to their other expences, and not forget the furniture of all sorts, equipages, jewels, and buildings of persons of quality, we should find the fourth part I speak of a vast article in trade, and that the loss of it would be a greater calamity to such a nation as ours, than it is possible to conceive any other, a raging pestilence not excepted: for the death of half a million of people could not cause a tenth part of the disturbance to the kingdom, than the same number of poor unemployed would certainly create, if at once they were to be added to those, that already, one way or other, are a burden to the society.

Some few men have a real passion for their wives, and are fond of them without reserve; others that do not care, and have little occasion for women, are yet seemingly uxorious, and love out of vanity; they take delight in a handsome wife, as a coxcomb does in a fine horse, not for the use he makes of it, but because it is his: The pleasure lies in the consciousness of an uncontrolable possession, and what follows from it, the reflection on the mighty thoughts he imagines others to have of his happiness. The men of either sort may be very lavish to their wives, and often preventing their wishes, crowd new clothes, and other finery upon them, faster than they can ask it, but the greatest part are wiser, than to indulge the extravagances of their wives so far, as to give them immediately every thing they are pleased to fancy. It is incredible what vast quantity of trinkets, as well as apparel, are purchased and used by women, which they could never have come at by any other means, than pinching their families, marketing, and other ways of cheating and pilfering from their husbands: Others, by ever teazing their spouses, tire them into compliance, and conquer even obstinate churls by perseverance, and their assiduity of asking: A third sort are outrageous at a denial, and by downright noise and scolding, bully their tame fools out of any thing they have a mind to; while thousands, by the force of wheedling, know how to overcome the best weighed reasons, and the most positive reiterated refusals; the young and beautiful, especially, laugh at all remonstrances and denials, and few of them scruple to employ the most tender minutes of wedlock to promote a sordid interest. Here, had I time, I could inveigh with warmth against those base, those wicked women, who calmly play their arts and false deluding charms against our strength and prudence, and act the harlots with their husbands! Nay, she is worse than whore, who impiously profanes and prostitutes the sacred rites of love to vile ignoble ends; that first excites to passion, and invites to joy with seeming ardour, then racks our fondness for no other purpose than to extort a gift, while full of guile in counterfeited transports, she watches for the moment when men can least deny.

I beg pardon for this start out of my way, and desire the experienced reader duly to weigh what has been said as to the main purpose, and after that call to mind the temporal blessings, which men daily hear not only toasted and wished for, when people are merry and doing of nothing; but likewise gravely and solemnly prayed for in churches, and other religious assemblies, by clergymen of all sorts and sizes: And as soon as he shall have laid these things together, and, from what he has observed in the common affairs of life, reasoned upon them consequentially without prejudice, I dare flatter myself, that he will be obliged to own, that a considerable portion of what the prosperity of London and trade in general, and consequently the honour, strength, safety, and all the worldly interest of the nation consist in, depend entirely on the deceit and vile stratagems of women; and that humility, content, meekness, obedience to reasonable husbands, frugality, and all the virtues together, if they were possessed of them in the most eminent degree, could not possibly be a thousandth part so serviceable, to make an opulent, powerful, and what we call a flourishing kingdom, than their most hateful qualities.

I do not question, but many of my readers will be startled at this assertion, when they look on the consequences that may be drawn from it; and I shall be asked, whether people may not as well be virtuous in a populous, rich, wide, extended kingdom, as in a small, indigent state or principality, that is poorly inhabited? And if that be impossible, Whether it is not the duty of all sovereigns to reduce their subjects, as to wealth and numbers, as much as they can? If I allow they may, I own myself in the wrong; and if I affirm the other, my tenets will justly be called impious, or at least dangerous to all large societies. As it is not in this place of the book only, but a great many others, that such queries might be made even by a well-meaning reader, I shall here explain myself, and endeavour to solve those difficulties, which several passages might have raised in him, in order to demonstrate the consistency of my opinion to reason, and the strictest morality.

I lay down as a first principle, that in all societies, great or small, it is the duty of every member of it to be good, that virtue ought to be encouraged, vice discountenanced, the laws obeyed, and the transgressors punished. After this I affirm, that if we consult history, both ancient and modern, and take a view of what has passed in the world, we shall find that human nature, since the fall of Adam, has always been the same, and that the strength and frailties of it have ever been conspicuous in one part of the globe or other, without any regard to ages, climates, or religion. I never said, nor imagined, that man could not be virtuous as well in a rich and mighty kingdom, as in the most pitiful commonwealth; but I own it is my sense, that no society can be raised into such a rich and mighty kingdom, or so raised, subsist in their wealth and power for any considerable time, without the vices of man.

This, I imagine, is sufficiently proved throughout the book; and as human nature still continues the same, as it has always been for so many thousand years, we have no great reason to suspect a future change in it, while the world endures. Now, I cannot see what immorality there is in showing a man the origin and power of those passions, which so often, even unknowingly to himself, hurry him away from his reason; or that there is any impiety in putting him upon his guard against himself, and the secret stratagems of self-love, and teaching him the difference between such actions as proceed from a victory over the passions, and those that are only the result of a conquest which one passion obtains over another; that is, between real and counterfeited virtue. It is an admirable saying of a worthy divine, That though many discoveries have been made in the world of self-love, there is yet abundance of terra incognita left behind. What hurt do I do to man, if I make him more known to himself than he was before? But we are all so desperately in love with flattery, that we can never relish a truth that is mortifying, and I do not believe that the immortality of the soul, a truth broached long before Christianity, would have ever found such a general reception in human capacities as it has, had it not been a pleasing one, that extolled, and was a compliment to the whole species, the meanest and most miserable not excepted.

Every one loves to hear the thing well spoke of that he has a share in, even bailiffs, gaol-keepers, and the hangman himself would have you think well of their functions; nay, thieves and house breakers have a greater regard to those of their fraternity, than they have for honest people; and I sincerely believe, that it is chiefly self-love that has gained this little treatise (as it was before the last impression), so many enemies; every one looks upon it as an affront done to himself, because it detracts from the dignity, and lessens the fine notions he had conceived of mankind, the most worshipful company he belongs to. When I say that societies cannot be raised to wealth and power, and the top of earthly glory, without vices, I do not think that, by so saying, I bid men be vicious, any more than I bid them be quarrelsome or covetous, when I affirm that the profession of the law could not be maintained in such numbers and splendor, if there was not abundance of too selfish and litigious people.

But as nothing would more clearly demonstrate the falsity of my notions, than that the generality of the people should fall in with them, so I do not expect the approbation of the multitude. I write not to many, nor seek for any well-wishers, but among the few that can think abstractly, and have their minds elevated above the vulgar. If I have shown the way to worldly greatness, I have always, without hesitation, preferred the road that leads to virtue.