 section 22 of the Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville. I have been told by many that the bane of industry is laziness and not content, therefore to prove my assertion, which seems a paradox to some, I shall treat of laziness and content separately, and afterwards speak of industry, that the reader may judge which it is of the two former that is opposite to the latter. Laziness is an aversion to busyness, generally attended with an unreasonable desire of remaining unactive, and everybody is lazy, who, without being hindered by any other warrantable employment, refuses or puts off any business which he ought to do for himself or others. We seldom call anybody lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and of whom we expect some service. Children do not think they are parents lazy, nor servants their masters, and if a gentleman indulges his ease and sloth so abominably that he will not put on his own shoes, though he is young and slender, nobody shall call him lazy for it, if he can keep but a footman, or somebody else to do it for him. Richard Dryden has given us a very good idea of superlative slothfulness in the person of a luxurious king of Egypt. His majesty, having bestowed some considerable gifts on several of his favorites, is attended by some of his chief ministers with a parchment, which he was to sign to confirm those grants. First he walks a few turns to and fro with a heavy uneasiness in his looks, then sets himself down like a man that is tired, and, at last, with abundance of reluctancy to what he was going about, he takes up the pen and falls a complaining very seriously of the length of the word Ptolemy, and expresses a great deal of concern that he had not some short monosyllable for his name which he thought would save him a world of trouble. We often reproach others with laziness because we are guilty of it ourselves. Some days ago, as two young women sat nodding together, as one to the other, there comes a wicked cold through that door. You are the nearest to it, sister. Pray shut it. The other, who was the youngest, vouchsafed indeed to cast an eye towards the door, but sat still and said nothing. The elder spoke again two or three times, and at last the other making her no answer, nor offering to stir. She got up in a pet and shut the door herself. Coming back to sit down again, she gave the younger a very hard look, and said, Lord, sister Betty, I would not be so lazy as you are for all the world, which she spoke so earnestly that it brought a color in her face. The youngest should have risen, I own, but if the eldest had not overvalued her labor, she would have shut the door herself as soon as the cold was offensive to her without making any words of it. She was not above a step farther from the door than her sister, and as to age there was not eleven months difference between them, and they were both under twenty. I thought it a hard matter to determine which was the laziest of the two. There are a thousand wretches that are always working the marrow out of their bones for next to nothing, because they are unthinking and ignorant of what the pains they take are worth, while others who are cunning and understand the true value of their work refuse to be employed at underrates, not because they are of an unactive temper, but because they will not beat down the price of their labor. A country gentleman sees at the back side of the exchange a porter walking to and fro with his hands in his pockets. Pray, says he, friend, will you step for me with this letter as far as Boe Church, and I will give you a penny? I will go with all my heart, says the other, but I must have two pence, master, which the gentleman refusing to give, the fellow turned his back, and told him he would rather play for nothing than work for nothing. The gentleman thought it an unaccountable piece of laziness in a porter, rather to saunter up and down for nothing than to be earning a penny with as little trouble. Some hours after he happened to be with some friends at a tavern in Threadneedle Street, where one of them calling to mind that he had forgot to send for a bill of exchange that was to go away with the post that night, was in great perplexity, and immediately wanted somebody to go for him to hackney with all the speed imaginable. It was after ten in the middle of winter, a very rainy night, and all the porters thereabouts were gone to bed. The gentleman grew very uneasy, and said, whatever it cost him that somebody he must send, at last one of the drawers, seeing him so very pressing, told him that he knew a porter who would rise if it was a job worth his while. Worth his while, said the gentleman very eagerly, do not doubt of that good lad, if you know of anybody, let him make what hasty can, and I will give him a crown if he be back by twelve o'clock. Upon this the drawer took the errand, left the room, and in less than a quarter of an hour came back with the welcome news that the message would be dispatched with all expedition. The company in the meantime diverted themselves as they had done before. But when it began to be towards twelve, the watches were pulled out, and the porter's return was all the discourse. Some were of opinion he might yet come before the clock had struck. Others thought it impossible, and now it wanted but three minutes of twelve, when in comes the nimble messenger smoking hot, with his clothes as wet as dung with the rain, and his head all over in a bath of sweat. He had nothing dry about him but the inside of his pocketbook, out of which he took the bill he had been for, and by the drawer's direction presented it to the gentleman it belonged to, who, being very well pleased with the dispatch he had made, gave him the crown he had promised, while another filled him a bumper, and the whole company commended his diligence. As the fellow came nearer the light to take up the wine, the country gentleman I mentioned at first to his great admiration knew him to be the same porter that had refused to earn his penny, and whom he thought the laziest mortal alive. The story teaches us that we ought not to confound those who remain unemployed for want of an opportunity of exerting themselves to the best advantage, with such as for want of spirit hug themselves in their sloth, and will rather starve than stir. Without this caution we must pronounce all the world more or less lazy, according to their estimation of the reward they are to purchase with their labor, and then the most industrious may be called lazy. Content I call that calm serenity of the mind, which men enjoy while they think themselves happy, and rest satisfied with the station they are in. It implies a favorable construction of our present circumstances, and a peaceful tranquility, which men are strangers to as long as they are solicitous about mending their condition. This is a virtue of which the applause is very precarious and uncertain. For, according as men's circumstances vary, they will either be blamed or commended for being possessed of it. A single man that works hard at a laborious trade has a hundred a year left him by a relation. This change of fortune makes him soon weary of working, and not having industry enough to put himself forward in the world, he resolves to do nothing at all, and live upon his income. As long as he lives within compass, pays for what he has, and defends nobody, he shall be called an honest, quiet man. The victualer, his landlady, the tailor, and others divide what he has between them, and the society is every year the better for his revenue. Whereas, if he should follow his own or any other trade, he must hinder others, and somebody would have the less for what he should get, and therefore, though he should be the idlest fellow in the world, lie a bed fifteen hours and four and twenty, and do nothing but sauntering up and down all the rest of the time, nobody would discament him, and his unactive spirit is honored with the name of content. But if the same man marries, gets three or four children, and still continues at the same easy temper, rest satisfied with what he has, and without endeavoring to get a penny, indulges his former sloth, first his relations, afterwards all his acquaintance, will be alarmed at his negligence, they foresee that his income will not be sufficient to bring up so many children handsomely, and are afraid some of them may, if not a burden, become a disgrace to them. When these fears have been, for some time, whispered about from one to another, his uncle Grype takes him to task, and accosts him in the following can't. What, nephew, no business yet? Fire upon it! I cannot imagine how you do spend your time. If you will not work at your own trade, there are fifty ways that a man may pick up a penny by. You have a hundred a year, it is true, but your charges increase every year, and what must you do when your children are grown up? I have a better estate than you myself, and yet you do not see me leave off my business? Nay, I declare it. Might I have the world I could not lead the life you do? It is no business of mine, I own, but everybody cries. It is a shame for a young man, as you are, that has his limbs and his health, should not turn his hands to something or other. If these admonitions do not reform him in a little time, and he continues half a year longer without employment, he will become a discourse to the whole neighborhood. And for the same qualifications that once got him the name of a quiet, contented man, he shall be called the worst of husbands, and the laziest fellow upon earth. From whence it is manifest, that when we pronounce actions good or evil, we only regard the hurt or benefit the society receives from them, and not the person who commits them. See page seventeen. Diligence and industry are often used promiscuously to signify the same thing, but there is a great difference between them. A poor wretch may want neither diligence nor ingenuity. Be a saving, painstaking man, and yet without striving to mend his circumstances, remain contented with the station he lives in. But industry implies, besides the other qualities, a thirst after gain, and an indefatigable desire of meagerating our condition. When men think either the customary profits of their calling, or else the share of business they have, too small, they have two ways to deserve the name of industrious, and they must be either ingenious enough to find out uncommon, and yet warrantable methods to increase their business or their profit, or else supply that defect by a multiplicity of occupations. If a tradesman takes care to provide his shop, and gives due attendance to those that come to it, he is a diligent man in his business, but if, besides that, he takes particular pains to sell, to the same advantage, a better commodity than the rest of his neighbors, or if, by his obsequiousness or some other good quality, getting into a large acquaintance, he uses all possible endeavors of drawing customers to his house, he then may be called industrious. A cobbler, though he is not employed half of his time, if he neglects no business, and makes dispatch when he has any, is a diligent man, but if he runs of errands when he has no work, or makes but shoepins, and serves as a watchman a knight, he deserves the name of industrious. If what has been said in this remark be duly weighed, we shall find either that laziness and content are very near akin, or if there be a great difference between them, that the latter is more contrary to industry than the former. End of section 22, section 23 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Line 410, To Make a Great and Honest Hive. This perhaps might be done where people are contented to be poor and hardy, but if they would likewise enjoy their ease and the comforts of the world, and to be at once an opulent, potent, and flourishing as well as a warlike nation, it is utterly impossible. I have heard people speak of the mighty figure the Spartans made above all the commonwealths of Greece, notwithstanding their uncommon frugality and other exemplary virtues, but certainly there never was a nation whose greatness was more empty than theirs. The splendor they lived in was inferior to that of a theatre, and the only thing they could be proud of was that they enjoyed nothing. They were indeed both feared and esteemed abroad. They were so famed for valor and skill and martial affairs that their neighbours did not only court their friendship and assistance in their wars, but were satisfied and thought themselves sure of victory, if they could but get a Spartan general to command their armies. But then their discipline was so rigid, and their manner of living so austere and void of all comfort that the most temperate man among us would refuse to submit to the harshness of such uncouth laws. There was a perfect equality among them, gold and silver coin were cried down, their current money was made of iron to render it of a great bulk and little worth. To lay up twenty or thirty pounds required a pretty large chamber, and to remove it nothing less than a yoke of oxen. Another remedy they had against luxury was that they were obliged to eat in common of the same meat, and they so little allowed anybody to dine or sup by himself at home that Agus, one of their kings, having vanquished the Athenians and sending for his commons at his return home, because he desired privately to eat with his queen, was refused by the polymarque. In training up their youth, their chief care, says Plutarch, was to make them good subjects, to fit them to endure the fatigues of long and tedious marches, and never to return without victory from the field. When they were twelve years old, they lodged in little bands upon beds made of the rushes, which grew by the banks of the river Eurotus, and because their points were sharp, they were to break them off with their hands without a knife. If it were a hard winter, they mingled some thistle down with their rushes to keep them warm, see Plutarch in the life of Lycurgus. From all these circumstances it is plain that no nation on earth was less effeminate, but being debarred from all the comforts of life, they could have nothing for their pains, but the glory of being a warlike people, enured to toils and hardships, which was a happiness that few people would have cared for upon the same terms. And though they had been masters of the world, as long as they enjoyed no more of it, Englishmen would hardly have envied them their greatness. What men want nowadays has sufficiently been shown in RemarkOnline 200, where I have treated of real pleasures. Line 411 To Enjoy the World's Conveniences That the words decency and convenience were very ambiguous, and not to be understood unless we were acquainted with the quality and circumstances of the persons that made use of them, has been hinted already in RemarkOnline 177. The Goldsmith Mercer, or any other of the most creditable shopkeepers that has three or four thousand pounds to set up with, must have two dishes of meat every day, and something extraordinary for Sundays. His wife must have a damask bed against her lying in, and two or three rooms very well furnished. The following summer she must have a house, or at least very good lodgings in the country. A man that has a being out of town must have a horse, his footman must have another. If he has a tolerable trade, he expects in eight or ten years time to keep his coach, which, notwithstanding, he hopes, that after he has slaved, as he calls it, for two or three and twenty years, he shall be worth at least a hundred thousand a year for his eldest son to inherit, and two or three thousand pounds for each of his other children to begin the world with. And when men of such circumstances pray for their daily bread, and mean nothing more extravagant by it, they are counted pretty modest people. Call this pride, luxury, superfluity, or what you please, it is nothing but what ought to be in the capital of a flourishing nation. Those of inferior condition must content themselves with less costly conveniences, as others of higher rank will be sure to make theirs more expensive. Some people call it but decency to be served in plate, and reckon a coach in six among the necessary comforts of life, and if a peer has not above three or four thousand a year, his lordship is counted poor. Since the first edition of this book, several have attacked me with demonstrations of the certain ruin which excessive luxury must bring upon all nations, who yet were soon answered when I showed them the limits within which I had confined it, and therefore that no reader for the future may misconstru me on this head, I shall point at the cautions I have given, and the provisos I have made in the former, as well as this present impression, and which, if not overlooked, must prevent all rational censure, and obviate several objections that otherwise might be made against me. I have laid down as maxims never to be departed from, that the poor should be kept strictly to work, and that it was prudence to relieve their wants, but folly to cure them, that agriculture and fishery should be promoted in all their branches in order to render provisions and consequently labour cheap. I have named ignorance as a necessary ingredient in the mixture of society, from all which it is manifest that I could never have imagined, that luxury was to be made general through every part of a kingdom. I have likewise required that property should be well secured, justice impartially administered, and in everything the interest of the nation taken care of, but what I have insisted on the most, and repeated more than once, is the great regard that is to be had to the balance of trade, and the care the legislature ought to take, that the yearly imports never exceed the exports, and where this is observed, and the other things I spoke of are not neglected, I still continue to assert that no foreign luxury can undo a country. The height of it is never seen but in nations that are vastly populace, and there only in the upper part of it, and the greater, that is, the larger still in proportion must be the lowest, the basis that supports all, the multitude of working poor. Those who would too nearly imitate others of superior fortune must thank themselves if they are ruined. This is nothing against luxury, for whoever can subsist and lives above his income is a fool. Some persons of quality may keep three or four coaches and six, and at the same time lay up money for their children, while a young shopkeeper is undone for keeping one sorry horse. It is impossible there should be a rich nation without prodigals, yet I never knew a city so full of spend-thrifts, but there were covetous people enough to answer their number, as an old merchant breaks for having been extravagant or careless a great while, so a young beginner falling into the same business gets in a state by being saving or more industrious before he is forty years old. Besides, that the frailties of men often work by contraries, some narrow souls can never thrive because they are too stingy, while longer heads amass great wealth by spending their money freely and seeming to despise it, but the vicissitudes of fortune are necessary, and the most lamentable are no more detrimental to society than the death of the individual members of it. Cristenings are a proper balance to burials. Those who immediately lose by the misfortune of others are very sorry, complain, and make a noise, but the others who get by them, as there always are such, hold their tongues, because it is odious to be thought the better for the losses and calamities of our neighbor. The various ups and downs compose a wheel that always turning round gives motion to the whole machine, the loss-offers that dare extend their thoughts beyond the narrow compass of what is immediately before them, look on the alternate exchanges in the civil society no otherwise than they do on the risings and fallings of the lungs, the latter of which are much a part of respiration in the most perfect animals as the first, so that the thickled breath of never-stable fortune is to the body politic the same as floating air is to a living creature. Avarice, then, and prodigality are equally necessary to the society, that in some countries men are most generally lavish than in others, proceeds from the difference in circumstances that dispose to either vice, and arise from the condition of the social body, as well as the temperament of the natural. I beg pardon of the attentive reader, if here, in behalf of short memories, I repeat some things, the substance of which they have already seen in remark, line 307, more money than land, heavy taxes and scarcity of provisions, industry, laboriousness, and active and stirring spirit, ill nature, and Saturnine temper, old age, wisdom, trade, riches, acquired by our own labor, and liberty and property well secured, are all things that dispose to Avarice. On the contrary, indolence, content, good nature, a jovial temper, youth, folly, arbitrary power, money easily got, plenty of provisions, and the uncertainty of possessions, are circumstances that render men prone to prodigality. Where there is the most of the first, the prevailing vice will be Avarice, and prodigality where the other turns the scale. But a national frugality there never was, nor never will be without a national necessity. Sumptuary laws may be of use to an indigent country, after great calamities of war, pestilence, or famine, when work has stood still, and the labor of the poor been interrupted. But to introduce them into an opulent kingdom is the wrong way to consult the interest of it. I shall end my remarks on the grumbling hive, with assuring the champions of national frugality, that it would be impossible for the Persians and other Eastern people to purchase the vast quantities of fine English cloth they consume, should we load our women with less cargos of Asiatic silks. End of section 24. Section 25 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. An essay on charity and charity schools. Part 1. Charity is that virtue by which part of that sincere love we have for ourselves is transferred pure and unmixed to others, not tied to us by the bonds of friendship or consanguinity, and even mere strangers, whom we have no obligation to, nor hope or expect anything from. If we lessen anyways the rigor of this definition, part of the virtue must be lost. What we do for our friends in Kindred, we do partly for ourselves. When a man acts on behalf of nephews or nieces, and says they are my brother's children, I do it out of charity, he deceives you. For if he is capable, it is expected from him, and he does it partly for his own sake. If he values the esteem of the world, and is nice as to honor and reputation, he is obliged to have a greater regard to them than for strangers. Or else he must suffer in his character. The exercise of this virtue relates either to opinion, or to action, and is manifested in what we think of others, or what we do for them. To be charitable then, in the first place, we ought to put the best construction on all that others do or say that things are capable of. If a man builds a fine house, though he has not one symptom of humility, furnishes it richly, and lays out a good estate in plate and pictures, we ought not to think that he does it out of vanity, but to encourage artists, employ hands, and set the poor to work for the good of his country. And if a man sleeps at church, so he does not snore, we ought to think he shuts his eyes to increase his attention. The reason is, because in our turn we desire that our utmost avarice should pass for frugality, and that for religion which we know to be hypocrisy. Secondly, that virtue is conspicuous in us, when we bestow our time and labor for nothing, or employ our credit with others, in behalf of those who stand in need of it, and yet could not expect such an assistance from our friendship or nearness of blood. The last branch of charity consists in giving away, while we are alive, what we value ourselves, to such as I have already named. Being contented rather to have and enjoy less than not relieve those who want, and shall be the objects of our choice. This virtue is often counterfeited by a passion of ours called pity or compassion, which consists in a fellow feeling and condolence for the misfortunes and calamities of others. All mankind are more or less affected with it, but the weakest minds generally the most. It is raised in us when the sufferings and misery of other creatures make so forcible an impression upon us as to make us uneasy. It comes in either at the eye or ear or both, and the nearer and more violently the object of compassion strikes those senses, the greater disturbance it causes in us, often to such a degree as to occasion great pain and anxiety. Should any of us be locked up in a ground room, we're in a yard joining to it. There was a thriving good-humored child at play of two or three years old, so near us that through the grates of the window we could almost touch it with our hand. And if while we took delight in the harmless diversion and imperfect, brittle prattle of the innocent babe and nasty overgrown sow should come upon the child, set it at a screaming and frighten it out of its wits, it is natural to think that this would make us uneasy, and that with crying out and making all the menacing noises we could, we should endeavor to drive the sow away. But if this should happen to be an half-starved creature that mad with hunger went roaming about in quest of food, and we should behold the ravenous brute in spite of our cries and all the threatening gestures we could think of actually lay hold of the helpless infant, destroy and devour it, to see her widely open her destructive jaws, and the poor lamb beat down with greedy haste, to look on the defenseless posture of tender limbs first trampled on, then tore asunder, to see the filthy snout digging in the yet living entrails, suck up the smoking blood, and now and then to hear the crackling of the bones, and the cruel animal with savage pleasure grunt over the horrid banquet. To hear and see all this, what tortures would it give the soul beyond expression? Let me see the most shining virtue the moralists have to boast of, so manifest either to the person possessed of it, or those who behold his actions. Let me see courage or the love of one's country so apparent without any mixture, cleared and distinct, the first from pride and anger, the other from the love of glory, and every shadow of self-interest, as this pity would be cleared and distinct from all other passions. There would be no need of virtue or self-denial to be moved at such a scene, and not only a man of humanity, of good morals and commiseration, but likewise an highwayman, an housebreaker, or a murderer could feel anxieties on such an occasion, how calamitous so ever a man's circumstances might be, he would forget his misfortunes for the time, and the most troublesome passion would give way to pity, and not one of the species has a heart so obdurate or engaged that it would not ache at such a sight, as no language has an epithet to fit it. Many will wonder at what I have said of pity, that it comes in at the eye or ear, but the truth of this will be known when we consider that the nearer the object is, the more we suffer, and the more remote it is, the less we are troubled with it. To see people executed for crimes, if it is a great way off, moves us but little, in comparison to what it does when we are near enough to see the motion of the soul in their eyes, observe their fears and agonies, and are able to read the pangs in every feature of the face. When the object is quite removed from our senses, the relation of the calamities or the reading of them can never raise in us the passion called pity. We may be concerned at bad news, the loss and misfortunes of friends and those whose cause we espouse, but that is not pity, but grief or sorrow, the same as we feel for the death of those we love, or the destruction of what we value. When we hear that three or four thousand men, all strangers to us, are killed with a sword, or forced into some river where they are drowned, we say, and perhaps believe, that we pity them. It is humanity bids us have compassion with the sufferings of others, and reason tells us that whether a thing be far off or done in our sight, our sentiments concerning it ought to be the same, and we should be ashamed to own that we felt no commiseration in us when anything requires it. He is a cruel man, he has no bowels of compassion. All these things are the effects of reason and humanity, but nature makes no compliments. When the object does not strike, the body does not feel it. And when men talk of pitying people out of sight, they are to be believed in the same manner as when they say that they are our humble servants. In paying the usual civilities at first meeting, those who do not see one another every day are often very glad and very sorry alternately for five or six times together in less than two minutes, and yet at parting carry away not a jot more of grief or joy than they met with. The same it is with pity, and it is a choice no more than fear or anger. Those who have a strong and lively imagination and can make representations of things in their minds, as they would be if they were actually before them, may work themselves up into something that resembles compassion, but this is done by art, and often the help of a little enthusiasm, and is only an imitation of pity. The heart feels little of it, and it is as faint as what we suffer at the acting of a tragedy, where our judgment leaves part of the mind uninformed, and to indulge a lazy wantonness suffers it to be led into error, which is necessary to have a passion raised, the slight strokes of which are not unpleasant to us when the soul is in an idle, unactive humor. As pity is often by ourselves and in our own cases mistaken for charity, so it assumes the shape and borrows the very name of it, a beggar asks you to exert that virtue for Jesus Christ's sake, but all the while his great design is to raise your pity. He represents, to your view, the first side of his ailments and bodily infirmities. In chosen words, he gives you an epitome of his calamities, real or fictitious, and while he seems to pray to God that he will open your heart, he is actually at work upon your ears. The greatest profligate of them flies to religion for aid and assists his cant with a doleful tone and a studied dismay of gestures, but he trusts not to one passion only, he flatters your pride with titles and names of honor and distinction, your avarice he soothes with often repeating to you the smallness of the gift he soothes for, and conditional promises of future returns with an interest extravagant beyond the statute of usury, though out of the reach of it. People not used to great cities, being thus attacked on all sides, are commonly forced to yield and cannot help giving something though they can hardly spare it themselves. How oddly are we managed by self-love, it is ever watching in our defense and yet to sue the predominant passion obliges us to act against our interest, for when pity seizes us, if we can but imagine that we contribute to the relief of him we have compassion with and are instrumental to the lessening of his sorrows, it eases us, and therefore pitiful people often give an alms when they really feel that they would rather not. When sores are very bare or seem otherwise afflicting in an extraordinary manner and the beggar can bear to have them exposed to the cold air, it is very shocking to some people. It is a shame they cry, such sights should be suffered. The main reason is, it touches their pity feelingly and at the same time they are resolved either because they are covetous or count it an idle expense to give nothing, which makes them more uneasy. They turn their eyes and where the cries are dismal some would willingly stop their ears if they were not ashamed. What they can do is to mend their pace and be very angry in their hearts that beggars should be about the streets, but it is with pity as it is with fear. The more we are conversant with objects that excite either passion, the less we are disturbed by them and those to whom all these scenes and tones are by custom made familiar, they make a little impression upon. The only thing the industrious beggar has left to conquer those fortified hearts, if he can walk either with or without crutches, is to follow close and with uninterrupted noise tease and importune them to try if he can make them by their peace. Thus thousands give money to beggars from the same motive as they pay their corn cutter to walk easy. And many a half penny is given to impudent and designedly persecuting rascals whom, if it could be done handsomely, a man would cane with much greater satisfaction. Yet all this, by the courtesy of the country, is called charity. The reverse of pity is malice. I have spoke of it where I treat of envy. Those who know what it is to examine themselves will soon own that it is very difficult to trace the root and origin of this passion. It is one of those we are most ashamed of, and therefore the hurtful part of it is easily subdued and corrected by a judicious education. When anybody near us stumbles, it is natural even before reflection to stretch out our hands to hinder or at least break the fall, which shows that while we are calm, we are rather bent to pity. But though malice by itself is little to be feared, yet assisted with pride it is often mischievous and becomes most terrible when egged on and heightened by anger. There is nothing that more readily or more effectually extinguishes pity than this mixture, which is called cruelty. From whence we may learn that to perform a meritorious action, it is not sufficient barely to conquer a passion, unless it likewise be done from a laudable principle, and consequently how necessary that clause was in the definition of virtue, that our endeavors were to proceed from a rational ambition of being good. Pity, as I have said somewhere else, is the most amiable of all our passions, and there are not many occasions on which we ought to conquer or curb it. A surgeon may be as compassionate as he pleases, so it does not make him omit or forbear to perform what he ought to do. Judges likewise and juries may be influenced with pity if they take care that plain laws and justice itself are not infringed and do not suffer by it. No pity does more mischief in the world than what is excited by the tenderness of parents, and hinders them from managing their children as their rational love to them would require, and themselves could wish it. The sway likewise which this passion bears in the affections of women is more considerable than is commonly imagined, and they daily commit faults that are altogether ascribed to lust, and yet are in a great measure owing to pity. What I named last is not the only passion that mocks and resembles charity. Pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together. Men are so tenacious of their possessions, and selfishness is so riveted in our nature that whoever can but anyways conquer it shall have the applause of the public, and all the encouragement imaginable to conceal his frailty, and soothe any other appetite he shall have a mind to indulge. The man that supplies with his private fortune what the whole must otherwise have provided for obliges every member of the society, and therefore all the world are ready to pay him their acknowledgement, and think themselves in duty bound to pronounce all such actions virtuous, without examining, or so much as looking into the motives from which they were performed. Nothing is more destructive to virtue or religion itself than to make men believe that giving money to the poor, though they should not part with it till after death, will make a full atonement in the next world for the sins they have committed in this. A villain who has been guilty of a barbarous murder may, by the help of false witnesses, escape the punishment he deserved. He prospers, we will say, heaps up great wealth, and, by the advice of his father confessor, leaves all his estate to a monastery, and his children beggars. What fine amends has this good Christian made for his crime, and what an honest man was the priest who directed his conscience? He who parts with all he has in his lifetime, whatever principle he acts from, only gives away what was his own, but the rich miser who refuses to assist his nearest relations while he is alive, though they never designedly disobliged him, and disposes of his money for what we call charitable uses after his death, may imagine of his goodness what he pleases, but he robs his posterity. I am now thinking of a late instance of charity, a prodigious gift that has made a great noise in the world. I have a mind to set it in the light I think it deserves, and beg leave for once, to please pedants, to treat it somewhat rhetorically. That a man with small skill in physics, and hardly any learning, should, by vile arts, get into practice and lay up great wealth, is no mighty wonder. But, that he should so deeply work himself into the good opinion of the world, as to gain the general esteem of a nation, and establish a reputation beyond all his contemporaries, with no other qualities but a perfect knowledge of mankind, and a capacity of making the most of it, is something extraordinary. If a man arrived to such a height of glory, should be almost distracted with pride, sometime give his attendance on a servant, or any mean person for nothing, and at the same time neglect a nobleman that gives exorbitant fees, at other times refuse to leave his bottle for his business, without any regard to the quality of the persons that sent for him, or the danger they are in. If he should be surly and morose, affect to be and humorous, treat his patients like dogs, though people of distinction, and value no man but what would deify him, and never call into question the certainty of his oracles. If he should insult all the world, affront the first nobility, and extend his insolence even to the royal family, if, to maintain as well as to increase the fame of his sufficiency, he should scorn to consult with his betters on what emergency so ever, look down with contempt on the most deserving of his profession, and never confer with any other physician but what will pay homage to his superior genius, creep to his humor, and never approach him but with all the slavish obsequiousness a court flatterer can treat a prince with. If a man in his lifetime should discover, on the one hand, such manifest symptoms of superlative pride, and an insatiable greediness after wealth at the same time, and on the other, no regard to religion or affection to his kindred, no compassion to the poor, and hardly any humanity to his fellow creatures. If he gave no proofs that he loved his country, had a public spirit, or was a lover of arts, of books, or of literature, what must we judge of his motive, the principle he acted from, when, after his death, we find that he has left a trifle among his relations who stood in need of it, and an immense treasure to a university that did not want it. Let a man be as charitable as is possible for him to be without forfeiting his reason or good sense. Can he think otherwise, but that this famous physician did, in the making of his will, as in everything else, indulge his darling passion, entertaining his vanity with the happiness of the contrivance, when he thought on the monuments and inscriptions, with all the sacrifices of praise that would be made to him, and above all, the yearly tribute of thanks, of reverence, and veneration that would be paid to his memory, with so much pomp and solemnity, when he considered how in all these performances wit and invention would be wracked, art and eloquence ransacked to find out in comiums suitable to the public spirit, the munificence and the dignity of the benefactor, and the artful gratitude of the receivers. When he thought on, I say, and considered these things, it must have thrown his ambitious soul into vast ecstasies of pleasure, especially when he ruminated on the duration of his glory, and the perpetuity he would by this means procure to his name. Charitable opinions are often stupidly false. When men are dead and gone, we ought to judge of their actions, as we do of books, and neither wrong their understanding nor our own. The British Asclepius was undeniably a man of sense, and if he had been influenced by charity, a public spirit, or the love of learning, and had aimed at the good of mankind in general, or that of his own profession in particular, and acted from any of these principles, he could never have made such a will. Because so much wealth might have been better managed, and a man of much less capacity would have found out several better ways of laying out the money. But if we consider that he was undeniably a man of vast pride, as he was a man of sense, and give ourselves leave only to surmise that this extraordinary gift might have proceeded from such a motive, we shall presently discover the excellency of his parts, and his consummate knowledge of the world. For if a man would render himself immortal, be ever praised and deified after his death, and have all the acknowledgement, the honors, and compliments paid to his memory that vain glory herself could wish for, I do not think it in human skill to invent a more effectual method. Had he followed arms, behaved himself in five and twenty sieges, and as many battles, with a bravery of an Alexander, and exposed his life and limbs to all the fatigues and dangers of war, fifty campaigns together, or devoting himself to the muses, sacrificed his pleasure, his rest, and his health to literature, and spent all his days in a laborious study, and the toils of learning, or else abandoning all worldly interest, excelled in probity, temperance, and austerity of life, and ever trod in the strictest path of virtue, he would not so effectually have provided for the eternity of his name. As after a voluptuous life, and the luxurious gratification of his passions, he is now done without any trouble or self-denial, only by the choice in the disposal of his money when he was forced to leave it. A rich miser who is thoroughly selfish, and would receive the interest of his money even after his death, has nothing else to do than to defraud his relations, and leave his estate to some famous university. They are the best markets to buy immortality at with little merit. In them knowledge, wit, and penetration are the growth, I had almost said the manufacture of the place. Their men are profoundly skilled in human nature, and know what it is their benefactors want, and their extraordinary bounty shall always meet with an extraordinary recompense, and the measure of the gift is ever the standard of their praises, whether the donor be a physician or a tinker, when once the living witnesses that might laugh at them are extinct. I can never think on the anniversary of the Thanksgiving Day decreed to a great man, but it puts me in mind of the miraculous cures and other surprising things that will be said of him a hundred years hence, and I dare prognosticate, that before the end of the present century he will have stories forged in his favor. For rhetoricians are never upon oath, that shall be as fabulous at least as any legends of the saints. Of all this our subtle benefactor was not ignorant. He understood universities, their genius, and their politics, and from thence foresaw and knew that the incense to be offered to him would not cease with the present or few succeeding generations, and that it would not only for the trifling space of three or four hundred years, but that it would continue to be paid to him through all changes and revolutions of government and religion, as long as the nation subsists, and the island itself remains. It is deplorable that the proud should have such temptations to wrong their lawful heirs, for when a man in ease and affluence, brimful of vain glory, and humored in his pride by the greatest of a polite nation, has such an infallible security in petto for an everlasting homage and adoration to his manes to be paid in such an extraordinary manner. He is like a hero in battle, who, in feasting of his own imagination, tastes all the felicity of enthusiasm. It buys him up in sickness, relieves him in pain, and either guards him against, or keeps from his view all the terrors of death and the most dismal apprehensions of futurity. Should it be said, that to be thus sensorious and to look into matters, and demands consciences with that nicety, will discourage people from laying out their money this way, and that, let the money and the motive of the donor be what they will, he that receives the benefit is the gainer, I would not disown the charge, but am of opinion that this is no injury to the public, should one prevent men from crowding too much treasure into the dead stock of the kingdom. There ought to be a vast disproportion between the active and unactive part of the society to make it happy, and where this is not regarded, the multitude of gifts and endowments may soon be excessive and detrimental to a nation. Charity, where it is too extensive, seldom fails a promoting sloth and idleness, and is good for little in the commonwealth but to breed drones and destroy industry. The more colleges and almshouses you build, the more you may. The first founders and benefactors may have just and good intentions, and would perhaps, for their own reputations, seem to labor for the most laudable purposes, but the executors of those wills, the governors that come after him, have quite other views, and we seldom see charities long applied as it was first intended they should be. I have no design that is cruel, nor the least aim that savers of inhumanity. To have sufficient hospitals for sick and wounded, I look upon as an indispensable duty, both in peace and war. Young children without parents, old age without support, and all that are disabled from working, ought to be taken care of with tenderness and alacrity. But as, on the one hand, I would have none neglected that are helpless, and really necessitous without being wanting to themselves, so on the other, I would not encourage beggary or laziness in the poor. All should be set to work that are anywise able, and scrutiny should be made even among the infirm. Employments might be found out for most of our lame, and many that are unfit for hard labor, as well as the blind, as long as their health and strength would allow of it. What I have now under consideration leads me naturally to that kind of distraction the nation has labored under for some time, the enthusiastic passion for charity schools. The generality are so bewildered with the usefulness and excellency of them, that whoever dares openly to oppose them is in danger of being stoned by the rabble. Children that are taught the principles of religion, and can read the word of God, have a greater opportunity to improve in virtue and good morality, and must certainly be more civilized than others, that are suffered to run at random, and have nobody to look after them. How perverse must be the judgment of those who would not rather see children decently dressed, with clean linen at least once a week, that, in an orderly manner, follow their master to church, than in every open place, meet with a company of blackards without shirts or anything whole about them, that, insensible of their misery, are continually increasing it with oaths and implications. Can anyone doubt but these are the great nursery of thieves and pickpockets? What numbers of felons and other criminals have we tried and convicted every sessions? This will be prevented by charity schools, and when the children of the poor receive a better education, the society will, in a few years, reap the benefit of it, and the nation be cleared of so many miscreants, as now this great city, and all the country about it, are filled with. This is the general cry, and he that speaks the least word against it, an uncharitable, hard-hearted, and inhuman, if not a wicked, profane, and atheistical, wretch. As to the comeliness of the sight, nobody disputes it, but I would not have any nation pay too dear for so transient a pleasure, and if we might set aside the finery of the show, everything that is material in this popular oration might soon be answered. As to religion, the most knowing and polite part of a nation have everywhere the least of it. Craft has a greater hand in making rogues than stupidity, and vice, in general, is nowhere more predominant than where arts and sciences flourish. Ignorance is, to a proverb, counter to be the mother of devotion, and it is certain that we shall find innocence and honesty nowhere more general than among the most illiterate, the poor, silly, country people. The next to be considered are the manners and civility that by charity schools are to be grafted into the poor of the nation. I confess that, in my opinion, to be in any degree possessed of what I named is a frivolous, if not a hurtful quality, at least nothing is less requisite in the laborious poor. It is not compliments we want of them, but their work and assiguity, but I give up this article with all my heart. Good manners we will say are necessary to all people, but which way will they be furnished with them in a charity school? Boys there may be taught to pull off their caps promiscuously to all they meet, unless it be a beggar, but that they should acquire in it any civility beyond that I cannot conceive. The master is not greatly qualified, as may be guessed by his salary, and if he could teach them manners he has not time for it. While they are at school they are either learning or saying their lessons to him, or employed in writing or arithmetic, and as soon as school is done they are as much at liberty as other poor people's children. It is precept, and the example of parents, and those they eat, drink, and converse with, that have an influence upon the minds of children, reprobate parents that take ill courses, and are regardless to their children, will not have a mannerly civilized offspring, though they went to a charity school till they were married. The honest pains taking people, be they never so poor, if they have any notion of goodness and decency themselves, will keep their children in awe, and never suffer them to rake about the streets, and lie out at nights. Those who will work themselves, and have any command over their children, will make them do something or other that turns to profit as soon as they are able, be it never so little. And such are so ungovernable that neither words nor blows can work upon them, no charity school will mend, nay, experience teaches us that among the charity boys there are abundance of bad ones that swear and curse about, and bar the clothes, are as much blaggard as ever Tower Hill or St. James produced. I am now come to the enormous crimes and vast multitude of malefactors that are all laid upon the want of this notable education, that abundance of thefts and robberies are daily committed in and about the city, and great numbers yearly suffer death for those crimes is undeniable. But because this is ever hooked in, when the usefulness of charity schools is called in question, as if there was no dispute, but they would in a great measure remedy, and in time prevent those disorders. I intend to examine into the real causes of those mischiefs so justly complained of, and doubt not but to make it appear that charity schools, and everything else that promotes idleness, and keeps the poor from working, are more accessory to the growth of villainy, than the want of reading and writing, or even the grossest ignorance and stupidity. Here I must interrupt myself to obviate the clamours of some impatient people, who, upon reading of what I said last, will cry out that far from encouraging idleness, they bring up their charity children to handicrafts, as well as trades, and all manner of honest labor. I promise them that I shall take notice of that hereafter, and answer it without stifling the least thing that can be said in their behalf. In a populous city, it is not difficult for a young rascal, that has pushed himself into a crowd, with a small hand and nimble fingers, to whip away a handkerchief or snuffbox, from a man who is thinking on business, and regardless of his pocket. Success and small crime seldom fails of ushering in greater, and he that picks pockets with impunity at twelve, is likely to be a housebreaker at sixteen, and a thorough paced villain long before he is twenty. Those who are cautious as well as bold, and know drunkards, may do a world of mischief before they are discovered, and this is one of the greatest inconveniences of such vast overgrown cities as London or Paris, that they harbor rogues and villains as granaries do vermin. They afford a perpetual shelter to the worst of people, and are places of safety to thousands of criminals, who daily commit thefts and burglaries, and yet, by often changing their places of abode, may conceal themselves for many years, and will perhaps forever escape the hands of justice, unless by chance they are apprehended in a fact. And when they are taken, the evidences perhaps want clearness, or are otherwise insufficient. The depositions are not strong enough, juries and often judges are touched with compassion, prosecutors though vigorous at first, often relent before the time of trial comes on. Few men prefer the public safety to their own ease. A man of good nature is not easily reconciled with taking away of another man's life, though he has deserved the gallows. To be the cause of anyone's death, though justice requires it, is what most people is startled at, especially men of conscience and probity, when they want judgment or resolution, as this is the reason that thousands escape that deserve to be capitalally punished, so it is likewise the cause that there are so many offenders, who boldly venture, in hopes that if they are taken they shall have the same good fortune of getting off. But if men did imagine, and were fully persuaded, that as surely as they committed a fact that deserved hanging, so surely they would be hanged, executions would be very rare, and the most desperate felon would almost as soon hang himself as he would break open a house. To be stupid and ignorant is seldom the character of a thief. Robberies on the highway and other bold crimes are generally perpetrated by rogues of spirit and a genius, and villains of any fame are commonly subtle cunning fellows that are well versed in the method of trials, and acquainted with every quirk in the law that can be of use to them, that overlook not the smallest flaw in an indictment, and know how to make an advantage at the least slip of an evidence, and everything else that can serve their turn to bring them off. It is a mighty saying, that it is better that five hundred guilty people should escape than that one innocent person should suffer. This maxim is only true as to futurity, and in relation to another world, but it is very false in regard to the temporal welfare of society. It is a terrible thing a man should be put to death for a crime he is not guilty of. Yet so oddly circumstances may meet in the infinite variety of accidents, that it is possible it should come to pass, all the wisdom that judges, and consciousness that juries may be possessed of, notwithstanding. But where men endeavor to avoid this, with all the care and precaution human prudence is able to take, should such a misfortune happen perhaps once or twice and half a score years, on condition that all that time justice should be administered with all the strictness and severity, and not one guilty person suffered to escape with impunity, it would be a vast advantage to a nation, not only as to the securing of everyone's property, and the peace of the society in general, but would likewise save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of necessitous wretches that are daily hanged for trifles, and who would never have attempted anything against the law, or at least have ventured on capital crimes, if the hopes of getting off, should they be taken, had not been one of the motives that animated their resolution. Therefore where the laws are plain and severe, all the remissness in the execution of them, lenity of juries, and frequency of pardons, are in the main a much greater cruelty to a populous state or kingdom, than the use of racks and the most exquisite torments. Another great cause of those evils is to be looked for in the want of precaution in those that are robbed, and the many temptations that are given. Abundance of families are very remiss in looking after the safety of their houses, some are robbed by the carelessness of servants, others for having grudged the price of bars and shutters, brass and pewter are ready money, and they are everywhere about the house, plate perhaps and money are better secured, but an ordinary lock is soon opened when once a rogue is got in. It is manifest then that many different causes concur, and several scarce avoidable evils contribute to the misfortune of being pestered with pilferers, thieves, and robbers, which all countries ever were, and ever will be, more or less, in and near considerable towns, more especially vast and overgrown cities. It is opportunity makes the thief, carelessness and neglect and fastening doors and windows, the excessive tenderness of juries and prosecutors, the small difficulty of getting a reprieve and frequency of pardons, but above all the many examples of those who are known to be guilty and destitute both the friends and money, and yet by imposing on the jury, baffling the witnesses, or other tricks and stratagems, find out means to escape the gallows. These are all strong temptations that conspire to draw in the necessitous, who want principle and education. To these you may add as auxiliaries to mischief, inhabit of sloth and idleness, and strong aversion to labor and assiduity, which all young people will contract that are not brought up to downright working, or at least kept employed most days in the week and the greatest part of the day. All children that are idle, even the best of either sex, are bad company to one another whenever they meet. It is not, then, the want of reading and writing, but the concurrence and complication of more substantial evils that are the perpetual nursery of abandoned profligates in great and opulent nations, and whoever would accuse ignorance, stupidity, and dastardness as the first, and what the physicians call the Procatertic cause, let him examine into the lives, and narrowly inspect the conversations and actions of ordinary rogues and our common felons, and he will find the reverse to be true, and that the blame ought rather to be laid on the excessive cunning and subtlety, and too much knowledge in general, which the worst of miscreants and the scum of the nation are possessed of. End of Section 25. Section 26 of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. An essay on Charity and Charity Schools, Part 2. Human nature is everywhere the same. Genius, wit, and natural parts are always sharpened by application, and may be as much improved in the practice of the meanest villainy as they can in the exercise of industry or the most heroic virtue. There is no station of life where pride, emulation, and the love of glory may not be displayed, a young pickpocket that makes a jest of his angry prosecutor and dexterously weedles the old justice into an opinion of his innocence is envied by his equals, and admired by all the fraternity. Rogues have the same passions to gratify as other men, and value themselves on their honor and faithfulness to one another, their courage, intrepidity, and other manly virtues, as well as people of better professions, and in daring enterprises, the resolution of a robber may be as much supported by his pride as that of an honest soldier who fights for his country. The evils, then, we complain of, are owing to quite other causes than what we assign for them. Men must be very wavering in their sentiments, if not inconsistent with themselves, that at one time will uphold knowledge and learning to be the most proper means to promote religion, and defend at another, that ignorance is the mother of devotion. But if the reasons alleged for this general education are not the true ones, whence comes it that the whole kingdom, both great and small, are so unanimously fond of it. There is no miraculous conversion to be perceived among us, no universal bent to goodness and morality that has, on a sudden, overspread the island. There is as much wickedness as ever. Charity is as cold and real virtue as scarce. The year 1720 has been as prolific in deep villainy and remarkable for selfish crimes and premeditated mischief, as can be picked out of any century whatever. Not committed by poor, ignorant rogues, that could neither read nor write, but the better sort of people as to wealth and education, that most of them were great masters in arithmetic, and lived in reputation and splendor. To say that when a thing is once in vogue, the multitude follows the common cry, that charity schools are in fashion in the same manner as hooped petticoats by caprice, and that no more reason can be given for the one than the other, I am afraid will not be satisfactory to the curious, and at the same time I doubt much whether it will be thought of great weight by many of my readers what I can advance besides. The real source of this present folly is certainly very abstruse and remote from sight, but he that affords the least light in matters of great obscurity does a kind of office to inquirers. I am willing to allow that in the beginning the first design of those schools was good and charitable, but to know what increases them so extravagantly, and who are the chief promoters of them now, we must make our search another way, and address ourselves to the rigid party men that are zealous for their cause, either episcopy or presbytery, but as the latter are but the poor mimics of the first, though equally pernicious, we shall confine ourselves to the national church, and take a turn through a parish that is not blessed yet with a charity school. But here I think myself obliged in conscience to ask pardon of my reader, for the tiresome dance I am going to lead him, if he intends to follow me, and therefore I desire that he would either throw away the book and leave me, or else arm himself with the patience of Job, to endure all the impertenences of low life, the cant and tittle tattle he is like to meet with before he can go half a street's length. First we must look out among the young shopkeepers that have not half the business they could wish for, and consequently time to spare. If such a new beginner has but a little pride more than his ordinary, and loves to be meddling, he is soon mortified in the vestry, where men of substance and longstanding, or else your pertletigious or opinionated ballers that have obtained the title of notable men, commonly bear the sway. His stock and perhaps credit are but inconsiderable, and yet he finds within himself a strong inclination to govern. A man thus qualified thinks in a thousand pities there is no charity school in the parish. He communicates his thoughts to two or three of his acquaintances first. They do the same to others, and in a month's time there is nothing else talked of in the parish. Everybody invents discourses and arguments to the purpose, according to his abilities. It is an errant shame, says one, to see so many poor that are not able to educate their children, and no provision made for them, where we have so many rich people. What do you talk of rich, answers another. They are the worst. They must have so many servants, coaches, and horses. They can lay out hundreds, and some of them thousands of pounds for jewels and furniture, but not spare a shilling to a poor creature that wants it. When modes and fashions are discoursed of, they can harken with great attention, but are willfully deaf to the cries of the poor. Indeed, neighbor, replies the first, you are very right. I do not believe there is a worse parish in England for charity than ours. It is such as you and I that would do good if it was in our power, but of those that are able, there is very few that are willing. Others more violent fall upon particular persons, and fastened slander on every man of substance they dislike, and a thousand idle stories on behalf of charity are raised and handed out to defame their betters. While this is doing throughout the neighborhood, he that first broached the pious thought rejoices to hear so many come into it, and places no small merit in being the first cause of so much talk and bustle. But neither himself nor his intimates, being considerable enough to set such a thing on foot, somebody must be found out who has greater interest. He is to be addressed to, and showed the necessity, the goodness, the usefulness, and Christianity of such a design. Next he is to be flattered. Indeed, sir, if you would espouse it, nobody has a greater influence over the best of the parish than yourself. One word of you, I am sure, would engage such a one. If once you would take it to heart, sir, I would look upon the thing as done, sir. If by this kind of rhetoric they can draw in some old fool, or conceited busy body that is rich, or at least reputed to be such, the thing begins to be feasible, and is discoursed of among the better sort. The parson, or his curate, and the lecturer are everywhere extolling the pious project. The first promoters, meanwhile, are indefatigable. If they were guilty of any open vice, they either sacrifice it to the love of reputation, or at least grow more cautious and learn to play the hypocrite, while knowing that to be flotigious, or noted for enormities, is inconsistent with the zeal which they pretend to, for works of supraerogation and excessive piety. The number of these diminutive patriots increasing, they form themselves into a society, and appoints stated meetings, where everyone concealing his vices has liberty to display his talents. Religion is the theme, or else the misery of the times occasioned by atheism and profaneness. Men of worth, who live in splendor, and thriving people that have a great deal of business of their own, are seldom seen among them. Men of sense and education likewise, if they have nothing to do, generally look out for better diversion. All those who have a higher aim shall have their attendance easily excused, but contribute they must, or else lead a weary life in the parish. Two sorts of people come in voluntarily, stanched churchmen, who have good reasons for it in petto, and or sly sinners that look upon it as meritorious, and hope that it will expiate their guilt, and Satan be non-suited by it at a small expense. Some come into it to save their credit, others to retrieve it, according as they have either lost or are afraid of losing it. Others again do it prudentially, to increase their trade and get acquaintance, and many would own to you if they dared to be sincere and speak the truth, that they would never have been concerned in it, but to be better known in the parish. Men of sense that see the folly of it, and have nobody to fear, are persuaded into it not to be thought singular, or to run counter to all the world. Even those who are resolute at first in denying it, it is ten to one, but at last they are teased and importuned into a compliance. The charge being calculated for most of the inhabitants, the insignificancy of it, is another argument that prevails much, and many are drawn in to be contributors who, without that, would have stood out and strenuously opposed the whole scheme. The governors are made of the middling people, and many inferior to that class are made use of, if the forwardness of their zeal can but overbalance the meanness of their condition. If you should ask these worthy rulers why they take upon them so much trouble, to the detriment of their own affairs and loss of time, either singly or the whole body of them, they would all unanimously answer that it is the regard they have for religion and the church, and the pleasure they take in contributing to the good and eternal welfare of so many poor innocents that in all probability would run into perdition in these wicked times of scoffers and free thinkers. They have no thought of interest. Even those who deal in and provide these children with what they want have not the least design of getting by what they sell for their use, and though in everything else their avarice and greediness after lucre be glaringly conspicuous, in this affair they are wholly divested from selfishness, and have no worldly ends. One motive above all, which is none of the least with the most of them, is to be carefully concealed. I mean the satisfaction there is in ordering and directing. There is a melodious sound to the word governor that is charming to mean people. Everybody admires sway and superiority. Even imperium in beluas has its delights. There is a pleasure in ruling over anything, and it is this chiefly that supports human nature in the tedious slavery of schoolmasters. But if there be the least satisfaction in governing the children, it must be ravishing to govern the schoolmaster himself. What fine things are said and perhaps wrote to a governor when a schoolmaster is to be chosen, how the praises tickle, and how pleasant it is not to find out the fulsomeness of the flattery, the stiffness of the expressions, or the pedantry of the style. Those who can examine nature will always find that what these people most pretend to is the least, and what they utterly deny their greatest motive. No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor anything sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from. But the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them. If we will mine the pastimes and recreations of young children, we shall observe nothing more general in them than that all who are suffered to do it take delight in playing with kittens and little puppy dogs. What makes them always lugging and pulling the poor creatures about the house proceeds from nothing else but that they can do with them what they please, and put them into what posture and shape they list, and the pleasure they receive from this is originally owing to the love of dominion and that usurping temper all mankind are born with. When this great work is brought to bear and actually accomplished, joy and serenity seem to overspread the face of every inhabitant, which likewise to account for, I must make a short digression. There are everywhere slovenly sorry fellows that are used to be seen always ragged and dirty. These people we look upon as miserable creatures in general, and unless they are very remarkable, we take little notice of them, and yet among these are handsome and well-shaped men, as well as among their betters. But if one of these turned soldier, what a vast alteration is there observed in him for the better. As soon as he is put in his red coat, and we see him look smart with his grenadiers cap and a great ammunition sword, all who knew him before are struck with other ideas of his qualities, and the judgment which both men and women form of him in their minds is very different from what it was. There is something analogous to this in the sight of charity children. There is a natural beauty in uniformity which most people delight in. It is diverting to the eye to see children well matched, either boys or girls march to and to in good order, and to have them all whole and tight in the same clothes and trimming must add to the comeliness of the sight, and what makes it still more generally entertaining, is the imaginary share which even servants and the meanest in the parish have in it, to whom it costs nothing, our parish church, our charity children. In all this there is a shadow of property that tickles everybody, that has a right to make use of the words, but more especially those who actually contribute and had a great hand in advancing the pious work. It is hardly conceivable that men should so little know their own hearts, and be so ignorant of their inward condition as to mistake frailty, passion, and enthusiasm for goodness, virtue, and charity. Yet nothing is more true than that the satisfaction, the joy, and transports they feel on the accounts I named, pass with these miserable judges for principles of piety and religion. Whoever will consider of what I have said for two or three pages, and suffer his imagination to rove a little further on what he has heard and seen concerning this subject, will be furnished with sufficient reasons, abstract from the love of God and true Christianity, why charity schools are in such uncommon vogue, and so unanimously approved of and admired among all sorts and conditions of people. It is a theme which everybody can talk of, and understands thoroughly, there is not a more inexhaustible fund for tittle-tattle, and a variety of low conversation in hoyboats and stagecoaches. If a governor that in behalf of the school of the sermon exerted himself more than ordinary, happens to be in company, how he is commended by the women, and his zeal and charitable disposition extolled to the skies. Upon my word, sirs, as an old lady, we are all very much obliged to you. I do not think any of the other governors could have made interest enough to procure us a bishop. It was on your account, I am told, that his lordship came, though he was not very well, to which the other replies very gravely, that it is his duty, but that he values no trouble nor fatigue, so he can be but serviceable to the children, poor lambs. Indeed, says he, I was resolved to get a pair of lawn sleeves, though I read all night for it, and I am very glad I was not disappointed. Sometimes the school itself is discorsed of, and of whom in all the parish it is most expected he should build one. The old room where it is now kept is ready to drop down. Such a one had a vast estate left him by his uncle, and a great deal of money besides. A thousand pounds would be nothing in his pocket. At others the great crowds are talked of that are seen at some churches, and the considerable sums that are gathered, from whence, by an easy transition, they go over to the abilities, the different talents and orthodoxy of clergymen. Dr. Blank is a man of great parts in learning, and I believe he is very hardy for the church, but I do not like him for a charity sermon. There is no better man in the world than Blank. He forces the money out of their pockets. When he preached last for our children, I am sure there was abundance of people that gave more than they intended when they came to church. I could see it in their faces, and rejoiced at it heartily. Another charm that renders Charity School so bewitching to the multitude is the general opinion established among them that they are not only actually beneficial to society as to temporal happiness, but likewise that Christianity enjoys and requires of us, we should erect them for our future welfare. They are earnestly and fervently recommended by the whole body of the clergy, and have more labor and eloquence laid out upon them than any other Christian duty. Not by young persons, or poor scholars of little credit, but the most learned of our prelates, and the most eminent for orthodoxy, even those who do not often fatigue themselves on any other occasion. As to religion, there is no doubt but they know what is chiefly required of us, and consequently the most necessary to salvation. And as to the world, who should understand the interests of the kingdom better than the wisdom of the nation, of which the Lord's spiritual are so considerable a branch. The consequence of this sanction is, first, that those who, with their purses or power, are instrumental to the increase or maintenance of these schools are tempted to place a greater merit in what they do than otherwise they could suppose it deserved. Secondly, that all the rest, who either cannot or will not any wise contribute toward them, have still a very good reason why they should speak well of them, for though it be difficult, in things that interfere with our passions to act well, it is always in our power to wish well, because it is performed with little cost. There is hardly a person so wicked among the superstitious vulgar, but in the liking he has for charity schools, he imagines to see a glimmering hope that it will make an atonement for his sins, from the same principle as the most vicious comfort themselves with the love and veneration they bear to the church, and the greatest profligates find an opportunity in it to show the rectitude of their inclinations at no expense. But if all these were not inducements sufficient to make men stand up in defense of the idol I speak of, there is another that will infallibly bribe most people to be advocates for it. We all naturally love triumph, and whoever engages in this course is sure of conquest, at least in nine companies out of ten. Let him dispute with whom he will, considering the speciousness of the pretense and the majority he has on his side, it is a castle, an impregnable fortress he can never be beat out of, and was the most sober, virtuous man alive to produce all the arguments to prove the detriment charity schools, at least the multiplicity of them, due to society which I shall give hereafter, and such as are yet stronger, against the greatest scoundrel in the world, who should only make use of the common cant of charity and religion, the vogue would be against the first, and himself lose his cause in the opinion of the vulgar. The rise then, and original of all the bustle and clamour that is made throughout the kingdom on behalf of charity schools, is chiefly built on frailty and human passion. At least it is more than possible that a nation should have the same fondness, and feel the same zeal for them as are shown in ours, and yet not be prompted to it by any principle of virtue or religion. Encouraged by this consideration, I shall, with the greater liberty, attack this vulgar error, and endeavor to make it evident that far from being beneficial, this forced education is pernicious to the public, the welfareware of, as it demands of us a regard superior to all other laws and considerations, so it shall be the only apology I intend to make for differing from the present sentiments of the learned and reverend body of our divines, and venturing plainly to deny what I have just now owned to be openly asserted by most of our bishops, as well as inferior clergy. As our church pretends to know infallibility even in spirituals, her proper province, so it cannot be in the front to her to imagine that she may air in temperals, which are not so much under her immediate care. But to my task. The whole earth being cursed, and no bread to be had but what we eat in the sweat of our brows, vast toil must be undergone before man can provide himself with necessaries for his sustenance, and the bare support of his corrupt and effective nature as he is a single creature, but infinitely more to make life comfortable in a civil society, where men are become taut animals, and great numbers of them have, by mutual compact, framed themselves into a body politic. And the more man's knowledge increases in this state, the greater will be the variety of labor required to make him easy. It is impossible that a society can long subsist, and suffer many of its members to live in idleness, and enjoy all the ease and pleasure they can invent, without having, at the same time, great multitudes of people that to make good this defect will condescend to be quite the reverse, and by use and patience endure their bodies to work for others and themselves besides. The plenty and cheapness of provisions depends in a great measure on the price and value that is set upon this labor, and consequently the welfare of all societies, even before they are tainted with foreign luxury, requires that it should be performed by such of their members in the first place are sturdy and robust, and never used to ease or idleness, and in the second soon contented as to the necessaries of life. Such as are glad to take up with the coarsest manufacture and everything they wear, and in their diet have no other aim than to feed their bodies when their stomachs prompt them to eat, and, with little regard to taste or relish, refuse no wholesome nourishment that can be swallowed when men are hungry, or ask anything for their thirsts but to quench it. As the greatest part of the drudgery is to be done by daylight, so it is by this only that they actually measure the time of the labor without any thought of the hours they are employed, or the weariness they feel, and the hireling in the country must get up in the morning, not because he has rested enough, but because the sun is going to rise. This last article alone would be an intolerable hardship to grown people under 30, who, during nonage, had been used to lie a bed as long as they could sleep, but all three together make up such a condition of life as man more mildly educated would hardly choose, though it should deliver him from a jail or a shrew. If such people there must be, as no great nation can be happy without vast numbers of them, would not a wise legislature cultivate the breed of them with all imaginable care, and provide against their scarcity as he would prevent the scarcity of provision itself. No man would be poor and fatigue himself for a livelihood if he could help it. The absolute necessity all stand in for victuals and drink, and in cold climates for clothes and lodging, makes them submit to anything that can be bore with. If nobody did want, nobody would work, but the great hardships are looked upon as solid pleasures when they keep a man from starving. From what has been said, it is manifest that in a free nation where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude of laborious poor, for beside that they are the never-failing nursery of fleets and armies. Without them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be valuable. To make the society happy, and people easy under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of them should be ignorant as well as poor. Knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man wishes for, the more easily his necessities may be supplied. The welfare and felicity of every state and kingdom require that knowledge of the working poor should be confined within the verge of their occupations, and never extend, as to things visible, beyond what relates to their calling. The more a shepherd, a plowman, or any other peasant knows of the world, and the things that are foreign to his labor or employment, the less fit he will be to go through the fatigues and hardships of it with cheerfulness and content. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are very necessary to those whose business requires as qualifications. But where people's livelihood has no dependence on these arts, they are very pernicious to the poor, who are forced to get their daily bread by their daily labor. Few children make any progress at school, but at the same time they are capable of being employed in some business or other, so that every hour those of poor people spend at their book is so much time lost to the society. Going to school in comparison to working is idleness, and the longer boys continue in this easy sort of life, the more unfit they will be when grown up for downright labor, both as to strength and inclination. Men who are to remain and end their days in a laborious, tiresome, and painful station of life, the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they will submit to it forever after. Hard labor and the course's diet are a proper punishment to several kinds of malefactors, but to impose either on those who have not been used and brought up to both is the greatest cruelty, when there is no crime you can charge them with. Reading and writing are not attained to without some labor of the brain and assiduity, and before people are tolerably versed in either, they esteem themselves infinitely above those who are wholly ignorant of them, often with so little justice and moderation as if they were of another species. As all mortals have naturally an aversion to trouble and pains taking, so we are all fond of and apt to overvalue those qualifications we have purchased at the expense of our ease and quiet, for years together. Those who spend a great part of their youth in learning to read, write, and cipher, expect, and not unjustly, to be employed where those qualifications may be of use to them, the generality of them will look upon downright labor with the utmost contempt. I mean labor performed in the service of others in the lowest station of life and for the meanest consideration. A man who has had some education may follow husbandry by choice and be diligent at the dirtiest and most laborious work, but then the concern must be his own, and avarice, the care of a family or some other pressing motive must put him upon it, but he will not make a good hireling and serve a farmer for a pitiful reward. At least he is not so fit for it as a day laborer that has always been employed about the plough and dung cart, and remembers not that ever he has lived otherwise. When obsequiousness and mean services are required, we shall always observe that they are never so cheerfully nor so heartily performed as from inferiors to superiors. I mean inferiors not only in riches and quality, but likewise in knowledge and understanding. A servant can have no unfaigned respect for his master, as soon as he has sense enough to find out that he serves a fool. When we are to learn or obey, we shall experience in ourselves that the greater opinion we have of the wisdom and capacity of those that are either to teach or command us, the greater deference we pay to their laws and instructions, no creatures submit contentedly to their equals, and should a horse know as much as a man, I should not desire to be his rider.