The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits. Bernard Mandeville
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what I urged last, be but diligently looked after, and the imports are never allowed to be superior to the exports, no nation can ever be impoverished by foreign luxury; and they may improve it as much as they please, if they can but in proportion raise the fund of their own that is to purchase it.
Trade is the principal, but not the only requisite to aggrandize a nation: there are other things to be taken care of besides. The meum and tuum must be secured, crimes punished, and all other laws concerning the administration of justice, wisely contrived, and strictly executed. Foreign affairs must be likewise prudently managed, and the ministry of every nation ought to have a good intelligence abroad, and be well acquainted with the public transactions of all those countries, that either by their neighbourhood, strength, or interest, may be hurtful or beneficial to them, to take the necessary measures accordingly, of crossing some, and assisting others, as policy, and the balance of power direct. The multitude must be awed, no man’s conscience forced, and the clergy allowed no greater share in state affairs, than our Saviour has bequeathed in his testament. These are the arts that lead to worldly greatness: What sovereign power soever makes a good use of them, that has any considerable nation to govern, whether it be a monarchy, a commonwealth, or a mixture of both, can never fail of making it flourish in spite of all the other powers upon earth, and no luxury, or other vice, is ever able to shake their constitution.——But here I expect a full-mouthed cry against me; What! has God never punished and destroyed great nations for their sins? Yes, but not without means, by infatuating their governors, and suffering them to depart from either all or some of those general maxims I have mentioned; and of all the famous states and empires the world has had to boast of hitherto, none ever came to ruin, whose destruction was not principally owing to the bad politics, neglects, or mismanagements of the rulers.
There is no doubt, but more health and vigour is expected among the people, and their offspring, from temperance and sobriety, than there is from gluttony and drunkenness; yet I confess, that as to luxury’s effeminating and enervating a nation, I have not such frightful notions now, as I have had formerly. When we hear or read of things which we are altogether strangers to, they commonly bring to our imagination such ideas of what we have seen, as (according to our apprehension) must come the nearest to them: And I remember, that when I have read of the luxury of Persia, Egypt, and other countries where it has been a reigning vice, and that were effeminated and enervated by it, it has sometimes put me in mind of the cramming and swilling of ordinary tradesmen at a city feast, and the beastliness their overgorging themselves is often attended with; at other times, it has made me think on the distraction of dissolute sailors, as I had seen them in company of half a dozen lewd women, roaring along with fiddles before them; and was I to have been carried into any of their great cities, I would have expected to have found one third of the people sick a-bed with surfeits; another laid up with the gout, or crippled by a more ignominious distemper; and the rest, that could go without leading, walk along the streets in petticoats.
It is happy for us to have fear for a keeper, as long as our reason is not strong enough to govern our appetites: And I believe, that the great dread I had more particularly against the word, to enervate, and some consequent thoughts on the etymology of it, did me abundance of good when I was a school boy: But since I have seen something in the world, the consequences of luxury to a nation seem not so dreadful to me as they did. As long as men have the same appetites, the same vices will remain. In all large societies, some will love whoring, and others drinking. The lustful that can get no handsome clean women, will content themselves with dirty drabs: and those that cannot purchase true Hermitage or Pontack, will be glad of more ordinary French claret. Those that cannot reach wine, take up with most liquors, and a foot soldier or a beggar may make himself as drunk with stale beer or malt spirits, as a lord with Burgundy, Champaign, or Tockay. The cheapest and most slovenly way of indulging our passions, does as much mischief to a man’s constitution, as the most elegant and expensive.
The greatest excesses of luxury are shown in buildings, furniture, equipages, and clothes: Clean linen weakens a man no more than flannel; tapestry, fine painting, or good wainscot, are no more unwholesome than bare walls; and a rich couch, or a gilt chariot, are no more enervating than the cold floor, or a country cart. The refined pleasures of men of sense are seldom injurious to their constitution, and there are many great epicures that will refuse to eat or drink more than their heads or stomachs can bear. Sensual people may take as great care of themselves as any: and the errors of the most viciously luxurious, do not so much consist in the frequent repetitions of their lewdness, and their eating and drinking too much (which are the things which would most enervate them), as they do in the operose contrivances, the profuseness and nicety they are served with, and the vast expence they are at in their tables and amours.
But let us once suppose, that the ease and pleasures, the grandees, and the rich people of every nation live in, render them unfit to endure hardships, and undergo the toils of war. I will allow that most of the common council of the city would make but very indifferent foot soldiers; and I believe heartily, that if your horse was to be composed of aldermen, and such as most of them are, a small artillery of squibs would be sufficient to route them. But what have the aldermen, the common council, or indeed all people of any substance to do with the war, but to pay taxes? The hardships and fatigues of war that are personally suffered, fall upon them that bear the brunt of every thing, the meanest indigent part of the nation, the working slaving people: For how excessive soever the plenty and luxury of a nation may be, some body must do the work, houses and ships must be built, merchandises must be removed, and the ground tilled. Such a variety of labours in every great nation, require a vast multitude, in which there are always loose, idle, extravagant fellows enough to spare for an army; and those that are robust enough to hedge and ditch, plow and thrash, or else not too much enervated to be smiths, carpenters, sawyers, cloth-workers, porters or carmen, will always be strong and hardy enough in a campaign or two to make good soldiers, who, where good orders are kept, have seldom so much plenty and superfluity come to their share, as to do them any hurt.
The mischief, then, to be feared from luxury among the people of war, cannot extend itself beyond the officers. The greatest of them are either men of a very high birth and princely education, or else extraordinary parts, and no less experience; and whoever is made choice of by a wise government to command an army en chef, should have a consummate knowledge in martial affairs, intrepidity to keep him calm in the midst of danger, and many other qualifications that must be the work of time and application, on men of a quick penetration, a distinguished genius, and a world of honour. Strong sinews and supple joints are trifling advantages, not regarded in persons of their reach and grandeur, that can destroy cities a-bed, and ruin whole countries while they are at dinner. As they are most commonly men of great age, it would be ridiculous to expect a hale constitution and agility of limbs from them: So their heads be but active and well furnished, it is no great matter what the rest of their bodies are. If they cannot bear the fatigue of being on horseback, they may ride in coaches, or be carried in litters. Mens conduct and sagacity are never the less for their being cripples, and the best general the king of France has now, can hardly crawl along. Those that are immediately under the chief commanders must be very nigh of the same abilities, and are generally men that have raised themselves to those posts by their merit. The other officers are all of them in their several stations obliged to lay out so large a share of their pay in fine clothes, accoutrements, and other things, by the luxury of the times called necessary, that they can spare but little money for debauches; for, as they are advanced, and their salaries raised, so they are likewise forced to increase their expences and their equipages, which, as well as every thing else, must still be proportionable to their quality: by which means, the greatest part of them are in a manner hindered from those excesses that might be destructive to health; while their luxury thus turned another way, serves, moreover, to heighten their pride and vanity, the greatest motives to make them behave themselves like what they would be thought to be (See Remark on l. 321).
There is nothing refines mankind more than love and honour. Those two passions are equivalent to many virtues, and therefore the greatest schools of breeding and good manners, are courts and armies; the first to accomplish the women, the other to polish the men. What the generality of officers among civilized nations affect, is a perfect knowledge of the world and the rules of honour; an air of frankness, and humanity peculiar to military men of experience, and such a mixture