The Fable of the Bees (Philosophy Study). Bernard Mandeville
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are to be seen at a playhouse.
Thirdly, the female traders that come to these evening exchanges are always the scum of the people, and generally such as in the day time carry fruit and other eatables about in wheel-barrows. The habits, indeed, they appear in at night are very different from their ordinary ones; yet they are commonly so ridiculously gay, that they look more like the Roman dresses of strolling actresses than gentlewomen’s clothes: if to this you add the awkwardness, the hard hands, and coarse breeding of the damsels that wear them, there is no great reason to fear, that many of the better sort of people will be tempted by them.
The music in these temples of Venus is performed by organs, not out of respect to the deity that is worshipped in them, but the frugality of the owners, whose business it is to procure as much sound for as little money as they can, and the policy of the government, who endeavour, as little as is possible to encourage the breed of pipers and scrapers. All seafaring men, especially the Dutch, are like the element they belong to, much given to loudness and roaring, and the noise of half-a-dozen of them, when they call themselves merry, is sufficient to drown twice the number of flutes or violins; whereas, with one pair of organs, they can make the whole house ring, and are at no other charge than the keeping of one scurvy musician, which can cost them but little: yet notwithstanding the good rules and strict discipline that are observed in these markets of love, the schout and his officers are always vexing, mulcting, and, upon the least complaint, removing the miserable keepers of them: which policy is of two great uses; first, it gives an opportunity to a large parcel of officers, the magistrates make use of on many occasions, and which they could not be without, to squeeze a living out of the immoderate gains accruing from the worst of employments, and, at the same time, punish those necessary profligates, the bawds and panders, which, though they abominate, they desire yet not wholly to destroy. Secondly, as on several accounts it might be dangerous to let the multitude into the secret, that those houses and the trade that is drove in them are connived at, so by this means appearing unblameable, the wary magistrates preserve themselves in the good opinion of the weaker sort of people, who imagine that the government is always endeavouring, though unable, to suppress what it actually tolerates: whereas, if they had a mind to root them out, their power in the administration of justice is so sovereign and extensive, and they know so well how to have it executed, that one week, nay, one night might send them all a packing.
In Italy, the toleration of strumpets is yet more barefaced, as is evident from their public stews. At Venice and Naples, impurity is a kind of merchandise and traffic; the courtezans at Rome, and the cantoneras in Spain, compose a body in the state, and are under a legal tax and impost. It is well known, that the reason why so many good politicians as these tolerate lewd houses, is not their irreligion, but to prevent a worse evil, an impurity of a more execrable kind, and to provide for the safety of women of honour. “About two hundred and fifty years ago,” says Monsieur de St. Didier, “Venice being in want of courtezans, the republic was obliged to procure a great number from foreign parts.” Doglioni, who has written the memorable affairs of Venice, highly extols the wisdom of the republic in this point, which secured the chastity of women of honour, daily exposed to public violences, the churches and consecrated places not being a sufficient asylum for their chastity.
Our universities in England are much belied, if in some colleges there was not a monthly allowance ad expurgandos renes: and time was when monks and priests in Germany were allowed concubines on paying a certain yearly duty to their prelate. “It is generally believed” says Monsieur Bayle, (to whom I owe the last paragraph) “that avarice was the cause of this shameful indulgence; but it is more probable their design was to prevent their tempting modest women, and to quiet the uneasiness of husbands, whose resentments the clergy do well to avoid.” From what has been said, it is manifest that there is a necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to preserve the other, and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature. From whence I think I may justly conclude (what was the seeming paradox I went about to prove) that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the best of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vices.
Line 177. The root of evil, avarice,
That damn’d ill-natur’d baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality.
I have joined so many odious epithets to the word avarice, in compliance to the vogue of mankind, who generally bestow more ill language upon this than upon any other vice, and indeed not undeservedly; for there is hardly a mischief to be named which it has not produced at one time or other: but the true reason why every body exclaims so much against it, is, that almost every body suffers by it; for the more the money is hoarded up by some, the scarcer it must grow among the rest, and therefore when men rail very much at misers, there is generally self-interest at bottom.
As there is no living without money, so those that are unprovided, and have nobody to give them any, are obliged to do some service or other to the society, before they can come at it; but every body esteeming his labour as he does himself, which is generally not under the value, most people that want money only to spend it again presently, imagine they do more for it than it is worth. Men cannot forbear looking upon the necessaries of life as their due, whether they work or not; because they find that nature, without consulting whether they have victuals or not, bids them eat whenever they are hungry; for which reason, every body endeavours to get what he wants with as much ease as he can; and therefore when men find that the trouble they are put to in getting money is either more or less, according as those they would have it from are more or less tenacious, it is very natural for them to be angry at covetousness in general; for it obliges them either to go without what they have occasion for, or else to take greater pains for it than they are willing.
Avarice, notwithstanding it is the occasion of so many evils, is yet very necessary to the society, to glean and gather what has been dropt and scattered by the contrary vice. Was it not for avarice, spendthrifts would soon want materials; and if none would lay up and get faster than they spend, very few could spend faster than they get. That it is a slave to prodigality, as I have called it, is evident from so many misers as we daily see toil and labour, pinch and starve themselves, to enrich a lavish heir. Though these two vices appear very opposite, yet they often assist each other. Florio is an extravagant young blade, of a very profuse temper; as he is the only son of a very rich father, he wants to live high, keep horses and dogs, and throw his money about, as he sees some of his companions do; but the old hunks will part with no money, and hardly allows him necessaries. Florio would have borrowed money upon his own credit long ago; but as all would be lost, if he died before his father, no prudent man would lend him any. At last he has met with the greedy Cornaro, who lets him have money at thirty per cent. and now Florio thinks himself happy, and spends a thousand a-year. Where would Cornaro ever have got such a prodigious interest, if it was not for such a fool as Florio, who will give so great a price for money to fling it away? And how would Florio get it to spend, if he had not lit of such a greedy usurer as Cornaro, whose excessive covetousness makes him overlook the great risk he runs in venturing such great sums upon the life of a wild debauchee.
Avarice is no longer the reverse of profuseness, than while it signifies that sordid love of money, and narrowness of soul that hinders misers from parting with what they have, and makes them covet it only to hoard up. But there is a sort of avarice which consists in a greedy desire of riches, in order to spend them, and this often meets with prodigality in the same persons, as is evident in most courtiers and great officers, both civil and military. In their buildings and furniture, equipages and entertainments, their gallantry is displayed with the greatest profusion; while the base actions they submit to for lucre, and the many frauds and impositions they are guilty of, discover the utmost avarice. This mixture of contrary vices, comes up exactly to the character of Catiline, of whom it is said, that he was appetens alieni & sui profusus, greedy after the goods of others, and lavish of his own.
Line 180. That noble sin——
The prodigality, I call a noble sin, is not that which has avarice for its companion, and makes men unreasonably profuse to some of what they unjustly extort from others, but that agreeable good-natured vice that makes the chimney smoke, and all the tradesmen smile; I mean the unmixed prodigality of heedless and voluptuous men, that being educated in plenty, abhor the vile thoughts of lucre,