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

by Bernard Mandeville

Another great cause of those evils, is to be looked for in the want of precaution in those that are robbed, and the many temptations that are given. Abundance of families are very remiss in looking after the safety of their houses; some are robbed by the carelessness of servants, others for having grudged the price of bars and shutters. Brass and pewter are ready money, they are every where about the house; plate perhaps and money are better secured; but an ordinary lock is soon opened, when once a rogue is got in.

It is manifest, then, that many different causes concur, and several scarce avoidable evils contribute to the misfortune of being pestered with pilferers, thieves, and robbers, which all countries ever were, and ever will be, more or less, in and near considerable towns, more especially vast and overgrown cities. It is opportunity makes the thief; carelessness and neglect in fastening doors and windows, the excessive tenderness of juries and prosecutors, the small difficulty of getting a reprieve and frequency of pardons; but above all, the many examples of those who are known to be guilty, are destitute both of friends and money, and yet by imposing on the jury, baffling the witnesses, or other tricks and stratagems, find out means to escape the gallows. These are all strong temptations that conspire to draw in the necessitous, who want principle and education.

To these you may add as auxiliaries to mischief, an habit of sloth and idleness, and strong aversion to labour and assiduity, which all young people will contract that are not brought up to downright working, or at least kept employed most days in the week, and the greatest part of the day. All children that are idle, even the best of either sex, are bad company to one another whenever they meet.

It is not, then, the want of reading and writing, but the concurrence and complication of more substantial evils, that are the perpetual nursery of abandoned profligates in great and opulent nations; and whoever would accuse ignorance, stupidity, and dastardness, as the first, and what the physicians call the procataric cause, let him examine into the lives, and narrowly inspect the conversations and actions of ordinary rogues and our common felons, and he will find the reverse to be true, and that the blame ought rather to be laid on the excessive cunning and subtlety, and too much knowledge in general, which the worst of miscreants and the scum of the nation are possessed of.

Human nature is every where the same: genius, wit, and natural parts, are always sharpened by application, and may be as much improved in the practice of the meanest villany, as they can in the exercise of industry, or the most heroic virtue. There is no station of life, where pride, emulation, and the love of glory may not be displayed. A young pick-pocket, that makes a jest of his angry prosecutor, and dextrously wheedles the old justice into an opinion of his innocence, is envied by his equals, and admired by all the fraternity. Rogues have the same passions to gratify as other men, and value themselves on their honour and faithfulness to one another, their courage, intrepidity, and other manly virtues, as well as people of better professions; and in daring enterprises, the resolution of a robber may be as much supported by his pride, as that of an honest soldier, who fights for his country.

The evils then we complain of, are owing to quite other causes than what we assign for them. Men must be very wavering in their sentiments, if not inconsistent with themselves, that at one time will uphold knowledge and learning to be the most proper means to promote religion, and defend at another, that ignorance is the mother of devotion.

But if the reasons alleged for this general education are not the true ones, whence comes it, that the whole kingdom, both great and small, are so unanimously fond of it? There is no miraculous conversion to be perceived among us, no universal bent to goodness and morality that has on a sudden overspread the island; there is as much wickedness as ever, charity is as cold, and real virtue as scarce: the year seventeen hundred and twenty, has been as prolific in deep villany, and remarkable for selfish crimes and premeditated mischief, as can be picked out of any century whatever; not committed by poor ignorant rogues, that could neither read nor write, but the better sort of people as to wealth and education, that most of them were great masters in arithmetic, and lived in reputation and splendor. To say, that when a thing is once in vogue, the multitude follows the common cry, that charity schools are in fashion in the same manner as hooped petticoats, by caprice, and that no more reason can be given for the one than the other, I am afraid will not be satisfactory to the curious, and at the same time I doubt much, whether it will be thought of great weight by many of my readers, what I can advance besides.

The real source of this present folly, is certainly very abstruse and remote from sight; but he that affords the least light in matters of great obscurity, does a kind office to the inquirers. I am willing to allow, that in the beginning, the first design of those schools, was good and charitable; but to know what increases them so extravagantly, and who are the chief promoters of them now, we must make our search another way, and address ourselves to the rigid party-men, that are zealous for their cause, either episcopacy or presbytery; but as the latter are but the poor mimicks of the first, though equally pernicious, we shall confine ourselves to the national church, and take a turn through a parish that is not blessed yet with a charity school.—But here I think myself obliged in conscience to ask pardon of my reader, for the tiresome dance I am going to lead him, if he intends to follow me, and therefore I desire, that he would either throw away the book and leave me, or else arm himself with the patience of Job, to endure all the impertinences of low life; the cant and tittle-tattle he is like to meet with before he can go half a street’s length.

First we must look out among the young shop-keepers, that have not half the business they could wish for, and consequently time to spare. If such a new-beginner has but a little pride more than ordinary, and loves to be meddling, he is soon mortified in the vestry, where men of substance and long standing, or else your pert litigious or opinionated bawlers, that have obtained the title of notable men, commonly bear the sway. His stock and perhaps credit are but inconsiderable, and yet he finds within himself a strong inclination to govern. A man thus qualified, thinks it a thousand pities there is no charity-school in the parish: he communicates his thoughts to two or three of his acquaintance first; they do the same to others, and in a month’s time there is nothing else talked of in the parish. Every body invents discourses and arguments to the purpose, according to his abilities.—It is an arrant shame, says one, to see so many poor that are not able to educate their children, and no provision made for them, where we have so many rich people. What do you talk of rich, answers another, they are the worst: they must have so many servants, coaches and horses: they can lay out hundreds, and some of them thousands of pounds for jewels and furniture, but not spare a shilling to a poor creature that wants it: when modes and fashions are discoursed of, they can hearken with great attention, but are wilfully deaf to the cries of the poor. Indeed, neighbour, replies the first, you are very right, I do not believe there is a worse parish in England for charity than ours: It is such as you and I that would do good if it was in our power, but of those that are able there is very few that are willing.

Others more violent, fall upon particular persons, and fasten slander on every man of substance they dislike, and a thousand idle stories in behalf of charity, are raised and handed about to defame their betters. While this is doing throughout the neighbourhood, he that first broached the pious thought, rejoices to hear so many come into it, and places no small merit in being the first cause of so much talk and bustle: but neither himself nor his intimates, being considerable enough to set such a thing on foot, some body must be found out who has greater interest: he is to be addressed to, and showed the necessity, the goodness, the usefulness, and Christianity of such a design: next he is to be flattered.—Indeed, Sir, if you would espouse it, nobody has a greater influence over the best of the parish than yourself: one word of you I am sure would engage such a one: if you once would take it to heart, Sir, I would look upon the thing as done, Sir.—If by this kind of rhetoric they can draw in some old fool, or conceited busy-body that is rich, or at least reputed to be such, the thing begins to be feasible, and is discoursed of among the better sort. The parson or his curate, and the lecturer, are every where extolling the pious project. The first promoters meanwhile are indefatigable: if they were guilty of any open vice, they either sacrifice it to the love of reputation, or at least grow more cautious and learn to play the hypocrite, well knowing that to be flagitious or noted for enormities, is inconsistent with the zeal which they pretend to, for works of supererogation and excessive piety.