 Section 11 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Line 173, parties directly opposite, assist each other as tour for spite. Nothing was more instrumental in forwarding the Reformation than the sloth and stupidity of the Roman clergy. Yet the same Reformation has roused them from the laziness and ignorance they then labored under, and the followers of Luther, Calvin, and others may be said to have reformed not only those whom they drew into their sentiment, but likewise those who remained their greatest opposers. The clergy of England, by being severe upon the schismatics and abrading them with want of learning, have raised themselves such formidable enemies as are not easily answered, and again the dissenters by prying into the lives and diligently watching all the actions of their powerful antagonists render those at the established church more cautious of giving offense than in all probability they would if they had no malicious overlookers to fear. It is very much owing to the great number of Huguenots that have always been in France since the late utter extirpation of them, that that kingdom has a less disillute and more learned clergy to boast of than any other Roman Catholic country. The clergy of that church are nowhere more sovereign than in Italy and therefore nowhere more debauched, nor anywhere more ignorant than they are in Spain because their doctrine is no where less opposed. Who would imagine that virtuous women unknowingly should be instrumental in promoting the advantage of prostitutes? Or, what still seems to greater paradox, that incontinence should be made serviceable to the preservation of chastity? And yet nothing is more true. A vicious young fellow, after having been an hour or two at church, a ball, or any other assembly where there is a great parcel of handsome women dressed to the best advantage will have his imagination more fired than if he had the same time been polling at Guildhall or walking in the country among a flock of sheep. The consequence of this is that he will strive to satisfy the appetite that is raised up in him. And when he finds honest women obstinate and uncometable, it is very natural to think that he will hasten to others that are more compliable. Who would so much as surmise that this is the fault of the virtuous women? They have no thoughts of men in dressing themselves, poor souls, and endeavor only to appear clean and decent, everyone according to her quality. I am far from encouraging vice, and think it would be an unspeakable felicity to a state if the sin of uncleanness could be utterly banished from it, but I am afraid it is impossible. The passions of some people are too violent to be curbed by any law or precept, and it is wisdom in all governments to bear with lesser inconveniences to prevent greater. If courtesans and strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much rigor as some silly people would have it, what locks or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honor of our wives and daughters? For it is not only that the women in general would meet with far greater temptations, and the attempts to ensnare the innocence of virgins would seem more excusable, even to the sober part of mankind than they do now, but some men would grow outrageous, and ravishing would become a common crime. Where six or seven thousand sailors arrive at once, as it often happens, at Amsterdam, that have seen none but their own sex for many months together, how is it to be supposed that honest women should walk the streets unmolested if there were no harlots to be had at reasonable prices, for which reason the wise rulers of that well-ordered city always tolerate an uncertain number of houses in which women are hired as publicly as horses at a livery stable, and there being in this toleration a great deal of prudence and economy to be seen, a short account of it will be no tiresome digression. In the first place, the houses I speak of are allowed to be nowhere but in the most slovenly and unpolished part of the town, where seamen and strangers of no repute chiefly lodge and resort. The street in which most of them stand is counted scandalous, and the infamy is extended to all the neighborhood around it. In the second, there are only places to meet and bargain in, to make appointments in order to promote interviews of greater secrecy, and no manner of lewdness has ever suffered to be transacted in them, which order is so strictly observed that bar the ill manners and noise of the company that frequent them, you will meet with no more indecency and generally less lasciviousness there than with us are to be seen at a playhouse. Thirdly, the female traders that come to these evening exchanges are always the scum of the people, and generally such as in the daytime carry fruit and other eatables about in wheelbarrows. The habits indeed they appear in at night are very different from their ordinary ones, yet they are commonly so ridiculously gay that they look more like the Roman dresses of strolling actresses than gentlewoman's clothes. If to this you add the awkwardness, the hard hands, and coarse breeding of the damsels that wear them, there is no great reason to fear that many of the better sort of people will be tempted by them. The music in these temples of Venus is performed by organs, not out of respect to the deity that has worshipped in them, but the frugality of the owners, whose business it is to procure as much sound for as little money as they can, and the policy of the government who endeavor as little as is possible to encourage the breed of pipers and scrapers. All seafaring men, especially the Dutch, are like the element they belong to, much given to loudness and roaring, and the noise of half a dozen of them when they call themselves Mary is sufficient to drown twice the number of flutes or violins, whereas with one pair of organs they can make the whole house ring, enter at no other charge than the keeping of one scurvy musician, who can cost them but little. Yet notwithstanding the good rules and strict discipline that are observed in these markets of love, the shout in his officers are always vexing, molting, and upon the least complaint, removing the miserable keepers of them, which policy is of two great uses. First, it gives an opportunity to a large parcel of officers. The magistrates make use of on many occasions, and which they could not be without, to squeeze a living out of the immoderate gains accruing from the worst of employments, and, at the same time, punish those necessary profligates, the bods and panders, which, though they abominate, they desire yet not wholly to destroy. Secondly, as on several accounts it might be dangerous to let the multitude into the secret that those houses and the trade that is drove in them are connived at, so by this means appearing unblameable, the wary magistrates preserve themselves in the good opinion of the weaker sort of people, who imagine that the government is always endeavoring, though unable, to suppress what it actually tolerates. Whereas, if they had a mind to root them out, their power in the administration of justice is so sovereign and extensive, and they know so well how to have it executed that one week, nay, one night, might send them all a-packing. In Italy, the toleration of strumpets is yet more bare-faced, as is evident from their public stews. At Venice and Naples, impurity is a kind of merchandise and traffic. The courtesans at Rome, and the cantoneras in Spain, compose a body in the state, and are under illegal tax and impost. It is well known that the reason why so many good politicians, as these tolerate lewd houses, is not their irreligion, but to prevent a worse evil, an impurity of a more excruable kind, and to provide for the safety of women of honor. About 250 years ago, says M. S. and Didier, Venice being in want of courtesans, the Republic was obliged to procure a great number from foreign parts. Doglioni, who has written the memorable affairs from Venice, highly extols the wisdom of the Republic in this point, which secured the chastity of women of honor, daily exposed to public violences, the churches and consecrated places not being a sufficient asylum for their chastity. Our universities in England are much belied, if in some colleges there was not a monthly allowance at Expergandus renais, and time was when monks and priests in Germany were allowed concubines on paying a certain yearly duty to their prelet. It is generally believed, says M. Bale, to whom I owe the last paragraph, quote, that avarice was the cause of the shameful indulgence, but it is more probable their design was to prevent their tempting modest women, and to quiet the uneasiness of husbands whose resentments to clergy do well to avoid, unquote. From what has been said, it is manifest that there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to preserve the other, and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature, from whence I think I may justly conclude what was the seeming paradox I went about to prove that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the best of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vices. End of section 11, section 12 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Line 177, the root of evil, avarice, that damned ill-natured, baneful vice, was slaved to prodigality. I have joined so many odious epithets to the word avarice, in compliance to the vogue of mankind, who generally bestow more ill language upon this than any other vice, and indeed not undeservedly, for there is hardly a mischief to be named which it has not produced at one time or other. But the true reason why everybody exclaimed so much against it is that almost everybody suffers by it. For the more the money is hoarded up by some, the scarcerer it must grow among the rest, and therefore when men rail very much at misers, there is generally self-interest at bottom. As there is no living without money, so those that are unprovided and have nobody to give them any are obliged to do some service or other to the society before they can come at it. But everybody is steaming his labor as he does himself, which is generally not under the value. Most people that want money only to spend it again presently, imagine they do more for it than it is worth. Men cannot forbear looking upon the necessaries of life as they do, whether they work or not, because they find that nature, without consulting whether they have victuals or not, bids them eat whenever they are hungry, for which reason everybody endeavors to get what he wants with as much ease as he can. And therefore when men find that the trouble they are put to in getting money is either more or less, according as those they would have it from are more or less tenacious, it is very natural for them to be angry at covetousness in general. For it obliges them either to go without what they have occasion for or else to take greater pains for it than they are willing. Averus, notwithstanding it is the occasion of so many evils, is yet very necessary to the society to glean and gather what has been dropped and scattered by the contrary vice. Was it not for Averus, spend thrifts would soon want materials, and if none would lay up and get faster than they spend, very few could spend faster than they get. That it is a slave to prodigality, as I have called it, is evident from so many misers as we daily see toil and labor pinch and starve themselves to enrich a lavish air. Though these two vices appear very opposite, yet they often assist each other. Florio is an extravagant young blade of a very profuse temper, and he is the only son of a very rich father. He wants to live high, keep horses and dogs, and throw his money about, as he sees some of his companions do. But the old hunks will part with no money, and hardly allows him necessaries. Florio would have borrowed money upon his own credit long ago, but as all would be lost, if he died before his father, no prudent man would lend him any. At last he has met with a greedy Coronaro, who lets him have money at thirty percent, and now Florio thinks himself happy and spends a thousand a year. Where would Coronaro ever have got such a prodigious interest, if it was not for such a fool as Florio, who will give so great a price for money to fling it away? And how would Florio get it to spend, if he had not lit of such a greedy user as Coronaro, whose excessive covetousness makes him overlook the great risk he runs in venturing such great sums upon the life of a wild dibbachi? Aphoris is no longer the reverse of profuseness, then, while it signifies that sordid love of money and narrowness of soul that hinders misers from parting with what they have, and makes them covet it only to hoard up. But there is a sort of Aphoris which consists in a greedy desire of riches in order to spend them, and this often meets with prodigality in the same person, as is evident in most courtiers and great officers, both civil and military, in their buildings and furniture, equipages and entertainments, their gallantry is displayed with the greatest profusion, while the base actions they submit to for lucre and the many frauds and impositions they are guilty of discover the utmost Aphoris. This mixture of contrary vices comes up exactly to the character of Catiline, of whom it is said that he was Apatens alieni et sui profusus, greedy after the goods of others and lavish of his own. End of Section 12 Section 13 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Line 180, That Noble Sin The prodigality I call a noble sin is not that which has avarice for its companion and makes men unreasonably profuse to some of what they unjustly extort from others, but that agreeable good nature advice that makes the chimney smoke and all the tradesmen smile. I mean the unmixed prodigality of heedless and voluptuous men that, being educated in plenty, abhor the vile thoughts of lucre and lavish away only what others took pains to scrape together, such as indulge their inclinations at their own expense that have the continual satisfaction of bartering old gold for new pleasures and from the excessive largeness of a diffusive soul are made guilty of despising too much what most people overvalue. When I speak thus honorably of vice and treat it with so much tenderness in good manners as I do, I have the same thing at heart that made me give so many ill names to the reverse of it, vis the interest of the public for as the avaricious does no good to himself and is injurious to all the world besides except his heir, so the prodigal is a blessing to the whole society and injures nobody but himself. It is true that as most of the first are knaves so the latter are all fools yet they are delicious morsels for the public to feast on and may with as much justice as the French call the monks can be styled the woodcocks of the society. Was it not for prodigality nothing could make us amends for the rapine and extortion of avarice and power. When a covetous statesman is gone who spent his whole life infatining himself with the spoils of the nation and had by pinching and plundering heaped up an immense treasure it ought to fill every good member of the society with joy to behold the uncommon profuseness of his son. This is refunding to the public as robbed from it. Resuming of grants is a barbarous way of stripping and it is ignoble to ruin a man faster than he does it himself when he sets about it in such good earnest. Does he not feed an infinite number of dogs of all sorts and sizes though he never hunts, keep more horses than any nobleman in the kingdom though he never rides them and give as large an allowance to an ill-favored whore as would keep a duchess though he never lies with her. Is he not still more extravagant in those things he makes use of? Therefore let him alone or praise him or call him public-spirited lord, nobly bountiful and magnificently generous, and in a few years he will suffer himself to be stripped his own way. As long as the nation has its own back again we ought not to quarrel with the manner in which the plunder is repaid. Abundance of moderate men I know that are enemies to extremes will tell me that frugality might happily supply the place to the two vices I speak of that if men had not so many profuse ways of spending wealth they would not be tempted to so many evil practices to scrape it together and consequently that the same number of men by equally avoiding both extremes might render themselves more happy and be less vicious without than they could with them. Whoever argues thus shows himself a better man than he is a politician. Frugality is like honesty a mean starving virtue that is only fit for small societies of good peaceable men who are contented to be poor so they may be easy but in a large stirring nation you may have soon enough of it. It is an idle dreaming virtue that employs no hands and therefore very useless in a trading country where there are vast numbers that one way or other must be all set to work. Frugality has a thousand inventions to keep people from sitting still that frugality would never think of and as this must consume a prodigious wealth so avarice again knows innumerable tricks to raise it together which frugality would scorn to make use of. Authors are always allowed to compare small things to great ones especially if they ask leave first see licit exemplis etc but to compare great things to mean trivial ones is unsufferable unless it be in burlesque otherwise I would compare the body politic I confess the simile is very low to a bowl of punch avarice should be the souring and prodigality the sweetening of it the water I would call the ignorance folly and crudulity of the floating insipid multitude while wisdom, honor, fortitude and the rest of the sublime qualities of men which separated by art from the dregs of nature the fire of glory has exalted and refined into a spiritual essence should be an equivalent to brandy I do not doubt but a westphalian laplander or any other dull stranger that is unacquainted with the wholesome composition if he was to sell the several ingredients apart would think it impossible they should make an intolerable liquor the lemons would be too sour the sugar too luscious the brandy he will say is too strong ever to be drank in any quantity and the water he will call a tasteless liquor only fit for cows and horses yet experience teaches us that the ingredients I named judiciously mixed will make an excellent liquor liked of and admired by men as to our vices in particular I could compare avarice that causes so much mischief and is complained of by everybody who is not a miser to a griping acid that sets our teeth on edge and is unpleasant to every palate that is not debauched I could compare the gaudy trimming and splendid equipage of a profuse bow to the glistening brightness of the finest loaf sugar for as the one by correcting the sharpness prevent the injury which a gnawing sour might do to the bowels so the other is a pleasing balsam that heals and makes amends for the smart which the multitude always suffers from the gripes of the avaricious while the substances of both melt away alike and they consume themselves by being beneficial to the several compositions they belong to I could carry on the similias to proportions and the exact nicety to be observed in them which would make it appear how little any of the ingredients could be spared in either of the mixtures but I will not tire my reader by assuming too far a ludicrous comparison when I have other matters to entertain him with of greater importance and to sum up what I have said in this and the foregoing remark shall only add that I look upon avarice and prodigality in the society as I do upon two contrary poisons in physics of which it is certain that the noxious qualities being by mutual mischief corrected in both they may assist each other and often make a good medicine between them line 180 whilst luxury employed a million of the poor etc. if everything is to be luxury as in strictness at ought that is not immediately necessary to make man subsist as he is a living creature there is nothing else to be found in the world no not even among the naked savages of which it is not probable that there are any but what by this time have made some improvements upon their former manner of living the moderation of their eatables the ordering of their huts or otherwise added something to what once suffice them this definition everybody will say is too rigorous I am of the same opinion but if we are to abate one inch of this severity I am afraid we shall not know where to stop when people tell us they only desire to keep themselves sweet and clean there is no understanding what they would be at if they made use of these words in their genuine proper literal sense they would soon satisfied without much cost or trouble if they did not want water but these two little adjectives are so comprehensive especially in a dialect of some ladies that nobody can guess how far they may be stretched the comforts of life are likewise so various and extensive that nobody can tell what people may mean by them except he knows what sort of life they lead the same obscurity I observe in the words decency and convenience and I never understand them the quality of the persons that make use of them people may go to church together and be all of one mind as much as they please I am apt to believe that when they pray for their daily bread the bishop includes several things in that petition which the sexton does not think on by what I have said hitherto I would only show that if once we depart from calling everything luxury that is not absolutely necessary to keep a man alive that then there is no luxury at all for if the wants of men are innumerable then what ought to supply them has no bounds what is called superfluous to some degree of people will be thought requisite to those of higher quality and neither the world nor the skill of man can produce anything so curious or extravagant but some most gracious sovereign are other if it either eases or diverts him will reckon it among the necessaries of life not meaning everybody's life but that of his sacred person it is a received notion that luxury is as destructive to the wealth of the whole body politic as it is to that of every individual person who is guilty of it and that a national frugality enriches the country in the same manner as that which is less general increases the estates of private families I confess that the way I found men of much better understanding than myself of this opinion I cannot help dissenting from them in this point they argue thus we send, say they, for example to turkey of woollen manufactory and other things of our own growth a millions worth every year for this we bring back silk, mohair, drugs, etc to the value of 1200,000 pounds that are all spent in our own country by this, say they, we get nothing but if most of us would be content with our own growth and so consume but half the quantity of those foreign commodities than those in turkey who would still want the same quantity of our manufactures would be forced to pay ready money for the rest for the balance of that trade only the nation should get 600,000 pounds per annum to examine the force of this argument we will suppose what they would have that but half the silk, etc shall be consumed in England of what there is now we will suppose likewise that those in turkey though we refuse to buy above half as much of their commodities as we used to do either can or will not be without the same quantity of our manufactures they had before and that they will pay the balance in money that is to say that they shall give us as much gold or silver as the value of what they buy from us exceeds the value of what we buy from them though what we suppose might perhaps be done for one year it is impossible that it should last buying is bartering and no nation can buy goods of others that has none of her own to purchase them with Spain and Portugal that are yearly supplied with new gold and silver from their mines may forever buy for ready money the yearly increase of gold and silver continues but then money is their growth and the commodity of the country we know that we could not continue long to purchase the goods of other nations if they would not take our manufactures and payment for them and why should we judge otherwise of other nations if those in turkey then had no more money fall from the skies than we let us see what would be the consequence of what we suppose the 600,000 pounds in silk, mohair, etc that are left upon their hands the first year must make those commodities fall considerably of this the Dutch and French will reap the benefit as much as ourselves and if we continue to refuse taking their commodities and payment for our manufactures they can trade no longer with us but must content themselves with buying what they want of such nations as are willing to take what we refuse though their goods are much worse than ours and thus our commerce with turkey must in few years be infallibly lost we must say, perhaps, that to prevent the ill consequence I have showed we shall take the Turkish merchandise as formally and only be so frugal as to consume but half the quantity of them ourselves and send the rest abroad to be sold to others let us see what this will do and whether it will enrich the nation by the balance of that trade with 600,000 pounds in the first place I will grant them that our people at home making use of so much more of our own manufactures but in the second I cannot allow that the goods can be sold as formally for suppose that the half is war at home to be sold at the same rate as before certainly the other half that is sent abroad will want very much of it for we must send the goods to markets already supplied and besides that there must be freight, insurance, provision and all other charges deducted and the merchants in general must lose much more by this half of the goods and by that half of the goods and by that half of the goods the merchants in general must lose much more by this half that is reshipped than they got by the half that is consumed here for though the woolen manufactures are our own product yet they stand the merchant that ships them off to foreign countries in as much as they do the shopkeeper here that retails them so that if the returns for what he sends abroad repay him not what his goods cost him here with all other charges till he has the money and a good interest for it in cash the merchant must run out that the merchants in general finding they lost by the Turkish commodities they sent abroad would ship no more of our manufactures than what would pay for as much silk mohair, etc. as would be consumed here other nations would soon find ways to supply them with as much as we should send short and somewhere other to dispose of the goods we should refuse so that all we should get by this frugality would be that those in Turkey would take but half the quantity of our manufactures of what they do now would encourage and wear their merchantises without which they are not able to purchase ours as I have had the mortification for several years to meet with abundance of sensible people against this opinion and who always thought me wrong in this calculation so I had the pleasure at last to see the wisdom of the nation fall into the same sentiments as is so manifest from an act of parliament made in the year 1721 where the legislator disobliges a powerful and valuable company of very weighty inconveniences at home to promote the interest of the turkey trade and not only encourages the consumption of silk and mohair but forces the subjects on penalties to make use of them whether they will or not what is laid to the charge of luxury besides is that it increases avarice and rapine and where they are reigning vices offices of the greatest trust are bought and sold the ministers that should serve the public both great and small corrupted and the countries every moment in danger of being betrayed to the highest bidders and lastly that it effeminates and innervates the people by which the nations become an easy prey to the first invaders these are indeed terrible things but what is put to the account of luxury belongs to maladministration and is the fault of bad politics every government ought to be thoroughly acquainted with instead fastly to pursue the interest of the country good politicians by dexterous management laying heavy impositions on some goods or totally prohibiting them and lowering the duties on others may always turn and divert the course of trade which way they please and as they will ever prefer if it be equally considerable the commerce with such countries as can pay with money as well as goods to those that can make no returns for what they buy but in the commodities of their own growth and manufacturers so they will always carefully prevent the traffic of the nations as refuse the goods of others and will take nothing but money for their own but above all they will keep a watchful eye over the balance of trade in general and never suffer that all the foreign commodities together that are imported in one year shall exceed in value what of their own growth or manufacture is in the same imported to others note that I speak now of the interest of those nations that have no gold or silver of their own growth otherwise this maxim need not to be so much insisted on if what I urged last be but diligently looked after and the imports are never allowed to be superior to the exports no nation can ever be impoverished by foreign luxury and they may improve it as much as they please if they can but in proportion raise the fund of their own that is to purchase it trade is the principle but not the only requisite to aggrandize a nation there are other things to be taken care of besides the mayum and tuum must be secured crimes punished and all other laws concerning the administration of justice wisely contrived and strictly executed foreign affairs must be likewise prudently managed and the ministry of every nation ought to have a good intelligence abroad and be well acquainted with the public transactions of all those countries that either by their neighborhood strength or interest may be hurtful or beneficial to them to take the necessary measures accordingly of crossing some resisting others as policy and the balance of power direct the multitude must be odd no man's conscience forced and the clergy allowed no greater share in state affairs than our saviour has bequeathed in his testament these are the arts that lead to worldly greatness what sovereign power so ever makes a good use of them that has any considerable nation to govern whether it be a monarchy, a commonwealth or a mixture of both the scale of making it flourish in spite of all the other powers upon earth and no luxury or other vice is ever able to shake their constitution but here I expect a full mouth cry against me what has God never punished and destroyed great nations for their sins yes but not without means by infatuating their governors and suffering them to depart from either all or some of those general maxims I have mentioned and of all the famous estates and empires had to boast of hitherto none ever came to ruin whose destruction was not principally owing to the bad politics, neglects or mismanagements of the rulers there is no doubt but more health and vigour is expected among the people and their offspring from temperance and sobriety than there is from gluttony and drunkenness yet I confess that as to luxuries effeminating and innervating a nation I have not such frightful notions now as I have had formerly when we hear or read of things which we are altogether strangers to they commonly bring to our imagination such ideas of what we have seen as, according to our apprehension must come the nearest to them and I remember that when I have read of the luxury of Persia, Egypt and other countries where it has been a reigning vice and that we're effeminated and innervated by it it has sometimes put me in mind of the cramming and swilling of ordinary tradesmen at a city feast in the wilderness they're over gorging themselves as often attended with at other times it has made me think on the distraction of disilute sailors as I had seen them in company of half a dozen lewd women roaring along with fiddles before them and was I to have been carried into any of their great cities I would have expected to have found one third of the people sick of bed with surfeits another laid up with a gout or crippled by a more ignominious distemper and the rest that could go without leading walk along the streets in petticoats it is happy for us to have fear for a keeper as long as our reason is strong enough to govern our appetites and I believe that the great dread I had more particularly against the word to innervate and some consequent thoughts on the etymology of it did me abundance of good when I was a schoolboy but since I have seen something in the world the consequences of luxury to a nation seem not so dreadful to me as they did as long as men have the same appetites the same vices will remain in all large societies some will love whoring and others drinking the lustful that can get no handsom clean women will content themselves with dirty drabs and those that cannot purchase true hermitage or pontac will be glad of more ordinary French claret those that cannot reach wine take up with most liquors and a foot soldier or a beggar may make himself as drunk with stale beer or malt spirits as a lord with burgundy, champagne or taquet the cheapest and most slovenly way of indulging our passions does as much mischief to a man's constitution as the most elegant and expensive the greatest excesses of luxury are shown in buildings furniture, equipages, and clothes clean linen weakens a man no more than flannel tapestry, fine painting, or good waynsket are no more unwholesome than bare walls and a rich couch or a gilt chariot are no more innervating than the cold floor or a country cart the refined pleasures of men of sense are seldom injurious to their constitution and there are many great epicures that were refused to eat or drink more than their heads or stomachs can bear sensual people may take as great care of themselves as any and the errors of the most viciously luxurious do not so much consist in the frequent repetitions of their lewdness and their eating and drinking too much things which would most enervate them as they do in the operose contrivances the profuseness and nicety they are served with and the vast expense they are at in their tables and amours but let us once suppose that the ease and pleasures the grandees and the rich people of every nation live in render them unfit to endure hardships and undergo the toils of war I will allow that most of the common council of the city would make but very indifferent foot soldiers and I believe heartily that if your horse was to be composed of alderman and such as most of them are a small artillery of squibs would be sufficient to rout them but what have the alderman, the common council or indeed all people of any substance to do with the war but to pay taxes the hardships and fatigues of war that are personally suffered fall upon them that bear the brunt of everything the meanest indigent part of the nation the working slaving people for how most of so ever the plenty and luxury of a nation may be somebody must do the work houses and ships must be built merchandises must be removed and the ground tilled such a variety of labours in every great nation require a vast multitude in which there are always loose, idle extravagant fellows enough to spare for an army and those that are robust enough to hedge and ditch, plow and thrash or else not too much innervated cloth workers, porters or carmen will always be strong and hardy enough in a campaign or two to make good soldiers who, where good orders are kept, have seldom so much plenty and superfluity come to their share as to do them any hurt the mischief then to be feared from luxury among the people of war cannot extend itself beyond the officers the greatest of them are either men of a very high berth and princely education or else extraordinary parts and no less experience and whoever is made choice of by a wise government to command an army and chef should have a consummate knowledge in martial affairs, intrepidity to keep him calm in the midst of danger and many other qualifications that must be the work of time and application on men of a quick penetration a distinguished genius and a world of honour, strong sinews and supple joints are trifling advantages not regarded in persons of their reach and grandeur that can destroy cities of bed and ruin whole countries while they are at dinner as they are most commonly men of great age it would be ridiculous to expect a hail constitution and agility of limbs from them so their heads be but active and well furnished it is no great matter what the rest of their bodies are if they cannot bear the fatigue of being on horseback they may ride in coaches or be carried in litters men's conduct and sagacity are nevertheless for their being cripples and the best general the king of France has now can hardly crawl along those that are immediately under the chief commanders must be very nigh of the same abilities and are generally men that have raised themselves to those posts by their merit the other officers are all of them in their several stations obliged to lay out so large a share of their pay and fine clothes, accoutrements and other things by the luxury of the times called necessary that they can spare but little money to botches for as they are advanced and their salaries raised so they are likewise forced to increase their expenses and their equipages which as well as everything else must still be proportionable to their quality by which means the greatest part of them are in a manner hindered from those excesses that might be destructive to health while their luxury thus turned another way serves moreover to heighten their pride and vanity the greatest motives to make them behave themselves like what they would be thought to be C remark online 321 there is nothing refines mankind more than love and honor those two passions are equivalent to many virtues and therefore the greatest schools of breeding and good manners are courts and armies the first to accomplish the women the other to polish the men with the generality of officers among civilized nations effect is a perfect knowledge of the world the air of frankness and the humanity peculiar to military men of experience and such a mixture of modesty and undauntedness as may bespeak them both courteous and valiant where good sense is fashionable and a gentile behavior is in esteem gluttony and drunkenness can be no-raining vices what officers of distinction chiefly aim at is not a beastly but a splendid way of living and the wishes of the most luxurious in their several degrees of quality to appear handsomely and excel each other in finery of equipage politeness of entertainments and the reputation of a judicious fancy and everything about them but if there should be more disillute reprobates among officers then there are among men of other professions which is not true yet the most debauched of them may be very serviceable if they have but a great share of honor it is this that covers and makes up for a multitude of defects in them and it is this that none however they are to pleasure dare pretend to be without but as there is no argument so convincing as matter of fact let us look back on what so lately happened in our two last wars with France how many puny young striplings have we had in our armies tenderly educated nice in their dress and curious in their diet that underwent all manner of duties with gallantry and cheerfulness those that have such dismal apprehensions of luxuries innervating might in Flanders and Spain have seen embroidered bow with fine laced shirts and powdered wigs stand as much fire and lead up to the mouth of a cannon with as little concern as it was possible for the most stinking sloven's to have done in their own hair though it had not been combed in a month and met with abundance of wild rakes who had actually impaired their healths and broke their constitutions with excesses of wine and women that yet behave themselves with conduct and bravery against their enemies robustness is the least thing required in an officer and if sometimes strength is of use a firm resolution of mind which the hopes of preferment, emulation and the love of glory inspire them with will at a push supply the place of bodily force those that understand their business and have a sufficient sense of honor as soon as they are used to danger will always be capable officers and their luxury as long as they spend nobody's money but their own will never be prejudicial to a nation by all which I think I have proved what I designed in this remark on luxury first that in one sense everything may be called so and in another there is no such thing secondly that with a wise administration all people may swim in as much foreign luxury as their product can purchase without being impoverished by it and lastly where military affairs are taken care of as they ought and the soldiers well paid and kept in good discipline a wealthy nation may live in all the ease and plenty imaginable and in many parts of it show as much pomp and delicacy as human wit can invent and at the same time be formidable to their neighbors and come up to the character of the bees in the fable of which I said that flattered in peace and feared in wars they were the esteem of foreigners and lavish of their wealth and lives the balance of all other hives see what his father said concerning luxury in the remarks on line 182 and 307 end of section 13 section 14 of the fable of the bees by Bernard Mandeville this LibriVox recording is in the public domain line 182 an odious pride a million more pride is that natural faculty by which every mortal that has any understanding over values and imagines better things of himself than any impartial judge thoroughly acquainted with all his qualities and circumstances could allow him we are possessed of no other quality so beneficial to society and so necessary to render it wealthy and flourishing as this yet it is that which is most generally detested what is very peculiar to this faculty of ours is that those who are the fullest of it are the least willing to connive at it in others whereas the heinousness of other vices is the most extenuated by those who are guilty of them themselves the chaste man hates fornication and drunkenness is most abhorred by the temperate but none are so much offended at their neighbor's pride as the proudest of all and if anyone can pardon it it is the most humble from which I think we may justly infer that it being odious to all the world is a certain sign that all the world is troubled with it this all men of sense are ready to confess and nobody denies but that he has pride in general but if you come to particulars you will meet with few that will own any action you can name of theirs to have proceeded from that principle there are likewise many who will allow that among the sinful nations of the times pride and luxury are the great promoters of trade but they refuse to own the necessity there is that in a more virtuous age such a one as should be free from pride trade within a great measure decay the almighty they say has endowed us with the dominion over all things which the earth and sea producer contain there is nothing to be found in either but what was made for the use of man and his skill and industry above other animals were given him that he might render both them and everything else within the reach of his senses more serviceable upon this consideration they think it impious to imagine that humility temperance and other virtues should debar people from the enjoyment of those comforts of life which are not denied to the most wicked nations and so conclude that without pride or luxury the same things might be at war and consumed the same number of handicrafts and artificers employed and a nation be every way as flourishing as where those vices are the most predominant as to wearing apparel in particular they will tell you that pride which sticks much nearer to us than our clothes it only lodged in the heart and that rags often conceal a greater portion of it than the most pompous attire and that as it cannot be denied but that there have always been virtuous princes who with humble hearts have wore their splendid diadems and swayed their envied sceptres void of ambition for the good of others so it is very probable that silver and gold brocades and the richest embroideries may without a thought of pride be wore by many whose quality and fortune are suitable to them may not say they a good man of extraordinary revenues make every year a greater variety of suits than it is possible he should wear out and yet have no other ends than to set the poor at work to encourage trade and by employing many to promote the welfare of his country and considering food and raiment to be the best of the best of the best and the two chief articles to which all our worldly cares are extended why may not all mankind set aside a considerable part of their income for the one as well as the other without the least tincture of pride nay is not every member of the society in a manner obliged according to his ability to contribute toward the maintenance of that branch of trade on which the whole has so great a dependence besides that to appear decently in duty which without any regard to ourselves we owe to those we converse with these are the objections generally made use of by haughty moralists who cannot endure to hear the dignity of their species arraigned but if we look narrowly into them they may soon be answered if we had vices I cannot see why any man should ever make more suits than he had occasion for though he was never so desirous of promoting the good of the nation for though in the wearing of a well cloth silk rather than a slight stuff and the preferring curious fine cloth to course he had no other view but the setting of more people to work and consequently the public welfare yet he could consider close no otherwise than lovers of their country do taxes now they may pay them with alacrity but nobody gives more than his do especially where all are justly rated according to their abilities as it could no otherwise be expected in a very virtuous age besides that in such golden times nobody would dress above his condition nobody pinches family cheat or over reaches neighbor to purchase finery and consequently they would not be half the consumption nor third part of the people employed as there now are but to make this more plain and demonstrate that for the support of trade there can be nothing equivalent to pride I shall examine several views men have an outward apparel and set forth what daily experience may teach everybody as to yes close were originally made for two ends to hide our nakedness and to fence our bodies against the weather and other outward injuries to these are boundless pride has added a third which is ornament for what else but an excess of stupid vanity could have prevailed upon our reason to fancy that ornamental which must continually put us in mind of our wants and misery beyond all other animals that are ready closed by nature herself it is indeed to be admired how so sensible a creature as man that pretends to so many fine qualities of his own should condescend to value himself upon what is robbed from so innocent and defenseless and animal as a sheep or what he is beholden for to the most insignificant thing upon earth a dying worm yet while he is proud of such trifling depredations he has the folly to laugh at the hot and tauts on the furthest promontory of afric who adorn themselves with the guts of their enemies without considering that they are the ensigns of their valor those barbarians are fine with the true spolia opima and that if their pride be more savage than ours it is certainly less ridiculous because they were the spoils of the more noble animal but whatever reflections may be made on this head the world has long since decided the matter handsome apparel is a main point fine feathers make fine birds and people where they are not known are generally honored according to their clothes and other accoutrements they have about them from the richness of them we judge of their wealth and by their ordering of them we guess at their understanding it is this which encourages everybody who is conscious of his little merit if he is anyways able to wear clothes above his rank especially in large and popular cities where obscure men may hourly meet with 50 strangers to one acquaintance and consequently have the pleasure of being esteemed by the vast majority not as what they are but what they appear to be which is a greater temptation than most people want to be vain whoever takes delight in viewing the various scenes of low life may on Easter witson and other great holidays meet with scores of people especially women of almost the lowest rank that wear good and fashionable clothes if coming to talk with them you treat them more courteously and with greater respect than what they are conscious they deserve they will commonly be ashamed of owning what they are and often you may if you are a little inquisitive discover in them a most anxious care to conceal the business they follow and the place they live in the reason is plain while they receive those civilities that are not usually paid them in which they think only do to their betters they have the satisfaction to imagine that they appear what they would be which to weak minds is a pleasure almost as substantial as they could reap from the very wishes this golden dream they are unwilling to be disturbed in and being sure that the meanness of their condition if it is known must sink them very low in your opinion they hug themselves in their disguise and take all imaginable precaution not to forfeit by a useless discovery the esteem which they flatter themselves at their good clothes have drawn from you though everybody allows that as to a parallel manner of living we ought to behave ourselves suitable to our conditions and follow the examples of the most sensible and prudent among our equals and rank and fortune yet how few that are not either miserably covetous or else proud of singularity have this discretion to boast of we all look above ourselves and as fast as we can strive to imitate those that somewhere other are superior to us the poorest laborer's wife in the parish who scorns to wear a strong wholesome freeze as she might will half starve herself and her husband a second hand gown and petticoat that cannot do her half the service because for sooth it is more genteel the weaver the shoemaker the tailor the barber and every mean working fellow that can set up with little has the impudence with the first money he gets to dress himself like a tradesman of substance the ordinary retailer in the clothing of his wife takes pattern from his neighbor that deals in the same commodity by wholesale and the reason he gives for it is that twelve years ago the other had not a bigger shop than himself the drugist, Mercer, Draper and other creditable shopkeepers can find no difference between themselves and merchants and therefore dress and live like them the merchants lady who cannot bear the assurance of those mechanics flies for refuge to the other end of the town and scorns to follow any fashion but what she takes from thence this haughtiness alarms the court the women of quality are frightened to see merchants wives and daughters dressed like themselves this impudence of the city they cry is intolerable Mantua makers are sent for and the contrivance of fashions becomes all their study that they may have always new modes ready to take up as soon as those saucy sits shall begin to imitate those in being the same emulation is continued through the several degrees of quality to an incredible expense till at last the prince's great favorites and those of the first rank of all having nothing left out strip some of their inferiors are forced to lay out vast estates and pompous equipages magnificent furniture sumptuous gardens and princely palaces to this emulation and continual striving to outdo one another is owing that after so many various shiftings and changes of modes in trumping up new ones and renewing of old ones there is still a plus ultra left for the ingenious it is this or at least the consequence of it that sets the poor to work adds spur to industry and encourages the skillful artificer to search after further improvements it may be objected that many people of good fashion who have been used to be well dressed out of custom wear rich clothes with all the indifferency imaginable and that the benefit to trade occurring from them cannot be ascribed to emulation or pride to this I answer that it is impossible that those who trouble their heads so little with their dress could ever have wore those rich clothes if both the stuffs and fashions had not been first invented to gratify the vanity of others who took greater delight in fine apparel than they besides that everybody is not without pride that appears to be so all the symptoms of that vise are not easily discovered they are manifold and very according to the age humor circumstances and often constitution of the people the caloric city captain seems impatient to come to action expressing his warlike genius by the firmness of his steps makes his pike for want of enemies tremble at the valor of his arm his martial finery as he marches along inspires him with an unusual elevation of mind by which endeavoring to forget his shop as well as himself he looks up at the balconies with the fierceness of a saracen conqueror while the phlegmatic alderman now become venerable both for his age and his authority contends himself with being thought a considerable man and knowing no easier way to express his vanity looks big in his coach where being known by his paltry livery he receives in a sullen state the homage that has paid him by the meaner sort of people the beardless ensign counterfeits a gravity above his years and with ridiculous assurance strives to imitate the stern countenance of his colonel flattering himself all the while that by his daring mean you will judge of his prowess the youthful fare in a vast concern of being overlooked by the continual changing of her posture betrays a violent desire of being observed and catching as it were at everybody's eyes courts with obliging looks the admiration of her beholders the conceded coxcomb on the contrary displaying an air of sufficiency is wholly taken up with the contemplation of his own perfections and in public places discovers such a disregard to others that the ignorant must imagine he thinks himself to be alone these and such like are all manifest though different tokens of pride that are obvious to all the world but a man's vanity is not always so soon found out when we perceive an air of humanity and men seem not to be employed in admiring themselves nor altogether unmindful of others we are apt to pronounce them void of pride when perhaps they are only fatigued with gratifying their vanity and become languid from a satiety of enjoyments that outward show of peace within and drowsy composure of careless negligence with which a great man is often seen in his plain chariot to lull at ease are not always so free from art as they may seem to be nothing is more ravishing to the proud than to be thought happy the well-bred gentleman places his greatest pride in the skill he has of covering it with dexterity and some are so expert in concealing this frailty that when they are the most guilty the vulgar think them the most exempt from it thus the dissembling courtier when he appears in state assumes an air of modesty and good humor and while he is ready to burst with vanity seems to be wholly ignorant of his greatness well knowing that those lovely qualities must heighten him in the esteem of others and be in addition to all that grandeur which the coronets about his coach and harness with the rest of his equipage cannot fail to proclaim without his assistance and as in these, pride is overlooked because industriously concealed so and others again it is denied that they have any when they show or at least seem to show it in the most public manner the wealthy parson being as well as the rest of his profession debarred from the gaiety of layman makes it his business to look out for an admirable black and the finest cloth that money can purchase and distinguishes himself by the fullness of his noble and spotless garment as far as fashionable as that form he is forced to comply with will admit of but as he is only stinted in their shape so he takes care that for goodness of hair and color few noblemen shall be able to match him his body is ever clean as well as his clothes his sleek face is kept constantly shaved and his handsome nails are diligently paired his smooth white hand and a brilliant of the first water mutually becoming honor each other with double graces he discovers his transparently curious and he scorns ever to be seen abroad with a worse beaver than what a rich banker would be proud of on his wedding day to all these niceties and dress he adds a majestic gait and expresses a commanding loftiness in his carriage yet common civility not withstanding the evidence of so many concurring symptoms will not allow us to suspect any of his actions to be the result of pride considering the dignity of his office it is only decency in him that would be vanity in others and in good manners to his calling we ought to believe that the worthy gentleman without any regard to his reverent person puts himself to all this trouble and expense merely out of a respect which is due to the divine order he belongs to and a religious zeal to preserve his holy function from the contempt of scoffers with all my heart nothing of all this shall be called pride let me only be allowed to say that to our human capacities it looks very like it but if at last I should grant that there are men who enjoy all the fineries of equipage and furniture as well as clothes yet have no pride in them it is certain that if all should be such that emulation I spoke of before must cease and consequently trade which has so great a dependence upon it suffer in every branch for to say that if all men were truly virtuous they might without any regard to themselves consume as much out of zeal to serve their neighbors and promote the public good as they do now out of self-love and emulation is a miserable shift and an unreasonable supposition as there have been good people in all ages so without doubt we are not destitute of them in this but let us inquire of the periwig makers and tailors in what gentlemen even of the greatest wealth and highest quality they could ever discover such public spirited views ask the laseman, the mercers and drapers whether the richest and if you will the most virtuous ladies if they buy with ready money or intend to pay in any reasonable time will not drive from shop to shop to try the market make as many words and stand as hard with them to save a groat or six pence in a yard as the most necessitous jilts in town if it be urged that if there are not it is possible there might be such people I answer that it is as possible that cats instead of killing rats and mice should feed them and go about the house to suckle and nurse their young ones or that a kite should call the hens to their meat as the cock does and sit brooding over their chickens instead of devouring them but if they should all do so they would cease to be cats and kites it is inconsistent with their natures and the species of creatures which now we mean when we name cats and kites would be extinct as soon as that could come to pass End of section 14 Part 15 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Line 183 Envy itself and Vanity were ministers of industry Envy is that baseness in our nature which makes us grieve and pine at what we conceive to be a happiness in others I do not believe there is a human creature in his senses arrive to maturity yet at one time or other has not been carried away by this passion and good earnest and yet I never met with anyone that dared to own he was guilty of it but in jest that we are so generally ashamed of this vice is owing to that strong habit of hypocrisy by the help of which we have learned from our cradle to hide even from ourselves the vast extent of self-love and all its different branches it is impossible man should wish better for another than he does for himself unless where he supposes an impossibility that himself should attain to those wishes and from hence we may easily learn after what manner this passion is raised in us in order to it we are to consider first that as well as we think of ourselves so ill we think of our neighbor with equal injustice and when we apprehend that others do or will enjoy what we think they do not deserve it afflicts and makes us angry with the cause of that disturbance secondly that we are employed in wishing well for ourselves everyone according to his judgment and inclinations and when we observe something we like and yet our destitute of in the possession of others it occasions first sorrow in us for not having the thing we like this sorrow is incurable while we continue our esteem for the thing we want but as self-defense is restless and never suffers us to leave any means untried how to remove evil from us as far and as well as we are able experience teaches us that nothing in nature more alleviates this sorrow than our anger against those who are possessed of what we esteem and want this latter passion therefore we cherish and cultivate to save or leave ourselves at least in part from the uneasiness we felt from the first envy then is a compound of grief and anger the degrees of this passion depend chiefly on the nearness or remoteness of the objects as to circumstances if one who is forced to walk on foot envies a great man for keeping a coach in six it will never be with that violence or give him that disturbance which it made to a man who keeps a coach himself but can only afford to drive with four horses the symptoms of envy are as various and as hard to describe as those of the plague at some time it appears in one shape at others in another quite different among the fair the disease is very common and the signs of it very conspicuous in their opinions and censures of one another in beautiful young women you may often discover this faculty to a high degree they frequently will hate one another mortally at first sight from no other principle than envy and you may read this scorn and unreasonable aversion in their very countenances if they have not a great deal of art and well learned to dissemble in the rude and unpolished multitude this passion is very bare faced especially when they envy others for the goods of fortune they rail at their betters their faults and take pains to misconstrue their most commendable actions they murmur at providence and loudly complain that the good things of this world are chiefly enjoyed by those who do not deserve them the grosser sort of them it often affects so violently that if they were not withheld by the fear of the laws they would go directly and beat those their envy is leveled at from no other provocation than what that passion suggests to them the men of letters laboring under this distemper quite different symptoms when they envy a person for his parts in erudition their chief care is industriously to conceal their frailty which generally is attempted by denying and depreciating the good qualities they envy they carefully peruse his works and are displeased with every fine passage they meet with they look for nothing but his errors and wish for no greater feast than a gross mistake in their censures they are captious as well as severe make mountains of molehills will not pardon the least shadow of a fault but exaggerate the most trifling omission into a capital blunder envy is visible in brute beasts horses show it in their endeavors about stripping one another and the best spirited will run themselves to death before they will suffer another before them in dogs this passion is likewise plainly to be seen those who are used to be caressed will never tamely bear that felicity in others I have seen a lap dog that would choke himself with rituals rather than leave anything for a competitor of his own kind and we may often observe the same behavior in those creatures which we daily see in infants that are froward and by being over fondled made humorsome if out of caprice they at any time refuse to eat what they have asked for and we can but make them believe that somebody else, nay even the cat or the dog is going to take it from them they will make an end of their aughts with pleasure and feed even against their appetite if it was not riveted in human nature it would not be so common in children and youth would not be so generally spurred on by emulation those who would derive everything that is beneficial to the society from a good principle ascribe the effects of emulation in schoolboys to a virtue of the mind as it requires labor and pains so it is evident that they commit a self-denial who act from that disposition but if we look narrowly into it we shall find that this sacrifice of ease is made to envy and the love of glory if there was not something very like this passion mixed with that pretended virtue it would be impossible to raise and increase it by the same means that create envy the boy who receives a reward for the superiority of his performance is conscious of the vexation it would have been to him if he should have fallen short of it this reflection makes him exert himself not to be outdone by those whom he looks upon as his inferior and the greater his pride is the more self-denial he will practice to maintain his conquest the other who, in spite of the pains he took to do well has missed of the prize is sorry and consequently angry with him whom he must look upon as the cause of his grief but to show this anger would be ridiculous and of no service to him so that he must either be contented to be less esteemed by the other boy or by renewing his endeavors become a greater proficient and it is ten to one a good-humored and peaceable lad will choose the first and so become indolent and inactive while the covetous, peevish and quarrelsome rascal shall take incredible pains and make himself a conqueror in his turn envy, as it is very common among painters so it is of great use for their improvement I do not mean that little daubers envy great masters but most of them are tainted with his vice against those immediately above them if the pupil of a famous artist genius and uncommon application he first adores his master but as his own skill increases he begins insensibly to envy what he admired before to learn the nature of this passion and that it consists in what I have named we are but to observe that if a painter by exerting himself comes not only to equal but to exceed the man he envied his sorrow is gone and all his anger disarmed and if he hated him before then to it married women who are guilty of this vice which few are not are always endeavoring to raise the same passion in their spouses and where they have prevailed envy and emulation have kept more men in bounds and reformed more ill husbands from sloth, from drinking and other evil courses than all the sermons that have been preached since the time of the apostles as everybody would be happy enjoy pleasure and avoid pain if he could and every creature that seems satisfied as a rival in happiness and the satisfaction we have in seeing that felicity disturbed without any advantage to ourselves but what springs from the pleasure we have in beholding it is called loving mischief for mischief's sake and the motive of which that frailty is the result, malice another offspring derived from the same original for if there was no envy there could be no malice when the passions lie dormant we have no apprehension of them we will think they have not such a frailty in their nature because that moment they are not affected with it a gentleman well dressed who happens to be dirtied all over by a coach or a cart, is laughed at and by his inferiors much more than his equals because they envy him more they know he is vexed and imagining him to be happier than themselves they are glad to see him meet with displeasures in his turn but a young lady if she be in a serious mood instead of laughing at pities him then she takes delight in and there is no room for envy at disasters we either laugh or pity those that befall them according to the stock we are possessed of either malice or compassion if a man falls or hurts himself so slightly that it moves not the latter we laugh and here our pity and malice shake us alternately indeed sir, I am very sorry for it I beg your pardon for laughing I am the silliest creature in the world then laugh again I am very indeed very sorry and so on some are so malicious they would laugh if a man broke his leg and others are so compassionate that they can hardly pity a man for the least spot on his clothes but nobody is so savage that no compassion can touch him nor any man so good-natured as never to be affected with any malicious pleasure how strangely our passions govern us we envy a man for being rich and then perfectly hate him if we come to be his equals we are calm and the least condescension in him makes us friends but if we become visibly superior to him we can pity his misfortunes the reason why men of true good sense envy less than others is because they admire themselves with less agitation than fools and silly people for, though they do not show this to others yet the solidity of their thinking gives them an assurance of their real worth which men of weak understanding can never feel within and they often counterfeit it the ostracism of the Greeks was a sacrifice of valuable men made to epidemic envy and often applied as an infallible remedy to cure and prevent the mischiefs of popular spleen and rancor a victim of state often appeases the murmurs of a whole nation and after ages frequently wonder at the barbarities of this nature which under the same circumstances they would have committed themselves they are compliments to the people's malice which is never better gratified than when they can see a great man humbled we believe that we love justice and to see merit rewarded but if men continue long in the first posts of honor half of us grow weary of them look for their faults and if we can find none we suppose they hide them and it is much if the greatest part of us do not wish them discarded this foul play the best of men ought ever to apprehend from all who are not their immediate friends or acquaintance because nothing is more tiresome to us than the repetition of praises we have no manner of share in the more a passion is a compound of many others the more difficult it is to define it and the more it is tormenting to those that labor under it the greater cruelty it is capable of inspiring them with against others therefore nothing is more whimsical or mischievous than jealousy which is made up of love, hope, fear and a great deal of envy the last has been sufficiently treated of already and what I have to say of fear under remark on line 321 so that the better to explain and illustrate this odd mixture the ingredients I shall further speak of in this place our hope and love hoping is wishing with some degree of confidence that the thing wished for will come to pass the firmness and imbecility of our hope depend entirely on the greater or lesser degree of our confidence and all hope includes doubt for when our confidence is arrived to that height as to exclude all doubts it becomes a certainty and we take for granted what we only hoped for before a silver incorn may pass in speech because everybody knows what we mean by it but a certain hope cannot for a man who makes use of an epithet that destroys the essence of the substantive he joins it to can have no meaning at all and the more clearly we understand the force of the epithet and the nature of the substantive the more palpable is the nonsense of the heterogeneous compound or why it is not so shocking to some to hear a man speak of certain hope as if he should talk of hot ice or liquid oak is not because there is less nonsense contained in the first than there is in either of the latter but because the word hope I mean the essence of it is not so clearly understood by the generality of the people as the words and essence of ice and oak are love in the first place signifies affection such as parents and nurses bear to children and friends to one another it consists in a liking and well-wishing to the person beloved we give an easy construction to his words and actions and feel a proneness to excuse and forgive his faults if we see any his interest we make on all accounts our own even to our prejudice and receive an inward satisfaction for sympathizing with him in his sorrows as well as joy is what I last said is not impossible whatever it may seem to be the sincere in sharing with one another in his misfortunes self-love makes us believe that the sufferings we feel must alleviate and lessen those of our friend and while this fond reflection is soothing our pain a secret pleasure arises from our grieving for the person we love secondly by love we understand a strong inclination in its nature distinct from all other affections of friendship, gratitude and consanguinity that persons of different sexes bear to one another it is in this signification that love enters into the compound of jealousy it is the effect as well as happy disguise of that passion that prompts us to labor for the preservation of our species this latter appetite is innate in both men and women who are not defective in their formation as much as hunger or thirst though they are seldom affected with it before the years of puberty could we undress nature and pry into her deepest recesses discover the seeds of this passion before it exerts itself as plainly as we see the teeth in an embryo before the gums are formed there are few healthy people of either sex whom it has made no impression on before 20 yet as the peace and happiness of the civil society require that this should be kept a secret never to be talked of in public so among well-bred people it is counted highly criminal to mention before company anything in plain words is relating to the mystery of succession by which means the very name of the appetite though the most necessary for the continuance of mankind is become odious and the proper epithets commonly joined to lust are filthy and abominable this impulse of nature in people of strict morals and rigid modesty often disturbs the body for a considerable time before it is understood or known to be what it is and it is remarkable that the most polished and best instructed are generally the most ignorant as to this affair and here I can but observe the difference between man in the wild state of nature and the same creature in civil society in the first men and women if left rude and untaught in the sciences of modes and manners would quickly find out the cause of that disturbance and be at a loss no more than other animals for a present remedy besides that it is not probable they would want either percept or example from the more experienced but in the second where the rules of religion law and decency are to be followed and obeyed before any dictates of nature the youth of both sexes are to be armed and fortified against this impulse and from their infancy artfully frightened from the most remote approaches of it the appetite itself and all the symptoms of it though they are plainly felt and understood are to be stifled with care and severity and in women flatly disowned and if there be occasion with obscenity denied even when themselves are affected by them if it throws them into distempers they must be cured by physics or else patiently bear them in silence and it is the interest of the society to preserve decency and politeness that women should linger, waste and die rather than relieve themselves in an unlawful manner and among the fashionable part of mankind the people of birth and fortune it is expected that matrimony should never be entered upon without a curious regard to family, estate and reputation and in the making of matches the call of nature be the very last consideration those then who would make love and lust synonymous confound the effect with the cause of it yet such is the force of education and a habit of thinking as we are taught that sometimes persons of either sex are actually in love without feeling any carnal desires or penetrating into the intentions of nature the end proposed by her without which they could never have been affected with that sort of passion that there are such is certain but many more whose pretenses to those refined notions are only upheld by art and dissimulation those who are really such platonic lovers are commonly the pale faced weakly people of cold and phlegmatic constitutions in either sex the hail and robust of billious temperament and a sanguine complexion they never entertain any love so spiritual as to exclude all thoughts and wishes that relate to the body but if the most seraphic lovers would know the original of their inclination let them but suppose that another should have the corporal enjoyment of the person beloved and by the tortures they will suffer from that reflection they will soon discover the nature of their passions whereas on the contrary parents and friends receive a satisfaction in reflecting on the joys and comforts of a happy marriage and be tasted by those they wish well to the curious that are skilled in anatomizing the invisible part of man will observe that the more sublime and exempt this love is from all thoughts of sensuality the more spurious it is and the more it degenerates from its honest original and primitive simplicity the power and sagacity as well as labour and care of the politician and civilizing society has been nowhere more conspicuous than in the happy contrivance by flattering our passions against one another by flattering our pride and still increasing the good opinion we have of ourselves on the one hand and inspiring us on the other with a superlative dread and mortal aversion against shame the artful moralists have taught us cheerfully to encounter ourselves and if not subdue at least so to conceal and disguise our darling passion lust that we scarce know it when we meet with it in our breasts that we have in view for all our self-denial can any man be so serious as to abstain from laughter when he considers that for so much deceit and insincerity practiced upon ourselves as well as others we have no other recompense than the vain satisfaction of making our species appear more exalted and remote from that of other animals than it really is and we in our consciences know it to be yet this is a fact and in it we plainly perceive that it was necessary to render odious every word or action by which we might discover the innate desire we feel to perpetuate our kind and why tamely to submit to the violence of a furious appetite which is painful to resist and innocently to obey the most pressing demand of nature without guile or hypocrisy like other creatures should be branded with the ignominious name of brutality what we call love then is not genuine but an adulterated appetite or rather a compound a heap of several contradictory passions blended in one as it is a product of nature warped by custom and education so the true origin and first motive of it as I have hinted already is stifled in well-bred people and concealed from themselves all which is the reason that as those affected with it vary in age strength, resolution, temper circumstances and manners the effects of it are so different and unrecognizing and unaccountable it is this passion that makes jealousy so troublesome and the envy of it often so fatal those who imagine that there may be jealousy without love do not understand that passion men may not have the least affection for their wives and yet be angry with them for their conduct and suspicious of them either with or without a cause but what in such cases affects them is their pride, their concern for their reputation they feel a hatred against them without remorse they are courageous, they can beat them and go to sleep contentedly such husbands may watch their dames themselves and have them observed by others but their vigilance is not so intense they are not so inquisitive or industrious in their searches neither do they feel that anxiety of heart at the fear of discovery as when love is mixed with the passions what confirms me in this opinion is that we never observe this behavior between a man and his mistress for when his love is gone and he suspects her to be false he leaves her and troubles his head no more about her whereas it is the greatest difficulty imaginable even to a man of sense to part with his mistress as long as he loves her whatever faults she may be guilty of if in his anger he strikes her he is uneasy after it his love makes him reflect on the hurt he has done her and he wants to be reconciled to her again he may talk of hating her and many times from his heart wish her hanged if he cannot get entirely rid of his frailty he can never disentangle himself from her though she is represented in the most monstrous guilt to his imagination and he has resolved and swore a thousand times never to come near her again there is no trusting him even when he is fully convinced of her infidelity if his love continues his despair is never so lasting but between the blackest fits of it he relents and finds lucid intervals of hope he forms excuses for her thinks of pardoning and in order to it racks his invention for possibilities that may make her appear less criminal end of section 15 section 16 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville line 200 real pleasures comforts ease that the highest good consisted in pleasure was the doctrine of Epicurus who yet led a life exemplary for continents, sobriety and other virtues which made people of the succeeding ages quarrel about the signification of pleasure those who argued from the temperance of the philosopher said that the delight Epicurus meant was being virtuous so Erasmus in his colloquies tells us that there are no greater Epicurus than pious Christians others that reflected on the disillute manners of the greatest part of his followers would have it that by the pleasures he could have understood nothing but sensual ones and the gratification of our passions I shall not decide their quarrel but am of opinion that whether men be good or bad what they take delight in is their pleasure and not to look out for any further etymology from the learned languages I believe an Englishman may justly call everything a pleasure that pleases him and according to this definition we ought to dispute no more about men's pleasures than their tastes the worldly minded voluptuous and ambitious man notwithstanding he is void of merit covers precedence everywhere and desires to be dignified above his betters he aims at spacious palaces and delicious gardens his chief delight is excelling others in stately horses magnificent coaches numerous attendants and dearbought furniture to gratify his lust he wishes for gentile young beautiful women of different charms and complexions that shall adore his greatness and be really in love with his person his sellers he would have stored with the flower of every country that produces excellent wines his tables he desires may be served with many courses and each of them contain a choice variety of dainties not easily purchased and ample evidences of elaborate and judicious cookery while harmonious music and well couch flattery entertain his hearing by turns he employs even the meanest trifles none but the ableist and most ingenious workmen that his judgment and fancy may as evidently appear in the least things that belong to him as his wealth and quality are manifested in those of greater value he desires to have several sets of witty facetious and polite people to converse with and among them he would have some famous for learning and universal knowledge for his serious affairs he wishes to find men of parts and experience that should be diligent and faithful those that are to wait on him he would have handy mannerly and discreet humbly aspect and a graceful mean what he requires and then besides is a respectful care of everything that is his nimbleness without hurry dispatch without noise and an unlimited obedience to his orders nothing he thinks more troublesome than speaking to servants where for he will only be attended by such as by observing his looks have learned to interpret his will from the slightest motions he loves to see an elegant nicety in everything that approaches him when he is to be employed about his person he desires a superlative cleanliness to be religiously observed the chief officers of his household he would have to be men of birth honor and distinction as well as order contrivance and economy for though he loves to be honored by everybody and receives the respects of the common people with joy yet the homage that is paid him by persons of quality is ravishing to him in a more transcendent manner while thus wallowing in a sea of lust and vanity he is wholly employed in provoking and indulging his appetites he desires the world should think him altogether free from pride and sensuality and put a favorable construction upon his most glaring vices nay if his authority can purchase it he covets to be thought wise brave generous good natured and in dude with a virtues he thinks worth having he would have us believe that the pomp and luxury he has served with are as many tiresome plagues to him and all the grandeur he appears in is an ungrateful burden which to his sorrow is inseparable from the high sphere he moves in that his noble mind so much exalted above vulgar capacities aims at higher ends and cannot relish such worthless enjoyments that the highest of his ambition is to promote the public welfare and his greatest pleasure to see his country flourish and everybody in it made happy these are called real pleasures by the vicious and earthly minded and whoever is able either by his skill or fortune this refined manner at once to enjoy the world and the good opinion of it is counted extremely happy by all the most fashionable part of the people but on the other side most of the ancient philosophers and grave moralists especially the stoics would not allow anything to be a real good that was liable to be taken from them by others they wisely considered the instability of fortune and the favor of princes the vanity of honor and popular applause the precariousness of riches and all earthly possessions and therefore place true happiness in the calm serenity of a contented mind free from guilt and ambition a mind that having subdued every sensual appetite despises the smiles as well as frowns of fortune and taking no delight but in contemplation desires nothing but what everybody is able to give himself a mind that armed with fortitude and resolution has learned to sustain the greatest losses without concern to endure pain without affliction and to bear injuries without resentment many have owned themselves arrived to this height of self-denial and then if we may believe them they were raised above common mortals and their strength extended vastly beyond the pitch of their first nature they could behold the anger of threatening tyrants and the most imminent dangers without terror and preserve their tranquility in the midst of torments death itself they could meet with intrepidity and left the world with no greater reluctance than they had showed fondness at their entrance into it these among the ancients have always bore the greatest sway yet others that were no fools neither have exploded those precepts as impracticable called their notions romantic and endeavored to prove that what these Stoics asserted of themselves exceeded all human force and possibility and that therefore the virtues they boasted of could be nothing but haughty pretense full of arrogance and hypocrisy yet notwithstanding these censures the most mysterious part of the world and the generality of wise men that have lived ever since to this day agree with the Stoics in the most material points as that there can be no true felicity in what depends on things perishable that peace within is the greatest blessing and no conquest like that of our passions that knowledge, temperance, fortitude humility and other embellishments of the mind are the most valuable acquisitions that no man can be happy but that he is good and virtuous are only capable of enjoying real pleasures I expect to be asked why in the fable I have called those pleasures real that are directly opposite to those which I own the wise men of all ages have extolled as the most valuable my answer is because I do not call things pleasures which men say are best but such as they seem to be most pleased with how can I believe that a man's cheap delight is in the embellishment of the mind when I see him ever employed about and daily pursue the pleasures that are contrary to them John never cuts any pudding but just enough that you cannot say he took none this little bit, after much chomping and chewing, you see goes down with him like chopped hay and after that he falls upon the beef with a voracious appetite and crams himself up to his throat is it not provoking to hear John cry every day that pudding is all his delight and that he does not value the beef I could swagger about fortitude and the contempt of riches as much as Seneca himself and would undertake to write twice as much in behalf of poverty as he ever did for the tenth part of his estate I could teach the way to his sumum bonum as exactly as I know my way home I could tell people to extricate themselves from all worldly engagements and to purify the mind they must divest themselves of their passions as men take out the furniture when they would clean a room thoroughly of the opinion that the malice and the most severe strokes of fortune can do no more injury to a mind thus stripped of all fears, wishes and inclinations than a blind horse can do in an empty barn in the theory of all this I am very perfect but the practice is very difficult and if you went about picking my pocket offered to take the victuals from before me when I am hungry or made but the least motion of spitting in my face I dare not promise how philosophically I should behave myself but that I am forced to submit to every caprice of my unruly nature you will say is no argument that others are as little masters of theirs and therefore I am willing to pay adoration to virtue wherever I can meet with it with a proviso that I shall not be obliged to admit any as such where I can see no self-denial or to judge of men's sentiments from their words where I have their lives before me I have searched through every degree and station of men and confess that I have found nowhere more austerity of manners or greater contempt of earthly pleasures than in some religious houses where people freely resigning and retiring from the world to combat themselves have no other business but subdue their appetites what can be a greater evidence of perfect chastity and a superlative love to immaculate purity in men and women than that in the prime of their age when lust is most raging they should actually seclude themselves from each other's company and by a voluntary renunciation debar themselves for life not only from uncleanness but even the most lawful embraces those that have stained from flesh an often all manner of food one would think in the right way to conquer all carnal desires and I could almost swear that he does not consult his ease who daily mauls his bare back and shoulders with unconscionable stripes and constantly roused at night from his sleep and bed for his devotion who can despise riches more or show himself less avaricious than he who will not so much as touch gold or silver, no not with his feet or can any mortal show himself less luxurious or more humble than the man that making poverty his choice contends himself with scraps and fragments and refuses to eat any bread but what is bestowed upon him by the charity of others such fair instances of self-denial down to virtue if I was not deterred and warned from it by so many persons of eminence and learning who unanimously tell me that I am mistaken and all I have seen is farce and hypocrisy that what seraphic love they may pretend to there is nothing but discord among them and that how penitential the nuns and friars may appear in their several convents they none of them sacrifice their darling lusts that among the women they are not all virgins that pass for such if I was to be let into their secrets and examine some of their subterraneous privacies I should soon be convinced by scenes of horror that some of them must have been mothers that among the men I should find calumny, envy, and ill nature in the highest degree or else gluttony, drunkenness, and impurities of a more excruble kind than adultery itself and as for the mendicant orders that they differ in nothing but their habits from other sturdy beggars who deceive with a pitiful tone and an outward show of misery and as soon as they are out of sight lay by their can't indulge their appetites and enjoy one another if the strict rules and so many outward signs of devotion observed among those religious orders deserve such harsh censures we may well despair of meeting with virtue anywhere else for if we look into the actions of the antagonists and greatest accusers of those votaries we shall not find so much as the appearance of the self-denial, the reverence divines of all sects, even the most reformed churches in all countries take care with the Cyclops Evangeliphorus first Utventri benesit and afterwards ne quid desit iis quae subventre sunt to these they will desire you to add convenient houses handsome furniture, good fires in winter, pleasant gardens in summer, neat clothes and money enough to bring up their hesitancy in all companies, respect from everybody, and then as much religion as you please. The things I have named are the necessary comforts of life, which the most modest are not ashamed to claim, and which they are very uneasy without. They are, it is true, made of the same mold, and have the same corrupt nature with other men, born with the same infirmities, subject to the same passions, and liable to the same temptations, and therefore if they are diligent and can but abstain from murder, adultery, swearing, drunkenness and other heinous vices, their lives are all called unblemished and their reputations unspotted, their function renders them holy and the gratification of so many carnal appetites, and the enjoyment of so much luxurious ease not withstanding, they may set upon themselves what value their pride and parts will allow them. All this I have nothing against, but I see no self-denial, without what can be no virtue. Is it such a mortification not to desire a greater share of worldly blessings than what every reasonable man ought to be satisfied with? Or is there any mighty merit in not being flogitious, and forbearing in decencies that are repugnant to good manners, and which no prudent man would be guilty of though he had no religion at all? I know I shall be told that the reason why the clergy are so violent in their resentments, that they are but in the least affronted, and show themselves so void of all patience when their rights are invaded, is their great care to preserve their calling, their profession from contempt, not for their own sakes, but to be more serviceable to others. It is the same reason that makes them solicitous about the comforts and conveniences of life, for should they suffer themselves to be insulted over, be content with the course or diet, and wear who judge from outward appearances would be apt to think that the clergy was no more the immediate care of providence than other folks, and so not only undervalue their persons, but despise likewise all the reproofs and instructions that came from them. This is an admirable plea, and as it is much made use of, I will try the worth of it. I am not of the learned Dr. Etchard's opinion that poverty is one of those things that bring the clergy into contempt, any other than as it may be an occasion of discovering their blindside, for when men are always struggling with their low condition, and are unable to bear the burden of it without reluctancy, it is then they show how uneasy their poverty sits upon them, how glad they would be to have their circumstances meeliorated, and what a real value they have for the good things of this world. He that harangs on the contempt of riches and the vanity of earthly enjoyments in a rusty threadbare gown because he has no other, and would wear his old greasy hat no longer if anybody would give him a better, that drinks small beer at home with a heavy countenance, but leaps at a glass of wine if he could catch it abroad, that with little appetite feeds upon his own coarse mess, but falls too greedily where he can please his pallet, and expresses an uncommon joy at an invitation to a splendid dinner. It is he that is despised, not because he is poor, but because he knows how to be so, with that content and resignation which he preaches to others, and so discovers his inclinations to be contrary to his doctrine. But when a man from the greatness of his soul, or an obstinate vanity which will do as well, resolving to subdue his appetites in good earnest, refuses all the offers of ease and luxury that can be made to him, and embracing a voluntary poverty with cheerfulness, rejects whatever may gratify the senses and actually sacrifices all his passions to his pride, in acting this part, the vulgar far from condemning will be ready to deify and adore him. How famous have the cynic philosophers made themselves, only by refusing to dissimulate and make use of superfluities. Did not the most ambitious monarch the world ever bore, condescend to visit diogenes in his tub, and return to a studied incivility, the highest compliment a man of his pride was able to make. Mankind are very willing to take one another's word, when they see some circumstance that corroborate what is told them. But when our actions directly contradict what we say, it is counted impudence to desire belief. If a jolly hail fellow with glowing cheeks and warm hands, newly returned from some smart exercise, or else the cold bath, tells us in frosty weather that he cares not for the sun. We are easily induced to believe him, especially if he actually turns from it, and we know by his circumstances that he wants neither fuel nor clothes. But if we should hear the same from the mouth of a poor starved wretch with swelled hands and elivid countenance in a thin ragged garment, we should not believe a word of what he said, especially if we saw him shaking and shivering creep toward the sunny bank, and we would conclude, let him say what he could, that warm clothes and a good fire would be very acceptable to him. The application is easy, and therefore if there be any clergy upon earth that would be thought not to care for the world, and to value the soul above the body, let them only forbear showing a greater concern for their sensual pleasures than they generally do for their spiritual ones, and they may rest satisfied that no poverty, while they bear it with fortitude, will ever bring them into contempt, how mean so ever their circumstances may be. Let us suppose a pastor that has a little flock entrusted to him, of which he is very careful. He preaches, visits, exhorts, reproves among his people with zeal and prudence, and does them all the kind offices that lie in his power to make them happy. There is no doubt but that those under his care must be very much obliged to him. Now, we shall suppose once more that this good man, by the help of a little self-denial, is contented to live upon half his income, accepting only of twenty pounds a year instead of forty, which he could claim, and moreover that he loves his parishioners so well that he will never leave them for any preferment whatever. No, not a bishopric, though it be offered. I cannot see but all this might be an easy task to a man who professes mortification, and has no value for worldly pleasures. Yet such a disinterested divine, I dare promise, not withstanding the degeneracy of mankind, will be loved, esteemed, and have everybody's good word. Nay, I would swear, that though he should yet further exert himself, give above half of his small revenue to the poor, live upon nothing but oatmeal and water, lie upon straw, and wear the coarsest cloth that could be made, his mean way of living would never be reflected on, or be a disparagement either to himself or the order he belonged to. But that on the contrary poverty would never be mentioned but to his glory as long as his memory should last. But, says a charitable young gentleman, though you have the heart to starve your parson, have you know bowels of compassion for his wife and children? Pray what must remain of forty pounds a year after has been twice so unmercifully split, or would you have the poor woman and the innocent babes likewise live upon oatmeal and water, and lie upon straw you unconscionable wretch with all your suppositions and self-denials? Nay, is it possible, though they should all live at your own murdering rate that less than ten pounds a year could maintain a family? Do not be in a passion, good Miss Abigail, I have a greater regard for your sex than to prescribe such a lean diet to married men. But I confess I forgot the wives and children, the main reason was because I thought poor priests could have no occasion for them. Who could imagine that the parson who is to teach others by example as well as precept was not able to withstand those desires which the wicked world itself calls unreasonable? What is the reason when an apprentice marries before he is out of his time that unless he meets with a good fortune all his relations are angry with him and everybody blames him? Nothing else, but because at the time he has no money at his disposal and being bound to his master's service has no leisure and perhaps little capacity to provide for a family. What must we say to a parson that has twenty, or if you will forty pounds a year, that being bound more strictly to all the services a parish and his duty require has little time and generally much less ability to get any more? Is it not very reasonable he should marry? But why should a sober young man who is guilty of no vice be debarred from lawful enjoyments? Right, marriage is lawful and so is a coach. But what is that to people who have not enough money to keep one? If he must have a wife let him look out for money or wait for a greater benefits or something else to maintain her handsomely and bear all incident charges but nobody that has anything herself will have him and he cannot stay, he has a very good stomach and all the symptoms of health it is not everybody that can live without a woman, it is better to marry than burn. What a world of self-denial is here the sober young man is very willing to be virtuous but you must not cross his inclinations, he promises never to be a dearest dealer upon condition he shall have venison of his own and nobody must doubt but that if it come to the push he is qualified to suffer martyrdom though he owns that he has not strength enough patiently to bear a scratched finger. When we see so many of the clergy to indulge their lust a brutish appetite run themselves after this and are upon an inevitable poverty which, unless they could bear it with greater fortitude than they discover in all their actions, must of necessity make them contemptible to all the world what credit must we give them when they pretend that they conform themselves to the world not because they take delight in the several decencies conveniences and ornaments of it but only to preserve their function from contempt in order to be more useful to others. Have we not reason to believe what they say is full of hypocrisy and falsehood and that concupiscence is not the only appetite they want to gratify that the haughty airs and quick sense of injuries, the curious elegance and dress and niceness of palette to be observed in most of them that are able to show them are the results of pride and luxury in them as they are in other people and that the clergy are not possessed of more intrinsic virtue than any other profession I am afraid by this time I have given many of my leaders a real displeasure by dwelling so long upon the reality of pleasure but I cannot help it there is one thing that comes into my head to corroborate what I have urged already which I cannot forebear mentioning it is this, those who govern others throughout the world are at least as wise as the people that are governed by them generally speaking if for this reason we would take pattern from our superiors we have but to cast our eyes on all the courts and governments in the universe we shall soon perceive from the actions of the great ones which opinion they side with and what pleasures those in the highest stations of all seem to be most fond of for if it be allowable at all to judge of people's inclinations from their manner of living none can be less injured by it than those who are the most at liberty to do as they please if the great ones of the clergy as well as the laity of any country whatever had no value for earthly pleasures and did not endeavor to gratify their appetites why are envy and revenge so raging among them and all the other passions improved and refined upon in courts of princes more than anywhere else and why are their repasts, their recreations and whole manner of living always such as are approved of coveted and imitated by the most sensual people of that same country if despising all visible decorations they were only in love with the embellishments of the mind why should they borrow so many of the implements and make use of the most darling toys of the luxurious why should a lord treasurer or a bishop or even the grand senior or the pope of Rome to be good and virtuous and endeavor the conquest of his passions have occasion for greater revenues richer furniture or a more numerous attention as to personal service than a private man what virtue is it the exercise of which requires so much superfluity as to be seen by all men in power a man has as much opportunity to practice temperance that has but one dish at a meal as he that has constantly served with three courses and a dozen dishes in each one may exercise as much patience and be as full of self-denial on a few flocks without curtains or tester as in a velvet bed that is sixteen foot high the virtuous possessions of the mind are neither charged nor burden man may bear misfortunes with fortitude in a garret for give injuries a foot and be chased though he has not a shirt to his back and therefore I shall never believe but that an indifference sculler if he was entrusted with it might carry all the learning and religion that one man can contain as well as a barge with six oars especially if it was but to cross from Lambeth to Westminster or that humility is so ponderous of virtue that it requires six horses to draw it to say that men not being so easily governed by their equals as by their superiors it is necessary that to keep the multitude in awe those who rule over us should excel others in outward appearance and consequently that all in high stations should have the badges of honor and ensigns of power to be distinguished from the vulgar is a frivolous objection this in the first place can only be of use to poor princes and weak and precarious governments the being actually unable to maintain the public peace are obliged with a pageant show to make up what they want in real power so the government of Batavia in the East Indies is forced to keep up a grandeur and live in a magnificence above his quality to strike a terror in the natives of Java who if they had skill and conduct are strong enough to destroy ten times the number of their masters but great princes and states that keep large fleets at sea and numerous armies in the field have no occasion for such stratagems for what makes them formidable abroad will never fail to be their security at home secondly what must protect the lives and wealth of people from the attempts of wicked men in all societies is the severity of laws and diligent administration of impartial justice theft, housebreaking and murder are not to be prevented by the scarlet gowns of the alderman the gold chains of the sheriffs the fine trappings of their horses or any gaudy show whatever those pageant ornaments are beneficial another way they are eloquent lectures to apprentices the use of them is to animate not to deter but men of abandoned principles must be awed by rugged officers, strong prisons watchful jailers, the hangman and the gallows if London was to be one weak destitute of constables and watchmen to guard the houses and nights half the bankers would be ruined in that time and if my lord mayor had nothing to defend himself but his great two handed sword the huge cap of maintenance and his gilded mace he would soon be stripped in the very streets of the city of all his finery and his stately coach but let us grant that the eyes of the mobility are to be dazzled with a gaudy outside if virtue was the chief delight of great men why should their extravagance be extended to things not understood by the mob and wholly removed from public view I mean their private diversions, the pomp and luxury of the dining room and the bed chamber and the curiosities of the closet few of the vulgar know that there is wine of a guinea the bottle that birds, no bigger than larks are often sold for half a guinea a piece or that a single picture may be worth several thousand pounds besides is it to be imagined that unless it was to please their own appetites men should put themselves to such vast expenses for a political show and be so solicitous to gain the esteem of those whom they so much despise and everything else if we allow that a splendor and all the elegancy of a court insipid and only tiresome to the prince himself and are all together made use of to preserve royal majesty from contempt can we say the same of half a dozen illegitimate children most of them the offspring of adultery by the same majesty got educated and made princes at the expense of the nation therefore it is evident that this awing of the multitude by a distinguished manner of living is only a cloak and pretense under which great men would shelter their vanity and indulge every appetite about them without reproach a burga master of Amsterdam in his plain black suit followed perhaps by one footman is fully as much respected and better obeyed than a lord mayor of London with all his splendid equipage and great train of attendance where there is a real power it is ridiculous to think that any temperance or austerity of life should ever render the person in whom the powers lodged contemptible in his office from an emperor to the beetle of a parish Cato in his government of Spain in which he acquitted himself with so much glory had only three servants to attend him do we hear that any of his orders were ever slighted for this not withstanding that he loved his bottle and when that great man marched on foot through the scorching sands of Libya and parched up with thirst refused to touch the water that was brought him before all his soldiers had drank do we ever read that this heroic forbearance weakened his authority or lessened him in the esteem of his army but what need we go so far off there has not for these many ages been a prince less inclined to pomp and luxury than the present king of Sweden who enamored with the title of hero has not only sacrificed the lives of his subjects and welfare of his dominions but what is more on common and sovereigns his own ease and all the comforts of life to an implacable spirit of revenge yet he is obeyed to the ruin of his people in obstinately maintaining a war that has almost utterly destroyed his kingdom thus I have proved that the real pleasures of all men in nature are worldly and sensual if we judge from their practice I say all men in nature because devout Christians who alone are to be accepted here being regenerated and predator naturally assisted by the divine grace cannot be said to be in nature how strange it is that they should also unanimously deny it ask not only the divines and moralists of every nation but likewise all that are rich and powerful about real pleasure and they will tell you with the stoics that there can be no true felicity in things mundane incorruptible but then look upon their lives and you will find they take delight in no other what must we do in this dilemma shall we be so uncharitable as judging from men's actions to say that all the world prevaricates and that this is not their opinion let them talk what they will or shall we be so silly as relying on what they say to think them sincere in their sentiments and so not believe our own eyes or shall we rather endeavor to believe ourselves and them too and say with montane that they imagine and are fully persuaded that they believe what they do not believe these are his words some impose on the world and would be thought to believe what they really do not but much the greater number impose upon themselves not considering nor thoroughly apprehending what it should believe but this is making all mankind either fools or imposters which to avoid there is nothing left us but to say what Mr. Bale has endeavored to prove at large in his reflections on Comet that man is so unaccountable a creature as to act most commonly against his principle and this is so far from being injurious that it is a compliment to human nature who we must see either this or worse this contradiction in the frame of is the reason that the theory of virtue is so well understood and the practice of it so rarely to be met with if you ask me where to look for those beautiful shining qualities of prime ministers and the great favorites of princes that are so finely painted in dedications addresses epitaphs funeral sermons and inscriptions I answer there and nowhere else where would you look for the excellency of a statue but in that part which you see of it outside only that has the skill and labor of the sculptor to boast of what is out of sight is untouched would you break the head or cut open the breast to look for the brains or the heart you would only show your ignorance and destroy the workmanship this is often made me compare the virtues of great men to your large china jars they make a fine show and are ornamental even to a chimney one would by the bulk they appear in and the value that is set upon them I think they might be very useful but look into a thousand of them and you will find nothing in them but dust and cobwebs end of section 16