 Section 32 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Fable of the Bees, Part 2. Opinionium enim comenta delet diis, natura judicia confirmat. Cicero de natura deorum liber secundis. Preface. Considering the manifold clamors that have been raised from several quarters against the Fable of the Bees, even after I had published a vindication of it, many of my readers will wonder to see me come out with the second part before I have taken any further notice of what has been said against the first. Whatever is published, I take it for granted, is submitted to the judgment of all the world that see it, but it is very unreasonable that authors should not be upon the same footing with their critics. The treatment I have received and the liberties some gentlemen have taken with me, being well known, the public must be convinced before now that, in point of civility, I owe my adversaries nothing, and if those who have taken upon them to school and reprimand me had an undoubted right to censure what they thought fit without asking my leave and to say of me what they pleased, I ought to have an equal privilege to examine their censures, and without consulting them to judge in my turn whether they are worth answering or not. The public must be the umpire between us. From the appendix that has been added to the first part, ever since the third edition, it is manifest that I have been far from endeavoring to stifle, either the arguments or the invectives that were made against me, and not having left the reader uninformed of anything extant of either sort, I once thought to have taken this opportunity of presenting him with a list of the adversaries that have appeared in print against me, but as they are in nothing so considerable as they are in their numbers, I was afraid it would have looked like ostentation, unless I would have answered them all, which I shall never attempt. The reason, therefore, of my obstinate silence has been all along, that hitherto I have not been accused of anything that is criminal or immoral, for which every middling capacity could not have framed a very good answer, from some part or other, either of the vindication or the book itself. However, I have wrote, and had by me near two years, a defense of the fable of the bees, in which I have stated and endeavored to solve all the objections that might reasonably be made against it, as to the doctrine contained in it, and the detriment it might be of to others, for this is the only thing about which I ever had any concern. Being conscious that I have wrote with no ill design, I should be sorry to lie under the imputation of it, but as to the goodness or badness of the performance itself, the thought was never worth my care, and therefore those critics that found fault with my bad reasoning, instead of the book that it is ill-wrote, that there is nothing new in it, that it is incoherent stuff, that the language is barbarous, the humor low, and the style mean and pitiful. Those critics, I say, are all very welcome to say what they please. In the main I believe they are in the right, but if they are not, I shall never give myself the trouble to contradict them, for I never think an author more foolishly employed than when he is vindicating his own abilities. As I wrote it for my diversion, so I had my ends. If those who read it have not had theirs, I am sorry for it. Though I think myself not at all answerable for the disappointment, it was not wrote by subscription, nor have I ever warranted anywhere what use or goodness it would be of. On the contrary, in the very preface, I have called it an inconsiderable trifle, and since that, I have publicly owned that it was a rhapsody. If people will buy books without looking into them, or knowing what they are, I cannot see whom they have to blame but themselves when they do not answer expectations. Besides, it is no new thing for people to dislike books after they have bought them. This will happen sometimes, even when men of considerable figure had given them among the strongest assurances, beforehand, that they would be pleased with them. A considerable part of the defense I mentioned has been seen by several of my friends who have been in expectation of it for some time. I have stayed neither for types nor paper, and yet I have several reasons why I do not publish it, which, having touched nobody's money, nor made any promise concerning it, I beg leave to keep to myself. Most of my adversaries, whenever it comes out, will think it soon enough, and nobody suffers by the delay but myself. Since I was first attacked, it has long been a matter of wonder and perplexity to me to find out why and how men should conceive that I had wrote with an intent to debauch the nation and promote all manner of vice. And it was a great while before I could derive the charges from anything but willful mistake and premeditated malice. But since I have seen that men could be serious in apprehending the increase of rogues and robberies from the frequent representations of the beggars opera, I am persuaded that there really are such wrong heads in the world as will fancy vices to be encouraged when they see them exposed. To the same perverseness of judgment it must have been owing that some of my adversaries were highly incensed with me for having owned in the vindication that hitherto I had not been able to conquer my vanity as well as I could have wished. From their censure it is manifest that they must have imagined that to complain of a frailty was the same as to brag of it. But if these angry gentlemen had been less blinded with passion or seen with better eyes, they would easily have perceived, unless they were too well pleased with their pride, that to have made the same confession themselves they wanted nothing but sincerity. Whoever boasts of his vanity and at the same time shows his arrogance is unpardonable. But when we hear a man complain of an infirmity and his want of power entirely to cure it, whilst he suffers no symptoms of it to appear that we could justly abrade him with, we are so far from being offended that we are pleased with the ingenuity and applaud his candor. And when such an author takes no greater liberties with his readers than what is usual in the same manner of writing and owns that to be the result of vanity which others tell a thousand lies about, his confession is a compliment and the frankness of it ought not to be looked upon otherwise than as a civility to the public, a condescension he was not obliged to make. It is not in feeling the passions or in being affected with the frailties of nature that vice consists, but in indulging and obeying the call of them, contrary to the dictates of reason. Whoever pays great deference to his readers, respectfully submitting himself to their judgment and tells them at the same time that he is entirely destitute of pride. Whoever I say does this spoils his compliment whilst he is making it, for it is no better than bragging that it costs him nothing. Persons of taste and the least delicacy can be but little affected with a man's modesty of whom they are sure that he is wholly void of pride within. The absence of the one makes the virtue of the other cease. At least the merit of it is not greater than that of chastity in a eunuch or humility in a beggar. What glory would it be to the memory of Cato that he refused to touch the water that was brought him if it was not supposed that he was very thirsty when he did it? The reader will find that in this second part I have endeavored to illustrate and explain several things that were obscure and only hinted at in the first. Whilst I was forming this design, I found on the one hand that, as to myself, the easiest way of executing it would be by dialogue, but I knew, on the other, that to discuss opinions and manage controversies it is counter the most unfair manner of writing. When partial men have a mind to demolish an adversary and triumph over him with little expense, it has long been a frequent practice to attack him with dialogues in which the champion who is to lose the battle appears at the very beginning of the engagement to be the victim that is to be sacrificed, and Zelda makes a better figure than Cox on Shrove Tuesday that receive blows but return none and are visibly set up on purpose to be knocked down. That this is to be said against dialogues is certainly true, but it is as true that there is no other manner of writing by which greater reputation has been obtained. Those who have most excelled all others were the two most famous authors of all antiquity, Plato and Cicero, the one wrote almost all his philosophical works in dialogues, and the other has left us nothing else. It is evident then that the fault of those who have not succeeded in dialogues was in the management and not in the manner of writing, and that nothing but the ill use that has been made of it could ever have brought it in to disrepute. The reason why Plato preferred dialogues to any other manner of writing, he said, was that things thereby might look as if they were acted rather than told. The same was afterwards given by Cicero in the same words rendered into his own language. The greatest objection that in reality lies against it is the difficulty there is in writing them well. The chief of Plato's interlocutors was always his master Socrates, who everywhere maintains his character with great dignity. But it would have been impossible to have made such an extraordinary person speak like himself on so many emergencies if Plato had been not as great a man as Socrates. Cicero, who studied nothing more than to imitate Plato, introduced in his dialogue some of the greatest men in Rome, his contemporaries that were known to be of different opinions and made them maintain and defend everyone his own sentiments as strenuously and in as lively a manner as they could possibly have done themselves. And in reading his dialogues a man may easily imagine himself to be in company with several learned men of different tastes and studies. But to do this a man must have Cicero's capacity. Lucian likewise and several others among the ancients chose for their speakers persons of known characters that this interest and engages the reader more than strange names is undeniable. But then when the personages fall short of those characters it plainly shows that the author undertook what he was not able to execute. To avoid this inconvenience most dialogue writers among the moderns have made use of fictitious names which they either invented themselves or borrowed of others. These are generally speaking judicious compounds taken from the Greek that serve for short characters of the imaginary persons they are given to denoting either the party they side with or what it is they love or hate. But of all these happy compounds there is not one that has appeared equally charming to so many authors of different views and talents as Philolathes. A plain demonstration of the great regard mankind generally have to truth. There has not been a paper war of note these 200 years in which both parties at one time or other have not made use of this victorious champion who which side so ever he has fought on has hitherto like Dryden's Almanzor been conqueror and constantly carried all before him. But as by this means the event of the battle must always be known as soon as the combatants are named and before a blow is struck and as all men are not equally peaceable in their dispositions many readers have complained that they had not sport enough for their money and that knowing so much beforehand spoiled all their diversion. This humor having prevailed for some time authors are growing less solicitous about the names of the personages they introduce. This careless way seeming to me at least as reasonable as any other I have followed and had no other meaning by the names I have given my interlocutors then to distinguish them without the least regard to the derivation of words or anything relating to the etymology of them all the care I have taken about them that I know of that the pronunciation of them should not be harsh nor the sounds offensive. But though the names I have chosen are feigned and the circumstances of the person's fictitious the characters themselves are real and as faithfully copied from nature as I have been able to take them. I have known critics find fault with playwrights for annexing short characters to the names they give the persons of the drama alleging that it is forstalling their pleasure and that whatever the actors are represented to be they want no monitor and are wise enough to find it out themselves. But I could never approve of this censure. There is a satisfaction I think in knowing one's company and when I am to converse with people for a considerable time I desire to be well acquainted with them and the sooner the better. It is for this reason I thought it proper to give the reader some account of the persons that are to entertain him. As they are supposed to be people of quality I beg leave before I come to particulars to premise some things concerning the Beaumond in general which though most people perhaps know them everybody does not always attend to. Among the fashionable part of mankind throughout Christendom there are in all countries persons who though they feel a just abhorrence to atheism and professed infidelity yet have very little religion and are scarce half believers when their lives come to be looked into and their sentiments examined. What is chiefly aimed at in a refined education is to procure as much ease and pleasure upon earth as that can afford. Therefore men are first instructed in all the various arts of rendering their behavior agreeable to others with the least disturbance to themselves. Secondly they are imbued with the knowledge of all the elegant comforts of life as well as the lessons of human prudence to avoid pain and trouble in order to enjoy as much of the world and with as little opposition as it is possible. Whilst thus men study their own private interest in assisting each other to promote and increase the pleasures of life in general they find by experience that to compass those ends everything ought to be banished from conversation that can have the least tendency of making others uneasy and to reproach men with their faults or imperfections neglects or omissions or to put them in mind of their duty are offices that none are allowed to take upon them but parents or professed masters and tutors nor even they before company but to reprove and pretend to teach others we have no authority over is ill manners even in the clergymen out of the pulpit nor is he here to talk magisterially or even to mention things that are melancholy or dismal if he should pass for a polite preacher but whatever we may vouchsafe to here at church neither the certainty of a future state nor the necessity of repentance nor anything else related to the essentials of christianity are ever to be talked of when we are out of it among the Beaumont upon any account whatever the subject is not diverting besides everybody is supposed to know those things and to take care accordingly nay it is unmanorly to think otherwise the decency and fashion being the chief if not the only rule all modish people walk by not a few of them go to church and receive the sacrament from the same principle that obliges them to pay visits to one another and now and then to make an entertainment but as the greatest care of the Beaumont is to be agreeable and appear well bred so most of them take particular care and many against their consciences not to seem burdened with more religion than it is fashionable to have for fear of being thought to be either hypocrites or bigots virtue however is a very fashionable word and some of the most luxurious are extremely fond of the amiable sound though they mean nothing by it but a great veneration for whatever is courtly or sublime and an equal aversion to everything that is vulgar or unbecoming they seem to imagine that it chiefly consists in a strict compliance to the rules of politeness and all the laws of honor that have any regard to the respect that is due to themselves it is the existence of this virtue that is often maintained with so much pomp of words and for the eternity of which so many champions are ready to take up arms whilst the votaries of it deny themselves no pleasure they can enjoy either fashionably or in secret and instead of sacrificing the heart to the love of real virtue can only condescend to abandon the outward deformity of vice for the satisfaction they receive from appearing to be well bred it is counted ridiculous for men to commit violence upon themselves or to maintain that virtue requires self denial all court philosophers are agreed that nothing can be lovely or desirable that is mortifying or uneasy a civil behavior among the fair in public and a deportment in offensive both in words and action is all the chastity the polite world requires in men what liberties so ever a man gives himself in private his reputation shall never suffer whilst he conceals his amores from all those that are not unmanorly inquisitive and takes care that nothing criminal can ever be proved upon him Sinon caste saltem caute is a precept that sufficiently shows what everybody expects and though incontinence is owed to be a sin yet never to have been guilty of it is a character which most single men under 30 would not be fond of even amongst modest women as the world everywhere in compliment itself desires to be counted really virtuous so bare faced vices and all trespasses committed inside of it are heinous and unpardonable to see a man drunk in the open street or any serious assembly at noonday is shocking because it is a violation of the laws of decency and plainly shows a want of respect and neglect of duty which everybody is supposed to owe to the public men of mean circumstances likewise may be blamed for spending more time or money in drinking than they can afford but when these and all worldly considerations are out of the question drunkenness itself as it is a sin an offense to heaven is seldom censured and no man of fortune scruples to own that he was at such a time in such a company where they drank very hard where nothing is committed that is either beastly or otherwise extravagant societies that meet on purpose to drink and be merry reckon their manner of passing away the time as innocent as any other though most days in the year they spend five or six hours at the four and 20 in that diversion no man had ever the reputation of being a good companion that would never drink to excess and if a man's constitution be strong or himself so cautious that the dose he takes overnight never disorders him the next day the worst that shall be said of him is that he loves his bottle with moderation though every night constantly he makes drinking his past time and hardly ever goes to bed entirely sober avarice it is true is generally detested but as men may be guilty of it by scraping money together as they can be by hoarding it up so all the base the sordid and unreasonable means of acquiring wealth ought to be equally condemned and exploded with the vile the pitiful and penurious way of saving it but the world is more indulgent no man is taxed with avarice that will conform with a beau amande and live every way in splendor though he should always be raising the rents of his estate and hardly suffer his tenants to live under him though he should enrich himself by usury and all the barbarous advantages that extortion can make of the necessities of others and though more over he should be a bad pay master himself and an unmerciful creditor to the unfortunate it is all one no man is counted covetous who entertains well and will allow his family what is fashionable for a person in his condition how often do we see men of very large estates unreasonably solicitous after greater riches what greediness do some men discover in extending the perquisites of their offices what dishonorable condescensions are made for places of profit what slavish attendance is given and what low submissions and unmanly cringes are made to favourites for pensions by men that could subsist without them yet these things are no reproach to men and they are never abraded with them but by their enemies or those that envy them and perhaps the discontented and the poor on the contrary most of the well-bred people that live in affluence themselves will commend them for their diligence and activity and say of them that they take care of the main chance that they are industrious men for their families and that they know how and are fit to live in the world but these kind constructions are not more hurtful to the practice of Christianity than the high opinion which in an artful education men are taught to have of their species is to the belief of its doctrine if a right use be not made of it that the great preeminence we have over all other creatures we are acquainted with consistent our rational faculty is very true but it is as true that the more we are taught to admire ourselves the more our pride increases and the greater stress we lay on the sufficiency of our reason for as experience teaches us that the greater and the more transcendent the esteem is which men have for their own worth the less capable they generally are to bear injuries without resentment so we see in like manner that the more exalted the notions are which men entertain of their better part their reasoning faculty the more remote and averse they will be from giving their assent to anything that seems to insult over or contradict it and asking a man to admit of anything he cannot comprehend the proud reasoner calls in affront to human understanding but as ease and pleasure are the grand aim of the Beaumond and civility is inseparable from their behavior whether they are believers or not so well bred people never quarrel with the religion they are brought up in they will readily comply with every ceremony in divine worship they have been used to and never dispute with you either about the old or the new testament if in your turn you will forbear laying a great stress upon faith and mysteries and allow them to give an allegorical or any other figurative sense to the history of creation and whatever else they cannot comprehend or account for by the light of nature i am far from believing that among the fashionable people there are not in all christian countries many persons of stricter virtue and greater sincerity in religion than i have here described but that a considerable part of mankind have a great resemblance to the picture i have been drawing i appeal to every knowing and candid reader Horatio Cleomenes and fulvia are the names i have given to my interlocutors the first represents one of the modish people i have been speaking of but rather the better sort of them as to morality though he seems to have a greater distrust of the sincerity of clergymen than he has of that of any other profession and to be of the opinion which is expressed in that trite and specious as well as false and injurious saying priests of all religions are the same as to his studies he is supposed to be tolerably well versed in the classics and to have read more than is usual for people of quality that are born to great estates he is a man of strict honor and of justice as well as humanity rather profuse than covetous and altogether disinterested in his principles he has been abroad seen the world and is supposed to be possessed of the greater part of the accomplishments that usually gain a man in the reputation of being very much of a gentleman Cleomenes had been just such another but was much reformed as he had formerly for his amusement only been dipping into anatomy and several parts of natural philosophy so since he was come home from his travels he had studied human nature and the knowledge of himself with great application it is supposed that whilst he was employing most of his leisure hours he met with the fable of the bees and making a great use of what he read compared what he felt himself within as well as what he had seen in the world with the sentiments set forth in that book and found the insincerity of men fully as universal as it was there represented he had no opinion of the pleas and excuses that are commonly made to cover the real desires of the heart and he never suspected the sincerity of men whom he saw to be fond of the world and with eagerness grasping at wealth and power when they pretended that the great end of their labours was to have opportunities of doing good to others upon earth and becoming themselves more thankful to heaven especially if they conformed with the Beaumond and seemed to take delight in a fashionable way of living he had the same suspicion of all men of sense who having read and considered the gospel would maintain the possibility that persons might pursue worldly glory with all their strength and at the same time be good Christians Cleomenes himself believed the bible to be the word of god without reserve and was entirely convinced of the mysterious as well as historical truths that are contained in it but as he was fully persuaded not only of the veracity of the christian religion but likewise of the severity of his precepts so he attacked his passions with vigor but never scrupled to own his want of power to subdue them or the violent opposition he felt from within often complaining that the obstacles he met with from flesh and blood were insurmountable as he understood perfectly well the difficulty of the task required in the gospel so he ever opposed those easy casuists that endeavored to lessen and extenuated for their own ends and he loudly maintained that men's gratitude to heaven was an unacceptable offering whilst they continued to live in ease and luxury and were visibly solicitous after their share of the pomp and vanity of this world in the very politeness of conversation the complacency with which fashionable people are continually soothing each other's frailties and in almost every part of a gentleman's behavior he thought there was a disagreement between the outward appearances and what is felt within that was clashing with uprightness and sincerity. Cleomenes was of opinion that of all religious virtues nothing was more scarce or more difficult to acquire than Christian humility and that to destroy the possibility of ever attaining to it nothing was so effectual as what is called a gentleman's education and that the more dextrous by this means men grew in concealing the outward signs and every symptom of pride the more entirely they became enslaved by it within he carefully examined into the felicity that accrues from the applause of others and the invisible wages which men have since and judicious fancy received for their labors and what it was at the bottom that rendered those airy rewards so ravishing to mortals he had often observed and watched narrowly the countenances and behavior of men when anything of theirs was admired or commended such as the choice of their furniture the politeness of their entertainments the elegance of their equipages their dress their diversions or the fine taste displayed in their buildings. Cleomenes seemed charitable and was a man of strict morals yet he would often complain that he was not possessed of one Christian virtue and found fault with his own actions that had all the appearances of goodness because he was conscious he said that they were performed from a wrong principle the effects of his education and his aversion to infamy had always been strong enough to keep him from turpitude but this he ascribed to his vanity which he complained was in such full possession of his heart that he knew no gratification of any appetite from which he was able to exclude it having always been a man of unblameable behavior the sincerity of his belief had made no visible alteration in his conduct to outward appearances but in private he never ceased from examining himself as no man was less prone to enthusiasm than himself so his life was very uniform and as he never pretended to high flights of devotion so he never was guilty of enormous offenses he had a strong aversion to rigorists of all sorts and when he saw men quarreling about forms and creeds and the interpretation of obscure places and requiring of others the strictest compliance to their own opinions in disputable matters it raised his indignation to see the generality of them want charity and many of them scandalously remiss and the plainest and most necessary duties he took uncommon pains to search into human nature and left no stone unturned to detect the pride and hypocrisy of it and among his intimate friends to expose the stratagems of the one and the exorbitant power of the other he was sure that the satisfaction which arose from worldly enjoyments was something distinct from gratitude and foreign to religion and he felt plainly that as it proceeded from within so it centered in himself the very relish of life he said was accompanied with an elevation of mind that seemed to be inseparable from his being whatever principle was the cause of this he was convinced within himself that the sacrifice of the heart which the gospel requires consisted in the utter extirpation of that principle confessing at the same time that the satisfaction he found in himself this elevation of mind caused his chief pleasure and that in all comforts of life it made the greatest part of the enjoyment. Cleomenes with grief often owned his fears that his attachment to the world would never cease whilst he lived. The reasons he gave with a great regard he continued to have for the opinion of worldly men the stubbornness of his in-dossile heart that could not be brought to change the objects of its pride and refused to be ashamed of what from his infancy it had been taught to glory in and lastly the impossibility he found in himself of being ever reconciled to contempt and enduring with patience to be laughed at and despised for any cause or on any consideration whatever these were the obstacles he said that hindered him from breaking off all commerce with the boom on and entirely changing his manner of living without which he thought it mockery to talk of renouncing the world and bidding adieu to all the pomp and vanity of it the part of fulvia which is the third person is so inconsiderable she just appearing only in the first dialogue that it would be impertinent to trouble the reader with a character of her I had a mind to say some things in painting and operas which I thought might by introducing her be brought in more naturally and with less trouble than they could have been without her the ladies I hope will find no reason from the little she does say to suspect that she wants either virtue or understanding as did the fable or what is supposed to have occasion the first dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes it is this Horatio who had found great delight in my lord Shaftesbury's polite manner of writing his fine railery and blending virtue with good manners was a great stickler for the social system and wondered how Cleomenes could be an advocate for such a book as the fable of the bees of which he had heard a very vile character from several quarters Cleomenes who loved and had a great friendship for Horatio wanted to undeceive him but the other who hated satire was prepossessed and having been told likewise that martial courage and honor itself were ridiculed in that book he was very much exasperated against the author and his whole scheme he had two or three times heard Cleomenes discourse on this subject with others but would never enter into the argument himself and finding his friend often pressing to come to it he began to look coolly upon him and at last to avoid all opportunities of being alone with him till Cleomenes drew him in by the stratagem which the reader will see he made use of as Horatio was one day taking his leave after a short complimentary visit I should not wonder to see men of candor as well as good sense find fault with the manner in which I have chose to publish these thoughts of mine to the world there certainly is something in it which I confess I do not know how to justify to my own satisfaction that such a man as Cleomenes having met with a book agreeable to his own sentiments should desire to be acquainted with the author of it has nothing in it that is improbable or unseemly but then it will be objected that whoever the interlocutors are it was I myself who wrote the dialogues and that it is contrary to all decency that a man should proclaim concerning his own work all that a friend of his perhaps might be allowed to say this is true and the best answer which I think could be made to it is that such an impartial man and such a lover of truth as Cleomenes is represented to be would be as cautious and speaking of his friend's merit as he would be of his own it might be urged likewise that when a man professes himself to be an author's friend and exactly to entertain the same sentiments with another it must naturally put every reader upon his guard and render him as suspicious and distrustful of such a man as he would be of the author himself but how good so ever the excuses are that might be made for this manner of writing I would never have ventured upon it if I had not liked it in the famous gassendus who by the help of several dialogues and a friend who is the chief personage in them has not only explained and illustrated his system but likewise refuted his adversaries him I have followed and I hope the reader will find that whatever opportunity I have had by this means of speaking well of myself indirectly I had no design to make that or any other ill use of it as it is supposed that Cleomenes is my friend and speaks my sentiments so it is but justice that everything which he advances should be looked upon and considered as my own but no man in his senses would think that I ought to be equally responsible for everything that Horatio says who is his antagonist if he ever offers anything that favors of libertinism or is otherwise exceptional which Cleomenes does not reprove him for in the best and most serious manner or to which he gives not the most satisfactory and convincing answer that can be made I am to blame otherwise not yet from the fate the first part has met with I expect to see in a little time several things transcribed and cited from this in that manner by themselves without the replies that are made to them and so shown to the world as my words and my opinion the opportunity of doing this will be greater in this part than it was in the former and should I always have fair play and never be attacked but by such adversaries as would make their quotations from me without artifice and use me with common honesty it would go a great way to the refuting of me and I should myself begin to suspect the truth of several things I have advanced and which hitherto I cannot help believing a stroke made in this manner readers note henceforth stroke which the reader will sometimes meet with in the following dialogues is a sign either of interruption when the person speaking is not suffered to go on with what he was going to say or else of a pause during which something is supposed to be said or done not relating to the discourse as in this part I have not altered the subject on which a former known by the name of the fable of the bees was wrote and the same unbiased method of searching after truth and inquiring into the nature of man and society made use of in that is continued in this I thought it unnecessary to look out for another title and being myself a great lover of simplicity and my invention none of the most fruitful the reader I hope will pardon the bald in elegant aspect and unusual emptiness of the title page here I would have made an end to my preface which I know very well is too long already but the world having been very grossly imposed upon by a false report that some months ago was very solemnly made and as industriously spread in most of the newspapers for a considerable time I think it would be an unpardonable neglect in me of the public should I suffer them to remain in the era they were led into when I am actually addressing them and there is no other person from whom they can so justly expect to be undeceived in the London evening post of Saturday March 9th 1727 through 8 the following paragraph was printed in small italic at the end of the home news on Friday evening the first instant a gentleman well dressed appeared at the bonfire before st. James gate who declared himself the author of a book entitled the fable of the bees and that he was sorry for writing the same and recollecting his former promise pronounced these words I commit my book to the flames and threw it in accordingly the Monday following the same piece of news was repeated in the daily journal and after that for a considerable time as I have said in most of the papers but since the Sunday mentioned which was the only time it was printed by itself it appeared always with a small addition to it and annexed with an nb before it to the following advertisement erite logia or an inquiry into the original of moral virtue wherein the false notions of Machiavell Hobbes Spinoza and Mr. Bale as they are collected and digested by the author of the fable of the bees are examined and confuted and the eternal and unalterable nature and obligation of moral virtue is stated and vindicated to which is prefixed a preparatory introduction in a letter to that author by Alexander Innes DD preacher assistant at st. Margaret's Westminster the small addition which I said was made to that notable piece of news after it came to be annexed to this advertisement consisted of these five words upon reading the above book which were put in after sorry for writing the same this story having been often repeated in the papers and never publicly contradicted many people it seems were credulous enough to believe not withstanding the improbability of it but the least attentive would have suspected the whole as soon as they had seen the addition that was made to it the second time it was published for supposing it to be intelligible as it follows the advertisement it cannot be pretended that the repenting gentleman pronounce those very words he must have named the book and if he had said that his sorrow was occasioned by reading the oritae logia or the new book of the reverend dr. Innes how came such a remarkable part of his confession to be omitted in the first publication with a well-dressed gentleman's words and actions seemed to be set down with so much care and exactness besides everybody knows the great industry and general intelligence of our news writers if such a farce had really been acted and a man had been hired to pronounce the words mentioned and throw a book into the fire which I have often wondered was not done it is credible at all that a thing so remarkable done so openly and before so many witnesses the first day of march should not be taken notice of in any of the papers before the ninth and never be repeated afterwards or ever mentioned but as an appendix to the advertisement to recommend dr. Innes's book however this story has been much talked of and occasioned a great deal of mirth among my acquaintance several of whom have earnestly pressed me more than once to advertise the falsity of it which I would never comply with for fear of being laughed at as some years ago poor dr. Patridge was for seriously maintaining that he was not dead but all this while we were in the dark and nobody could tell how this report came into the world or what it could be that had given a handle to it when one evening a friend of mine who had borrowed dr. Innes's book which till then I had never seen showed me in it the following lines but a proposer if I rightly remember the ingenious mr. law and his remarks upon your fable of the bees puts you in the mind of a promise you had made by which you obliged yourself to burn that book at any time or place your adversary should appoint if anything should be found in it tending to immorality or the corruption of manners I have a great respect for that gentleman though I am not personally acquainted with him but I cannot but condemn his excessive credulity and good nature in believing that a man of your principles could be a slave to his word for my own part I think I know you too well to be so easily imposed upon or if after all you should really persist in your resolution and commit it to the flames I appoint the first of March before st. James gate for that purpose it being the birthday of the best and most glorious queen upon earth and the burning of your book the smallest atonement you can make for endeavoring to corrupt and debauch as majesty subjects in their principles now sir if you agree to this I hope you are not so destitute of friends but that you may find some charitable neighbor or other who will lend you a helping hand and throw in the author at the same time by way of appendix the doing of which will in my opinion complete the solemnity of the day I am not your patient but your most humble servant thus ends what in the eriti logea dr. Innis is pleased to call a preparatory introduction in a letter to the author of the fable of the bees it is signed a I and dated taut hill fields west minister january 20th 1727 through 8 now all our wonder ceased the judicious reader will easily allow me that having read thus much I had an ample dispensation from going any further therefore I can say nothing of the book and as to the reverend author of it who seems to think himself so well acquainted with my principles I have not the honor to know either him or his morals otherwise than from what I have quoted here ex pede herculum london october 20th 1728 end of section 32 section 33 of the fable of the bees by bernard manderville this librivox recording is in the public domain the first dialogue between Horatio Cleomenes and fulvia Cleomenes always in haste Horatio Horatio I must beg of you to excuse me I am obliged to go Cleomenes whether you have other engagements than you used to have or whether your temper is changed I cannot tell but something has made an alteration in you of which I cannot comprehend the cause there is no man in the world whose friendship I value more than I do yours or whose company I like better yet I can never have it I profess I have thought sometimes that you have avoided me on purpose Horatio I am sorry Cleomenes I should have been wanting in civility to you I come every week constantly to pay my respects to you and if I ever fail I always send to inquire after your health Cleomenes no man out does Horatio in civility but I thought something more was due to our affections and long acquaintance besides compliments and ceremony of late I have never been to wait upon you but you are gone abroad or I find you engaged and when I have the honor to see you here your stay is only momentary pray pardon my rudeness for once what is it that hinders you now from keeping me company for an hour or two my cousin talks of going out and I shall be all alone Horatio I know better than to rob you of such an opportunity for speculation Cleomenes speculation on what pray Horatio that vileness of our species in the refined way of thinking you have of late been so fond of I call it the scheme of deformity the partisans of which study chiefly to make everything in our nature appear as ugly and contemptible as it is possible and to take uncommon pains to persuade men that they are devils Cleomenes if that be all I shall soon convince you Horatio no conviction to me I beseech you I am determined and fully persuaded that there is good in the world as well as evil and that the words honesty benevolence and humanity and even charity are not empty sounds only but that there are such things in spite of the fable of the bees and I am resolved to believe that notwithstanding the degeneracy of mankind and the wickedness of the age there are men now living who are actually possessed of those virtues Cleomenes but you do not know what I am going to say I am stroke Horatio that may be but I will not hear one word all you can say is lost upon me and if you will not give me leave to speak out I am gone this moment that cursed book has bewitched you and made you deny the existence of those very virtues that had gained you the esteem of your friends you know this is not my usual language I hate to say harsh things but what regard can or ought one to have for an author that treats everybody day hot and boss makes a jest of virtue and honor calls alexander the great a madman and spares kings and princes no more than anyone would the most abject of the people the business of his philosophy is just the reverse to that of the heralds office for as there are always contriving and finding out high and illustrious pedigrees for low and obscure people so your authors ever searching after and inventing mean contemptible origins for worthy and honorable actions I am your very humble servant Cleomenes stay I am of your opinion what I offered to convince you of was how entirely I am recovered of the folly which you have so justly exposed I have left that error Horatio are you an earnest Cleomenes no man more there is no greater stickler for the social virtues than myself and I much question whether there is any of Lord Shafterbury's admirers that will go to my lengths Horatio I shall be glad to see you go my lengths first and as many more as you please you cannot conceive Cleomenes how it has grieved me when I have seen how many enemies you made yourself by that extravagant way of arguing if you are but serious whence comes this change Cleomenes in the first place I grew weary of having everybody against me and in the second there is more room for invention in the other system poets and orators in the social system have fine opportunities of exerting themselves Horatio I very much suspect that recovery you boast of are you convinced that the other system was false which you might have easily learned from seeing everybody against you Cleomenes false to be sure but what you allege is no proof of it for if the greatest part of mankind were not against that scheme of deformity as you justly call it insincerity could not be so general as the scheme itself supposes it to be but since my eyes have been opened I have found out that truth and probability are the silliest things in the world they are of no manner of use especially among the people Horatio I thought what a convert you was but what new madness has seized you now Cleomenes no madness at all I say and will maintain it to the world that truth in the sublime is very impertinent and that in the arts and sciences fit for men of taste to look into a master cannot commit a more unpardonable fault than sticking to or being influenced by truth where it interferes with what is agreeable Horatio homely truths indeed stroke Cleomenes look upon that Dutch piece of the nativity what charming coloring there is what a fine pencil and how just are the outlines for a piece so curiously finished but what a fool the fellow was to draw hay and straw and water and a rack as well as a manger it is a wonder he did not pull the bambino into the manger Fulvia the bambino that is the child I suppose why it should be in the manger should it not does not the history tell us that the child was laid in the manger I have no skill in painting but I can see whether things are drawn to the life or not sure nothing can be more like the head of an ox than that there a picture then pleases me best when the art in such a manner deceives my eye that without making any allowance I can imagine I see things in reality which the painter has endeavored to represent I have always thought it an admirable piece sure nothing in the world can be more like nature Cleomenes like nature so much the worse indeed cousin it is easily seen that you have no skill in painting it is not nature but agreeable nature la belle natura that is to be represented all things that are abject low pitiful and mean are carefully to be avoided and kept out of sight because to men of the true taste they are as offensive as things that are shocking and really nasty fulvia at that rate the virgin condition and our saviour's birth are to never be painted Cleomenes that is your mistake the subject itself is noble let us go but into the next room and I will show you the difference stroke look upon that picture which is the same history there is fine architecture there is a colonnade can anything be thought of more magnificent how skillfully is that ass removed and how little you see of the ox pray mine the obscurity they are both placed in it hangs in a strong light or else one might look ten times upon the picture without observing them behold these pillars of the Corinthian order how lofty they are and what an effect they have what a noble space what an area here is how nobly everything concurs to express the majestic grandeur of the subject and strikes the soul with awe and admiration at the same time fulvia pray cousin has good sense ever any share in the judgment which your men of true taste form about pictures ratio madam fulvia I beg pardon sir if I have offended but to me it seems strange to hear such commendations given to a painter for turning the stable of a country in into a palace of extraordinary magnificence this is a great deal worse than swifts metamorphosis of philemon and bosses for there some show of resemblance is kept in the changes her ratio in a country stable madam there is nothing but filth and nastiness or vile abject things not fit to be seen at least not capable of entertaining persons of quality fulvia the dutch picture in the next room has nothing that is offensive but an aegean stable even before hercules had cleaned it would be less shocking to me than those fluted pillars for nobody can please my eye that affronts my understanding when I desire a man to paint a considerable history which everybody knows to have been transacted at a country in does he not strangely impose upon me because he understands architecture to draw me a room that might have served for a great hall or banqueting house to any roman emperor besides that the poor and abject state in which our savior chose to appear at his coming into the world is the most material circumstance of the history it contains an excellent moral against vain pomp and is the strongest persuasive to humility which in the italian are more than lost her ratio indeed madam experiences against you and it is certain that even among the vulgar the representations of mean and abject things and such as they are familiar with have not that effect and either breed contempt or are insignificant whereas vast piles stately buildings roofs of uncommon height surprising ornaments and all the architecture of the grand taste are the fittest to raise devotion and inspire men with veneration and a religious awe for the places that have these excellencies to boast of is there ever a meeting house or barn to be compared to a fine cathedral for this purpose full via I believe there is a mechanical way of raising devotion and silly superstitious creatures but an attentive contemplation of the works of God I am sure stroke Cleomenes pray cousin say no more in defense of your low taste the painter has nothing to do with the truth of history his business is to express the dignity of the subject and in compliment to his judges never to forget the excellency of our species all his art and good sense must be employed in raising that to the highest pitch great master do not paint for the common people but for persons of refined understanding what you complain of is the effect of the good manners and complacence of the painter when he had drawn the infant and the Madonna he thought the least glimpse of the ox and the ass would be sufficient to acquaint you with the history they who want more festering and a broader explanation he does not desire his picture should ever be shown to for the rest he entertains you with nothing but what is noble and worthy your attention you see he is an architect and completely skilled in perspective and he shows you how finally he can round a pillar and that both the depth and the height of a space may be drawn on a flat with all the other wonders he performs by his skill in that inconceivable mystery of light and shadows full via why then is it pretended that painting is an imitation of nature Cleomenes at first setting out a scholar is to copy things exactly as he sees them but from a great matter when he is left to his own invention it is expected he should take the perfections of nature and not paint it as it is but as we would wish it to be zuchsis to draw a goddess took five beautiful women from which he culled what was most graceful in each full via still every grace he painted was taken from nature Cleomenes that's true but he left nature her rubbish and imitated nothing but what was excellent which made the assemblage superior to anything in nature Demetrius was taxed for being too natural Dionysus was also blamed for drawing men like us near our times Michelangelo was esteemed too natural and Lysipus of old abraded the common sort of sculptors for making men such as they were found in nature full via are these things real Cleomenes you may read it yourself and Graham's preface to the art of painting the book is above in the library Horatio these things may seem strange to you madam but they are of immense use to the public the higher we can carry the excellency of our species the more those beautiful images will fill noble minds with worthy and suitable ideas of their own dignity that will seldom fail of spurring them on to virtue and heroic actions there is a grandeur to be expressed in things that far surpasses the beauties of simple nature you take the light in opera's madam I do not question you must have minded the noble manner and stateliness beyond nature which everything there is executed with what gentle touches what slight and yet majestic motions are made use of to express the most boisterous passions as the subject is always lofty so no posture is to be chosen but what is serious and significant as well as comely and agreeable should the actions there be represented as they are in common life they would ruin the sublime and at once rob you of all your pleasure full via I never expected anything natural at an opera but as persons of distinction resort hither and everybody comes dressed it is a sort of employment and I seldom miss a night because it is the fashion to go besides the royal family and the monarch himself generally honoring them with their presence it is almost become a duty to attend them as much as it is to go to court what diverts me there is the company the lights the music the scenes and other decorations but as I understand but very few words of Italian so what is most admired and that recitativo is lost upon me which makes the acting part to me rather ridiculous than stroke Horatio ridiculous madam for heaven's sake stroke full via I beg pardon sir for the expression I never laughed at an opera in my life but I confess as to the entertainment itself that a good play is infinitely more diverting to me and I prefer anything that informs my understanding beyond all the recreations which either my eyes or my ears can be regaled with Horatio I am sorry to hear a lady of your good sense make such a choice have you no taste for music madam full via I named that as part of my diversion Cleomenes my cousin plays very well upon the harpsichord herself full via I love to hear good music but it does not throw me into those raptures I hear others speak of Horatio nothing certainly can elevate the mind beyond a fine concert it seems to disengage the soul from the body and lift it up to heaven it is in this situation that we are most capable of receiving extraordinary impressions when the instruments cease our temper is subdued and beautiful action joins with a skillful voice and setting before us in a transcendent light the heroic labours we are come to admire and which the word opera imports the powerful harmony between the engaging sounds and speaking gestures invades the heart and forcibly inspires us with those noble sentiments which to entertain the most expressive words can only attempt to persuade us you comedies are tolerable and in the best of them if the levity of the expressions does not corrupt the meanness of the subject must debase the manners at least to persons of quality in tragedies the style is more sublime and the subjects generally great but all violent passions and even the representations of them ruffle and discompose the mind besides when men endeavor to express things strongly and they are acted to the life it often happens that the images do mischief because they are too moving and the action is faulty for being too natural and experience teaches us that in unguarded minds by those pathetic performances flames are often raised that are prejudicial to virtue the playhouses themselves are far from being inviting much less the companies at least the greater part of them that frequent them some of which are almost of the lowest rank of all the disgust that persons of the least elegance receive from these people are many besides the ill sense and unseemly sights one meets with of careless rakes and impudent wenches that having paid their money reckon themselves to be all upon the level with everybody there the oaths scurrilities and vile jests one is often obliged to hear without resenting them and the odd mixture of high and low that are all partaking of the same diversion without regard to dress or quality are all very offensive and it cannot but be very disagreeable to polite people to be in the same crowd with a variety of persons some of them below mediocrity that pay no deference to one another at the opera everything charms and concurs to make happiness complete the sweetness of voice in the first place and the solemn composure of the action serve to mitigate and delay every passion it is the gentleness of them and the calm serenity of the mind that make us amiable and bring us nearest to the perfection of angels whereas the violence of the passions in which the corruption of the heart chiefly consists dethrones our reason and renders us more like unto savages it is incredible how prone we are to imitation and how strangely unknown to ourselves we are shaped and fashioned after the models and examples that are often set before us no anger nor jealousy are ever to be seen at an opera that distort the features no flames that are noxious nor is any love represented in them that is not pure and next to seraphic and it is impossible for the remembrance to carry anything away from them that can sully the imagination secondly the company is of another sort the place itself is a security to peace as well as everyone's honor and it is impossible to name another we're blooming innocence and irresistible beauty stand and so little need of guardians here we are sure never to meet with petulancy or ill manners and to be free from immodest rivalry libertine wit and detestable satire if you will mind on the one hand the richness and splendor of dress and the quality of the persons that appear in them the variety of colors and the luster of the fair and a spacious theater well illuminated and adorned and on the other the grave deportment of the assembly and the consciousness that appears in every countenance of the respect they owe each other you will be forced to confess that upon earth there cannot be a pastime more agreeable believe me madam there is no place where both sexes have such opportunities of imbibing exalted sentiments and raising themselves above the vulgar as they have at the opera and there is no other sort of diversion or assembly from the frequenting of which young persons of quality can have equal hopes of forming their manners and contracting a strong and lasting habit of virtue fulvia you have said more in combination of operas ratio than i ever heard or thought of before and i think everybody who loves that diversion is highly obliged to you the grand gout i believe is a great help in panegyric especially where it is an instability strictly to examine and over curiously to look into matters cleomenies what say you now fulvia of nature and good sense are they not quite beat out of doors fulvia i have heard nothing yet to make me out of conceit with good sense though what you insinuated of nature as if it was not to be imitated in painting is an opinion i must confess which hitherto i more admire at than i can approve of it or ratio i would never recommend anything madam that is repugnant to good sense but cleomenies must have some design in overacting the part he pretends to have chosen what he has said about painting is very true whether he spoke it in jest or in earnest but he talks so diametrically opposite to the opinion which he is known everywhere to defend of late that i do not know what to make of him fulvia i am convinced of the narrowness of my own understanding and i'm going to visit some persons with whom i shall be more upon the level ratio you will give me leave to wait upon your coach madam stroke pray cleomenies what is it you have gotten your head cleomenies nothing at all i told you before that i was so entirely recovered from my folly that few people went my lengths what jealousy you entertain of me i do not know but i find myself much improved in the social system formally i thought that chief ministers and all those at the helm of affairs acted from principles of avarice and ambition that in all the pains they took and even in the slaveries they underwent for the public good they had their private ends and that they were supported in the fatigue by secret enjoyments they were unwilling to own it is not a month ago that i imagine that the inward care and real solicitude of all great men centered within themselves and that to enrich themselves acquire titles of honor and raise their families on the one hand and to have opportunities on the other of displaying a judicious fancy to all the elegant comforts of life and establishing without the least trouble of self-denial the reputation of being wise humane and munificent were the things which besides the satisfaction there is in superiority and the pleasure of governing all candidates to high offices and great posts proposed to themselves from the places they sued for i was so narrow-minded that i could not conceive how a man would ever voluntarily submit to be a slave but to serve himself but i have abandoned that ill-natured way of judging i plainly perceive the public good in all the designs of politicians the social virtues shine in every action and i find that the national interest is the compass that all statesmen steer by ratio that is more than i can prove but certainly there have been such men there have been patriots that without selfish views have taken incredible pains for their country's welfare nay there are men now that would do the same if they were employed and we have had princes that have neglected their ease and pleasure and sacrificed their quiet to promote the prosperity and increase the wealth and honor of the kingdom it had nothing so much at heart as the happiness of their subjects cleomenies no disaffection i beg of you the difference between past and present times and persons in and out of places is perhaps clearer to you than it is to me but it is many years ago you know that it has been agreed between us never to enter into party disputes what i desire your attention to is my reformation which you seem to doubt of and the great change that is wrought in me the religion of most kings and other high potentates i formally had but a slender opinion of but now i measure their piety by what they say of it themselves to their subjects ratio that is very kindly done cleomenies by thinking meanly of things i once had strange blundering notions concerning foreign wars i thought that many of them arose from trifling causes magnified by politicians for their own ends that the most ruinous misunderstandings between states and kingdoms might spring from the hidden malice folly or caprice of one man that many of them had been owing to the private quarrels peaks resentments and the haughtiness of the chief ministers of the respective nations that were the sufferers and that what is called personal hatred between princes seldom was more at first than either an open or secret animosity which the two great favorites of those courts had against one another but now i have learned to derive those things from higher causes i am reconciled likewise to the luxury of the voluptuous which i used to be offended at because now i am convinced that the money of most rich men is laid out with a social design of promoting arts and sciences and that in the most expensive undertakings their principal aim is the employment of the poor ratio these are lengths indeed cleomenies i have a strong aversion to satire and it tested every wit as much as you do the most instructive writings to understand the world and penetrate into the heart of man i take to be addresses epithets dedications and above all the preambles to patents of which i am making a large collection ratio a very useful undertaking cleomenies but to remove all your doubts of my conversion i will show you some easy rules i have laid down for young beginners ratio what to do cleomenies to judge of men's actions by the lovely system of Lord shaftsbury in a manner diametrically opposite to that of the fable of the bees a ratio i do not understand you cleomenies you will presently i have called them rules but they are rather examples from which the rules are to be gathered as for instance if we see an industrious poor woman who has pinched her belly and gone and rags for a considerable time to save 40 shillings part with her money to put out her son at six years of age to a chimney sweeper to judge of her charitably according to the system of the social virtues we must imagine that though she never paid for the sweeping of a chimney in her life she knows by experience that for want of this necessary cleanliness the broth has been often spoiled and many a chimney has been set on fire and therefore to do good in her generation as far as she is able she gives up her all both offspring and estate to assist in preventing the several mischiefs that are often occasioned by great quantities of soot disregarded and free from selfishness sacrifices her only son to the most wretched employment for the public welfare end of section 33 section 34 of the fable of the bees by bernard mandeville this liber vox recording is in the public domain Horatio, you do not vie I see with lord shaftsbury for loftiness of subjects Cleomenes, when in a starry night with amazement we behold the glory of the firmament nothing is more obvious than that the whole the beautiful all must be the workmanship of one great architect of power and wisdom stupendous and it is evident that everything in the universe is a constituent part of one entire fabric Horatio would you make a jest of this too Cleomenes far from it they are awful truths of which I am as much convinced as I am of my own existence but I was going to name the consequences which lord shaftsbury draws from them in order to demonstrate to you that I am a convert and a very punctual observer of his lordship's instructions and that in my judgment on the poor woman's conduct there is nothing that is not entirely agreeable to the generous way of thinking set forth and recommended in the characteristics Horatio is it possible a man should read such a book and make no better use of it I desire you would name the consequences you speak of Cleomenes as that infinity of luminous bodies however different in magnitude velocity and the figures they describe in their courses concur all of them to make up the universe so this little spot we inhabit is likewise a compound of air water fire minerals vegetables and living creatures which though vastly differing from one another in their nature do altogether make up the body of this Terequius globe Horatio this is very right and in the same manner as our whole species is composed of many nations of different religions forms of government interests and manners that divide and share the earth between them so the civil society in every nation consists in great multitudes of both sexes that widely differing from each other in age constitution strength temper wisdom and possessions all help to make up one body politic Cleomenes the same exactly which I would have said now pray sir is not the great end of men's forming themselves into such societies mutual happiness I mean do not all individual persons from being thus combined proposed to themselves a more comfortable condition of life than human creatures if they were to live like other wild animals without tie or dependence could enjoy in a free and savage state Horatio this certainly is not only the end but the end which is everywhere attained to by government and society in some degree or another Cleomenes hence it must follow that it is always wrong for men to pursue gain or pleasure by means that are visibly detrimental to the civil society and that creatures who can do this must be narrow sold short-sighted selfish people whereas wise men never look upon themselves as individual persons without considering the whole of which they are but trifling parts in respect to bulk and are incapable of receiving any satisfaction from things that interfere with the public welfare this being undeniably true ought not all private advantage to give way to this general interest and ought it not to be everyone's endeavor to increase this common stock of happiness and in order to do it do what he can to render himself a serviceable and useful member of that whole body which he belongs to Horatio what of all this Cleomenes has not my poor woman and what I have related of her acted in conformity to this social system Horatio can anyone in his senses imagine that an indigent thoughtless wretch without sensor education should ever act from such generous principles Cleomenes poor I told you the woman was and I will not insist upon her education but as for her being thoughtless and void of sense you will give me leave to say that it is an aspersion for which you have no manner of foundation and from the account I have given of her nothing can be gathered but that she was a considerate virtuous wise woman in poverty Horatio I suppose you would persuade me that you are an earnest Cleomenes I am much more so than you imagine and say once more that in the example I have given I have trod exactly in my Lord Shaftesbury's steps and closely follow the social system if I have committed any error show it to me Horatio did that author ever meddle with anything so low and pitiful Cleomenes there can be nothing mean in noble actions whoever the persons that are to perform them but if the vulgar are to be all excluded from the social virtues what ruler instruction shall the laboring poor which are by far the greatest part of the nation have left them to walk by when the characteristics have made a jest of all revealed religion especially the Christian but if you despise the poor and illiterate I can in the same method judge of men in higher stations let the enemies of the social system behold the venerable counselor now grown eminent for his wealth that at his great age continues sweltering at the bar to plead the doubtful cause and regardless of his dinner shorten his own life and endeavoring to secure the possessions of others how conspicuous is the benevolence of the physician to his kind who from morning till night visiting the sick keep several sets of horses to be more serviceable to many and still grudges himself the time for the necessary functions of life in the same manner the indefatigable clergyman who with his ministry supplies a very large parish already solicits with zeal to be as useful and beneficent to another though 50 of his order yet unemployed offer their service for the same purpose Horatio I perceive your drift from the strained panigerics you labor at you would form arguments at absurdum the banter is ingenious enough and at proper times might serve to raise a laugh but then you must own likewise that those studied in comiums will not bear to be seriously examined into when we consider that the great business as well as perpetual solicitude of the poor are to supply their immediate wants and keep themselves from starving and that their children are a burden to them which they grown under and desire to be delivered from by all possible means that are not clashing with the low involuntary affection which nature forces them to have for their offspring when I say we consider this the virtues of your industrious make no great figure the public spirit likewise and the generous principles your sagacity has found out in the three faculties to which men are brought up for a livelihood seem to be very far fetched fame wealth and greatness every age can witness but whatever labor fatigue they submit to the motives of their actions are as conspicuous as they're calling themselves cleomenies are they not beneficial to mankind and of use to the public Horatio I do not deny that we often receive inestimable benefits from them and the good ones in either profession are not only useful but very necessary to the society but though there are several that sacrifice their whole lives and all the comfort of them to their business there is not one of them that would take a quarter of the pains he is now at if without taking any he could acquire the same money reputation and other advantages that may accrue to him from the esteem or gratitude of those whom he has been serviceable to and I do not believe there is an eminent man among them that would not own this if the question was put to him therefore when ambition and the love of money are avowed principles men act from it is very silly to ascribe virtues to them which they themselves pretend to lay no manner of claim to but your encomium upon the person is the merriest jest of all I have heard many excuses made and some of them very frivolous for the covetousness of priests but what you have picked out in their praise is more extraordinary than anything I ever met with and the most partial advocate and admirer of the clergy never yet discovered before yourself a great virtue in their hunting after pluralities when they were well provided for themselves and many others for want of employ were ready to starve cleomenies but if there be any reality in the social system it would be better for the public if men in all professions were to act from those generous principles and you will allow that the society would be the gainers if the generality in the three faculties would mind others more and themselves less than they do now Horatio I do not know that and considering what slavery some lawyers as well as physicians undergo I much question whether it would be possible for them to exert themselves in the same manner though they would if the constant bates and refreshments of large fees did not help to support human nature by continually stimulating this darling passion cleomenies indeed Horatio this is a stronger argument against the social system and more injurious to it than anything that has been said by the author whom you have exclaimed against with so much bitterness Horatio I deny that I do not conclude from the selfishness and some that there is no virtue in others cleomenies nor he neither and you very much wrong him if you assert that he ever did Horatio I refuse to commend what is not praiseworthy but as bad as mankind are virtue has an existence as well as vice though it is more scarce cleomenies what you said last nobody ever contradicted but I do not know what you would be at does not the Lord Shaftesbury endeavor to do good and promote the social virtues and am I not doing the very same suppose me to be in the wrong in the favorable constructions I have made of things still it is to be wished for at least that men had a greater regard to the public welfare less fondness for their private interest and more charity for their neighbors than the generality of them have Horatio to be wished for perhaps it may be but what probability is there that this will ever come to pass cleomenies and unless that can come to pass it is the idealist thing in the world to discourse upon and demonstrate the excellency of virtue what signifies it is set forth the beauty of it unless it was possible that men should fall in love with it Horatio if virtue was never recommended men might grow worse than they are cleomenies then by the same reason if it was recommended more men might grow better than they are but I see perfectly well the reason of these shifts and evasions you make use of against your opinion you find yourself under a necessity of allowing my panegyrex as you call them to be just or finding the same fault with most of my lord shaftsbury's and you would do neither if you could help it from men's preferring company to solitude his lordship pretends to prove the love and natural affection we have for our own species if this was examined into with the same strictness as you have done everything I have said in behalf of the three faculties I believe that the solidity of the consequences would be pretty equal in both but I stick to my text and stand up for these social virtues the noble author of that system had a most charitable opinion of his species and extolled the dignity of it in an extraordinary manner and while my imitation of him should be called a banter I see no reason he certainly wrote with a good design and endeavored to inspire his readers with refined notions and a public spirit abstract from religion the world enjoys the fruits of his labors but the advantage that is justly expected from his writings can never be so universally felt before the public spirit which he recommended comes down to the meanest tradesmen whom you would endeavor to exclude from the generous sentiments and noble pleasures that are already so visible in many I am now thinking on two sorts of people that stand in very much need of and yet hardly ever meet with one another this misfortune must have caused such a chasm in the band of society that no depth of thought or happiness of contrivance could have filled up the vacuity if a most tender regard for the commonwealth and the height of benevolence did not influence and oblige others mere strangers to those people and commonly men of small education to afflict them with their good offices and stop up the gap many ingenious workmen in obscure dwellings would be starved in spite of industry only for want of knowing where to sell the product of their labor if there were not others to dispose of it for them and again the rich and extravagant are daily furnished with an infinite variety of superfluous knickknacks and elaborate trifles every one of them invented to gratify either a needless curiosity or else wantonness and folly in which they could never have thought of much less wanted had they never seen or known where to buy them what a blessing then to the public is the social toy man who lays out a considerable estate to gratify the desires of these two different classes of people he procures food and raiment for the deserving poor and searches with great diligence after the most skillful artificers that no man shall be able to produce better workmanship than himself with studied civilities and a serene countenance he entertains the greatest strangers and often speaking to them first kindly offers to guess at their wants he confines not his attendance to a few stated hours but waits their leisure all day long in an open shop where he bears the summer's heat and winter's cold with equal cheerfulness what a beautiful prospect is here of natural affection to our kind for if he acts from that principle who only furnaces us with necessaries of life certainly he shows a more superlative love and indulgence to his species who will not suffer the most whimsical of it to be an hour destitute of what he shall fancy even things the most unnecessary Horatio you have made the most of it indeed but are you not tired yet with these foolories yourself Cleomenes what fault do you find with these kind constructions do they detract from the dignity of our species Horatio I admire your invention and thus much I will own that by overacting the part in that extravagant manner you have set the social system in a more disadvantageous light than ever I had considered it before but the best things you know may be ridiculed Cleomenes whether I know that or not Lord Shapsburg has flatly denied it and takes joke and banter to be the best and surest touchstone to prove the worth of things it is his opinion that no ridicule can be fastened upon what is really great and good his lordship has made use of that test to try the scriptures and the Christian religion by and expose them because it seems they could not stand it Horatio he has exposed superstition and the miserable notions the vulgar were taught to have of God but no man ever had more sublime ideas of the supreme being and the universe than himself Cleomenes you are convinced that what I charge him with is true Horatio I do not pretend to defend every syllable that noble lord has wrote his style is engaging his languages polite his reasoning strong many of his thoughts are beautifully expressed and his images for the greatest part inimitably fine I may be pleased with an author without obliging myself to answer every cattle that shall be made against him as to what you call your imitation of him I have no taste in burlesque but the laugh you would raise might be turned upon you with less trouble than you seem to have taken pray when you consider the hard and dirty labors that are performed to supply the mob with the vast quantities of strong beer they swill do not you discover social virtue in a Drayman Cleomenes yes and in a Dray horse too at least as well as I can in some great men who yet would be very angry should we refuse to believe that the most selfish actions of theirs if the society received but the least benefit from them were chiefly owing to principles of virtue and a generous regard to the public do you believe that in the choice of a pope the greatest dependence of the cardinals and what they principally rely upon is the influence of the holy ghost Horatio no more than I do transubstantiation Cleomenes but if you had been brought up a Roman Catholic you would believe both Horatio I do not know that Cleomenes you would if you was sincere in your religion as thousands of them are that are no more a destitute of reason and good sense than you or I Horatio I have nothing to say as to that there are many things incomprehensible that yet are certainly true these are properly the objects of faith and therefore when matters are above my capacity and really surpass my understanding I am silent and submit with great humility but I will swallow nothing which I plainly apprehend to be contrary to my reason and is directly clashing with my senses Cleomenes if you believe a providence what demonstration can you have that God does not direct men in an affair of higher importance to all Christendom than any other you can name Horatio this is an ensnaring and a very unfair question providence super intends and governs everything without exception to defend my negative and give a reason for my unbelief it is sufficient if I prove that all the instruments and the means they make use of in those elections are visibly human and mundane and many of them unwarrantable and wicked Cleomenes not all the means because every day they have prayers and solemnly invoke the divine assistance Horatio but what stress they lay upon it may be easily gathered from the rest of their behavior the court of Rome is without dispute the greatest academy of refined politics and the best school to learn the art of cabaling their ordinary cunning and known stratagems are counted rusticity and designs are pursued through all the mazes of human subtlety genius there must give way to finesse as strength does to art and wrestling and a certain skill some men have in concealing their capacities from others is a far greater use with them than real knowledge for the soundest understanding in the sacred college where everything is our of an ally truth and justice bear the lowest price cardinal palavissini and other Jesuits have been the stanch advocates of the papal authority have owned with ostentation the politia religiosa de la chiesa and not hid from us the virtues and accomplishments that were only valuable among the purparati in whose judgment overreaching at any rate is the highest honor and to be outwitted though by the basest artifice the greatest shame in conclaves more especially nothing is carried on without tricks and intrigue and in them the heart of man is so deep and so dark and abyss that the finest air of dissimulation is sometimes found to have been insincere and men often deceive one another by counterfeiting hypocrisy and is it credible that holiness religion or the least concern for spirituals should have any share in the plots machinations briggs and contrivances of a society of which each member besides the gratification of his own passions has nothing at heart but the interest of his party right or wrong and to distress every faction that opposes it. Cleomenes these sentiments confirm to me what I have often heard that renegados are the most cruel enemies. Horatio was ever I a Roman Catholic? Cleomenes I mean from the social system of which you have been the most strenuous assertor and now no man can judge of actions more severely and indeed less charitably than yourself especially of the poor cardinals I little thought if once I quitted the scheme of deformity to have found an adversary in you but we have both changed sides it seems. Horatio much alike I believe. Cleomenes nay what could anybody think to hear me making the kindest interpretations of things that can be imagined and yourself doing quite the reverse. Horatio what ignorant people that knew neither of us might have done I do not know but it has been very manifest from our discourse that you have maintained your cause by endeavoring to show the absurdity of the contrary side and that I have defended mine by letting you see that we are not such fools as you would represent us to be I had taken a resolution never to engage with you on this topic but you see I have broke it I hate to be thought uncivil it was mere complacence drew me in though I am not sorry that we talked of it so much as we did because I found your opinion less dangerous than I imagined you have owned the existence of virtue and that there are men who act from it as a principle both of which I thought you denied but I would not have you flatter yourself that you deceived me by hanging out false colors. Cleomenes I did not lay on the disguise so thick as not to have you see through it nor would I ever have discourse upon this subject with anybody who could have been so easily imposed upon I know you to be a man of very good sense and sound judgment and it is for that very reason I so heartily wish you would suffer me to explain myself and demonstrate to you how small the differences between us which you imagine to be so considerable there is not a man in the world in whose opinion I would less pass for an ill man than in yours but I am so scrupulously fearful of offending you that I never dared to touch upon some points unless you had given me leave yield something to our friendship and condescend for once to read the fable of the bees for my sake it is a handsome volume you love books I have one extremely well bound do let me suffer me to make you a present of it Horatio I am no bigot Cleomenes but I am a man of honor and you know of strict honor I cannot endure to hear that ridiculed and the least attempt of it chafes my blood honor is the strongest and noblest tie of society by far and therefore believe me can never be innocently sported with it is a thing so solid and awful as well as serious that it can't no time become the object of mirth or diversion and it is impossible for any pleasantry to be so ingenious or any jest so witty that I could bear with it on that head perhaps I am singular in this and if you will in the wrong be that as it will all I can say is and therefore no fable of the bees for me if we are to remain friends I have heard enough of that Cleomenes pray Horatio can there be honor without justice Horatio no who affirms there can Cleomenes have you not owned that you have thought worse of me than now you find me to deserve no man nor their works ought to be condemned upon hearsays and bear surmises much less upon the accusations of their enemies without being examined into Horatio there you are in the right I hardly beg your pardon and to atone for the wrong I have done you say what you please I will hear it with patience be it never so shocking but I beg of you be serious Cleomenes I have nothing to say to you that is distasteful much less shocking all I desire is to convince you that I am neither so ill-natured nor uncharitable in my opinion of mankind as you take me to be and that the notions I entertain of the worth of things will not differ much from yours when both come to be looked into do but consider what we have been doing I have endeavored to set everything in the handsomest light I could think of you say to ridicule the social system I own it now reflect on your own conduct which has been to show the folly of my strained panageurics and replace things in that natural view which all just knowing men would certainly behold them in this is very well done but it is contrary to the scheme you pretended to maintain and if you judge of all actions in the same manner there is an end of the social system or at least it will be evident that it is a theory never to be put into practice you argue for the generality of men that they are possessed of these virtues but when we come to particulars you can find none I have tried you everywhere you are as little satisfied with persons of the highest rank as you are with them of the lowest and you count it ridiculous to think better of the middling people is this otherwise than standing up for the goodness of a design at the same time you confess that it never was or ever can be executed what sort of people are they and where must we look for them whom you will own to act from those principles of virtue Horatio are they not in all countries men of birth and ample fortune that would not accept of places though they were offered that are generous and beneficent and mind nothing but what is great and noble Cleomenes yes but examine their conduct look into their lives and scan their actions with as little indulgence as you did those of the cardinals or the lawyers and physicians and then see what figure their virtues will make beyond those of the poor industrious women there is generally speaking less truth and panichurics than there is in satires when all our senses are soothed when we have no distemper of body or mind to disturb us and meet with nothing that is disagreeable we are pleased with our being it is in this situation that we are most apt to mistake outward appearances for realities and judge of things more favorably than they deserve remember Horatio how feelingly you spoke half an hour ago in commendation of operas your soul seemed to be lifted up whilst you was thinking on the many charms you find in them I have nothing to say against the elegancy of the diversion or the politeness of those that frequent them but I am afraid you lost yourself in the contemplation of the lovely idea when you asserted that they were the most proper means to contract a strong and lasting habit of virtue do you think that among the same number of people there is more real virtue at an opera than there is at a bear garden Horatio what a comparison Cleomenes I am very serious Horatio the noise of dogs and bulls and bears make a fine harmony Cleomenes it is impossible you should mistake me and you know very well that it is not the different pleasures of those two places I would compare together the things you mentioned are the least to be complained of the continual sounds of oaths and implications the frequent repetitions of the word lie and other more filthy expressions the loudness and dissonance of many strained and untuneful voices are a perfect torment to a delicate ear the frowsiness of the place and the ill sense of different kinds are a perpetual nuisance but in all mob meetings stroke Horatio l'odorat souffré beaucoup Cleomenes the entertainment in general is abominable and all the senses suffer I allow all this the greasy heads some of them bloody the jarring looks and threatening wild and horrid aspects that one meets with in those ever restless assemblies must be very shocking to the site and so indeed is everything else that can be seen among a rude and ragged multitude that are covered with dirt and have in none of their past times one action that is inoffensive but after all vice and what is criminal are not to be confounded with roughness and want of manners no more than politeness and an artful behavior ought to be with virtue or religion to tell a premeditated falsehood in order to do mischief is a greater sin than to give a man the lie who speaks in untruth and it is possible that a person may suffer greater damage and more injury to his ruin from slander in the low whisper of a secret enemy than he could have received from all the dreadful swearing and cursing the most noisy antagonist could pelt him with incontinence and adultery itself persons of quality are not more free from all over christened them than the meaner people but if there are some vices which the vulgar are more guilty of than the better set there are others of the reverse envy detraction and the spirit of revenge are more raging and mischievous and courts than they are in cottages excess of vanity and hurtful ambition are unknown among the poor they are seldom tainted with avarice with irreligion never and they have much less opportunity of robbing the public than their betters there are few persons of distinction whom you are not acquainted with I desire you you would seriously reflect on the lives of as many as you can think of and next opera night on the virtues of the assembly Horatio you make me laugh there was a good deal in what you say and I am persuaded all is not gold that glisters would you add any more Cleomenes since you have given me leave to talk and you are such a patient hearer I would not slip the opportunity of laying before you some things of high concern that perhaps you never considered in the light which you shall own yourself they ought to be seen in Horatio I am sorry to leave you but I have really business that must be done tonight it is about my lawsuit and I have stayed beyond my time already but if you will come and eat a bit of mutton with me tomorrow I will see nobody but yourself and we will converse as long as you please Cleomenes with all my heart I will not fail to wait on you end of section 34