The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits. Bernard Mandeville

that are inferior to them, and if you could enter into the hearts of kings and princes, you would hardly find any but what have less value for the greatest part of the multitudes they rule over, than those have for the cattle that belong to them. Why should so many pretend to derive their race, though but spuriously, from the immortal gods; why should all of them suffer others to kneel down before them, and more or less take delight in having divine honours paid them, but to insinuate that themselves are of a more exalted nature, and a species superior to that of their subjects?

      Savage I am, but no creature can be called cruel, but what either by malice or insensibility extinguishes his natural pity: The lion was born without compassion; we follow the instinct of our nature; the gods have appointed us to live upon the waste and spoil of other animals, and as long as we can meet with dead ones, we never hunt after the living. It is only man, mischievous man, that can make death a sport. Nature taught your stomach to crave nothing but vegetables; but your violent fondness to change, and great eagerness after novelties, have prompted you to the destruction of animals without justice or necessity, perverted your nature, and warped your appetites which way soever your pride or luxury have called them. The lion has a ferment within him that consumes the toughest skin and hardest bones, as well as the flesh of all animals without exception: Your squeamish stomach, in which the digestive heat is weak and inconsiderable, will not so much as admit of the most tender parts of them, unless above half the concoction has been performed by artificial fire before hand; and yet what animal have you spared to satisfy the caprices of a languid appetite? Languid I say; for what is man’s hunger, if compared to the lion’s? Yours, when it is at the worst, makes you faint, mine makes me mad: Oft have I tried with roots and herbs to allay the violence of it, but in vain; nothing but large quantities of flesh can anywise appease it.

      Yet the fierceness of our hunger notwithstanding, lions have often requited benefits received; but ungrateful and perfidious man feeds on the sheep that clothes him, and spares not her innocent young ones, whom he has taken into his care and custody. If you tell me the gods made man master over all other creatures, what tyranny was it then to destroy them out of wantonness? No, fickle, timorous animal, the gods have made you for society, and designed that millions of you, when well joined together, should compose the strong Leviathan. A single lion bears some sway in the creation, but what is single man? A small and inconsiderable part, a trifling atom of one great beast. What nature designs, she executes; and it is not safe to judge of what she purposed, but from the effects she shows: If she had intended that man, as man from a superiority of species, should lord it over all other animals, the tiger, nay, the whale and eagle would have obeyed his voice.

      But if your wit and understanding exceeds ours, ought not the lion, in deference to that superiority, to follow the maxims of men, with whom nothing is more sacred, than that the reason of the strongest is ever the most prevalent? Whole multitudes of you have conspired and compassed the destruction of one, after they had owned the gods had made him their superior; and one has often ruined and cut off whole multitudes, whom, by the same gods, he had sworn to defend and maintain. Man never acknowledged superiority without power, and why should I? The excellence I boast of is visible, all animals tremble at the sight of the lion, not out of panic fear. The gods have given me swiftness to overtake, and strength to conquer whatever comes near me. Where is there a creature that has teeth and claws like mine, behold the thickness of these massy jaw-bones, consider the width of them, and feel the firmness of this brawny neck. The nimblest deer, the wildest boar, the stoutest horse, and strongest bull, are my prey wherever I meet them. Thus spoke the lion, and the merchant fainted away.

      The lion, in my opinion, has stretched the point too far; yet, when to soften the flesh of male animals, we have by castration prevented the firmness their tendons, and every fibre would have come to, without it, I confess, I think it ought to move a human creature, when he reflects upon the cruel care with which they are fattened for destruction. When a large and gentle bullock, after having resisted a ten times greater force of blows than would have killed his murderer, falls stunned at last, and his armed head is fastened to the ground with cords; as soon as the wide wound is made, and the jugulars are cut asunder, what mortal can, without compassion, hear the painful bellowings intercepted by his blood, the bitter sighs that speak the sharpness of his anguish, and the deep sounding groans, with loud anxiety, fetched from the bottom of his strong and palpitating heart; look on the trembling and violent convulsions of his limbs; see, while his reeking gore streams from him, his eyes become dim and languid, and behold his strugglings, gasps, and last efforts for life, the certain signs of his approaching fate? When a creature has given such convincing and undeniable proofs of the terrors upon him, and the pains and agonies he feels, is there a follower of Descartes so inured to blood, as not to refute, by his commiseration, the philosophy of that vain reasoner?

      Line 307.——For frugally

      They now liv’d ’on their salary.

      When people have small comings in, and are honest withal, it is then that the generality of them begin to be frugal, and not before. Frugality in ethics is called that virtue, from the principle of which men abstain from superfluities, and, despising the operose contrivances of art to procure either ease or pleasure, content themselves with the natural simplicity of things, and are carefully temperate in the enjoyment of them, without any tincture of covetousness. Frugality thus limited, is perhaps scarcer than many may imagine; but what is generally understood by it, is a quality more often to be met with, and consists in a medium between profuseness and avarice, rather leaning to the latter. As this prudent economy, which some people call saving is in private families the most certain method to increase an estate. So some imagine, that whether a country be barren or fruitful, the same method, if generally pursued (which they think practicable), will have the same effect upon a whole nation, and that, for example, the English might be much richer than they are, if they would be as frugal as some of their neighbours. This, I think, is an error, which to prove, I shall first refer the reader to what has been said upon this head in Remark on l. 180. and then go on thus.

      Experience teaches us first, that as people differ in their views and perceptions of things, so they vary in their inclinations; one man is given to covetousness, another to prodigality, and a third is only saving. Secondly, that men are never, or at least very seldom, reclaimed from their darling passions, either by reason or precept, and that if any thing ever draws them from what they are naturally propense to, it must be a change in their circumstances or their fortunes. If we reflect upon these observations, we shall find, that to render the generality of a nation lavish, the product of the country must be considerable, in proportion to the inhabitants, and what they are profuse of cheap; that, on the contrary, to make a nation generally frugal, the necessaries of life must be scarce, and consequently dear; and that, therefore, let the best politician do what he can, the profuseness or frugality of a people in general, must always depend upon, and will, in spite of his teeth, be ever proportioned to the fruitfulness and product of the country, the number of inhabitants, and the taxes they are to bear. If any body would refute what I have said, let them only prove from history, that there ever was in any country a national frugality without a national necessity.

      Let us examine then what things are requisite to aggrandize and enrich a nation. The first desirable blessings for any society of men, are a fertile soil, and a happy climate, a mild government, and more land than people. These things will render man easy, loving, honest, and sincere. In this condition they may be as virtuous as they can, without the least injury to the public, and consequently as happy as they please themselves. But they shall have no arts or sciences, or be quiet longer than their neighbours will let them; they must be poor, ignorant, and almost wholly destitute of what we call the comforts of life, and all the cardinal virtues together would not so much as procure a tolerable coat or a porridge-pot among them: for in this state of slothful ease and stupid innocence, as you need not fear great vices, so you must not expect any considerable virtues. Man never exerts himself but when he is roused by his desires: while they lie dormant, and there is nothing to raise them, his excellence and abilities will be for ever undiscovered, and the lumpish machine, without the influence of his passions, may be justly compared to a huge wind-mill without a breath of air.

      Would you render a society of men strong and powerful, you must touch their passions. Divide the land, though there be never so much to spare, and their possessions will make them