The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public BenefitsMandeville, Bernard
Philosophy
The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits
Mandeville, Bernard
Charity-schools -- Early works to 1800; Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Virtue -- Early works to 1800
demand of nature without guile or hypocrisy, like other creatures,
should be branded with the ignominious name of brutality.
What we call love, then, is not a genuine, but an adulterated appetite,
or rather a compound, a heap of several contradictory passions blended
in one. As it is a product of nature warped by custom and education,
so the true origin and first motive of it, as I have hinted already,
is stifled in well-bred people, and concealed from themselves: all
which is the reason, that, as those affected with it, vary in age,
strength, resolution, temper, circumstances, and manners, the effects
of it are so different, whimsical, surprising, and unaccountable.
It is this passion that makes jealousy so troublesome, and the envy
of it often so fatal: those who imagine that there may be jealousy
without love, do not understand that passion. Men may not have the
least affection for their wives, and yet be angry with them for their
conduct, and suspicious of them either with or without a cause: but
what in such cases affects them is their pride, the concern for their
reputation. They feel a hatred against them without remorse; when
they are outrageous, they can beat them and go to sleep contentedly:
such husbands may watch their dames themselves, and have them observed
by others; but their vigilance is not so intense; they are not so
inquisitive or industrious in their searches, neither do they feel
that anxiety of heart at the fear of a discovery, as when love is
mixed with the passions.
What confirms me in this opinion is, that we never observe this
behaviour between a man and his mistress; for when his love is gone
and he suspects her to be false, he leaves her, and troubles his head
no more about her: whereas, it is the greatest difficulty imaginable,
even to a man of sense, to part with his mistress as long as he loves
her, whatever faults she may be guilty of. If in his anger he strikes
her, he is uneasy after it; his love makes him reflect on the hurt he
has done her, and he wants to be reconciled to her again. He may talk
of hating her, and many times from his heart wish her hanged, but if
he cannot get entirely rid of his frailty, he can never disentangle
himself from her: though she is represented in the most monstrous
guilt to his imagination, and he has resolved and swore a thousand
times never to come near her again, there is no trusting him, even
when he is fully convinced of her infidelity, if his love continues,
his despair is never so lasting, but between the blackest fits of it
he relents, and finds lucid intervals of hope; he forms excuses for
her, thinks of pardoning, and in order to it racks his invention for
possibilities that may make her appear less criminal.
Line 200. Real pleasures, comforts, ease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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