 section 40 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Horatio, I wonder you should talk of teaching and lay so great a stress on a thing that comes so naturally to us as thinking no action is performed with greater velocity by everybody as quick as thought is a proverb and in less than a moment a stupid peasant may remove his ideas from London to Japan as easily as the greatest wit Cleomenes, yet there is nothing in which men differ so immensely from one another as they do in the exercise of this faculty the differences between them in height, bulk, strength and beauty are trifling in comparison to that which I speak of and there is nothing in the world more valuable or more plainly perceptible in persons than a happy dexterity of thinking two men may have equal knowledge and yet the one shall speak as well offhand as the other can after two hours study Horatio, I take it for granted that no man would study two hours for a speech if he knew how to make it in less and therefore I cannot see what reason you have to suppose two such persons to be of equal knowledge Cleomenes, there is a double meaning in the word knowing which you seem not to attend to there is a great difference between knowing a violin when you see it and knowing how to play upon it the knowledge I speak of is of the first sort and if you consider it in that sense you must be of my opinion for no study can fetch anything out of the brain that is not there suppose you can see of a short epistle in three minutes which another who can make letters and join them together as fast as yourself is yet an hour about though both of you write the same thing it is plain to me that the slow person knows as much as you do at least it does not appear that he knows less he has received the same images but he cannot come at them or at least not dispose them in that order so soon as yourself when we see two exercises of equal goodness either in prose or verse if the one is made extempore and we are sure of it and the other has cost two days labor the author of the first is a person of finer natural parts than the other though their knowledge for ought we know is the same you see then the difference between knowledge as it signifies the treasure of images received and knowledge or rather skill to find out those images when we want them and work them readily to our purpose Horatio, when we know a thing and cannot readily think of it or bring it to mind I thought that was the fault of the memory Cleomenes, so it may be in part but there are men of prodigious learning that have likewise great memories who judge ill and seldom say anything apropos or say it when it is too late among the beliones liberorum the cormorants of books there are wretched reasoners that have canine appetites and no digestion what numbers of learned fools do we not meet with in large libraries from whose works it is evident that knowledge must have lain in their heads as furniture at an upholders and the treasure of the brain was a burden to them instead of an ornament all this proceeds from a defect in the faculty of thinking an unskillfulness and want of aptitude and managing to the best advantage the ideas we have received we see others on the contrary that have very fine sense and no literature at all the generality of women are quicker of invention and more ready at repartee than the men with equal helps of education and it is surprising to see what a considerable figure some of them make in conversation when we consider the small opportunities they have had of acquiring knowledge Horatio, but sound judgment is a great rarity among them Cleomenes, only for want of practice application and assiguity thinking on abstruse matters is not their province in life and as the stations they are commonly placed in find them other employment but there is no labor of the brain which women are not as capable of performing at least as well as the men with the same assistance if they set about and persevere in it sound judgment is no more than the result of that labor he that uses himself to take things to pieces to compare them together to consider them abstractly and impartially that is, he who of two propositions he is to examine seems not to care which is true he that lays the whole stress of his mind on every part alike and puts the same thing in all the views it can be seen in he I say that employs himself most often in this exercise is most likely ceteris paribus to acquire what we call a sound judgment the workmanship and the make of women seems to be more elegant and better finished the features are more delicate the voice is sweeter the whole outside of them is more curiously woeve than they are in men and the difference in the skin between theirs and ours is the same as there is between fine cloth and coarse there is no reason to imagine that nature should have been more neglectful of them out of sight than she has where we can trace her and not have taken the same care of them in the formation of the brain as to the nicety of the structure and superior accuracy in the fabric which is so visible in the rest of their frame Horatio beauty is their attribute as strength is ours Cleomenes how minute so ever those particles of the brain are that contain several images and are assisting in the operation of thinking there must be a difference in the justness the symmetry and exactness of them between one person and another as well as there is in the grosser parts what the women excel us in then is the goodness of the instrument either in the harmony or pliableness of the organs which must be very material in the art of thinking and is the only thing that deserves the name of natural parts since the aptitude I have spoken of depending upon exercise is notoriously acquired Horatio as the workmanship in the brain is rather more curious in women than it is in men so in sheep and oxen dogs and horses I suppose it is infinitely coarser Cleomenes we have no reason to think otherwise Horatio but after all that self that part of us that wills and wishes that chooses one thing rather than another must be incorporeal for if it is matter it must either be one single particle which I can almost feel it is not or a combination of many which is more than inconceivable Cleomenes I do not deny what you say and that the principle of thought and action is inexplicable in all creatures I have hinted already but its being incorporeal does not mend the matter as to the difficulty of explaining or conceiving it that there must be a mutual contact between this principle whatever it is and the body itself is what we are certain of a posteriori and a reciprocal action upon each other between an immaterial substance and matter is as incomprehensible to human capacity that thought should be the result of matter and motion Horatio though many other animals seem to be endued with thought there is no creature we are acquainted with besides man that shows or seems to feel a consciousness of his thinking Cleomenes it is not easy to determine what instincts, properties or capacities other creatures are either possessed or destitute of when those qualifications fall not under our senses but it is highly probable that the principle and most necessary parts of the machine are less elaborate in animals that attain to all the perfection they are capable of in 3, 4, 5 or 6 years at furthest then they are in a creature that hardly comes to maturity its full growth in strength in 5 and 20 the consciousness of a man of 50 that he is the same man that did such a thing at 20 and was once the boy that had such and such masters depends wholly upon the memory that it can never be traced to the bottom I mean that no man remembers anything of himself of what was transacted before he was 2 years old when he was but a novice in the art of thinking and the brain was not yet of a due consistency to retain long the images it received but this remembrance how far so ever it may reach gives us no greater surety of ourselves than we should have of another that had been brought up with us and never above a week or a month out of sight a mother when her son is 30 years old has more reason to know that he is the same whom she brought into the world than himself and such a one who daily minds her son and remembers the alterations of his features from time to time is more certain of him that he was not changed in the cradle than she can be of herself so that all we can know of this consciousness is that it consists in or as the result of the running the rummaging of the spirits through all the mazes of the brain and they are looking there for facts concerning ourselves he that has lost his memory though otherwise in perfect health cannot think better than a fool and is no more conscious that he is the same he was a year ago than he is of a man whom he has known but a fortnight there are several degrees of losing our memory but he who has entirely lost it becomes ipso facto haratio i am conscious of having been the occasion of our rambling a great way from the subject we were upon but i do not repent of it what you have said of the economy of the brain and the mechanical influence of thought upon the grosser parts is a noble theme for contemplation on the infinite unutterable wisdom with which the various instincts are so visibly planted in all animals to fit them for the respective purposes defined for and every appetite is so wonderfully interwoven with the very substance of their frame nothing could be more seasonable after you had showed me the origin of politeness and in the management of self-liking set forth the excellency of our species beyond all other animals so conspicuously in the superlative docility an indefatigable industry by which all multitudes are capable of drawing innumerable benefits as well for the ease and comfort as the welfare and safety of congregate bodies from a most stubborn and unconquerable passion which in its nature seems to be destructive to sociableness and society and never fails in untaught men to render them insufferable to one another Cleomenes by the same method of reasoning from Vax Aposteriori that has laid open to us the nature of self-liking all the rest of the passions may be easily accounted for and become intelligible it is evident that the necessaries of life stand not everywhere, ready dished up before all creatures therefore they have instincts that prompt them to look out for those necessaries and teach them how to come at them the zeal and alacrity to gratify their appetites is always proportioned to the strength and the degree of force with which those instincts are used by every creature but considering the disposition of things upon earth and the multiplicity of animals that have all their own wants to supply it must be obvious that these attempts of creatures to obey the different calls of nature will be often opposed and frustrated and that in many animals they would seldom meet with success if every individual was not endued with a passion that summoning all his strength and being eagerness to overcome the obstacles that hinder him in his great work of self-preservation the passion I describe is called anger how a creature possessed of this passion and self-liking when he sees others enjoy what he wants should be affected with envy can likewise be no mystery after labor the most savage and the most industrious creature seeks rest hence we learn that all of them are furnished more or less with ease exerting their strength tires them and the loss of spirits experience teaches us is best repaired by food and sleep we see that creatures who in their way of living must meet with the greatest opposition have the greatest share of anger and are born with offensive arms if this anger was to employ a creature always without consideration of the danger he exposed himself to he would soon be destroyed for this reason they are all endowed with fear and the lion himself turns tail if the hunters are armed and too numerous from what we observe in the behavior of brutes we have reason to think that among the more perfect animals those of the same species have a capacity on many occasions to make their wants known to one another and we are sure of several not only that they understand one another but likewise that they may be understand us in comparing our species with that of other animals when we consider the make of man and the qualifications that are obvious to him his superior capacity in the faculties of thinking and reflecting beyond other creatures is being capable of learning to speak and the usefulness of his hands and fingers there is no room to doubt that he is more fit for society than any other animal we know Horatio, since you wholly reject the Shaffsbury system I wish you would give me your opinion at large concerning society and the sociableness of man and I will hearken to you with great attention Cleomenes, the cause of sociableness at man that is his fitness for society is no such abstruse matter a person of middling capacity that has some experience and a tolerable knowledge of human nature may soon find it out if his desire of knowing the truth and he will look for it without prepossession but most people that have treated on this subject had a turn to serve and a cause in view which they were resolved to maintain it is very unworthy of a philosopher to say as Hobbes did that man is born unfit for society and alleged no better reason for it than the incapacity that infants come into the world with but some of his adversaries have as far overshot the mark when they asserted that everything which man can attain to ought to be esteemed as a cause of his fitness for society Horatio but is there in the mind of man a natural affection that prompts him to love his species beyond what other animals have for theirs or are we born with hatred and aversion that makes us wolves and bears to one another Cleomenes, I believe neither from what appears to us in human affairs and the works of nature to imagine that the desire as well as aptness of man to associate do not proceed from his love to others then we have to believe that a mutual affection of the planets to one another superior of what they feel to stars more remote is not the true cause why they keep always moving together in the same solar system Horatio you do not believe that the stars have any love for one another I am sure then why more reason because there are no phenomena plainly to contradict this love of the planets and we meet with thousands every day to convince us that man centers everything in himself and neither loves nor hates but for his own sake every individual is a little world by itself and all creatures as far as their understanding and abilities will let them endeavor to make that self happy this in all of them is the continual labor and seems to be the whole design of life hence it follows that in the choice of things men must be determined by the perception they have of happiness and no person can commit or set about an action which at that then present time seems not to be the best to him Horatio what will you then say to Vidao, Meliora, Proboque Deteriora, Secuor Cleomenes that only shows the terpitude of our inclinations but men may say what they please every motion in a free agent which he does not approve of is either convulsive or it is not his I speak of those that are subject to the will when two things are left to a person's choice it is a demonstration that he thinks that most eligible which he chooses how contradictory, impertinent or pernicious, so ever his reason for choosing it may be without this there could be no voluntary suicide injustice to punish men for their crimes Horatio I believe everybody endeavors to be pleased but it is inconceivable that creatures of the same species should differ so much from one another as men do in their notions of pleasure and that some of them should take delight in what is the greatest aversion to others all aim at happiness but the question is where is it to be found Cleomenes it is with complete felicity in this world it is with a philosopher's stone both have been sought after many different ways by wise men as well as fools though neither of them has been obtained hitherto but in searching after either diligent inquirers have often stumbled by chance on useful discoveries of things they did not look for and which human sagacity laboring with design a priori never would have detected multitudes of our species may in any habitable part of the globe assist one another in a common defense and be raised into a politic body in which men shall live comfortably together for many centuries without being acquainted with a thousand things that if known would every one of them be instrumental to render the happiness of the public more complete according to the common notions men have of happiness in one part of the world we have found great and flourishing nations that knew nothing of ships and in others traffic by sea had been in use above two thousand years and navigation had received innumerable improvements before they knew how to sail by the help of the lodestone it would be ridiculous to allege this piece of knowledge either as a reason why man first chose to go to sea or as an argument to prove his natural capacity for maritime affairs to raise a garden it is necessary that we should have a soil and a climate fit for that purpose when we have these we want nothing besides patience but the seeds of vegetables and proper culture fine walks and canals statues, summer houses, fountains and cascades are great improvements on the delights of nature but they are not essential to the existence of a garden all nations must have had mean beginnings and it is in those, the infancy of them that the sociableness of man is as conspicuous as it can be ever after a sociable creature chiefly for two reasons first, because it is commonly imagined that he is naturally more fond and desirous of society than any other creature secondly, because it is manifest that associating in men turns to better account than it possibly could do in other animals if they were to attempt it Horatio, but why do you say of the first that it is commonly imagined? is it not true then? Cleomenes, I have a very good reason for this caution all men born in society are certainly more desirous of it than any other animal but whether man be naturally so that is a question but, if he was, it is no excellency nothing to brag of the love man has for his ease and security and his perpetual desire of mediating his condition must be sufficient motives to make him fond of society concerning the necessitous and helpless condition of his nature Horatio, do you not fall into the same error which you say Hobbes has been guilty of when you talk of men's necessitous and helpless condition? Cleomenes, not at all I speak of men and women full grown and the more extensive their knowledge is the higher their quality and the greater their possessions are the more necessitous and helpless they are in their nature a nobleman of twenty-five or thirty-thousand pounds a year that has three or four which isn't six and above fifty people to serve him is in his person considered singly abstract from what he possesses more necessitous than an obscure man that has but fifty pounds a year and is used to walk a foot so a lady who never stuck a pin in herself and is dressed and undressed from head to foot like a jointed baby by her woman and the assistance of another maid or two is a more helpless creature than doll of the dairymaid or long dresses herself in the dark in less time than the other bestows in placing of her patches Horatio, but is the desire of merely rating our condition which you named so general that no man is without it? Cleomenes, not one that can be called a sociable creature and I believe this to be as much a characteristic of our species as any can be named for there is not a man in the world educated in society who, if he could opposite by wishing, would not have something added to, taken from or altered in his person, possessions, circumstances or any part of the society he belongs to this is what is not to be perceived in any creature but man whose great industry in supplying what he calls his wants could never have been known so well as it is if it had not been for the unreasonable as well as multiplicity of his desires from all which it is manifest that the most civilized people stand most in need of society and consequently none less than savages the second reason for which I said man was called sociable is that associating together turned to better account in our species than it would do in any other if they were to try it to find out the reason of this we must search into human nature for such qualifications as we excel all other animals in and which the generality of men are endued with taught or untaught but in doing this we should neglect nothing that is observable in them from their most early youth to their extreme old age Horatio, I cannot see why you use this precaution of taking in the whole age of man would it not be sufficient to mind those qualifications which he is possessed of when he has come to the height of maturity or his greatest perfection Cleomenes, a considerable part of what is called docility in creatures depends upon the pliableness of the parts and their fitness to be moved with facility which are either entirely lost or very much impaired when they are full grown there is nothing in which our species so far surpasses all others than in the capacity of acquiring the faculty of thinking and speaking well that this is a peculiar property belonging to our nature is very certain yet it is as manifest that this capacity vanishes when we come to maturity if till then it has been neglected the term of life likewise that is commonly enjoyed by our species being longer than it is in most other animals we have a prerogative above them in point of time and man has a greater opportunity of advancing in wisdom though not to be acquired but by his own experience than a creature that lives but half his age though it had the same capacity a man of three score Cedorus paribus knows better to be embraced or avoided in life than a man of thirty what in excusing the follies of youth said of his brother in the adelphi at Omnia alia etate sapimus rectius holds among savages as well as among philosophers it is the concurrence of these with other properties that together compose the sociableness of man but why may not the love of our species be named as one of these properties first because as I have said already it does not appear that we have it beyond other animals secondly because it is out of the question for if we examine into the nature of all bodies politic we shall find that no dependence has ever had or stress laid on any such affection either for the raising or maintaining of them Horatio but the epithet itself the signification of the word imports this love to one another as is manifest from the contrary one who loves solitude is a verse to company or of a singular reserved and selling temper is the very reverse of a sociable man Cleomenes when we compare some men to others the word I own is often used in that sense but when we speak of a quality peculiar to our species and say that man is a sociable creature the word implies no more than that in our nature we have a certain fitness by which great multitudes of us cooperating may be united and formed into one body that in due with and able to make use of the strength skill and prudence of every individual shall govern itself and act on all emergencies as if it was animated by one soul and actuated by one will I am willing to allow that among the motives that prompt man to enter into society there is a desire which he has naturally after company but he has it for his own sake in hopes of being the better for it and he would never wish for either company or anything else but for some advantage or other he proposes to himself from it what I deny is that man naturally has such a desire out of a fondness for his species superior to what other animals have for theirs it is a compliment which we commonly pay to ourselves but there is no more reality in it than in our being one another's animal servants and I insist upon it that this pretended love of our species and natural affection we are said to have for one another beyond other animals is neither instrumental to the erecting of societies nor ever trusted to and our prudent commerce with one another when associated any more than if it had no existence the undoubted basis of all societies is government this truth well examined into will furnish us with all the reasons excellency as to sociableness it is evident from it that creatures to be raised into a community must in the first place be governable this is a qualification that requires fear and some degree of understanding for a creature not susceptible to fear is never to be governed and the more sense and courage it has the more refractory and untractable it will be without the influence of that useful passion and again fear without understanding puts creatures only upon avoiding the danger dreaded without considering what will become of themselves afterwards so wild birds will beat out their brains against the cage before they will save their lives by eating there is a great difference between being submissive and being governable for he who barely submits to another only embraces what he dislikes to shun what he dislikes more and we may be very submissive and be of no use to the person we submit to but to be governable implies an endeavour to please and a willingness to exert ourselves in behalf of the person that governs but love beginning everywhere at home no creature can labor for others and be easy long whilst self is wholly out of the question therefore a creature is then truly governable when reconciled to submission it has learned to construe his servitude to his own advantage and best satisfied with the account it finds for itself in the labor it performs for others several kinds of animals are or may with little trouble be made thus governable but there is not one creature so tame that it can be made to serve its own species but man yet without this he could never have been made sociable heratio but was not man by nature designed for society Cleomenes we know from revelation that man was made for society Horatio but if it had not been revealed or you had been a Chinese or a Mexican what would you answer me as a philosopher Cleomenes that nature had designed man for society as she has made grapes for wine Horatio to make wine is an invention of man as it is to press oil from olives and other vegetables and to make ropes of hemp Cleomenes and so it is a society of independent multitudes and there is nothing that requires greater skill Horatio but is not the sociableness of man the work of nature or rather the author of nature divine providence Cleomenes without doubt but so is the innate virtue and peculiar aptitude of everything that grapes are fit to make wine and barley and water to make liquors is the work of providence but it is human sagacity that finds out all the other capacities of man likewise as well as his sociableness are evidently derived from God who made him everything therefore that our industry can produce or compass is originally owing to the author of our being but when we speak of the works of nature to distinguish them from those of art we mean such as were brought forth without our concurrence so nature in due season produces peas but in England you cannot have them in January without art and uncommon industry what nature designs she executes herself there are creatures of whom it is visible that nature has designed them for society as is most obvious in bees to whom she has given instincts for that purpose as appears from the effects we owe our being and everything to the great author of the universe but as societies cannot subsist without his preserving power so they cannot exist without the concurrence of human wisdom all of them must have a dependence either on mutual compact or the force of the strong exerting itself upon the patience of the weak the difference between the works of art and those of nature is so immense that it is impossible not to know them asunder knowing a priori belongs to God only and divine wisdom acts with an original certainty of which what we call demonstration is but an imperfect borrowed copy amongst the works of nature therefore we see no trials nor essays they are all complete and such as she would have them at the first production and where she has not been interrupted highly finished beyond the reach of our understanding as well as senses wretched man on the contrary is sure of nothing his own existence not accepted but from reasoning a posteriori the consequence of this is that the works of art and human invention are all very lame and defective and most of them pitifully mean at first our knowledge is advanced by slow degrees and some arts and sciences require the experience of many ages before they can be brought to any tolerable perfection have we any reason to imagine that the society of bees that sent forth the first swarm made worse wax or honey than any of their posterity have produced since the laws of nature are fixed and unalterable in all her orders and regulations there is a stability nowhere to be met with in things of human contrivance and approbation quid placet at odio est quod non mutabile cridas is it probable that amongst the bees there has ever been any other form of government than what every swarm submits to now what infinite variety of speculations what ridiculous schemes have not been proposed amongst men on the subject of government what dissensions in opinion and what fatal quarrels has it not been the occasion of and which is the best form of it is a question to this day undecided the projects good and bad that have been stated for the benefit and more happy establishment of society are innumerable but how short-sighted is our sagacity how fallible human judgment what has seemed highly advantageous to mankind in one age has often been found to be evidently detrimental by the succeeding and even among contemporaries what is revered in one country is the abomination of another what changes have ever bees made in their furniture or architecture have they ever made cells that were not sex angular or added any tools to those which nature furnished them with at the beginning what mighty structures have been raised what prodigious works have been performed by the great nations of the world toward all these nature has only found materials the quarry yields marble but it is the sculptor that makes a statue of it to have the infinite variety of iron tools that have been invented nature has given us nothing but the ore which he has hid in the bowels of the earth for ratio but the capacity of the workmen the inventors of arts and those that improve them has had a great share in bringing those labors to perfection and their genius they had from nature Cleomenes so far as it depended upon the make of their frame the accuracy of the machine they had and no further but this I have allowed already and if you remember what I have said on this head you will find that the part which nature contributed toward the skill and patience of every single person that had a hand in those works was very inconsiderable Horatio if I have not misunderstood you you would insinuate two things first that the fitness of man for society beyond other animals is something real but that it is hardly perceptible in individuals before great numbers of them are joined together and artfully managed secondly that this real something this sociableness is a compound that consists in a concurrence of several things and not in any one palpable quality that man is endued with and brutes are destitute of Cleomenes you are perfectly right every grape contains a small quantity of juice and when great heaps of them are squeezed together they yield a liquor which by skillful management may be made into wine but if we consider how necessary fermentation is to the venosity of the liquor I mean how essential it is to its being wine it will be evident to us that without great impropriety of speech it cannot be said that in every grape there is wine Horatio, venosity so far as it is the effect of fermentation is adventitious and what none of the grapes could ever have received whilst they remain single and therefore if you would compare the sociableness of man to the venosity of wine you must show me that in society there is an equivalent for fermentation I mean something that individual persons are not actually possessed of whilst they remain single and which likewise is palpably adventitious to prostitutes when joined together in the same manner as fermentation is to the juice of grapes and as necessary and essential to the completing of society as that is that same fermentation to procure the venosity of wine. Cleomenies such an equivalent is demonstrable in mutual commerce for if we examine every faculty in qualification from and for which we judge and pronounce man to be a sociable creature beyond the levels we shall find that a very considerable if not the greatest part of the attribute is acquired and comes upon multitudes from their conversing with one another fabrikando fabri simus men become sociable by living together in society natural affection prompts all mothers to take care of the offspring they dare own so far as to feed and keep them from harm whilst they are helpless but where people are poor they have no leisure to indulge themselves in the various expressions of their fondness for their infants which fondling of them ever increases they are often very remiss and tending and playing with them and the more healthy and quiet such children are the more they are neglected this want of prattling to and stirring up the spirits and babes is often the principal cause of an invincible stupidity as well as ignorance when they are grown up and we often ascribe to natural incapacity what is altogether owing to the neglect of this early instruction we have so few examples of human creatures that never converse with their own species that it is hard to guess what man would be entirely untaught but we have good reason to believe that the faculty of thinking would be very imperfect in such a one if we consider that the greatest docility can be of no use to a creature whilst it has nothing to imitate nor anybody to teach it Horatio, philosophers therefore are very wisely employed when they discourse about the laws of nature and pretend to determine what a man in the state of nature would think and which way he would reason concerning himself and their creation uninstructed Cleomenes, thinking and reasoning justly as Mr. Locke has rightly observed require time and practice those that have not used themselves to thinking but just on their present necessities make poor work of it when they try beyond that in remote parts and such as our least inhabited we shall find our species come nearer the state of nature than it does in and near great cities and considerable towns even in the most civilized nations. Among the most ignorant of such people you may learn the truth of my assertion talk to them about anything that requires abstract thinking and there is not one in fifty that will understand you any more than a horse would and yet many of them are useful laborers and cunning enough to tell lies and deceive. Man is a rational creature but he is not endued with reason when he comes into the world nor can he afterwards put it on when he pleases at once as he may a garment speech likewise is a characteristic of our species but no man is born with it and a dozen generations proceeding from two savages would not produce any tolerable language nor have we reason to believe that a man could be taught to speak after five and twenty if he had never heard others before that time. Horatio the necessity of teaching whilst the organs are supple and easily yield to impression which you have spoke of before I believe is of great weight both in speaking and thinking but could a dog or a monkey ever be taught to speak Cleomenes I believe not but I do not think that creatures of another species had ever the pains bestowed upon them that some children have before they can pronounce one word. Another thing to be considered is that though some animals perhaps live longer than we do there is no species that remains young so long as ours and besides what we owe to the superior aptitude to learn which we have from the great accuracy of our frame and inward structure we are not a little indebted for our docility to the slowness and long gradation of our increase before we are full grown. The organs and other creatures grow stiff before ours are come to half their perfection. Horatio so that in the compliment we make to our species of its being endued with speech and sociableness there is no other reality than that by care and industry men may be taught to speak and be made sociable if the discipline begins when they are very young Cleomenes not otherwise a thousand of our species all grown up that is above 5 and 20 could never be made sociable if they had been brought up wild and were all strangers to one another. Horatio I believe they could not be civilized if their education began so late. Cleomenes but I mean barely sociable as it is the epithet peculiar to man that is it would be impossible by art to govern them any more than so many wild horses unless you had two or three times that number to watch and keep them in awe therefore it is highly probable that most societies and beginnings of nations were formed in the manner Sir William Temple supposes it but nothing near so fast and I wonder how a man of his unquestionable good sense could form an idea of justice, prudence and wisdom in an untaught creature or think of a civilized man before there was any civil society and even before men had commenced to associate. Horatio I have read it I am sure but I do not remember what it is you mean Cleomenes he is just behind you the third shell from the bottom the first volume pray reach it me it is worth your hearing stroke it is in his essay on government here it is quote for if we consider man multiplying his kind by the birth of many children and his cares by providing even necessary food for them until they are able to do for themselves which happens much later to the generations of men and makes a much longer dependence of children upon parents than we can observe among any other creatures if we consider not only the cares but the industry he is forced to for the necessary sustenance of his helpless brood either in gathering the natural fruits or raising those which are purchased with labor and toil if he be forced for supply of this stock to catch the tamer creatures and hunt the wilder sometimes to exercise his courage in defending his little family and fighting with the strong and savage beast that would prey upon him as he does upon the weak and mild if we suppose him disposing with discretion and order whatever he gets among his children according to each of their hunger or need sometimes laying up for tomorrow what was more than enough for today at other times pinching himself rather than suffering any of them should want. Stroke unquote. Horatio this man is no savage or untaught creature he is fit to be a justice of peace. Cleomenes pray let me go on I shall only read this paragraph quote and as each of them grows up and able to share in the common support teaching them both by lesson and example what he is now to do as the son of his family and what hereafter as the father of another instructing them all what qualities are good and what are ill for their health and life or common society which will certainly comprehend whatever is generally esteemed virtue or vice among men cherishing and encouraging dispositions to the good disfavoring and punishing those to the ill and lastly among the various accidents of life lifting up his eyes to heaven when the earth affords him no relief and having recourse to a higher and a greater whenever he finds the frailty of his own we must needs conclude that the children of this man cannot fail of being bred up with a great opinion of his wisdom his goodness his valor and his piety and if they see constant plenty in the family they believe well of his fortune too unquote. Horatio did this man spring out of the earth I wonder or did he drop from the sky. Cleomenes there is no manner of absurdity in supposing stroke. Horatio the discussion of this would too far engage us I am sure I have tired you already with my impertinence. Cleomenes you have pleased me extremely the questions you have asked have all been very pertinent and such as every man of sense would make that had not made it his business to think on these things I read that passage on purpose to you to make some use of it but if you are weary of the subject I will not trespass upon any longer. Horatio you mistake me I begin to be fond of the subject but before we talk of it any further I have a mind to run over that essay again it is a great while since I read it and after that I shall be glad to resume the discourse the sooner the better. I know you are a lover of fine fruit if you will dine with me tomorrow I will give you an ananas Cleomenes I love your company so well that I can refuse no opportunity of enjoying it Horatio Aurevoir then Cleomenes your servant End of section 40 section 41 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the fifth dialogue between Horatio and Cleomenes Cleomenes it excels everything it is extremely rich without being luscious and I know nothing to which I can compare the taste of it to me it seems to be a collection of different fine flavors that puts me in mind of several delicious fruits which yet are all outdone by it. Horatio I am glad it pleased you Cleomenes the scent of it likewise is wonderfully reviving as you was pairing it a fragrancy I thought perfumed the room that was perfectly cordial Horatio the inside of the rind has an oiliness of no disagreeable smell that upon handling of it sticks to one's fingers for a considerable time for though now I have washed and wiped my hands the flavor of it will not be entirely gone from them by tomorrow morning Cleomenes this was the third I ever tasted of our own growth the production of them in these northern climates is no small instance of human industry and our improvements in gardening is very elegant to enjoy the wholesome air of temperate regions and at the same time be able to raise fruit to its highest maturity that naturally requires the sun of the torrid zone. Horatio it is easy enough to procure heat but the great art consists in finding out and regulating the degrees of it at pleasure without which it would be impossible to ripen and ananas here and to compass this with that exactness as it is done by the help of certainly a fine invention Cleomenes I do not care to drink anymore. Horatio just as you please otherwise I was going to name a health which would not have come malapropos. Cleomenes whose is that pray? Horatio I was thinking on the man to whom we are in a great measure obliged for the production and culture of the exotic we were speaking of in this kingdom Sir Matthew Decker the first ananas or pineapple that was brought to perfection in England grew in his garden at Richmond. Cleomenes with all my heart let us finish with that. He is a beneficent and I believe a very honest man. Horatio it would not be easy to name another who with the same knowledge of the world and capacity of getting money is equally disinterested and inoffensive. Cleomenes have you considered the things we discussed of yesterday? Horatio I have thought on nothing else since I saw you. This morning I went through the whole essay and with more attention than I did formerly I like it very well only that passage which you read yesterday and some others to the same purpose I cannot reconcile with the account we have of man's origin from the Bible since all our descendants from Adam and consequently of Noah and his posterity how came savages into the world. Cleomenes the world as to very ancient times is very imperfect. What devastations have been made by war by pestilence and by famine what distress some men have been drove to and how strangely our race has been dispersed and scattered over the earth since the flood we do not know. Horatio but persons that are well instructed themselves never fail of teaching their children and we have no reason to think that knowing civilized men as the sons of Noah were should have neglected their offspring but it is altogether incredible as all our descendants from them that succeeding generations instead of increasing in experience and wisdom should learn backward and still more and more abandoned their broods in such a manner as to degenerate at last to what you call the state of nature. Cleomenes whether you intend this as a sarcasm or not I do not know but you have raised no difficulty that can render the truth of the sacred history suspected. Holy writ has acquainted us with the miraculous origin of our species and the small remainder of it after the deluge but it is far from informing us of all the revolutions that have happened among mankind since. The Old Testament hardly touches upon any particulars that had no relation to the Jews neither does Moses pretend to give a full account of everything that happened to or was transacted by our first parents. He names none of Adam's daughters and takes no notice of several things that must have happened in the beginning of the world as is evident from Cain's building a city and several other circumstances from which it is plain that Moses meddled with nothing but what was material and to his purpose which in that part of his history was to trace the descent of the patriarchs from the first man but that there are savages is certain most nations of Europe have met with wild men and women in several parts that were ignorant of the use of letters and among whom they could observe no rule or government Horatio, that there are savages I do not question and from the great number of slaves that are yearly fetched from Africa it is manifest that in some parts there must be vast swarms of people that have not yet made a great hand of their sociableness but how to derive them from all the sons of Noah I own is past my skill. Cleomenes, you find it as difficult to account for the loss of the many fine arts and useful inventions of the ancients which the world has certainly sustained but the fault I find with Sir William Temple is in the character of his savage just reasoning in such an orderly way of proceeding as he makes him act in are unnatural to a wild man in such a one the passions must be boisterous and continually jostling and succeeding one another no untaught man could have a regular way of thinking or pursue anyone designed with steadiness Horatio, you have strange notions of our species but has not a man by the time that he comes to maturity some notions of right and wrong that are natural Cleomenes, before I answer your question I would have you consider that among savages there must always be a great difference as to the wildness or tameness of them all creatures naturally love their offspring whilst they are helpless and so man but in the savage state men are more liable to accidents and misfortunes than they are in society as to the rearing of their young ones and therefore the children of savages must very often be put to their shifts so as hardly to remember by the time they are grown up that they had any parents if this happens too early and they are dropped or lost before they are four or five years of age they must perish either die for want or be devoured by beasts of prey unless some other creature takes care of them those orphans that survive and become their own masters very young must when they are come to maturity be much wilder than others that have lived many years under the tuition of parents Horatio but would not the wildest man you can imagine have from nature some thoughts of justice and injustice Cleomenes such a one I believe would naturally without much thinking in the case take everything to be his own that he could lay his hands on Horatio then they would soon be undeceived if two or three of them met together Cleomenes that they would soon disagree and quarrel is highly probable but I do not believe they ever would be undeceived Horatio at this rate men could never be formed into an aggregate body how came society into the world Cleomenes as I told you from private families but not without great difficulty and the concurrence of many favorable accidents and many generations past before there is any likelihood of their being formed into a society Horatio that men are formed into societies we see but if they are all born with that false notion and they can never be undeceived which way do you account for it Cleomenes my opinion concerning this matter is this self preservation bids all creatures gratify their appetites and that of propagating his kind never fails to affect a man in health many years before he comes to his full growth if a wild man and a wild woman would meet very young and live together for fifty years undisturbed in a mild wholesome climate where there is plenty of provisions they might see a prodigious number of descendants for in the wild state of nature man multiplies his kind much faster than can be allowed of in any regular society no male at fourteen would be long without a female if he could get one and no female of twelve would be refractory if applied to or remain long on courted if there were men Horatio considering that consanguinity would be no bar among these people the progeny of two savages might soon amount to hundreds all this I can grant you but as parents no better qualified could teach their children but little it would be impossible for them to govern these sons and daughters when they grew up if none of them had any notions of right or wrong and society is as far off as ever the false principle which you say all men are born with is an obstacle never to be surmounted Cleomenes from that false principle as you call it the right men naturally claim to everything they can get it must follow that man will look upon his children as his property and make such use of them as his most consistent with his interest Horatio what is the interest of a wild man that pursues nothing with steadiness Cleomenes the demand of the predominant passion for the time it lasts Horatio that may change every moment and such children would be miserably managed Cleomenes that is true but still managed they would be I mean they would be kept under force to do as they were bid at least till they were strong enough to resist natural affection would prompt a wild man to love and cherish his child it would make him provide food and other necessaries for his son till he was 10 or 12 years old or perhaps longer but this affection is not the only passion he has to gratify if his son provokes him by stubbornness or doing otherwise than he would have him this love is suspended if he is strong enough to raise his anger which is as natural to him as any other passion it is 10 to 1 but he will knock him down if he hurts him very much and the condition he has put his son in moves his pity his anger will cease and natural affection returning he will fondle him again and be sorry for what he has done now if we consider that all creatures hate and endeavor to avoid pain and that benefits beget love that the consequence of this management would be that the savage child would learn to love and fear his father these two passions together with the esteem which we naturally have for everything that far excels us will seldom fail of producing that compound which we call reverence Horatio, I have it now you have opened my eyes and I see the origin of society as plain as I do that table Cleomenes, I am afraid the prospect is not so clear yet as you imagine Horatio, why so? the grand obstacles are removed untaught men it is true when they are grown up are never to be governed and our subjection is never sincere where the superiority of the governor is not very apparent but both these are obviated the reverence we have for a person when we are young is easily continued as long as we live and where authority is once acknowledged and that acknowledgement well established is a difficult matter to govern if thus a man may keep up his authority over his children he will do it still with greater ease over his grandchildren for a child that has the least reverence for his parents will seldom refuse homage to the person to whom he sees his father pay it besides a man's pride would be a sufficient motive for him to maintain the authority once gained and if some of his progeny proved refractory he would leave no stone unturned by the help of the rest to reduce the disobedient the old man being dead the authority from him would devolve upon the eldest of his children and so on Cleomenes I thought you would go on too fast if the wild man had understood the nature of things and been endued with general knowledge and a language ready made as Adam was by miracle what you say might have been easy but an ignorant creature that knows nothing but what his own experience has taught him is no more fit to govern than he is fit to teach the mathematics peratio he would not have above one or two children to govern at first and his experience would increase by degrees as well as his family this would require no such consummate knowledge Cleomenes I do not say it would an ordinary capacity of a man tolerably well educated would be sufficient to begin with but a man who never had been taught his passions would be very unfit for such a task he would make his children as soon as they were able assist him in getting food and teach them how and where to procure it savage children as they got strength would endeavor to imitate every action they saw their parents do and every sound they heard them make but all the instructions they received would be confined to things immediately necessary savage parents would often take offense at their children as they grew up to cause and as these increased in years so natural affection would decrease in the other the consequence would be that the children would often suffer for failings that were not their own savages would often discover faults in the conduct of what was past but they would not be able to establish rules for future behavior which they would approve of themselves for any continuance and want of foresight would be an inexhaustible fund for charges in their resolutions the savages wife as well as himself would be highly pleased to see their daughters impregnated and bring forth and they would both take great delight in their grandchildren Horatio I thought that in all creatures the natural affection of parents had been confined to their own young ones Gleomenes it is so and all but man there is no species but ours that are so conceited of themselves as to imagine everything to be theirs the desire of dominion is a never-failing consequence of the pride that is common to all men and which the brat of a savage is as much born with as the son of an emperor this good opinion we have of ourselves makes men not only claim a right to their children but likewise imagine that they have a great share of jurisdiction over their grandchildren the young ones of animals as soon as they can help themselves are free but the authority which parents pretend to have over their children never ceases how general and unreasonable this eternal claim is naturally in the heart of man we may learn from the laws which to prevent the usurpation of parents and rescue children from their dominion every civil society is forced to make limiting paternal authority to a certain term of years our savage pair would have a double title to their grandchildren from their undoubted property in each parent of them their harmony being sprung from their own sons and daughters without inter-mixture of foreign blood they would look upon the whole race to be their natural vassals and I am persuaded that the more knowledge and capacity of reasoning this first couple acquired the more just and unquestionable their sovereignty over all their descendants would appear to them though they should live to see the fifth or sixth generation Horatio is it not strange that nature should send us all into the world of visible desire after government and to know capacity for it at all? Cleomenes what seems strange to you is an undeniable instance of divine wisdom for if all had not been born with this desire all must have been destitute of it and multitudes could never have been formed into societies if some of them had not been possessed of this thirst for dominion creatures may commit force upon themselves they may learn to warp their natural appetites and divert them from their proper objects but peculiar instincts that belong to a whole species are never to be acquired by art or discipline and those that are born without them must remain destitute of them forever ducks run to the water as soon as they are hatched but you can never make a chicken swim anymore than you can teach it to suck Horatio I understand you very well if pride had not been innate to all men none of them could ever have been ambitious and as to the capacity of governing experience shows us that it is to be acquired but how to bring society into the world I know no more than the wild man himself what you have suggested to me of his unskillfulness and want of power to govern himself has quite destroyed all the hopes I had conceived of society from this family but would religion have no influence upon them pray how came that into the world Cleomenes from God Horatio obscurum pour obscurious I do not understand miracles that break in upon and subvert the order of nature and I have no notion of things that come to pass and are such that judging from sound reason and known experience all wise men would think themselves mathematically sure that they could happen Cleomenes that by the word miracle is meant an interposition of the divine power when it deviates from the common course of nature Horatio as when matters easily combustible remain whole and untouched in the midst of a fire fiercely burning or lions in vigor industriously kept hungry forebear eating what they are most greedy after these miracles are strange things Cleomenes they are not pretended to be otherwise the etymology of the word imports it but it is almost as unaccountable that men should disbelieve them and pretend to be of a religion that is all together built upon miracles Horatio but when I asked you that general question why did you confine yourself to revealed religion Cleomenes because nothing in my opinion deserves the name of religion that has not been revealed the Jewish was the first that was national and the Christian the next Horatio but Abraham Noah and Adam himself were no Jews and yet they had religion Cleomenes no other than what was revealed to them God appeared to our first parents and gave them commands immediately after he had created them the same intercourse was continued between the supreme being and the patriarchs but the father of Abraham was an idolater Horatio but the Egyptians the Greeks and the Romans Cleomenes their gross idolatry and abominable worship I call superstition Horatio you may be as partial as you please but they all called their worship religion as well as we do ours you say man brings nothing with him but his passions and when I asked you how religion came into the world I meant what is there in man's nature that is not acquired from which he has a tendency to religion what is it that disposes him to it Cleomenes fear how are you of that opinion Cleomenes no man upon earth less but that noted Epicurean axiom which irreligious men are so fond of is a very poor one and it is silly as well as impious to say that fear made a god you may as justly say that fear made grass or the sun and the moon but when I am speaking of savages it is not clashing either with good sense nor the Christian religion to assert that whilst such men are ignorant of the true deity and yet very defective in the art of thinking and reasoning fear is the passion that first gives them an opportunity of entertaining some glimmering notions of an invisible power which afterwards as by practice and experience they grow greater proficient and become more perfect in the labor of the brain and the exercise of their highest faculty will infallibly lead them to the certain knowledge of an infinite and eternal being whose power and wisdom will always appear the greater and more stupendous to them the more they themselves advance in knowledge and penetration though both should be carried on to a much higher pitch than it is possible for our limited nature ever to arrive at Horatio I beg your pardon for suspecting you though I am glad it gave you an opportunity of explaining yourself the word fear without any addition sounded very harsh and even now I cannot conceive how an invisible cause should become the object of man's fear that should be so entirely untaught as you have made the first savage which way can anything invisible and that affects none of the senses make an impression upon a wild creature Cleomenes every mischief and every disaster that happens to him of which the cause is not very plain and obvious of heat and cold, wet and drought that are offensive, thunder and lightning even when they do no visible hurt noises in the dark, obscurity itself, and everything that is frightful and unknown are all administering and contributing to the establishment of this fear the wildest man that can be conceived by the time that he came to maturity would be wise enough to know that fruits and other eatables are not to be had either always or everywhere this would naturally put him upon hoarding when he had good store his provisions might be spoiled by the rain he would see that trees were blasted and yielded not always the same plenty he might not always be in health or his young ones might grow sick and die without any wounds or external force to be seen some of these accidents might at first escape his attention or only alarm his weak understanding without occasioning much reflection for some time but as they come often he would certainly begin to suspect some invisible cause and as his experience increased be confirmed in his suspicion it is likewise highly probable that a variety of different sufferings would make him apprehend several such causes and at last induce him to believe that there was a great number of them which he had to fear what would very much contribute to this credulous disposition and naturally lead him into such a belief is a false notion we imbibe very early and which we may observe in infants as soon as by their looks their gestures and the signs they make they begin to be intelligible to us Horatio what is that pray Cleomenes all young children seem to imagine that everything thinks and feels in the same manner as they do themselves and that they generally have this wrong opinion of things inanimate is evident from a common practice among them whenever they labor under any misfortune which their own wildness and want of care have drawn upon them in all such cases you see them angry at and strike a table a chair the floor or anything else that can seem to have been accessory to their hurting themselves or the production of any other blunder they have committed nurses we see in compliance to their frailty seem to entertain the same ridiculous sentiments and actually appease wrathful brats by pretending to take their part thus you will often see them very serious and scolding at and beating either the real object of the baby's indignation or something else on which the blame of what has happened may be thrown with any show of probability it is not to be imagined that this natural folly should be so easily cured in a child that is destitute of all instruction and commerce with his own species as it is in those that are brought up in society and hourly improved by conversing with others that are wiser than themselves and I am persuaded that a wild man would never get entirely rid of it whilst he lived Horatio I cannot think so meanly of human understanding Cleomenes whence came the dryads and hammer dryads how came it ever to be thought impious to cut down or even to wound large venerable oaks or other stately trees and what root did the divinity spring from which the vulgar among the ancient heathens apprehended to be in rivers and fountains Horatio from the roguery of designing priests and other imposters that invented those lies and made fables for their own advantage Cleomenes but still it must have been want of understanding and a tincture some remainder of that folly which is discovered in young children that could induce or would suffer men to believe those fables unless fools actually had frailties naves could not make use of them Horatio there may be something in it but be that as it will you have owned that man naturally loves those he receives benefits from therefore how comes it that man finding all the good things he enjoys to proceed from an invisible cause his gratitude should not sooner prompt him to be religious than his fear Cleomenes there are several substantial reasons why it does not man takes everything to be his own which he has from nature sewing and reaping he thinks deserve a crop and whatever he has the least hand in is always reckoned to be his every art and every invention as soon as we know them are our right and property and whatever we perform by the assistance of them is by the courtesy of the species itself deemed to be our own fermentation and all the chemistry of nature without thinking ourselves beholden to anything but our own knowledge she that churns to cream makes the butter without inquiring into the power by which the thin lymphatic particles are forced to separate themselves and slide away from the more unctuous in brewing baking cooking and almost everything we have a hand in nature is the drudge that makes all the alterations and does the principal work yet all for sooth is our own from all which it is manifest that man who is naturally for making everything center in himself must in his wild state have a great tendency and be very prone to look upon everything he enjoys as his due and everything he metals with as his own performance it requires knowledge and reflection and a man must be pretty far advanced in the art of thinking justly and reasoning consequentially before he can own light and without being taught be sensible of his obligations to God the less a man knows and the more shallow his understanding is the less he is capable either of enlarging his prospect of things or drawing consequences from the little which he does know raw ignorant and untaught men fix their eyes on what is immediately before and seldom look further than as it is vulgarly expressed the length of their noses a wild man if gratitude moved him would much sooner pay his respects to the tree he gathers his nuts from than he would think of an acknowledgement to him who had planted it and there is no property so well established but a civilized man would suspect his title to it sooner than a wild one would question the sovereignty he has over his own breath another reason why fear is an elder motive to religion and gratitude is that an untaught man would never suspect that the same cause which he received good from would ever do him hurt and evil without doubt would always gain his attention first Horatio, man indeed seem to remember one ill-turn that has served them better than ten good ones one month sickness better than ten years health Cleomenes, in all the labors of self-preservation man is intent on avoiding what is hurtful to him but in the enjoyment of what is pleasant his thoughts are relaxed and he is void of care he can swallow a thousand delights one after another without asking questions but the least evil makes him inquisitive whence it came in order to shun it it is very material therefore to know the cause of evil but to know that of good which is always welcome is of little use that is such a knowledge seems not to promise any addition to his happiness when a man once apprehends such an invisible enemy it is reasonable to think that he would be glad to appease and make him his friend if he could find him out it is highly probable likewise that in order to do this he would search investigate and look everywhere about him and that finding all his inquiries upon earth in vain he would lift up his eyes to the sky Horatio, and so a wild man might and look down and up again long enough before he would be the wiser I can easily conceive that a creature must labour under great perplexities when it actually fears something of which it knows neither what it is nor where it is and that though a man had all the reason in the world to think it invisible he would still be more afraid of it in the dark than when he could see Cleomenes whilst a man is but an imperfect thinker and wholly employed in furthering self-preservation in the most simple manner and removing the immediate obstacles with and that pursuit this affair perhaps affects him but little but when he comes to be a tolerable reasoner and has leisure to reflect it must produce strange chimeras and surmises and a wild couple would not converse together long before they would endeavour to express their minds to one another concerning this matter and as in time they would invent and agree upon certain sounds of distinction for several things of which the ideas would often occur so I believe that this invisible cause would be one of the first which they would coin a name for a wild man and a wild woman would not take less care of their helpless brood than other animals and it is not to be imagined but the children that were brought up by them though without instruction or discipline would before they were ten years old observe in their parents this fear of an invisible cause it is incredible likewise considering how much men differ from one another in features, complexion and temper, that all should form the same idea of this cause from whence it would follow that as soon as any considerable number of men could intelligibly converse together it would appear that there were different opinions among them concerning the invisible cause the fear and acknowledgement of it being universal and man always attributing his own passions to everything which he conceives to think everybody would be solicitous to avoid and ill will, and if it was possible to gain the friendship of such a power if we consider these things and what we know of the nature of man it is hardly to be conceived that any considerable number of our species could have any intercourse together long in peace or otherwise but willful lies would be raised concerning this power and some would pretend to have seen or heard it how different opinions about invisible power may and malice and deceit of imposters be made the occasion of mortal enmity among multitudes is easily accounted for if we want rain very much and I can be persuaded that it is your fault we have none there needs greater cause to quarrel and nothing has happened in the world of priestcraft or inhumanity folly or abomination on religious accounts that cannot be solved or explained with the least trouble from these data and the principle of fear Horatio I think I must yield to you that the first motive of religion among savages was fear but you must allow me in your turn that from the general thankfulness that nations have always paid to their gods for signal benefits and success the many hecatomes that have been offered after victories and the various institutions of games and festivals it is evident that when men came to be wiser the greatest part of their religion was built upon gratitude Cleomenes you labor hard I see to vindicate the honor of our species but we have no such cause to boast of it and I shall demonstrate to you the well weighed consideration and a thorough understanding of our nature will give us much less reason to exult in our pride than it will furnish us with for the exercise of our humility in the first place there is no difference between the original nature of a savage and that of a civilized man they are both born with fear and neither of them if they have their senses about them can live many years but an invisible power will at one time or other become the object of that fear and this will happen to every man whether he be wild and alone or in society and under the best discipline we know by experience that empires states and kingdoms may excel in arts and sciences politeness and all worldly wisdom and at the same time be slaves to the grossest idolatry and submit to all the inconsistencies of a false religion the most civilized people have been as foolish and absurd and sacred worship as it is possible for any savages to be and the first have often been guilty of studied cruelties which the latter would never have thought of the Carthaginians were a subtle and flourishing people an opulent and formidable nation and Hannibal had half conquered the Romans when still to their idols they sacrificed the children of their chief nobility and as to private persons there are innumerable instances in the most polite ages of men of sense and virtue that have entertained the most miserable unworthy and extravagant notions of the supreme being what confused and unaccountable apprehensions must not some men have had of providence to act as they did Alexander Severus who succeeded Heliogabalus was a great reformer of abuses and thought to be as good a prince as his predecessor was a bad one in his palace he had an oratory a cabinet set aside for his private devotion where he had images of Apollonius Tyannus Orpheus Abraham Jesus Christ such like gods says his historian what makes you smile Horatio to think how industrious priests are in concealing a man's failings when they would have you think well of him what you say of Severus I have read before when looking one day for something in Morerri I happened to cast my eye on the article of that emperor where no mention is made either of Orpheus or Apollonius which remembering the passage in Lampritius I wondered at and thinking that I might have been mistaken I again consulted that author where I found it as you have related it I do not question but Morerri left this out on purpose to repay the civilities of the emperor of the Christians whom he tells us Severus had been very favorable to Cleomenes that is not impossible in a Roman Catholic but what I would speak to in the second place is the festivals you mentioned that take place after victories and the general thankfulness of nations to their gods I desire you would consider that in sacred matters as well as all human affairs there are rites and ceremonies and many demonstrations of respect to be seen that the outward appearance seem to proceed from gratitude which upon due examination will be found to have been originally the result of fear at what time the floral games were first instituted is not well known but they never were celebrated every year constantly before a very unseasonable spring put the senate upon the decree that made them annual to make up the true compound of reverence or veneration love and esteem are as necessary ingredients as fear but the latter alone is capable of making man counterfeit both the former as is evident from the duties that are outwardly paid to tyrants at the same time that inwardly they are executed and hated idolaters have always behaved themselves to every invisible cause they adored as men due to a lawless arbitrary power when they reckon it as capchus haughty and unreasonable as they allow it to be sovereign, unlimited and irresistible what motive could the frequent repetitions of the same solemnities spring from whenever it was suspected that the least holy trifle had been omitted you know how often the same farce was once acted over again because after every performance there was still room to apprehend that something had been neglected do but consult, I beg of you and call to mind your own reading cast your eyes on the infinite variety of ideas men have formed to themselves and the vast multitude of divisions they have made of the invisible cause which everyone imagines to influence human affairs run over the history of all ages look into every considerable nation their straits and calamities as well as victories and successes the lives of great generals and other famous men their adverse fortune and prosperity mind at which times their devotion was most fervent when oracles were most consulted and on what accounts the gods were most frequently addressed do but calmly consider everything you can remember relating to superstition whether grave, ridiculous or excruble and you will find in the first place that the heathens and all that have been ignorant of the true deity though many of them were persons otherwise of great knowledge, fine understanding and tried probity have represented their gods not as wise benign, equitable and merciful but on the contrary as passionate, revengeful, capricious and unrelenting beings not to mention the abominable vices and gross immoralities the vulgar were taught to ascribe to them in the second, that for every one instance that men have addressed themselves to an invisible cause from a principle of gratitude there are a thousand in every false religion to convince you that divine worship and men's submission to heaven have always proceeded from their fear the word religion itself and the fear of god are synonymous it had man's acknowledgement been originally founded in love as it is in fear the craft of imposters could have made no advantage of their passion and all their boasted acquaintance with gods and goddesses would have been useless to them if men had worshipped the immortal powers as they call their idols out of gratitude Horatio all law givers and leaders of people gained their point and acquired what they expected from those pretenses which is reverence and which to produce you have owned yourself and to be as requisite as fear Cleomenes but from the laws they imposed on men and the punishments they annexed to the breach and neglect of them it is easily seen which of the ingredients they most relied upon Horatio it would be difficult to name a king or other great man in very ancient times who attempted to govern an infant nation that laid no claim to some commerce or other with an invisible power either held by himself or his ancestors between them and Moses there was no other difference than that he alone was a true prophet and really inspired and all the rest were imposters Cleomenes what would you infer from this Horatio that we can say no more for ourselves than what men of all parties and persuasions have done in all ages everyone for their cause vis that they alone were in the right and all that differed from them in the wrong Cleomenes is it not sufficient that we can say this of ourselves with truth and justice after the strictest examination when no other cause can stand any test or bear the least inquiry a man may relate miracles that never were wrought and give an account of things that never happened but a thousand years hence all knowing men will agree that nobody could have wrote Sir Isaac Newton's Principia when Moses acquainted the Israelites with what had been revealed to him he told them a truth which nobody then upon earth knew but himself Horatio you mean the unity of God and his being the author of the universe Cleomenes I do so Horatio but is not every man of sense capable of knowing this from his reason Cleomenes when the art of reasoning consequentially came to that perfection which it has been arrived at these several hundred years and himself has been led into the method of thinking justly every common sailor could steer a course to the midst of the ocean as soon as the use of the lodestone and the mariners compass were invented but before that the most expert navigator would have trembled at the thoughts of such an enterprise when Moses acquainted and imbued the posterity of Jacob with this sublime and important truth they were degenerated into slaves attached to the superstition of the country they dwelled in and the Egyptians their masters though they were great proficient in many arts and sciences and more deeply skilled in the mysteries of nature than any other nation then was had the most abject and abominable notions of the deity which it is possible to conceive and no savages could have exceeded their ignorance and stupidity as to the supreme being the invisible cause that governs the world he taught the Israelites a priori and their children before they were 9 or 10 years old knew what the greatest philosophers did not attain to by the light of nature till many ages after End of section 41