Mandeville: The Fable of the Bees

Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) was a philosopher, political economist, and satirist in the eighteenth century. Not a vast amount of details are known about his life, and today we do not even have an image of him (prompting me to upload the original cover). Although he was born and educated in Rotterdam in the Dutch Republic, he spent the majority of his life in England, where he became so fluent in English that most doubted his status as a foreigner. Mandeville actually began a practice as a doctor, and a well-respected one at that. He later took up writing and it was in England that he published his most famous work, The Fable of the Bees, in 1705. (In case you were wondering, he is not connected with Sir John Mandeville, the 14^th century author of Mandeville’s Travels.) More about the poem will follow in the paragraphs below. Initially, the Fable generated little public interest. However, as we have seen before, it was presented to the King’s court and was received as a “public nuisance” due to its apparent tendency to be morally corruptive. Of course, it then became immensely popular and was heartily debated upon. His insights also were put to use by the Scottish philosophers of the Enlightenment, such as David Hume and Adam Smith. Mandeville still maintained the idea that the pursuit of self-interest can have positive consequences when properly managed.

This poem was originally titled, "The Grumbling Hives or Knaves Turn'd Honest," but the one within the Enlightenment reader was the one published in 1714 with a new title (shown on the cover above) called The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits. Interestingly, the poem explains different key principles of economic thought, and becoming the hidden hand of economic development behind Adam Smith's theories. To put it simply, Mandeville defends the claim that private vices can lead to public benefits. In doing this, Mandeville examines human nature very meticulously. Consider this verse about "Physicians" (244-245):

"Physicians valued Fame and Wealth

Above the drooping Patient's Health,

Or their own Skill: The greatest Part

Study'd, instead of Rules of Art,

Grave pensive looks, and dull Behavior;

To gain th' Apothecary's Favor,

The Praise of id-wives, Priests, and all,

That served at Birth, or Funeral;

To bear with th' ever-talking Tribe,

And hear my Lady's Aunt prescribe;

With formal Smile, and kind How d'ye,

To fawn on all the Family;

And, which of all the greatest Curse is,

T'endure th'Impertinence of Nurses."

In Mandeville's view of human nature, he believes that man is a selfish creature who is governed wholly by his passions. Mandeville concludes that, "Thus every Part was full of Vice / Yet the whole Mass a Paradise" (247). So, we see that the beehive is morally corrupt, and yet prosperous, that "Lived in Luxury and Ease." (242). The beehive, however, notices this and desires a chance at virtue, saying,

"Good Gods, had we but Honesty!

Merc'ry smiled at th' Impudence;

And Others called it want of Sence,

Always to rail at what they loved:

But Jove, with Indignation moved,

At last in Anger swore, he'd rid

The bawling Hive of Fraud, and did."

Here, after having complained about their corrupt hive, God decides to give them the virtues they desired. The poem goes on to describe the newly paradise-esque ways of the hive, where Justice is served and those such as the physician from the previous verse exist "Knowing the Gods send no Disease / To Nations without Remedies." (250). However, because personal vice has now been vanished, the prosperity of the hive has dropped significantly: "The Price of Land, and Houses falls" (252). Apparently, however, the virtuous hive does not care about this, for "They counted Ease it self a Vice; / Which so improved their Temperance" (253).

Mandeville concludes that only fools would "strive to make a Great an honest Hive." (254). He shows why personal vice is the key to material progress and sociability, and that "Bare virtue can't make Nations live / In Splendor" (254). People like the Physician place a value on themselves which, in turn, makes them fit for society. Because, at the same time, people have an inexhaustible desire for goods that propel the industry, which increases the wealth of the nation. From this, we see that personal vanity/vice are what make society prosperous.

Discussion Questions

1. While researching Mandeville online, I found a quote from him in which he defines Vice as "every thing which Man should commit to gratify any of his Appetites." Do you agree with this definition? Would you re-write it somehow?

2. Does Mandeville's economic theories play into the bigger picture of the essence of the Enlightenment? In other words, what about his work here suggests and Enlightened point of view?

3. Do you truly think society's prosperity could come to an abrupt halt if everyone suddenly became wholly virtuous? Why or why not?

Considering Mandeville

I am sorry for being a little late on the blog. There just are not enough hours in the day.

Where to begin? I feel like I have SO much to say about this text! There are a lot of potential areas for discussion.

There are a couple of areas I would like to address...

Some of the girls mentioned their frustrations in class, which I can definitely sympathize with. There were a couple instances where I just wanted to put the book down because I was getting too caught up in all the minutiae. I thought we were supposed to be getting to the Holy Land at some point? At times I also questioned Mandeville's (that is, if he was even a real person) intentions besides that of telling us how to find the Holy Land. I suppose that, for pleasure, he also wants to discuss diversity (or at least appear that way?) And, well, he certainly accomplished that! There were so many places he told us about that I thought my head was going to explode among the thousands of elephants, women who cut off their, erm... yeah, snakes with feet, and cannibals.

BUT. As a travel writer recording all of these things, a central theme to remember here would be the pilgrimages concept. Do not get too annoyed with me because I keep bringing up studying abroad, but I am so enthralled with all kinds of pilgrimages, both local and international. Some of you might already be familiar with this, but I constantly remember the Camino de Santiago, the Chemin de St-Jacques, or the Way of Saint James, which is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. The only actual remains of one of Jesus' apostle Saint James are supposed to rest there. Mandeville even mentions Saint James on page 125. How cool is that? (I did not actually make it to the exact Cathedral, but just being near part of the pilgrimage was AWESOME). I find that fascinating beyond belief, and I love to remember that I have been to a number of "stops" on the pilgrimage route, due to the fact that my uncle lives very conveniently located to it. In fact, when I visited him after leaving Spain, I saw a lot of pilgrims on the road by his house, backpacks and walking sticks and all. Very cool!

A shot I took of the arch in Montesquiou, a teeny weeny little town where my uncle busily chatted up some pilgrims we found. I, speaking zero French, amused myself by wandering around taking pictures and watching a sleeping kitty I saw sitting on a windowsill.

What does all this have to do with Mandeville? Well, it kind of brings me to my next point: the traveller's perspective. Okay, now I have a lot of ideas in my head so I hope I can get them out with at least some remaining shred of coherence. Like I said, I studied abroad, right? So, I could have kept a travel blog myself, like this blog I have now, but rather I think I would make it a daily account of the people, places, things, ideas, sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and everything I saw while I was travelling. I did not, actually, but I did take several thousand pictures (yes, thousands), some of which are on my Picasa. My dad got me an incredible new camera and so that is how I went about documenting everything. Travel writing can be done for personal, economic, and devotional reasons. But then, I wonder why exactly Mandeville did this, which ties into those two reasons I gave in the beginning, about the purpose of his book. Similarly, the perspective of the author is very important, because we have to consider things such as who he was writing this book for, and if he had any other motivations behind it besides those two we discussed previously.

That brings me to my next point, as far as author's perspective (and, due to this concept's universal nature, I think think it can be applied to a lot of different situations): I thought I would mention something fascinating I discovered in Social Psychology a week or two ago. This might be stretching it, but I really hope it's not too terribly irrelevant because trust me, this stuff is über fascinating and I think it has a lot to do with how Mandeville decided to present his information. There is this concept about self-presentation and social perception.

• There is a certain way we want to present ourselves - what I want you to think.
• We, as humans, think and/or worry about how we present ourselves to others.
• We perceive ourselves in a certain way to begin with, and if we think that others around us perceive us in some different way (maybe not necessarily negative, but oftentimes is), then that in turn would affect us negatively.
• Therefore, my self esteem is equal to how I think you evaluated me reflected back on myself.
  

In case you were still a little confused on this idea of social perception, follow this link to access a Wikipedia page where social perception in the field of social psychology is explained a little more in-depth.

Does that make sense to you? I hope so, because I think that this social-psychological study has a lot to do with the mindset we have discovered while learning about the Renaissance, with all of that "who am I" sort of feelings. I think travel writing really banks on that, and once again, I cannot help but wonder what went through Mandeville's head and how he was actually thinking about his readers (if he was, even). Would he care about his social perception or his self-presentation? I would assume that he would care about how well his book was received, but if some people were angry about it, did he perhaps not care? So many questions!

All in all, the book was pretty good. I signed up for it knowing nothing about it besides a title with the word "Travels" in it (and because I think I "live under the moon," which I find hilarious). Yes, it was pretty boring most of the time, and yes, I got sick of his repetitive strange worldviews and cultural encounters with an almost disrespect for the reader at times. But I also think that I should take it with a grain of salt because I do not presume to know his motives for certain within this new strain of travel writing.

[:

Living Under the Moon

... more to follow.