vice. Mandeville, a London physician
of French extraction, and born in Holland, had aroused attention by his
poem, _The Grumbling Hive; or Knaves Turned Honest_, 1706, and in response
to vehement attacks upon his work, had added a commentary to the second
edition, _The Fable of the Bees; or Private Vices Public Benefits_, 1714.
The moral of the fable is that the welfare of a society depends on the
industry of its members, and this, in turn, on their passions and vices.
Greed, extravagance, envy, ambition, and rivalry are the roots of
the acquisitive impulse, and contribute more to the public good than
benevolence and the control of desire. Virtue is good for the individual,
it is true, since it makes him contented with himself and acceptable to God
and man, but great states require stronger motives to labor and industry
in order to be prosperous. A people among whom frugality, self-denial, and
quietness of spirit were the rule would remain poor and ignorant. Besides
holding that virtue furthers the happiness of society, Shaftesbury makes a
second mistake in assuming that human nature includes unselfish
inclinations. It is not innate love and goodness that make us social, but
our passions and weaknesses (above all, fear); man is by nature
self-seeking. All actions, including the so-called virtues, spring from
vanity and egoism; thus it has always been, thus it is in every grade of
society. In social life, indeed, we dare not display all these desires
openly, nor satisfy them at will. Shrewd lawgivers have taught men to
conceal their natural passions and to limit them by artificial ones,
persuading them that renunciation is true happiness, on the ground that
through it we attain the supreme good--reputation among, and the esteem of
our fellows. Since then honor and shame have become the strongest motives
and have incited men to that which is called virtue, _i.e._, to actions
which apparently imply the sacrifice of selfish inclinations for the good
of society, while they are really done out of pride and self-love. By
constantly feigning noble sentiments before others man comes, finally, to
deceive himself, believing himself a being whose happiness consists in the
renunciation of self and all that is earthly, and in the thought of his
moral excellence.--The crass assumptions in Mandeville's reasoning are
evident at a glance. After analyzing virtue into the suppression of desire,
after labeling the impulse after moral approbati