 Section 17 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Line 201. The very poor live better than the rich before. If we trace the most flourishing nations in their origin, we shall find that in the remote beginnings of every society, the richest and most considerable men among them were a great wild destitute of a great many comforts of life that are now enjoyed by the meanest and most humble wretches. So that many things which were once looked upon as the invention of luxury are now allowed even to those that are so miserably poor as to become the objects of public charity nay, counted so necessary that we think no human creature ought to want them. In the first ages, man, without doubt, fed on the fruits of the earth without any previous preparation, and reposed himself naked like other animals in the lap of their common parent, whatever has contributed since to make life more comfortable as it must have been the result of thought, experience, and some labor, so it more or less deserves the name of luxury, the more or less trouble it required and deviated from the primitive simplicity. Our admiration has extended no farther than to what is new to us, and we all overlook the excellency of things we are used to, be they never so curious. A man would be laughed at that should discover luxury in the plain dress of a poor creature that walks along in a thick, perished gown and a coarse shirt underneath it and yet what a number of people, how many different trades and what a variety of skill and tools must be employed to have the most ordinary Yorkshire cloth, what depth of thought and ingenuity, what toil and labor, and what length of time must it have cost before man could learn from a seed to raise and prepare so useful a product as linen? Must that society not be vainly curious among whom this admirable commodity after it is made shall not be thought fit to be used even by the poorest of all before it is brought to a perfect whiteness, which is not to be produced but by the assistance of all the elements joined to a world of industry and patience? I have not done yet. Can we reflect not only on the cost laid out upon this luxurious invention but likewise on the little time the whiteness of it continues, in which part of its beauty consists that every six or seven days at farthest it wants cleaning and while it lasts is a continual charge to the wearer? Can we, I say, reflect on all this and not think it an extravagant piece of nicety that even those who receive alms of the parish should not only have whole garments made of this operos manufacture but likewise that as soon as they are soiled to restore them to their pristine purity they should make use of one of the most judicious as well as difficult compositions that chemistry can boast of, with which dissolved in water by the help of fire the most detersive and yet innocent lexivium is prepared that human industry has hitherto been able to invent? It is certain, time was that the things I speak of would have bore those lofty expressions in which everybody would have reasoned after the same manner but the age we live in would call a man fool who should talk of extravagance and nicety if he saw a poor woman after having wore her crowned cloth smock a whole week wash it with a bit of stinking soap of a groat a pound the arts of brewing and making bread have by slow degrees been brought to the perfection they now are in but who have invented them at once and a priori would have required more knowledge and a deeper insight into the nature of fermentation than the greatest philosopher has hitherto been endowed with yet the fruits of both are now enjoyed by the meanest of our species and a starving wretch knows not how to make a more humble or a more modest petition than by asking for a bit of bread or a draft of small beer man has learned by experience that nothing was softer than the small plumes and down of birds and found that heaped together they would by their elasticity gently rest any incumbent weight and heave up again of themselves as soon as the pressure is over to make use of them to sleep upon was, no doubt, first invented to complement the vanity as well as ease of the wealthy and potent but they are long since become so common that almost everybody lies upon featherbeds and to substitute flocks in the room of them is counted a miserable shift of the most necessitous last height must luxury have been arrived to before it could be reckoned a hardship to repose upon the soft wool of animals from caves, huts, hovels, tents, and barracks with which mankind took up at first we are come to warm and well wrought houses and the meanest habitations to be seen in cities are regular buildings contrived by persons skilled in proportions and architecture if the ancient Britons and Gauls should have come out of their graves would they gaze on the mighty structures everywhere raised for the poor should they behold the magnificence of a Chelsea college, a Greenwich hospital or what surpasses all them a des invalides at Paris and see the care, the plenty, the superfluities and pomp which people that have no possessions at all are treated with in those stately palaces those were once the greatest and richest of the land would have reason to envy the most reduced of our species now another piece of luxury the poor enjoy that is not looked upon as such in which there is no doubt but the wealthiest in a golden age would abstain from is their making use of the flesh of animals to eat in what concerns the fashions and manners of the ages men live in they never examine into the real worth or merit of the cause and generally judge of things not as their reason but custom direct them time was when the funeral rites in the disposing of the dead were performed by fire and the cadavers of the greatest emperors were burnt to ashes then burying the corpse in the ground was a funeral for slaves or made a punishment for the worst of malefactors now nothing is decent or honorable but interring and burning the body is reserved for crimes of the blackest die at some times we look upon trifles with horror at other times we can behold enormities without concern if we see a man walk with his hat on in a church though out of service time it shocks us but if on a Sunday night we meet half a dozen fellows drunk in the street the sight makes little or no impression upon us if a woman at merrymaking dresses in man's clothes it is reckoned a frolic amongst friends and he that finds too much fault with it is counted sensorious upon the stage it is done without reproach and the most virtuous ladies will dispense with it in an actress though everybody has a full view of her legs and thighs but if the same woman as soon as she has petticoats on again should show her leg to a man as high as her knee it would be a very immodest action and everybody will call her impudent for it I have often thought if it was not for this tyranny which custom usurps over us that men of any tolerable good nature could never be reconciled to the killing of so many animals for their daily food as long as the bountiful earth so plentifully provides them with varieties of vegetable dainties I know that reason excites our compassion but faintly and therefore I would not wonder how men should so little commiserate such imperfect creatures as crayfish, oysters, cockles and indeed all fish in general as they are mute and their inward formation as well as outward figure vastly different from ours they express themselves unintelligibly to us and therefore it is not strange that their grief should not affect our understanding which it cannot reach nothing stirs us to pity so effectually as when the symptoms of misery strike immediately upon our senses and I have seen people moved at the noise alive lobster makes upon the spit that could have killed half a dozen fowls with pleasure but in such perfect animals as sheep and oxen in whom the heart, the brain and nerves differ so little from ours and in whom the separation of the spirits from the blood the organs of sense and consequently feeling itself are the same as they are in human creatures I cannot imagine how a man not hardened in blood and massacre is able to see a violent death and the pangs of it without concern in answer to this most people will think it sufficient to say that all things being allowed to be made for the service of man there can be no cruelty in putting creatures to the use they were designed for but I have heard men make this reply while their nature within them has reproached them with the falsehood of the assertion there is of all the multitude not one man in ten but what will own if he was not brought up in a slaughterhouse that of all trades he could never have been a butcher and I question whether ever anybody so much as killed a chicken without reluctancy the first time some people are not to be persuaded to taste of any creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted with while they were alive others extend their scruple no farther than their own poultry and refuse to eat what they fed and took care of themselves yet all of them will feed heartily and without remorse on beef mutton and fowls when they are bought in the market in this behavior me thinks there appears something like a consciousness of guilt it looks as if they endeavored to save themselves from the imputation of a crime which they know sticks somewhere by removing the cause of it as far as they can from themselves and I can discover in it some strong remains of primitive pity and innocence which all the arbitrary power of custom and the violence of luxury have not yet been able to conquer what I build upon I shall be told is a folly that wise men are not guilty of I own it but while it proceeds from a real passion inherent in our nature it is sufficient to demonstrate that we are born with a repugnancy to the killing and consequently the eating of animals for it is impossible that a natural appetite should ever prompt us to act or desire others to do what we have an aversion to be it as foolish as it will everybody knows that surgeons in the cure of dangerous wounds and fractures the extirpatients of limbs and other dreadful operations are often compelled to put their patients to extraordinary torments and that the more desperate and calamitous cases occur to them the more the outcries and bodily sufferings of others must become familiar to them for this reason our English law out of a most affectionate regard to the lives of the subject allows them not to be of any jury upon life and death as supposing that their practice itself is sufficient to harden and extinguish in them that tenderness without which no man is capable of setting a true value upon the lives of his fellow creatures now if we ought to have no concern for what we do to brute beasts and there was not imagined to be any cruelty in killing them why should of all callings butchers and only they jointly with surgeons be excluded from being jurymen by the same law I shall urge nothing of what Pythagoras and many other wise men have said concerning this barbarity of eating flesh I have gone too much out of my way already and shall therefore beg the reader if he would have any more of this to run over the following fable or else if he be tired to let it alone with an assurance that in doing of either he shall equally oblige me a Roman merchant in one of the Carthaginian wars was cast away upon the coast of Africa himself and his slave with great difficulty got safe ashore but going in quest of relief were met by a lion of a mighty size it happened to be one of the breed that ranged in Aesop's days and one that could not only speak several languages but seemed moreover very well acquainted with human affairs the slave got upon a tree but his master not thinking himself safe there and having heard much of the generosity of lions fell down prostrate before him with all the signs of fear and submission the lion who had lately filled his belly bids him rise and for a while lay by his fears assuring him with all that he should not be touched if he could give him any tolerable reasons why he should not be devoured the merchant obeyed and having now received some glimmering hopes of safety gave a dismal account of the shipwreck he had suffered and endeavouring from thence to raise the lion's pity pleaded his cause with abundance of good rhetoric but observing by the countenance of the beast that flattery and fine words made very little impression he betook himself to arguments of greater solidity and reasoning from the excellency of man's nature and abilities remonstrated how improbable it was that the god should not have designed him for a better use than to be et by savage beasts upon this the lion became more attentive and vouchsafe now and then reply till at last the following dialogue ensued between them O vain and covetous animal said the lion whose pride and avarice can make him leave his native soil where his natural wants might be plentifully supplied and try rough seas and dangerous mountains to find out superfluities why should you esteem your species above ours and if the gods have given you a superiority over all creatures then why beg you of an inferior our superiority, answered the merchant, consists not only in bodily force but strength of understanding the gods have endued us with a rational soul which, though invisible, is much the better part of us I desire to touch nothing of you but what is good to eat but why do you value yourself so much upon that part which is invisible because it is immortal and shall meet with rewards after death for the actions of this life and the just shall enjoy internal bliss and tranquility with the heroes and demigods in the Elysian fields what life have you led I have honored the gods and studied to be beneficial to man then why do you fear death if you think the gods as just as you have been I have a wife and five small children that must come to want if they lose me I have two welps that are not big enough to shift for themselves that are in want now and must actually be starved if I can provide nothing for them your children will be provided for one way or other at least as well when I have etch you as if you had been drowned as to the excellency of either species the value of things among you has ever increased with the scarcity of them and to a million of men there is hardly one lion besides that in the great veneration man pretends to have for his kind there is little sincerity farther than it concerns the share which everyone's pride has in it for himself it is a folly to boast of the tenderness shown and attendance given to your young ones or the excessive and lasting trouble bestowed in the education of them man being born the most necessitous and most helpless animal this is only an instinct of nature which in all creatures has ever proportioned the care of the parents to the wants and imbecilities of the offspring but if a man had a real value for his kind how is it possible that often ten thousand of them and sometimes ten times as many should be destroyed in a few hours for the caprice of two all degrees of men despise those that are inferior to them and if you could enter into the hearts of kings and princes you would hardly find any but what have less value for the greatest part of the multitudes they rule over than those have for the cattle that belong to them why should so many pretend to derive their race though but spuriously from the immortal gods why should all of them suffer others to kneel down before them and more or less take delight in having divine honors paid them but to insinuate that themselves are of a more exalted nature and a species superior to that of their subjects savage I am but no creature can be called cruel but what either by malice or insensibility extinguishes is natural pity the lion was born without compassion we follow the instinct of our nature the gods have appointed us to live upon the waste and spoil of other animals and as long as we can meet with dead ones we never hunt after the living it is only man, mischievous man that can make death a sport nature taught your stomach to crave nothing but vegetables but your violent fondness to change and great eagerness after novelties have prompted you to the destruction of animals without justice or necessity perverted your nature and warped your appetites which way so ever your pride or luxury have called them the lion has a ferment within him that consumes the toughest skin and hardest bones as well as the flesh of all animals without exception your squeamish stomach in which the digestive heat is weak and inconsiderable will not so much as admit the most tender parts of them unless above half the concoction has been performed by artificial fire beforehand and yet what animal have you spared to satisfy the caprices of a languid appetite languid I say for what is man's hunger if compared to the lions yours when it is that the worst makes you faint makes me mad oft have I tried with roots and herbs to allay the violence of it but in vain nothing but large quantities of flesh can any wise appease it yet the fierceness of our hunger notwithstanding lions have often requited benefits received but ungrateful and perfidious man feeds on the sheep that clothes him and spares not her innocent young ones whom he has taken into his care and custody if you tell me God's made man master over all other creatures what tyranny was it then to destroy them out of wantonness no fickle, timorous animal the gods have made you for society and designed that millions of you when we'll join together should compose the strong leviathan a single lion bears some sway in the creation but what is single man a small and inconsiderable part a trifling atom of one great beast what nature designs she executes and it is not safe to judge of what she purposed but from the effects she shows if she had intended that man as man from a superiority of species should lord it over all other animals the tiger, ney, the whale and eagle would have obeyed his voice but if your wit and understanding exceeds ours ought not the lion in deference to that superiority and the maxims of men with whom nothing is more sacred than that the reason of the strongest is ever the most prevalent whole multitudes of you have conspired and compassed the destruction of one after they had owned the gods had made them their superior and one has often ruined and cut off whole multitudes whom by the same gods he had sworn to defend and maintain man never acknowledged superiority without power and why should I the silence I boast of is visible all animals tremble at the sight of the lion not out of panic fear the gods have given me swiftness to overtake and strength to conquer whatever comes near me where is there a creature that has teeth and claws like mine behold the thickness of these massy jaw bones consider the width of them and feel the firmness of this brawny neck the nimblest deer, the wildest bore, the stoutest horse and strongest bull are my prey wherever I meet them thus spoke the lion and the merchant fainted away the lion in my opinion has stretched the point too far yet when to soften the flesh of male animals we have by castration prevented the firmness their tendons and every fiber would have come to without it I confess I think it ought to move a human creature when he reflects upon the cruel care with which they are fattened for destruction when a large and gentle bullock after having resisted a ten times greater force of blows than would have killed his murderer fall stunned at last and his armed head is fastened to the ground with cords as soon as the wide wound is made and the jugglers are cut asunder what mortal can without compassion here are the painful bellowings intercepted by his blood his eyes that speak the sharpness of his anguish and the deep sounding groans with loud anxiety fetched from the bottom of his strong and palpitating heart look on the trembling and violent convulsions of his limbs see while his reeking gore streams from him his eyes become dim and languid and behold his strugglings gasps and last efforts for life the certain signs of his approaching fate when a creature has given such convincing and undeniable proofs of the terrors upon him and the pains and agonies he feels is there a follower of Descartes so enured to blood as not to refute by his commiseration the philosophy of that vain reasoner End of Section 17 Section 18 of The Fable of the Bees Land of Ill Line 307 For frugally they now lived on their salary When people have small comings in and are honest with all it is then that the generality of them begin to be frugal and not before Frugality and ethics is called that virtue from the principle of which men abstain from superfluities and despising the operos contrivances of art to procure either ease or pleasure content themselves of the natural simplicity of things and are carefully temperate in the enjoyment of them without any tincture of covetousness Frugality thus limited is perhaps scarcer than many may imagine but what is generally understood by it is a quality more often to be met with and consists in a medium between profuseness and avarice rather leaning to the latter as this prudent economy which some people call saving is in private families the most certain method in the state so some imagine that whether a country be barren or fruitful the same method if generally pursued which they think practicable will have the same effect upon a whole nation and that for example the English might be much richer than they are if they would be as frugal as some of their neighbors this I think is an error which to prove I shall first refer the reader to what has been said upon this head in remark online 180 and then go on thus experience teaches us first that as people differ in their views and perceptions of things so they vary in their inclinations one man is given to covetousness another to prodigality and a third is only saving secondly that men are never or at least very seldom reclaimed from their darling passions either by reason or precept and that if anything ever draws them from what they are naturally propense to it must be a change in their circumstances or their fortunes if we reflect upon these observations we shall find that to render the generality of a nation lavish the product of the country must be considerable in proportion to the inhabitants and what they are profuse of cheap that on the contrary to make a nation generally frugal the necessaries of life must be scarce and consequently dear and that therefore let the best politician do what he can the profuseness or frugality of a people in general must always depend upon and will in spite of his teeth be ever proportioned to the fruitfulness and product of the country the number of inhabitants and the taxes they are to bear if anybody would refute what I have said let them only prove from history that there ever was in any country a national frugality without a national necessity let us examine then what the things are requisite to aggrandize and enrich a nation the first desirable blessings for any society of men are fertile soil and a happy climate a mild government and more land than people these things will render men easy loving, honest and sincere in this condition they may be as virtuous as they can without the least injury to the public and consequently as happy as they please themselves but they shall have no arts or sciences or be quiet longer than their neighbors will let them they must be poor, ignorant a destitute of what we call the comforts of life and all the cardinal virtues together would not so much as procure a tolerable coat or a porridge pot among them for in this state of slothful ease and stupid innocence as you need not fear great vices so you must not expect any considerable virtues man never exerts himself but when he is roused by his desires while they lie dormant and there is nothing to raise them his excellence and abilities will be forever undiscovered and the lumpish machine without the influence of his passions may be justly compared to a huge windmill without a breath of air would you render a society of men strong and powerful you must touch their passions divide the land though there be never so much to spare and their possessions will make them covetous rouse them though but ingest from their idleness with praises and pride will set them to work in earnest teach them trades and handicrafts and you will bring every emulation among them to increase their numbers set up a variety of manufacturers and leave no ground uncultivated let property be inviolably secured and privilege is equal to all men suffer nobody to act but what is lawful and everybody to think what he pleases for a country where everybody may be maintained that will be employed and the other maxims are observed must always be thronged and can never want people as any in the world would you have them bold and warlike turn to military discipline make good use of their fear and flatter their vanity with art and assiduity but would you moreover render them an opulent knowing and polite nation teach them commerce with foreign countries and if possible get into the sea which to compass spare no labor for industry and let no difficulty deter you from it then promote navigation and encourage the merchant and encourage trade in every branch of it this will bring riches and where they are arts and sciences will soon follow and by the help of what I have named and good management it is that politicians can make a people potent renowned and flourishing but would you have a frugal and honest society the best policy is to preserve men in their native simplicity strive not to increase their numbers let them never be acquainted with no superfluities but remove and keep them from everything that might raise their desires or improve their understanding great wealth and foreign treasure will ever scorn to come among men unless you will admit their inseparable companions avarice and luxury where trade is considerable fraud will intrude to be at once well bred and sincere is no less than a contradiction and therefore while man advances in knowledge and manners are polished we must expect to see at the same time his desires enlarged his appetites refined and his vices increased the Dutch may ascribe their present grandeur to the virtue and frugality of their ancestors as they please but would made that contemptible spot of ground so considerable among the principal powers of Europe has been their political wisdom in postponing everything to merchandise and navigation the unlimited liberty of conscience that is enjoyed among them and the unwearyed application with which they have always made use of the most effectual means to encourage and increase trade in general they never were noted for frugality before Philip II of Spain began to rage over them with that unheard of tyranny their laws were trampled upon their rights and large immunities taken from them and their constitution torn to pieces several of their chief nobles were condemned and executed in a legal form of process complaints and remonstrances were punished as severely as resistance and those that escaped being massacred were plundered by ravenous soldiers as this was intolerable to a people that had always been used to the mildest of governments and enjoyed greater privileges than any of the neighboring nations so they chose rather to die in arms than perish by cruel executioners if we consider the strength Spain had then and the low circumstances those distressed states were in there never was heard of a more unequal strife yet such was their fortitude and resolution that only seven of those provinces uniting themselves together maintained against the greatest and best disciplined nation in Europe the most tedious and bloody war that is to be met with in ancient or modern history rather than to become a victim to the Spanish fury they were contented to live upon a third part of their revenues and lay out far the greatest part of their income in defending themselves against their merciless enemies these hardships and calamities of war within their bowels first put them upon that extraordinary frugality and the continuance under the same difficulties for above four score years could not but render it customary and habitual to them but all their arts of saving and penurious ways of living could never have enabled them if their industry in promoting their fishery and navigation in general had not helped them to supply the natural wants and disadvantages they labored under the country is so small and so populous that there is not land enough though hardly an inch of it is unimproved to feed the tenth part of the inhabitants Holland itself is full of large rivers and lies lower than the sea which would run over at every tide and washed away in one winter if it was not kept out by vast banks and huge walls the repairs of those as well as their slewises, keys, mills and other necessaries they are forced to make use of to keep themselves from being drowned are a great expense to them one year with another then could be raised by a general land tax of four shillings in the pound if to be deducted from the neat produce of the landlord's revenue is it a wonder that people under such circumstances and loading with greater taxes besides than any other nation should be obliged to be saving but why must they be a pattern to others who besides that they are more happily situated are much richer within themselves and have to the same number of people above ten times the extent of ground the Dutch and we often buy and sell at the same markets and so far our views may be said to be the same otherwise the interests and political reasons of the two nations as to the private economy of either very different it is their interest to be frugal and spend little because they must have everything from abroad except butter cheese and fish and therefore of them especially the latter they consume three times the quantity which the same number of people do here it is our interest to eat plenty of beef and mutton to maintain the farmer and further improve our land of which we have enough to feed ourselves and as many more if it was better cultivated the Dutch perhaps have more shipping and more ready money than we but then those are only to be considered as the tools they work with so a carrier may have more horses than a man of ten times is worth and a banker that has not above fifteen or sixteen hundred pounds in the world may have generally more ready cash by him than a gentleman of two thousand a year he that keeps three or four stage coaches to get his bread is to a gentleman that keeps a coach for his pleasure the Dutch are in comparison to us having nothing of their own but fish they are carriers and freighters to the rest of the world while the basis of our trade chiefly depends upon our own product another instance that would makes the bulk of the people saving are heavy taxes scarcity of land and such things that occasion a dearth of provisions may be given from what is observable among the Dutch themselves in the province of Holland there is a vast trade inconceivable treasure of money the land is almost as rich as dung itself and as I have said once already not an inch of it unimproved in Gelderland and Oversel there is hardly any trade and very little money the soil is very indifferent and abundance of ground lies waste then what is the reason that the same Dutch in the two latter provinces though poorer than the first are yet less stingy and more hospitable nothing but that their taxes and most things are less extravagant and in proportion to the number of people they have a great deal more ground what they save in Holland they save out of their bellies it is eatables drinkables and fuel that their heaviest taxes are upon but they wear better clothes and have richer furniture than you will find in the other provinces those that are frugal by principle are so and everything but in Holland the people are only sparing things as are daily wanted and soon consumed in what is lasting they are quite otherwise in pictures and marble they are profuse in their buildings and gardens they are extravagant to folly in other countries you may meet with stately courts and palaces of great extent that belong to princes which nobody can expect in a commonwealth where so much equality is observed as there is in this but in all Europe you shall find no private building so sumptuously magnificent as a great many of the merchants and other gentlemen's houses are in Amsterdam and some other great cities of that small province and the generality of those that build there lay out a greater proportion of their estates on houses they dwell in than any people upon the earth the nation I speak of was never in greater straits nor their affairs in a more dismal posture since they were a republic than in the year 1671 and the beginning of 1672 what we know of their economy and constitution with any certainty has been chiefly owing to Sir William Temple whose observations upon their manners and government it is evident from several passages in his memoirs were made about that time the Dutch indeed were then very frugal but since those days and that their calamities have not been so pressing though the common people on whom the principal burden of all excises and impositions lies are perhaps much as they were a great alteration has been made among the better sort of people in their equipages, entertainments and whole manner of living those who would have it that the frugality of that nation flows not so much from necessity as a general aversion to vice and luxury will put us in mind of their public administration and smallness of salaries their prudence in bargaining for and buying stores and other necessaries the great care they take not to be imposed upon by those that serve them and their severity against them that break their contracts but what they would ascribe to the virtue and honesty of ministers is wholly due to their strict regulations concerning the management of the public treasure from which their admirable form of government will not suffer them to depart and indeed one good man may take another's word if they so agree but a whole nation not never to trust any honesty but what is built upon necessity for unhappy is the people and their constitution will ever be precarious whose welfare must depend upon the virtues and consciences of ministers and politicians the Dutch generally endeavour to promote as much frugality among their subjects as it is possible not because it is a virtue but because it is generally speaking their interest as I have shown before for as this latter changes so they alter their maxims as will be plain in the following instance as soon as their East India ships come home the company pays off the men and many of them receive the greatest part of what they have been earning in seven or eight or some fifteen or sixteen years time these poor fellows are encouraged to spend their money with all profuseness imaginable and considering that most of them when they set out first were reprobates that under the tuition of a strict discipline and a miserable diet have been so long kept at hard labour without money in the midst of danger it cannot be difficult to make them lavish as soon as they have plenty they squander away in whine women and music as much as people of their taste and education are well capable of and are suffered so they but abstain from doing of mischief to revel and riot with greater licentiousness than is customary to be allowed to others you may in some cities see them accompanied with three or four lewd women few of them sober run roaring on the streets by broad daylight with a fiddler before them and if the money to their thinking goes not fast enough these ways they will find out others and sometimes fling it among the mob by handfuls this madness continues in most of them while they have anything left which never lasts long and for this reason by a nickname they are called lords of six weeks that being generally the time by which the company has other ships ready to depart while their money being gone are forced to enter themselves again and may have leisure to repent their folly in this stratagem there is a double policy first if the sailors that have been inured to the hot climates and unwholesome air and diet should be frugal and stay in their own country the company would be continually obliged to employ fresh men of which besides that they are not so fit for their business hardly one and two ever lives in some places which often would prove great charge as well as disappointment to them the second is that the large sum so often distributed among these sailors are by this means made immediately to circulate throughout the country from once by heavy excises and other impositions the greatest part of it is soon drawn back into the public treasure to convince the champions for national frugality by another argument that what they urge is impracticable we will suppose that I am mistaken in everything which in remark line 180 I have said in behalf of luxury and the necessity of it to maintain trade after that let us examine what a general frugality if it was by art and management to be forced upon people whether they have occasion for it or not would produce in a nation such as ours we will grant then that all people in Great Britain shall consume but four fifths of what they do now so lay by one fifth part of their income I shall not speak of what influence this would have upon almost every trade as well as the farmer the grazier and the landlord but favorably suppose what is yet impossible that the same work shall be done and consequently the same handicrafts be employed as there are now the consequence would be that unless money should all at once fall prodigiously in value and everything else contrary to reason at the five years end all the working people and the poorest of laborers for I would not meddle with any of the rest would be worth in ready cash as much as they now spend in a whole year which by the by would be more money than ever the nation had at once let us now overjoyed with this increase of wealth take a view of the condition the working people would be in and reasoning from experience and what we daily observe of them what their behavior would be in such a case everybody knows that there is a vast number of journeymen weavers, tailors, cloth workers and twenty other handicrafts who if by four days labor in a week they can maintain themselves will hardly be persuaded to work the fifth and that there are thousands of laboring men of all sorts who will though they can hardly subsist put themselves to fifty inconveniences disoblige their masters pinch their bellies and run in debt to make holidays when men show such an extraordinary proclivity to idleness and pleasure what reason have we to think that they would ever work unless they were obliged to it by immediate necessity when we see an artificer that cannot be drove to his work before Tuesday because the Monday morning he has two shillings left of his last week's pay why should we imagine he would go to it at all if he had fifteen or twenty pounds in his pocket what would at this rate become of our manufactures if the merchant would send cloth abroad he must make it himself for the clothier cannot get one man out of twelve that used to work for him if what I speak of was only to befall the journeymen shoemakers and nobody else and less than a twelve month half of us would go barefoot the chief and most pressing use there is for money in a nation is to pay the labor of the poor and when there is a real scarcity of it those who have a great many workmen to pay will always feel at first get not withstanding this great necessity of coin it would be easier where property was well secured to live without money than without poor for who would do the work for this reason the quantity of circulating coin in a country ought always to be proportioned to the number of hands that are employed and the wages of laborers to the price of provisions from whence it is demonstrable that whatever procures plenty makes laborers cheap where the poor are well managed who as they ought to be kept from starving so they should receive nothing worth saving if here and there one of the lowest class by uncommon industry and pinching his belly lifts himself above the condition he was brought up in nobody ought to hinder him nay it is undeniably the wisest course for every person in the society and for every private family to be frugal but it is the interest of all rich nations that the greatest part of the poor should almost never be idle and yet continually spend what they get all men as Sir William Temple observes very well are more prone to ease and pleasure than they are to labor when they are not prompted to it by pride and avarice and those that get their living by their daily labor are seldom powerfully influenced by either so that they have nothing to stir them up serviceable but their wants which it is prudence to relieve but folly to cure the only thing then that can render the laboring man industrious is a moderate quantity of money for as too little will according to his temper is either to spirit or make him desperate so too much will make him insolent and lazy a man would be laughed at by most people who should maintain that too much money could undo a nation yet this has been the fate of Spain to this the learned Don Diego Saavedra ascribes the ruin of his country the fruits of the earth and former ages had made Spain so rich the King Louis 11th of France being come to the court of Toledo was astonished at its splendor and said that he had never seen anything to be compared to it either in Europe or Asia he that in his travel to the Holy Land had run through every province of them in the kingdom of Castile alone if we may believe some writers there were for the Holy War from all parts of the world got together 100,000 foot 10,000 horse and 60,000 carriages for baggage which Alonso III maintained at his own charge and paid every day as well soldiers as officers and princes everyone according to his rank and dignity may down to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella who equipped Columbus and some time after Spain was a fertile country where trade and manufactures flourished and had a knowing industrious people to boast of but as soon as that mighty treasure that was obtained with more hazard and cruelty than the world until then had known and which to come at by the Spaniards own confession had cost the lives of 20 millions of Indians as soon I say the treasure came rolling in upon them it took away their senses and their industry forsook them the farmer left his plow the mechanic his tools the merchant his compting house and everybody scorning to work took his pleasure and turned gentlemen they thought they had reason to value themselves above all their neighbors and now nothing but the conquest of the world would serve them the consequence of this has been that other nations have supplied what their own sloth and pride denied them and when everybody saw that notwithstanding all the prohibitions the government could make against the exportation of bullion the Spaniard would part with his money and bring it to you aboard himself at the hazard of his neck all the world endeavored to work for Spain gold and silver being by this means yearly divided and shared among all the trading countries have made all things dear and most nations of Europe industrious accept their owners who ever since their mighty acquisitions sit with their arms across and wait every year with impatience and anxiety the arrival of their revenues from abroad to pay others for what they have spent already and thus by too much money the making of colonies and other mismanagements of which it was the occasion Spain is from a fruitful and well people's country with all its mighty titles and possessions barren and empty thoroughfare through which gold and silver pass from America to the rest of the world and the nation from a rich, acute, diligent and laborious become a slow, idle, proud and beggarly people so much for Spain the next country where money is called the product is Portugal and the figure which that kingdom with all its gold makes in Europe I think is not much to be envied the great art then to make a nation happy and what we call flourishing consists in giving everybody an opportunity of being employed which to compass let a government's first care be to promote as great a variety of manufacturers, arts and handicrafts as human wit can invent and the second to encourage agriculture and fishery in all their branches that the whole earth may be forced to exert itself as well as man for as the one is an infallible maxim to draw vast multitudes of people into a nation so the other is the only method to maintain them it is from this policy and not the trifling regulations of lavishness and frugality which will ever take their own course according to the circumstances of the people that the greatness and felicity of nations must be expected for let the value of gold and silver either rise or fall societies will ever depend upon the fruits of the earth and the labor of the people both which joined together are a more certain a more inexhaustible and a more real treasure than the gold of Brazil or the silver of Potosi End of Section 18 Section 19 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Line 321 No Honor Now Etc Honor in its figurative sense is a chimera without truth or being an invention of moralists and politicians and signifies a certain principle of virtue not related to religion found in some men that keeps them close to their duty and engagements whatever they may be as for example a man of honor enters into a conspiracy with others to murder a king he is obliged to go through stitch with it and if overcome by remorse or good nature he startles at the enormity of his purpose discovers the plot and turns a witness against his accomplices he then forfeits his honor at least among the party he belonged to The Excellency of this principle is that the vulgar are destitute of it and it is only to be met with in people of the better sort as some oranges have kernels and others not though the outside be the same in great families it is like the gout generally counted hereditary and all the lords children are born with it in some that never felt anything of it it is acquired by conversation and reading especially of romances in others by preferment but there is nothing that encourages the growth of it more than a sword and upon the first wearing of one some people have felt considerable shoots of it in four and twenty hours the chief and most important care a man of honor ought to have is the preservation of this principle and rather than forfeit it he must lose his employment into state, nay, life itself for which reason whatever humility he may show by way of good breeding he is allowed to put an inestimable value upon himself as a possessor of this invisible ornament the only method to preserve this principle is to live up to the rules of honor which are laws he is to walk by himself is obliged always to be faithful to his trust to prefer the public interest to his own not to tell lies nor defraud or wrong anybody and from others to suffer no affront which is a term of art for every action designedly done to undervalue him the men of ancient honor of which I reckon don Quixote to have been the last upon record were very nice observers of all these laws and a great many more than I have named but the modern seem to be more remiss they have a profound veneration for the last of them but they pay not in equal obedience to any of the other and whoever will but strictly comply with that I hint at shall have abundance of trespasses against all the rest connived at a man of honor is always counted impartial in a man of sense of course for nobody ever heard of a man of honor was a fool for this reason he has nothing to do with the law and is always allowed to be a judge in his own case and if the least injury be done either to himself or his friend his relation his servant his dog or anything which he is pleased to take under his honorable protection satisfaction must be forthwith demanded and if it proves in affront and he that gave it likewise a man of honor a battle must ensue from all this it is evident that a man of honor must be possessed of courage and that without it his other principal would be no more than a sword without a point let us therefore examine what courage consists in and whether it be as most people will have it a real something that valiant man have in their nature distinct from all their other qualities or not there is nothing so universally sincere upon earth as the love which all creatures that are capable of any bear themselves and as there is no love but what implies a care to preserve the thing beloved so there is nothing more sincere in any creature than his will wishes and endeavors to preserve himself this is the law of nature by which no creature is endued with any appetite or passion but would either directly or indirectly tends to the preservation either of himself or his species the means by which nature obliges every creature continually to stir in this business of self-preservation are grafted in him and in man called desires which either compel him to crave what he thinks will sustain or please him or command him to avoid what he imagines might displease hurt or destroy him these desires or passions have all their different symptoms by which they manifest themselves to those they disturb and from that variety of disturbances they make within us their various denominations have been given them as has been shown already in pride and shame the passion that is raised in us when we apprehend that mischief is approaching us is called fear the disturbance it makes within us is always more or less violent in proportion not of the danger but our apprehension of the mischief dreaded with a real or imaginary our fear then being always proportioned to the apprehension we have of the danger it follows that while the apprehension lasts a man can no more shake off his fear than he can a leg or an arm in a fright it is true the apprehension of danger is so sudden and attacks us so lively as sometimes to take away reason and senses that when it is over we often do not remember we had any apprehension at all but from the event it is plain we had it for how could we have been frightened if we had not apprehended that some evil or other was coming upon us most people are of opinion that this apprehension is to be conquered by reason but I confess I am not those that have been frightened will tell you that as soon as they could recollect themselves that is make use of their reason their apprehension was conquered but this is no conquest at all for in a fright the danger was either altogether imaginary or else it is passed by that time they can make use of their reason and therefore if they find there is no danger it is no wonder that they should not apprehend any but when the danger is permanent let them then make use of their reason and they will find that it may serve them to examine the greatness and reality of the danger and that if they find it less than they imagined the apprehension will be lessened accordingly but if the danger proves real and the same in every circumstance as they took it to be at first then their reason instead of diminishing will rather increase their apprehension while this fear lasts no creature can fight offensively and yet we see the roots daily fight obstinately and worry one another to death so that some other passion must be able to overcome this fear and the most contrary to it is anger which to trace to the bottom I must beg leave to make another digression no creature can subsist without food nor any species of them I speak of the more perfect animals continue long unless young ones are continually born as fast as the old ones die therefore the first and fiercest appetite that nature has given them is hunger the next is lust the one prompting them to procreate as the other bids them eat now if we observe that anger is the passion which is raised in us when we are crossed or disturbed in our desires and that as it sums up all the strength in creatures so it was given them that by it they might exert themselves more vigorously in endeavoring to remove, overcome or destroy whatever obstructs them in the pursuit of self-preservation we shall find that brutes, unless themselves are what they love or the liberty of either are threatened or attacked have nothing worth noticed that can move them to anger but hunger or lust it is they that make them more fierce for we must observe that the appetites of creatures are as actually crossed while they want and cannot meet with what they desire though perhaps with less violence as when hindered from enjoying what they have in view what I have said will appear more plainly if we but mind what nobody can be ignorant of which is this all creatures upon earth live either upon the fruits and product of it or else the flesh of other animals their fellow creatures the latter which we call beasts of prey nature has armed accordingly and given them weapons and strength to overcome and tear asunder those whom she has designed for their food and likewise a much keener appetite than to other animals that live upon herbs etc. for as to the first if a cow loved mutton as well as she does grass being made as she is and having no claws or talons and but one row of teeth before that are all of an equal length she would be starved even among a flock of sheep secondly as to their voraciousness if experience did not teach us our reason might in the first place it is highly probable that the hunger which can make a creature fatig and expose himself to danger for every bit he eats is more piercing than that which only bids him eat what stands before him and which he may have for stooping down in the second it is to be considered that as beasts of prey have an instinct by which they learn to crave trace and discover those creatures that are good food for them so the others have likewise an instinct that teaches them to shun conceal themselves and run away from those that hunt after them hence it must follow that beasts of prey though they could almost eat forever go yet more often with empty bellies than other creatures whose victuals neither fly from nor oppose them this must perpetuate as well as increase their hunger which hereby becomes a constant fuel to their anger if you ask me what stirs up this anger in bulls and cocks that will fight to the death and yet are neither animals of prey nor very voracious I answer must those creatures whose rage proceeds from hunger both male and female attack everything they can master and fight obstinately against all but the animals whose fury is provoked by a venereal ferment being generally males exert themselves chiefly against other males of the same species they may do mischief by chance to other creatures but the main objects of their hatred are their rivals and it is against them only the prowess and fortitude are shown we see likewise in all those creatures of which the male is able to satisfy a great number of females a more considerable superiority in the male expressed by nature in his make and features as well as fierceness than is observed in other creatures where the male is contented with one or two females dogs though become domestic animals are ravenous to a proverb and those of them that will fight would soon become beasts of prey if not fed by us what we may observe in them is an ample proof of what I have hitherto advanced those of a true fighting breed being voracious creatures both male and female will fasten upon anything and suffer themselves to be killed before they give over as the female is rather more salacious than the male so there is no difference in their make at all what distinguishes the sexes accepted and the female is the fiercest of the two a bull is a terrible creature when he is kept up but where he has twenty or more cows to range among in a little time he will become as tame as any of them and a dozen hens will spoil the best game cock in England hearts and deers are counted chaste and timorous creatures and so indeed they are almost all the year long except in rutting time and then on a sudden they become bold to admiration at the keepers themselves that the influence of those two principal appetites hunger and lust upon the temper of animals is not so whimsical as some may imagine may be partly demonstrated from what is observable in ourselves for though our hunger is infinitely less violent than that of wolves and other ravenous creatures yet we see that people who are in health and have a tolerable stomach are more fretful and sooner put out of humor for trifles when they stay in their victuals beyond their usual hours than at any other time and again though lust in man is not so raging as it is in bulls and other salacious creatures yet nothing provokes men and women both sooner and more violently to anger than what crosses their amours when they are heartily in love and the most fearful and tenderly educated of either sex have slighted the greatest dangers and set aside all other considerations to compass the destruction of arrival hitherto I have endeavored to demonstrate that no creature can fight offensively as long as his fear lasts that fear cannot be conquered but by another passion that the most contrary to it and most effectual to overcome it is anger that the two principal appetites which disappointed can stir up this last named passion are hunger and lust and that in all brute beasts the proneness to anger and obstinacy and fighting generally depend upon the violence of either or both those appetites together from whence it must follow that what we call prowess or natural courage in creatures is nothing but the effect of anger and that all fierce animals must either be very ravenous or very lustful if not both let us now examine what by this rule we ought to judge of our own species from the tenderness of man's skin and the great care that is required for years together to rear him from the make of his jaws the evenness of his teeth the breadth of his nails and the slightness of both it is not probable that nature should have designed him for rapine for this reason his hunger is not voracious as it is in beasts of prey neither is he so salacious as other animals that are called so and being besides very industrious to supply his wants he can have no reigning appetite for fear and must consequently be a timorous animal what I have said last must only be understood of man in his savage state for if we examine him as a member of a society and a taut animal we shall find him quite another creature as soon as his pride has room to play and envy, avarice and ambition begin to catch hold of him he is roused from his natural innocence and stupidity as his knowledge increases his desires are enlarged and consequently his wants and appetites are multiplied hence it must follow that he will often be crossed in the pursuit of them and meet with abundance more disappointment to stir up his anger in this than his former condition and man would in a little time become the most hurtful and obnoxious creature in the world if let alone whenever he could overpower his adversary if he had no mischief to fear but from the person that angered him and fear therefore of all governments is by severe punishments to curb his anger when it does hurt and so by increasing his fears prevent the mischief it might produce when various laws to restrain him from using force are strictly executed self preservation must teach him to be peaceable and as it is everybody's business to be as little disturbed as possible his fears will be continually augmented and enlarged as he advances in experience, understanding and foresight the consequence of this must be that as the provocations he will receive to anger will be infinite in the civilized state so his fears to damp it will be the same and thus in a little time he will be taught by his fears to destroy his anger and by art to consult in an opposite method the same self preservation for which nature before had furnished him with anger as well as the rest of his passions the only useful passion then that man is possessive toward the peace and quiet of a society is his fear and the more you work upon it the more orderly and governable he will be for how useful so ever anger may be to man as he is a single creature by himself yet the society has no manner of occasion for it but nature being always the same in the formation of animals produces all creatures as like to those that beget and bear them the way she forms them in and the various influences from without will give her leave and consequently all men whether they are born in courts or forests are susceptible of anger when this passion over comes as among all degrees of people it sometimes does the whole set of fears man has he has true courage and will fight as boldly as a lion or a tiger and at no other time and I shall endeavor to prove courage in man when he is not angry is spurious and artificial it is possible by good government to keep a society always quiet in itself but nobody can ensure peace from without forever the society may have occasion to extend their limits further and enlarge their territories or others may invade theirs or something else will happen that man must be brought to fight for how civilized so ever men may be they never forget force goes beyond reason the politician now must alter his measures and take off some of man's fears he must strive to persuade him that all what was told him before of the barbarity of killing men ceases as soon as these men are enemies to the public and that their adversaries are neither so good nor so strong as themselves these things well managed will seldom fail of drawing the hardiest the most quarrelsome and the most mischievous into combat but unless they are better qualified I will not answer for their behavior there if once you can make them undervalue their enemies you may soon stir them up to anger and while that last they will fight with greater obstinacy than any disciplined troops but if anything happens that was unforeseen and a sudden great noise a tempest or any strange or uncommon accident that seeks to threaten them intervenes fear ceases them disarms their anger and makes them run away to a man this natural courage therefore as soon as people begin to have more wit must be soon exploded in the first place those that have felt the smart of the enemies blows will not always believe what is said to undervalue him and are often not easily provoked to anger secondly anger consisting in an ebullition of the spirits is a passing of no long continuance ira furor brevis est the enemies if they withstand the first shock of these angry people have commonly the better of it thirdly as long as people are angry all council and discipline are lost upon them and they can never be brought to use their art or conduct in their battles anger then without which no creature has natural courage being all together useless in a war to be managed by stratagem and brought into a regular art the government must find out an equivalent for courage that will make men fight whoever would civilize men and establish them into a body politic must be thoroughly acquainted with all the passions and appetites strengths and weaknesses of their frame and understand how to turn their greatest frailties to the advantage of the public in the inquiry into the origin of moral virtue I have shown how easily men were induced to believe anything that is said in their praise if therefore a law giver or politician whom they have great veneration for should tell them that the generality of men had within them a principle of valor distinct from anger or any other passion that made them to despise danger and face death itself with intrepidity and that they who had the most of it with the most valuable of their kind it is very likely considering what has been said that most of them though they felt nothing of this principle would swallow it for truth and that the proudest feeling themselves moved at this piece of flattery and not well versed in distinguishing the passions might imagine that they felt it heaving in their breasts by mistaking pride for courage if but one in ten can be persuaded openly to declare that he is possessed of this principle and maintain it against all gainsayers there will soon be half a dozen that shall assert the same whoever has once owned it is engaged the politician has nothing to do but take all imaginable care to those that brag of and are willing to stand by it a thousand different ways the same pride that drew him in first will ever after oblige him to defend the assertion to let last the fear of discovering the reality of his heart comes to be so great that it out does the fear of death itself do but increase a man's pride and his fear of shame will ever be proportioned to it for the greater value a man sets upon himself the more pains he will take and the greater hardships he will undergo to avoid shame the great art to make man courageous is first to make him own this principle of valor within and afterwards to inspire him with as much horror against shame as nature has given him against death and that there are things to which man has or may have a stronger a version than he has to death is evident from suicide he that makes death his choice must look upon it as less terrible than what he shuns by it for whether the evil dreaded be present or to come real or imaginary nobody would kill himself willfully but to avoid something Lucretia held out bravely against all the attacks of the ravisher even when he threatened her life which shows that she valued her virtue beyond it but when he threatened her reputation with eternal infamy she fairly surrendered and then slew herself a certain sign that she valued her virtue and her life less than either the fear of death did not make her yield for she resolved to die before she did it and her compliance must only be considered as a bribe to make Tarquin for bear selling her reputation so that life had neither the first nor second place in the esteem of Lucretia the courage then which is only useful to the body politic and that what is generally called true valor is artificial and consist in a superlative horror against shame by flattery infused into men of exalted pride as soon as the notions of honor and shame are received among a society it is not difficult to make man fight first take care they are persuaded of the justice of their cause for no man fights heartily that thinks himself in the wrong then show them that their altars their possessions, wives, children and everything that is near and dear to them is concerned in the present quarrel at least maybe influenced by it hereafter then put feathers in their caps and distinguish them from others talk of public spiritedness the love of their country facing an enemy with intrepidity despising death the bed of honor and such like high sounding words and every proud man will take up arms and fight himself to death before he will turn tail if it be by daylight one man in an army is a check upon another and a hundred of them the witness would all be cowards or for fear of incurring one another's contempt made valiant by being together to continue and heighten this artificial courage all that run away ought to be punished with ignominy those that fought well whether they did beat or were beaten must be flattered and solemnly commended those that lost their limbs rewarded and those that were killed ought above all to be taken notice of artfully lamented extraordinary incomiums bestowed upon them for to pay honors to the dead will ever be a sure method to make bubbles of the living when I say that the courage made use of in the wars is artificial I do not imagine that by the same art all men may be made equally valiant as men have not an equal share of pride and differ from one another in shape and inward structure it is impossible they should all be equally fit for the same uses some men will never be able to learn music and yet make good mathematicians others will play excellently well upon the violin and yet be cocks comes as long as they live let them converse with whom they please but to show that there is no evasion I shall prove that setting aside what I said of artificial courage already what the greatest hero differs in from the rankest coward is altogether corporeal and depends upon the inward make of the man what I mean is called constitution by which it is understood the orderly or disorderly mixture of the fluids in our body that constitution which favors courage consists in the natural strength elasticity and due texture of the finer spirits and upon them wholly depends what we call steadfastness resolution and obstinacy it is the only ingredient that is common to natural and artificial bravery and is to either what size is to white walls that hinders them from coming off and makes them lasting that some people are very much others very little frightened at things that are strange and sudden to them is likewise altogether owing to the firmness or imbecility in the tone of the spirits pride is of no use in a fright because while it lasts we cannot think which being counted a disgrace is the reason people is always angry with anything that frightens them as soon as the surprise is over and when at the turn of a battle we see of no quarter and are very cruel it is to sign their enemies fought well and to put them first into great fears that resolution depends upon this tone of the spirits appears likewise from the effects of strong liquors the fiery particles whereof crowding into the brain strengthen the spirits their operation imitates that of anger which I said before was an abolition of the spirits it is for this reason that most people when they are in drink are sooner touched and more prone to anger than at other times and some raving mad without any provocation at all it is likewise observed that brandy makes men more quarrelsome at the same pitch of drunkenness than wine because the spirits of distilled waters have abundance of fiery particles mixed with them which the other has not the contexture of spirits is so weak in some that though they have pride enough no art can ever make them fight or overcome their fears but this is a defect in the principle of the fluids as other deformities are faults of the solids these pusillanimous people are never thoroughly provoked to anger where there is any danger and drinking makes them bolder but seldom so resolute as to attack any unless they be women or children or such who they know dare not resist this constitution is often influenced by health and sickness and impaired by great losses of blood directed by diet and it is this which the Duke de la Rochefoucau means when he says vanity, shame, and above all constitution make up very often the courage of men and virtue of women there is nothing that more improves the useful martial courage I treat of and at the same time shows it to be artificial than practice for when men are disciplined come to be acquainted with all the tools of death and engines of destruction when the shouts, the outcries the fire and smoke, the groans of wounded and ghostly looks of dying men with all the various scenes of mangled carcasses and bloody limbs tore off begin to be familiar to them their fear abates a pace not that they are now less afraid to die than before but being used so often to see the same dangers they apprehend the reality of them less than they did as they are deservedly valued for every siege they are at or in, it is impossible but the several actions they share in must continually become as many solid steps by which their pride mounts up and thus their fear of shame as I said before will always be proportional to their pride increasing as the apprehension of the danger decreases it is no wonder that most of them learn to discover little or no fear and some great generals are able to preserve a presence of mind and counterfeit a calm serenity of noise, horror, and confusion that attend a battle so silly a creature is man as that, intoxicated with the fumes of vanity, he can feast on the thoughts of the praises that shall be paid his memory in future ages with so much ecstasy as to neglect his present life nay, court and covet death if he but imagines that it will add to the glory he had acquired before there is no pitch of self-denial that a man of pride and prostitution cannot reach nor any passion so violent but he will sacrifice it to another which is superior to it and here I cannot but admire the simplicity of some good men who when they hear of the joy and the lackity with which holy men in persecutions have suffered for their faith imagine that such constancy must exceed all human force unless it was supported by some miraculous assistance from heaven as most people are willing to acknowledge all the frailties of their species so they are unacquainted with the strength of our nature and know not that some men affirm constitution may work themselves up into enthusiasm by no other help than the violence of their passions yet it is certain that there have been men who only assisted with pride in constitution to maintain the worst of causes have undergone death and torments with as much cheerfulness as the best of men animated with piety and devotion ever did for the true religion to prove this assertion I could produce many instances but one or two will be sufficient Giordano's Bruno of Nola who wrote that silly piece of blasphemy called spasio della bestia triomfante and the infamous vanini were both executed for openly professing and teaching of atheism the latter might have been pardoned the moment before his execution if he would have retracted his doctrine but rather than recant he chose to be burnt to ashes as he went to the stake he was so far from showing any concern that he held his hand out to a physician whom he happened to know desiring him to judge of the calmness of his mind by the regularity of his pulse and from thence taking an opportunity of making an impious comparison uttered a sentence too excruble to be mentioned to these we may join one Muhammad who as Sir Paul Rickout tells us was put to death at Constantinople for having advanced some notions against the existence of a god he likewise might have saved his life by confessing his error and renouncing it for the future but chose rather to persist in his blasphemies saying though he had no reward to expect the love of truth constrained him to suffer martyrdom in its defense I have made this digression chiefly to show the strength of human nature and what mere man may perform by pride and constitution alone man may certainly be as violently roused by his vanity as a lion is by his anger and not only this avarice revenge ambition and almost every passion pity not accepted when they are extraordinary may by overcoming fear serve him instead of valor and be mistaken for it even by himself as daily experience must teach everybody that we'll examine and look into the motives from which some men act but that we may more clearly perceive what this pretended principle is really built upon let us look into the management of military affairs and we shall find that pride is nowhere so openly encouraged as there as for clothes the very lowest of the commission officers have them richer or at least more gay and splendid than are generally war by other people of four or five times their income and especially those that have families and can hardly subsist would be very glad all Europe over to be less expensive that way but it is a force put upon them to uphold their pride which they do not think on but the ways and means to rouse man's pride and catch him by it are nowhere more grossly conspicuous than in the treatment which the common soldiers receive whose vanity is to be worked upon because there must be so many deepest rate imaginable things we are accustomed to we do not mind or else what mortal that had never seen a soldier could look without laughing upon a man accoutured with so much paltry godliness and affected finery the coarsest manufacture that can be made of wool died of a brick dust color goes down with him because it is an imitation of scarlet or crimson cloth and to make him think himself as like his officer as it is possible with little cost instead of silver or gold lace his hat is trimmed with white or yellow worsted which in others would deserve bedlam yet these fine allurements and the noise made upon a calf skin have drawn in and been the destruction of more men in reality than all the killing eyes and bewitching voices of women ever slew in jest today the swine herd puts on his red coat and believes everybody in earnest that calls him gentlemen and two days after sergeant he gives him a swinging wrap with his cane for holding his musket an inch higher than he should do as to the real dignity of the employment in the last two wars officers when recruits were wanted were allowed to list fellows that were convicted of burglary and other capital crimes which shows that to be made a soldier is deemed to be a preferment next to hanging a trooper is yet worse than a foot soldier for when he is most at ease he has the mortification of being groomed by a horse that spends more money than himself when a man reflects on all this the uses they generally receive from their officers their pay and the care that is taken of them when they are not wanted must he not wonder how wretches can be so silly as to be proud of being called gentlemen soldiers yet if there were not no art discipline or money would be capable of making them so brave as thousands of them are if we will mind what affects man's bravery without any other qualifications to sweeten him would have out of an army we shall find that it would be very pernicious to the civil society for if man could conquer all his fears you would hear of nothing but rapes, murders and violences of all sorts and valiant men would be like giants and romances politics therefore discovered in men a mixed metal principle which was a compound of justice, honesty and all the moral virtues joined to courage and all that were possessed turned knights errant of course they did abundance of good throughout the world by taming monsters delivering the distressed and killing the oppressors but the wings of all the dragons being clipped the giants destroyed and the damsels everywhere set at liberty except some few in Spain and Italy who remain still captivated by their monsters the order of chivalry to whom the standard of ancient honor belonged has been laid aside some time it was like their armors very massy and heavy the many virtues about it made it very troublesome and as ages grew wiser and wiser the principle of honor in the beginning of the last century was melted over again and brought to a new standard they put in the same weight of courage half the quantity of honesty and a very little justice but not a scrap of any other virtue which has made it very easy and portable to what it was however such as it is we know living without it in a large nation it is the tie of society and though we are beholden to our frailties for the chief ingredient of it there is no virtue at least that I am acquainted with that has been half so instrumental to the civilizing of mankind who in great societies would soon degenerate into cruel villains and treacherous slaves were honored to be removed from among them as to the dueling part which belongs to it I pity the unfortunate whose lot it is but to say that those who are guilty of it go by false rules or mistake the notions of honor is ridiculous for either there is no honor at all or it teaches men to resent injuries and accept of challenges you may as well deny that it is the fashion what you see everybody wear as to say that demanding and giving satisfaction is against the laws of true honor those that rail at dueling do not consider the benefit the society receives from that fashion if every ill bread fellow might use what language he pleased without being called to account for it all conversation would be spoiled some grave people tell us that the Greeks and Romans were such valiant men and yet knew nothing of dueling but in their country's quarrel this is very true but for that reason the kings and princes and Homer gave one another worse language than our porters and hackney coachmen would be able to bear without resentment would you hinder dueling pardon nobody that offends that way and make the laws as severe as you can but do not take away the thing itself the custom of it this will not only prevent the frequency of it but likewise by rendering the most resolute and most powerful cautious and circumspect in their behavior polish and brighten society in general nothing civilizes a man equally as his fear and if not all as my lord Rochester said at least most men would be cowards if they durst the dread of being called to an account keeps abundance in awe and there are thousands of mannerly and well accomplished gentlemen in Europe who would have been insolent and insupportable coxcomes without it besides if it was out of fashion to ask satisfaction for injuries which the law cannot take hold of they would be twenty times the mischief done there is now or else you must have twenty times the constables and other officers to keep the peace I confess that though it happens but seldom it is a calamity to the people and generally the families it falls upon but there can be no perfect happiness in this world and all felicity has an LA the act itself is uncharitable but when above thirty in a nation destroy themselves in one year and not half that number are killed by others I do not think the people can be said to love their neighbors worse than themselves it is strange that a nation should grudge to see perhaps half a dozen men sacrificed in a twelve month to obtain so valuable blessing as the politeness of manners the pleasure of conversation and the happiness of company in general that is often so willing to expose and sometimes loses as many thousands in a few hours without knowing whether it will do any good or not I would have nobody that reflects on the mean original of honor complain of being gold and made a property by cunning politicians but desire everybody to be satisfied that the governors of all societies and those in high stations are greater bubbles to pride than any of the rest if some great men had not a superlative pride and everybody understood the enjoyment of life who would be a lord chancellor of England a prime minister of state in France or what gives more fatigue and not a sixth part of the profit of either a grand pensionary of Holland the reciprocal services which all men pay to one another are the foundation of the society the great ones are not flattered with their high berth for nothing it is to rouse their pride and excite them to glorious actions that we extol their race whether it deserves it or not and some men have been complimented with the greatness of their family and the merit of their ancestors when in the whole generation you could not find two but what were luxurious fools, silly bigots devoted poaltrons or debauched whoremasters the established pride that is inseparable from those that are possessed of titles already makes them often strive as much not to seem unworthy of them as the working ambition of others that are yet without renders them industrious and indefatigable to deserve them when a gentleman is made a baron or an earl it is a great check upon him in many respects as a gown and cassock are to a young student really taken into orders the only thing of weight that can be said against modern honor is that it is directly opposite to religion the one bids you bear injuries with patience the other tells you if you do not resent them you are not fit to live religion commands you to leave all revenge to god honor bids you to trust your revenge to nobody but yourself even where law would do it for you religion plainly forbids murder honor openly justifies it religion bids you not shed blood upon any account whatever honor bids you fight for the least trifle religion is built on humility and honor upon pride how to reconcile them must be left to wiser heads than mine the reason why there are so few men of real virtue and so many of real honor is because all the recompense a man has of a virtuous action is the pleasure of doing it which most people reckon but poor pay but the self-denial a man of honor submits to in one appetite is immediately rewarded by the satisfaction he receives from another and what he abates of his avarice or any other passion is doubly repaid to his pride besides honor gives large grains of allowance and virtue none a man of honor must not cheat or tell a lie he must punctually repay what he borrows at play a predator has nothing to show for it but he may drink and swear and owe money to all the tradesmen in town without taking notice of their dunning a man of honor must be true to his prince and country while he is in their service but if he thinks himself not well used he may quit it and do them all the mischief he can a man of honor must never change his religion for interest but he may be as debauched as he pleases and never practice any he must make no attempts upon his friends daughter sister or anybody that is trusted to his care but he may lie with all the world besides end of section 19 section 20 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville this LibriVox recording is in the public domain line 353 no limner for his art is famed stone cutters carvers are not named it is without doubt that among the consequences of a national honesty and frugality it would be one not to build any new houses or else use new materials as long as there were old ones enough to serve by this three parts and four of masons, carpenters, bricklayers et cetera would want employment and the building trade being once destroyed what would become of limning, carving, and other arts that are ministering to luxury and have been carefully forbidden by those lawgivers that preferred a good and honest to a great and wealthy society and endeavored to render their subjects rather virtuous than rich by a law of lycurgus it was enacted that the ceilings of the spartan houses should only be wrought by the axe and their gates and doors only smoothed by the saw and this as Plutarch was not without mystery for if Epemynandus could say with so good a grace inviting some of his friends to his table come gentlemen be secure treason would never come to such a poor dinner as this why might not this great lawgiver in all probability have thought that such ill-favored houses would never be capable of receiving luxury and superfluity it is reported as the same author tells us that Leo Ticadas, the first of that name was so little used to the sight of carved work that being entertained at Corinth in a stately room he was much surprised to see the timber and ceilings so finely wrought and asked his host whether the trees grew so in his country the same want of employment would reach innumerable callings and among the rest that of the weavers that joined rich silk with plate and all the trades subordinate as the fable has it would be one of the first that should have reason to complain for the price of wasted houses being by the removal of the vast numbers that had left the hive sunk very low on the one side and everybody abhorring all other ways of gain but such as were strictly honest on the other it is not probable that many without pride or prodigality should be able to wear cloth of gold and silver or rich brocades the consequence of which would be that not only the weaver but likewise the silver spinner drawer the barman and the refiner would in a little time be affected with this frugality end of section 20 section 21 of the fable of the bees by Bernard Mandeville this LibriVox recording is in the public domain line 367 to live great had made her husband robbed the state what are common rogues when they are going to be hanged chiefly complain of as the cause of their untimely end is next to neglect of the Sabbath they're having kept company with ill women meaning whores and I do not question but that among the lesser villains many venture their necks to indulge and satisfy their low amours but the words that have given occasion to this remark may serve to hint to us that among the great ones men are often put upon such dangerous projects and forced into such pernicious measures by their wives as the most subtle mistress never could have persuaded them to I have shown already that the worst of women and the most profligate of the sex did contribute to the consumption of superfluities as well as the necessaries of life and consequently were beneficial to many peaceable drudges that work hard to maintain their families and have no worse design than an honest livelihood let them be banished notwithstanding says a good man whenever he strumpet is gone and the land wholly freed from lewdness God Almighty will pour such blessings upon it as will vastly exceed the profits that are now got by harlots this perhaps would be true but I can make it evident that with or without prostitutes nothing could make amends for the detriment trade would sustain if all those of that sex who enjoy the happy state of matrimony should act and behave themselves as a sober wise man could wish them the variety of work that is performed and the number of hands employed to gratify the fickleness and luxury of women is prodigious and if only the married one should hearken to reason and just remonstrances think themselves sufficiently answered with the first refusal and never ask a second time what had been once denied them if I say married women would do this and then lay out no money but what their husbands knew and freely allowed of the consumption of a thousand things they now make use of would be lessened by at least a fourth part let us go from house to house and observe the way of the world only among the middling people creditable shopkeepers that spend two or three hundred a year and we shall find the women when they have half a score suits of clothes two or three of them not the worst for wearing will think it is a sufficient plea for new ones if they can say that they have never a gown or petticoat but what they have been often seen in and are known by especially at church I do not now speak of profuse extravagant women but such as are counted prudent and moderate in their desires if by this pattern we should in proportion judge of the highest ranks where the richest clothes are but a trifle of their expenses and not forget the furniture of all sorts equipages jewels and buildings of persons of quality we should find the fourth part I speak of a vast article in trade and that the loss of it would be a greater calamity to such a nation as ours then it is possible to conceive any other a raging pestilence not accepted for the death of half a million people could not cause a tenth part of the disturbance to the kingdom number of poor and employed would certainly create if at once they were to be added to those that already one way or other are a burden to the society some few men have a real passion for their wives and are fond of them without reserve others that do not care and have little occasion for women are yet seemingly exurious and love out of vanity they take delight in a handsome wife as a coxcomb does in a fine horse not for the use he makes of it but because it is his the pleasure lies in the consciousness of an uncontrollable possession and what follows from it the reflection on the mighty thoughts he imagines others to have of his happiness the men of either sort may be very lavish to their wives and often preventing their wishes crowd new clothes and other finery upon them faster than they can ask it but the greatest part are wiser builds the extravagances of their wives so far as to give them immediately everything they are pleased to fancy it is incredible what vast quantity of trinkets as well as apparel are purchased and used by women which they could never have come at by any other means than pinching their families marketing and other ways of cheating and pilfering from their husbands others by ever teasing their spouses tire them into compliance and conquer even obstinate churls by perseverance and their assiduity of asking a third sort are outrageous at a denial and by downright noise and scolding bully their tame fools out of anything they have a mind to while thousands by the force of weedling know how to overcome the best weighed reasons and the most positive reiterated refusals the young and beautiful especially laugh at all remonstrances and denials and few of them scruple to employ the most tender minutes of wedlock to promote a sordid interest here had I time I could in vay with warmth against those base those wicked women who calmly play their art and false deluding charms against our strength and prudence and act the harlots with their husbands nay she is worse than a whore who impiously profanes and prostitutes the sacred rites of love to vile ignoble ends that first excites to passion and invites to joy with seeming ardor then racks our fondness for no other purpose than to extort a gift while full of guile and counterfeited transports she watches for the moment when men can least deny I beg pardon for this start out of my way and desire the experienced reader duly to weigh what has been said as to the main purpose and after that call to mine the temporal blessings which men daily hear not only toasted and wished for when people are merry and doing of nothing but likewise gravely and solemnly prayed for in churches and other religious assemblies by clergymen of all sorts and sizes and as soon as he shall have laid these things together and from what he has observed in the common affairs of life reasoned upon them consequentially without prejudice I dare flatter myself that he will be obliged then that a considerable portion of what the prosperity of London and trade in general and consequently the honor, strength safety and all the worldly interest of the nation consistent depend entirely on the deceit and vile stratagems of women and that humility content meekness, obedience to reasonable husbands, frugality and all the virtues together if they were possessed of them in the most eminent degree and not possibly be a thousandth part so serviceable to make an opulent powerful and what we call a flourishing kingdom than their most hateful qualities I do not question but many of my readers will be startled at this assertion when they look on the consequences that may be drawn from it and I shall be asked whether people may not as well be virtuous in a populist rich wide extended kingdom as in a small indigent state or principality that is poorly inhabited and if that be impossible whether it is not the duty of all sovereigns to reduce their subjects as to wealth and numbers as much as they can if I allow they may I own myself in the wrong and if I affirm the other my tenets will justly be called impious or at least dangerous to all large societies as it is not in this place of the book only but a great many others that such queries might be made even by a well meaning reader I shall here explain myself and endeavor to solve these difficulties which several passages might have raised in him in order to demonstrate the consistency of my opinion to reason and the strictest morality I lay down as a first principle that in all societies great or small it is the duty of every member of it to be good that virtue ought to be encouraged vice-discountenanced the laws obeyed and the transgressors punished after this I affirm that if we consult history both ancient and modern and take a view of what has passed in the world we shall find that human nature since the fall of Adam has always been the same and that the strength and frailties of it have ever been conspicuous in one part of the globe or other without any regard to ages climates or religion I never said nor imagined that man could not be virtuous well in a rich and mighty kingdom as in the most pitiful commonwealth but I own it is my sense that no society can be raised into such a rich and mighty kingdom or so raised subsist in their wealth and power for any considerable time without the vices of man this I imagine is sufficiently proved throughout the book and as human nature still continues the same as it has always been for so many thousand years we have no great reason to suspect a future change in it while the world endures now I cannot see what immorality there is in showing a man the origin and power of those passions which so often even unknowingly to himself hurry him away from his reason or that there is any impiety in putting him upon his guard against himself and the secret stratagems of self love and teaching him the difference between such actions as proceed from a victory over the passions and those that are only the result of a conquest which one passion obtains over another that is between real and counterfeited virtue it is an admirable saying of a worthy divine that though many discoveries have been made in the world of self love yet there is abundance of terra incognita left behind what hurt do I do to man if I make him more known to himself than he was before but we are also desperately in love with flattery that we can never relish a truth that is mortifying and I do not believe that the immortality of the soul a truth broached long before Christianity would have ever found such a general reception in human capacities as it has had it not been a pleasing one that extolled and it was a compliment to the whole species the meanest and most miserable not accepted everyone loves to hear the thing well spoke of that he has a share in even bailiffs jail keepers and the hangman himself would have you think well of their functions nay thieves and housebreakers have a greater regard to those of their fraternity than they have for honest people and I sincerely believe that it is chiefly self love that has gained this little treatise as it were before the last impression so many enemies everyone looks upon it as an affront done to himself because it detracts from the dignity and lessens the fine notions he has conceived of mankind the most worshipful company he belongs to when I say that societies cannot be raised to wealth and power and the top of earthly glory without vices I do not think that by so saying I bid the men be vicious any more than I bid them be quarrelsome or covetous when I affirm that the profession of the law could not be maintained in such numbers and splendor if there was not abundance of too selfish and litigious people but as nothing would more clearly demonstrate the falsity of my notions than that the generality of the people should fall in with them so I do not expect the approbation of the multitude I write not to many nor seek for any well-wishers I bring the few that can think abstractly and have their minds elevated above the vulgar if I have shown the way to worldly greatness I have always, without hesitation preferred the road that leads to virtue would you banish fraud and luxury prevent profaneness and irreligion and make the generality of the people charitable good and virtuous break down the printing press melt the founds and burn all the books in the island accept those at the universities where they remain unmolested and suffer no volume in private hands but a Bible knock down foreign trade prohibit all commerce with strangers and permit no ships to go to sea that ever will return beyond fisherboats restore to the clergy the king and the barons their ancient privileges prerogatives and professions build new churches and convert all the coin you can come at into sacred utensils erect monasteries and alms houses in abundance and let no parish be without a charity school enact sumptuary laws and let your youth be enured to hardship inspire them with all the nice and most refined notions of honor and shame a friendship and of heroism and introduce among them a great variety of imaginary rewards then let the clergy preach abstinence and self-denial to others and take what liberty they please for themselves let them bear the greatest sway in the management of state affairs and no man be made lord treasurer but a bishop but by such pious endeavors and wholesome regulations the scene would soon be altered the greatest part of the covetous the discontented the restless and ambitious villains would leave the land vast swarms of cheating naves would abandon the city and be dispersed throughout the country artificers would learn to hold the plow, merchants turn farmers and the sinful overgrown Jerusalem without famine war, pestilence or compulsion be emptied in the most easy manner and ever after cease to be dreadful to her sovereigns the happy reformed kingdom would by this means be crowded in no part of it and everything necessary for the sustenance of man be cheap and bound on the contrary the root of so many thousand evils, money, would be very scarce and as little wanted where every man should enjoy the fruits of his own labor and our own dear manufacture unmixed be promiscuously war by the lord and the peasant it is impossible that such a change of circumstances should not influence the manners of a nation and render them temperate, honest and sincere and from the next generation we might reasonably expect a more healthy and robust offspring than the present and harmless, innocent and well meaning people that would never dispute the doctrine of passive obedience nor any other orthodox principles but be submissive to superiors and unanimous in religious worship here I fancy myself interrupted by an epicure who, not to want a restorative diet in case of necessity, is never without life or tolens and I am told that goodness and probity are to be had at a cheaper rate than the ruin of a nation and the destruction of all the comforts of life that liberty and property may be maintained without wickedness or fraud and men be good subjects without being slaves and religious though they refuse to be priest rid that to be frugal in saving is a duty incumbent only on those who circumstances require it but that a man of a good estate does his country a service by living up to the income of it that as to himself he is so much master of his appetites that he can abstain from anything upon occasion that where the true hermitage was not to be had he could content himself with plain bordeaux of a good body that many a morning instead of St. Lawrence he is made a shift with frontenac and after dinner given cypress wine and even madira when he has had a large company and thought it extravagant to treat with taquet but that all voluntary mortifications are superstitious only belonging to blind zealots and enthusiasts he will quote my lord shaftsbury against me and tell me that people may be virtuous without self-denial that it is an affront to virtue to make it inaccessible that I make a bugbear of it to frighten men from it as a thing impracticable but that for his part he can praise God and at the same time enjoy his creatures with a good conscience neither will he forget anything to his purpose of what I have said he will ask me at last whether the legislature the wisdom of the nation itself while they endeavor as much as possible to discourage profaneness and immorality and promote the glory of God do not openly profess at the same time to have nothing more at heart than the ease and welfare of the subject the wealth, strength, honor and what else is called the true interest of the country and moreover whether the most devout and most learned of our prelates in their greatest concern for our conversion when they beseech the deity to turn their own as well as our hearts from the world and all carnal desires do not in the same prayer as loudly solicit him to pour all earthly blessings and temporal felicity on the kingdom they belong to these are the apologies the excuses and common pleas not only of those who are notoriously vicious but the generality of mankind when you touch the copy hold of their inclinations and trying the real value they have for spirituals would actually strip them of what their minds are wholly bent upon ashamed of the many frailties they feel within all men endeavor to hide themselves their ugly nakedness from each other and wrapping up the true motives of their hearts in the specious cloak of sociableness and their concern for the public good they are in hopes of concealing their filthy appetites and the deformity of their desires while they are conscious within of the fondness for their darling lusts and their incapacity bare faced to tread the arduous rugged path of virtue as to the last two questions I own they are very puzzling to what the epicure asks I am obliged to answer in the affirmative and unless I would which God forbid arraign the sincerity of kings, bishops and the whole legislative power the objection stands good against me all I can say for myself is that in the connection of the facts there is a mystery past human understanding and to convince the reader that this is no evasion I shall illustrate the incomprehensibility of it in the following parable in old heathen times there was they say a whimsical country where the people talked much of religion and the greatest part as the outward appearance really devout the chief moral evil among them was thirst and to quench it a damnable sin yet they unanimously agreed that everyone was born thirsty more or less small beer and moderation was allowed to all and he was counted a hypocrite a cynic or a madman who pretended that one could live all together without it yet those who owned they loved it and drank to excess were counted wicked and this while the beer itself was reckoned a blessing from heaven and there was no harm in the use of it all the enormity lay in the abuse the motive of the heart that made them drink it he that took the least drop of it to quench his thirst committed a heinous crime while others drank large quantities without any guilt so they did it indifferently and for no other reason than to mend their complexion they brewed for other countries and for the small beer they sent abroad they received large returns of Westphalia hams Neat tongues, hung beef and bologna sausages, red herrings pickled sturgeon, caviar anchovies and everything that was proper to make their liquor go down with pleasure those who kept great stores of small beer by them without making use of it were generally envied and at the same time very odious to the public and nobody was easy but not enough of it come to his own share the greatest calamity they thought could befall them was to keep their hops and barley upon their hands and the more they yearly consumed of them the more they reckoned the country to flourish the government had many very wise regulations concerning the returns that were made for their exports encouraged very much the importation of salt and pepper and laid heavy duties on everything that was not well seasoned and might anyways obstruct the sale of their own hops and barley those at the helm when they acted in public showed themselves on all accounts exempt and wholly divested from thirst made several laws to prevent the growth of it and punished the wicked who openly dared to quench it if you examine them in their private persons and pride narrowly into their lives and conversations they seemed to be more fond or at least drank larger drafts but always under pretense that the mending of complexions required greater quantities of liquor in them than it did those they ruled over and that what they had chiefly at heart without any regard to themselves was to procure a great plenty of small beer among the subjects in general and a great demand for their hops and barley as nobody was debarred from small beer the clergy made use of it as well as the laity and some of them very plentifully yet all of them desired to be thought less thirsty by their function than others and never would own that they drank any but to mend their complexions in their religious assemblies they were more sincere for as soon as they came there they all openly confessed the clergy as well as the laity from the highest to the lowest that they were thirsty that mending their complexions was what they minded the least and that all their hearts were set upon small beer and quenching their thirst whatever they might pretend the contrary what was remarkable is that to have laid hold of those truths to anyone's prejudice and made use of those confessions afterwards out of their temples would be counted very impertinent and everybody thought it and heinous affront to be called thirsty though you had seen him drink small beer by whole gallons the chief topics of their preachers was the great evil of thirst and the folly there wasn't quenching it they exhorted their hearers to resist the temptations of it invade against small beer and often told them it was poison if they drank it with pleasure or any other design than to mend their complexions in their acknowledgements to the gods they thanked them for the plenty of comfortable small beer they had received from them not withstanding they had so little deserved it and continually quenched their thirst with it whereas they were so thoroughly satisfied that it was given them for a better use having begged pardon for those offenses they desired the gods to lessen their thirst and give them strength to resist the importunities of it yet in the midst of their sourest repentance and most humble supplications they never forgot small beer and prayed that they might continue to have it in great plenty with the solemn promise that how neglectful so ever they might hither to have been in this point they would for the future not drink a drop of it with any other design than to mend their complexions these were standing petitions put together to last and having continued to be made use of without any alterations for several hundred years together it was thought by some that the gods who understood futurity and knew that the same promise they heard in June would be made to them in January following did not rely much more on those vows than we do on those waggish inscriptions by which men offer us their goods today for money and tomorrow for nothing they often began their prayers very mystically and spoke many things in a spiritual sense yet they were never so abstract from the world in them as to end one without beseeching the gods to bless and prosper the brewing trade in all its branches and for the good of the whole more and more to increase the consumption of hops and barley End of section 21