Chapter 2

All of this, however, though required for laissez-faire doctrine, was also consistent with mercantilism, at least of the English type. The later exponents of laissez-faire did not invent the "economic man" who pursued only his own interest, but inherited him from the mercantilists and from the doctrine of original sin. English analysis of social process had in this sense always been "individualistic," and in this sense both mercantilism and the widely-prevalent theological utilitarianism were at least as individualistic as later laissez-faire economics. Englishmen, moreover, had long been jealous of governmental power, and at the height of English mercantilism they insisted upon limits to appropriate governmental intervention. It is not safe, therefore, to label anyone before Adam Smith as an exponent of laissez-faire merely on the ground that he would exempt a few specified types of economic activity from interference by government. It would be misleading also to apply to eighteenth-century writers modern ideas as to the dividing line between "interventionists" and exponents of "liberalism" or of "laissez faire." As compared to modern totalitarianism, or even to modern "central economic planning," or to "Keynesianism," the English mercantilism of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth century was essentially libertarian. It is only as compared to Adam Smith, or to English classical and the Continental "liberal" schools of economics of the nineteenth century, that it was interventionist.

Adam Smith is regarded as an exponent of laissez-faire because he laid it down as a general principle (subject in practice to numerous and fairly important specific exceptions) that the activities of government should be limited to the enforcement of justice, to defense, and to public works of a kind inherently unsuitable for private enterprise. He based this doctrine partly on natural rights grounds, partly on the belief that there was a pervasive natural and self-operating harmony, providentially established, between individual interest and the interest of the community, partly on the empirical ground that government was generally inefficient, improvident, and unintelligent.

There is nothing of such doctrine in Mandeville; there is abundant evidence in his writings that Mandeville was a convinced adherent of the prevailing mercantilism of his time. Most English mercantilists disapproved of some or all kinds of sumptuary regulations on the same grounds as Mandeville disapproved of some of them, namely, the existence of more suitable ways of accomplishing their objectives or the mistaken character of their objectives. Mandeville's objection to charity schools on the ground that they would alter for the worse the supplies of labor for different occupations was based on his belief that England, unlike some other countries, already had more tradesmen and skilled artisans than it needed. Mandeville, in contrast to Adam Smith, put great and repeated stress on the importance of the rôle of government in producing a strong and prosperous society, through detailed and systematic regulation of economic activity.

It is a common misinterpretation of Mandeville in this respect to read his motto, "Private Vices, Publick Benefits," as a laissez-faire motto, postulating the natural or spontaneous harmony between individual interests and the public good. The motto as it appeared on title pages of _The Fable of the Bees_ was elliptical. In his text, Mandeville repeatedly stated that it was by "the skilful Management of the clever Politician" that private vices could be made to serve the public good, thus ridding the formula of any implication of laissez-faire.

This is made clear beyond reasonable doubt by the _Letter to Dion_. Berkeley, in _Alciphron_, had made Lysicles say: "Leave nature at full freedom to work her own way, find all will be well." Mandeville, taking this as directed against himself, disavows it vigorously, and cites the stress he had put on "laws and governments" in _The Fable of the Bees_. (pp. 3-4; see also 55). He repeats from _The Fable of the Bees_ his explanation that when he used as a subtitle the "Private Vices, Publick Benefits" motto, "I understood by it, that Private Vices, by the dexterous Management of a skilful Politician, might be turned into Publick Benefits." (pp. 36-37). Later he refers to the role of the "skilful Management" of the "Legislator" (p. 42), and to "the Wisdom of the Politician, by whose skilful Management the Private Vices of the Worst of Men are made to turn to a Publick Benefit." (p. 45). "They are silly People," he says, "who imagine, that the Good of the Whole is consistent with the Good of every Individual." (p. 49).

A recent work[22] provides indirectly unintentional support to my denial that Mandeville was an exponent of laissez-faire. In this work we are told that "The most famous exponent of what Halévy calls the natural identity of interests is Bernard Mandeville" and that "What Mandeville did for the principle of the natural identity of interests Helvétius did for that of their artificial identity," that is, "that the chief utility of governments consists in their ability to force men to act in their own best interests when they feel disinclined to do so." It so happens, however, that Helvétius as an apostle of state intervention was not only not departing from Mandeville but was echoing him even as to language. Helvétius said that motives of personal temporal interest sufficed for the formation of a good society, provided they were "maniés avec adresse par un législateur habile."[23]

[22] John Plamenatz, _The British Utilitarians_, Oxford and New York, 1949, pp. 48-49.

[23] Helvétius, _De l'esprit_, Discours II. Ch. XXIV. In the French version of _The Fable of the Bees_, the phrasing is almost identical: See _La fable des abeilles_, Paris, 1750, e.g. II. 261: "ménagés avec dextérité par d'habiles politiques." When the Sorbonne, in 1759, condemned _De l'esprit_, it cited _The Fable of the Bees_ as among the works which could have inspired it. (F. Grégoire. _Bernard De Mandeville_, Nancy, 1947, p. 206).

Kaye, in his "The Influence of Bernard Mandeville," (_loc. cit._, p. 102), says that _De l'esprit_ "Is in many ways simply a French paraphrase of _The Fable_." In his edition of _The Fable of the Bees_, however, he says, "I think we may conclude no more than that Helvétius had probably read _The Fable_." (_Fable of the Bees_, I. CXLV, Note). Kaye systematically fails to notice the significance of Mandeville's emphasis on the rôle of the "skilful Politician."

Here also there is a close link between Mandeville, Bayle, and the Jansenists, especially Nicole and Domat. All of them adopted a Hobbesian view of human nature. All of them followed Hobbes in believing that the discipline imposed by positive law and enforced by government was essential if a prosperous and flourishing society was to be derived from communities of individuals vigorously pursuing their self-regarding interests. Mandeville's originality was in pretending that in the interest of true morality he preferred that the individual pursuit of prosperity be abandoned even at the cost of social disaster.

A

LETTER

TO

DION,

Occasion'd by his Book

CALL'D

ALCIPHRON,

OR

The MINUTE PHILOSOPHER.

_By the Author of the_ FABLE _of the_ BEES.

_LONDON:_

Printed and Sold by J. ROBERTS in _Warwick-Lane_. M.DCC.XXXII.

_SIR_,

I have read your Two Volumes of _Alciphron_, or, The _Minute Philosopher_ with Attention. As far as I am a Judge, the Language is very good, the Diction correct, and the Style and whole Manner of Writing are both polite and entertaining: All together bespeak the Author to be a Man of Learning, good Sense and Capacity. My Design in troubling you with this tedious Epistle in Print, which perhaps will be longer than you could have wish'd it, is to rescue the Publick from a vulgar Error, which Thousands of knowing and well-meaning People, and your self, I see, among the Rest, have been led into by a common Report, concerning _The Fable of the Bees_, as if it was a wicked Book, wrote for the Encouragement of Vice, and to debauch the Nation. I beg of you not to imagine, that I intend to blame you, or any other candid Man like your self, for having rashly given Credit to such a Report without further Examination. The _Fable of the Bees_ has been presented by a Grand Jury more than once; and there is hardly a Book that has been preach'd and wrote against with greater Vehemence or Severity. When a Work is so generally exclaim'd against, a wise Man, who has no Mind to mispend his Time, has a very good Reason for not reading it. But as your second Dialogue is almost entirely levell'd at that Book and its Author, and you have no where declar'd in Words at length (at least, as I remember) that you never read _The Fable of the Bees_, it is possible I might be ask'd, why I would take it for granted, that you never had read it, when many of your Readers perhaps will believe the contrary. If this Question was put to me, I would readily answer, that I chose to be of that Opinion, because it is the most favourable I can possibly entertain of _Dion_. It is not, Sir, believe me, out of Disrespect, that I call you plain _Dion_; but because I would treat you with the utmost Civility: It is the Name under which, I find, you are pleas'd to disguise your self; and offering to guess at an Author, when he chuses to be conceal'd, is, I think a Rudeness almost equal to that of pulling off a Woman's Mask against her Will.

Whoever reads your second Dialogue, will not find in it any real Quotations from my Book, either stated or examined into, but that the wicked Tenets and vile Assertions there justly exposed, are either such Notions and Sentiments, as first, my Enemies, to render me odious, and afterwards Common Fame had already father'd upon me, tho' not to be met with in any Part of my Book; or else, that they are spiteful Inferences, and invidious Comments, which others before you, without Justness or Necessity, had drawn from and made upon what I had innocently said. I find no Fault with you, Sir; for whilst a Person believes these Accusations against me to be true, and is entirely unacquainted with the Book they point at, it is not impossible that he might inveigh against it without having any Mischief in his Heart, tho' it was the most useful Performance in the World. A Man may be credulous and yet well disposed; but if a Man of Sense and Penetration, who had actually read _The Fable of the Bees_, and with Attention perused every Part of it, should write against it in the same strain, as _Dion_ has done in his second Dialogue, then I must confess, I should be at a Loss, what Excuse to make for him.

It is impossible that a Man of the least Probity, whilst he is writing in Behalf of Virtue and the Christian Religion, should commit such an immoral Act as to calumniate his Neighbour, and willfully misrepresent him in the most atrocious Manner. If _Dion_ had read _The Fable of the Bees_, he would not have suffer'd such lawless Libertines as _Alciphron_ and _Lysicles_ to have shelter'd themselves under my Wings; but he would have demonstrated to them, that my Principles differ'd from theirs, as Sunshine does from Darkness. When they boasted of setting Men free, and their abominable Design of ridding them of the Shackles of Laws and Governments, he would have quoted to them the very Beginning of my Preface. _Laws and Government are to the political Bodies of civil Societies, what the vital Spirits and Life it self are to the natural Bodies of animated Creatures._ From the same Preface he would have shew'd those barefaced Advocates for all Manner of Wickedness, the small Encouragement they were like to get from my Book; and as soon as it appear'd, that by Liberty they meant Licentiousness, and a Privilege to commit the most detestable Crimes with Impunity, he would have quoted these Words: _When I assert, that Vices are inseperable from great and potent Societies, and that it is impossible, that their Wealth and Grandeur should subsist without; I do not say, that the particular Members of them, who are guilty of any, should not be continually reproved, or not punish'd for them when they grew into Crimes._ This he would have corroborated by several Passages in the Book it self, and not have forgot what I say, page 255. _I lay down as a first Principle, that in all Societies, great or small, it is the Duty of every Member of it to be good, that Virtue ought to be encouraged, Vice discountenanc'd, the Laws obey'd, and the Transgressors punish'd._ If he had only read the first Edition, a little Book in Twelves, a Man of _Dion's_ Virtue and Integrity could not have stifled the Care I have taken in Fifty Places, nor the many Cautions I have given, that I might not offend or be misunderstood: On the Contrary, he would have made use of them, to undeceive his Friends, and prevented their groundless Fears and senseless Insinuations. If _Dion_ had read what I have said about the Fire of _London_, Nothing but his Politeness could have hinder'd him from bursting out into a loud Laughter at the judicious Remark of the Learned _Crito_, where he points at the Probability, that the late Incendiaries had taken the Hint of their Villainies from _The Fable of the Bees_.

I can't say, that there are not several Passages in that Dialogue, which would induce one to believe, that you had dipt into _The Fable of the Bees_; but then to suppose, that upon having only dipt in it, you would have wrote against it as you have done, would be so injurious to your Character, the Character of an honest Man, that I have not Patience to reason upon such an uncharitable Supposition. I know very well, Sir, that I am addressing my self to a Man of Parts, a Master in Logick, and a subtle Metaphysician, not to be imposed upon by Sophistry or false Pretences: Therefore I beg of you, carefully to examine what I have said hitherto, and you'll be convinced; that my not believing you to have read _The Fable of the Bees_, can proceed from Nothing but the good Opinion I have of your Worth and Candour, which I hope I shall never have any Occasion to alter. You are not the first, Sir, by five hundred, who has been very severe upon _The Fable of the Bees_ without having ever read it. I have been at Church my self when the Book in Question has been preach'd against with great Warmth by a worthy Divine, who own'd, that he had never seen it; and there are living Witnesses now, Persons of unquestion'd Reputation, who heard it as well as I.

After all, you have advanced Nothing in the second Dialogue concerning me, which it may not be proved to have been said or insinuated over and over in Pamphlets, Sermons and News-Papers of all Sorts and Parties. I can help you to another very good Reason why a Man of Sense might not mistrust the ill Report, that has been spread about _The Fable of the Bees_, and write against it in general Terms, tho' he had not read it. Every body knows, what Pains our Party-writers take in contradicting one another, and that there are few Things, which if the one praises, the other does not condemn. Now, if we find the _London Journal_ have a Fling at _The Fable of the Bees_ one Day, and _The Craftsman_ another, it is a certain Sign that the ill Repute of the Book, must be well establish'd and not to be doubted of. Then why might not an Author write against it, without giving himself the Trouble of reading it? It would be hard, a Man should not dare to affirm, that it is hot in the _East-Indies_, without having made a tedious Voyage thither and felt it. The more therefore I reflect, Sir, on your second Dialogue, and the Manner you treat me in, the more I am convinced, that you never read the Book I speak of, I mean, not read it through, or at least not with Attention. If _Dion_ had inform'd himself concerning _The Fable of the Bees_, as he might have done, he must have met with my Vindication of it in some Shape or other. First, it came out in a News-Paper; after that, I publish'd it in a Six-penny Pamphlet, together with the Words of the first Presentment of the Grand Jury and an injurious abusive Letter to Lord C. that came out immediately after it; both which had been the Occasion of my writing that Vindication. The Reason I gave for doing this, was, that the Reader might be fully instructed in the Merits of the Cause between my Adversaries and my Self; and because I thought it requisite, that to judge of my Defence, he should know the whole Charge, and all the Accusations against me at large. I took Care to have this printed in such a Manner, as to the Letter and Form, that for the Benefit of the Buyers, it might conveniently be bound up, and look of a Piece with the then last, which was the second Edition. Ever since the whole Contents of this Pamphlet have been added to the Book, and are at the End of the third, the fourth, and the fifth, as well as this last Impression of 1732. If _Dion_ had seen and approved of this Vindication, he would not have wrote against me at all; and if he had thought my Answers not satisfactory, and that I had not clear'd my self from the Aspersions, which had been cast upon me, it was unkind, if not a great Disregard to the Publick, not to take Notice of it, and shew the Insufficiency of my Defence, which from his own Writings it is evident, that great Numbers of the _beau monde_ must have acquiesc'd in, or not thought necessary.

Give me Leave, then, Sir, for your own Sake, to treat you, as if you never had read _The Fable of the Bees_ and in Return I give you my Word, that I shall make no use of it to your Disadvantage; on the Contrary, I take it for granted, that from the bad Character you had heard of the Book from every Quarter, you had sufficient Reason to write against it, as you have done, without any further Enquiry. This being settled, I shall attempt to shew you the Possibility, that a Book might come into such a general Disrepute without deserving it. An Author, who dares to expose Vice, and the Luxury of the Time he lives in, pulls off the Disguises of artful Men, and examining in to the false Pretences, which are made to Virtue, lays open the Lives of those, _Qui Curios simulant & Bacchanalia vivunt_: An Author, I say, who dares to do this in a great, and opulent, and flourishing Nation, can never fail of drawing upon him a great Number of Enemies. Few Men can bear with Patience, to see those Things detected, which it is their Interest, and they take Pains to conceal. As to Grand Juries, what they go upon is, the Testimony of others; they don't judge of Books from their own Reading; and many have been presented by them, which none, or at least the greatest Part of them had never seen before. Yet when ever the Publisher of a Book is presented by a Grand Jury, it is counted a publick Censure upon the Author, a Disgrace not easily wiped off.

The News-Writers, whose chief Business it is, to fill their Papers and raise the Attention of their Readers, never forget any Scandal which can be publish'd with Impunity. By this Means a Book, which once this Indignity has been put upon, is in a few Days render'd odious, and in less than a Fortnight comes to be infamous throughout the Kingdom without any other Demerit; Those Polemick Authors among them, who are Party-Men, and write either for or against Courts and Ministers, have a greater Regard to what will serve their Purpose, than they have to Truth or Sincerity. As they subsist by vulgar Errors, and are kept alive by the Spirit of Strife and Contention, so it is not their Business to rectify Mistakes in Opinion, but rather to encrease them when it serves their Turn. They know, that whoever would ingratiate themselves with Multitudes and gain Credit amongst them, must not contradict them; which is the Reason that, how widely soever these Party-Writers may differ from One another in Principles and Sentiments, they will never differ in their Censure or Applause, when they touch upon such Notions which are generally receiv'd.

If you'll consider, Sir, what I have said in the two last Paragraphs, you will easily see the Possibility that Books may get into an ill Repute and a very bad Character without deserving it. The next I shall endeavour to demonstrate to you, is, that this has been the Case of _The Fable of the Bees_, and that the Animosities which have been shewn against it, were originally owing to another Cause, than what my Adversaries pretended to be the true one. In order to this, I shall be obliged to make several Quotations from the Book it self, and repeat many Things, which I have already said in the Vindication hinted at before: But as I design this only for your self and those who have judged of the Book from Common Report, and never perused either the First or the Second Part of it, these Citations will be as new to you as any other Part of my Letter.

I am not ignorant of the Prejudice and real Hurt, which Authors do themselves by making long Quotations. They interrupt the Sense, and often break off the Thread of the Discourse; and many a Reader, when he comes to the End of a long Citation, has forgot the main Subject, and often the Thing it self, which that very Citation was brought in to prove. For this Reason we see, that Judicious Writers avoid them as much as possible; or that where they cannot do without, instead of inserting them in the main Text of their Works, they make Place for them in Notes or Remarks, which they refer to, or else an Appendix, where many of them may be put together, and are never seen but by Choice, and when the Reader is at Leisure. That this segregating all extraneous Matter from the main Body of the Book, the Text it self, is less disagreeable to most Readers, than the other, which I hinted at first, is certain; but it is attended with this ill Consequence, which the less engaging Method of Writing is not, to wit, that many curious and often the most valuable Things, and which it is of the highest Concern to the Author, that they should be known, are neglected and never look'd into, only because they are put into Notes or Appendixes. In my Case you'll find, Sir, that the long Quotations, some of them of several Pages, which I am obliged to trouble you with, are more material for the Vindication of my Book than all that can possibly be said besides. For they will not only demonstrate to you, that I have been shamefully misrepresented, but likewise give you a clear Insight into the real Cause of the Anger, the Hatred, and Inveteracy, of my Enemies, who first gave the Book an ill Name, and were the industrious Authors of the false Reports, by which your self and many other good Men, to my great Affliction, have been impos'd upon. You'll pardon me then, Sir, if, consulting my own Interest in a just Defence, rather than your Pleasure in reading it, I plant my strongest Evidences so directly in your Way, that, if you'll do me the Favour of perusing this Letter, it shall be impossible for you to remain ignorant any longer of the Innocence of my Intentions, and the Injustice that has been done me.