Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Fable of the Bees: proles sine matre?

  • Chapter
Bernard de Mandeville's Tropology of Paradoxes

Part of the book series: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ((AUST,volume 40))

Abstract

From a literary point of view, The Fable of the Bees is a mixture of genres. The premise of this paper is that formal choices are not only formal, but say something about Mandeville’s intents, and are not without relevance about the signification of the Fable. The first version, The Grumbling Hive, appears as a poem that can be inscribed within the satirical verse tradition, which was well represented in England at the turn of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. The second version, whose title explicitly refers the genre of the fable, adds to the social and political dimension a concern for moral unmasking, much in the manner both of La Fontaine’s Fables, which Mandeville translated into English, and of the seventeenth century French Augustinian Moralists. It adds prose remarks, which can recall the remarks found in Bayle’s Dictionary. As for the second part of the Fable, it takes on the form of a philosophical dialogue, with a revendicated French patronage.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The two most important books lately published on Mandeville lay the emphasis on the difference between the two parts: see Simonazzi 2008 and Tolonen 2013. I would like to thank Denis Lagae-Devoldere for his reading of the present paper and his translation suggestions.

  2. 2.

    Hundert 1996: 14.

  3. 3.

    See Dekker 1992.

  4. 4.

    I. Casaubon 1605: f. ã2 r°. I use Dryden’s translation, but I restore the plural of «vitiorum» (Dryden 1974 [1693]: 55).

  5. 5.

    Dryden 1974 [1693]: 48.

  6. 6.

    Dryden 1974 [1693]: 48. See also 28.

  7. 7.

    Shaftesbury 2001a [1710] (Soliloquy, part II, section 3): t. I, 126 [266] (the first reference is to the page in the modern edition, the second to the page in the 1732 edition). On the moral purpose attributed to satire see Elkin 1973: 71–89.

  8. 8.

    See Wheeler 1992: 312.

  9. 9.

    See Hundert 1996: 4.

  10. 10.

    See Jack 1964 [1952]: 15–42.

  11. 11.

    Mandeville 1988a: 5.

  12. 12.

    Mandeville 1988a: 6.

  13. 13.

    See Jack 1964: 43; Elkin 1973: 20–24.

  14. 14.

    See Debailly 2012.

  15. 15.

    See Elkin 1973: 11.

  16. 16.

    See Noel 1975: 32, 36–37; Simonazzi 2008: 69–70.

  17. 17.

    «[…] it is manifest, that, unless I was a Fool, or a Madman, I could have no Design to encourage or promote the Vices of the Age. It will be difficult to shew me an Author, that has exposed and ridicul’d them more openly.» (Mandeville 1954 [1732]: 32).

  18. 18.

    Mandeville 1988d. The First Dialogue: 59.

  19. 19.

    Mandeville 1988d. The Third Dialogue: 102.

  20. 20.

    Mandeville 1988d. The Third Dialogue: 102.

  21. 21.

    The most complete and useful study about Mandeville’s connections with Erasmus remains Irwin Primer’s (Primer 1993: 313–335). This question surely deserves more scholarly investigation.

  22. 22.

    Erasmus 1668. Epistle to Sir Thomas More: f. A4 r°.

  23. 23.

    «nullius omnino nomen perstringitur […] An non vides me toto opere sic a nominibus hominum temperasse […] ?» (Erasmus to Martin Dorp, 1515, in Erasmus 1910: 95).

  24. 24.

    Mandeville 1988a. Preface: 6.

  25. 25.

    Miller 1956: 145–178.

  26. 26.

    See for instance Jacob Viner: «if Mandeville’s rigorism were sincere, the whole satirical structure of his argument […] would be incomprehensible, and there would be manifest inconsistency between his satirical purposes and his procedures as a writer.» (Viner 1991 [1953]: 179).

  27. 27.

    Hind 1968: 307–315. Irene E. Gorak also speaks of a Menippean satire (Gorak 1990: 5).

  28. 28.

    «car tous ceux qui sont nourris aux lettres savent bien que le mot de Satyre ne signifie pas seulement un poème de médisance, pour reprendre les vices publiques, ou particuliers de quelqu’un: comme celles de Lucilius, Horace, Juvénal, et Perse: mais aussi toutes sortes d’écrits, remplis de diverses choses et de divers arguments, meslez de proses, et de vers entrelardés […].» (Satyre ménippée 2007: 160). The Flemish scholar Justus Lipsius is named among the modern writers of Menippean satire, which maybe is not devoid of significance for the Dutch Bernard Mandeville (Satyre ménippée 2007: 161–162).

  29. 29.

    Dryden 1974 [1693]: 46.

  30. 30.

    Hind 1968: 310.

  31. 31.

    Pinkus 1975: 193–211.

  32. 32.

    Simonazzi 2008: 92–96.

  33. 33.

    Frye 1969 [1957]: 223.

  34. 34.

    «[…] c’est une satire très forte et très ingénieuse de la corruption de la nature par le péché originel, de l’amour-propre et de l’orgueil, et de la malignité de l’esprit humain […] quoiqu’il y ait partout des paradoxes, ces paradoxes sont pourtant très véritables pourvu qu’on demeure toujours dans les termes de la vertu morale et de la raison naturelle, sans la grâce.» (lettre d’auteur inconnu à Mme de Schonberg, 1663, in La Rochefoucauld 1992: 568–569; my translation).

  35. 35.

    Mandeville 1988: xciv. See Horne 1978: 19–31; James 1975: 43.

  36. 36.

    Mandeville 1988: 50.

  37. 37.

    Mandeville 1988a: 166.

  38. 38.

    La Rochefoucauld 1694. The Preface to the Reader: f. A5 v°. The translation is on the whole faithful to the French text; there are nevertheless some significant additions: «the judicious person», «over-run with Ignorance, those Happy but few favourites whom Heaven is pleased to preserve from them by a particular Grace». See La Rochefoucauld 1992: 5.

  39. 39.

    La Rochefoucauld 1694. The Preface to the Reader: f. A5 v°.

  40. 40.

    See the letters sent to Madame de Sablé in 1663 about the Maxims (La Rochefoucauld 1992: 565, 576, 577).

  41. 41.

    Mandeville 1988d. The Third Dialogue: 103.

  42. 42.

    La Mothe Le Vayer 1988. Lettre de l’auteur: 14. One of these dialogues, «De la vie privée», was translated into English in 1678 (The Great Prerogative of A Private Life: By way of Dialogue, London).

  43. 43.

    «Miserescere proinde, ac pudere cœpit me levitatis, et arrogantiæ Dogmaticorum Philosophorum […].» (Gassendi 1959. Præfatio: 7; my translation).

  44. 44.

    «Hinc et Exercitationes inscripsi Paradoxicas, quod Paradoxa contineant, seu opiniones præter vulgi captum.» (Gassendi 1959. Præfatio: 11; my translation).

  45. 45.

    Mandeville 1954 [1732]: 49.

  46. 46.

    See Prince 1996: 12–13.

  47. 47.

    Mandeville 1988d: 8. On the vogue of pamphlets in dialogic form after the Revolution, see Hirzel 1963 [1895]: t. II, 399–400.

  48. 48.

    La Mothe Le Vayer 1988: 12.

  49. 49.

    Mandeville 1988d. Preface: 21.

  50. 50.

    «neque Ciceronianus sum, neque Scholasticus omnino. […] Quod stylus porro videri possit interdum paulo mordacior: materies sane id exigit. Hac enim præcipue in parte difficile est satyram non scribere.» (Gassendi 1959. Præfatio: 17).

  51. 51.

    Robertson 2005: 271.

  52. 52.

    See Simonazzi 2008: 71.

  53. 53.

    Jack 1987. Preface: n.p.

  54. 54.

    Grégoire 1947: 164–165.

  55. 55.

    Hundert 1996: 39, 45 sq, 95-96. The (deceptive) thesis of Rolf W. Puster concentrates on atomism, and does not take the form of Gassendi’s writings into account (Puster 1991).

  56. 56.

    Mandeville 1988a: 231.

  57. 57.

    Shaftesbury 2001b [1709] (The Moralists, A Philosophical Rhapsody, part I, section 1): t. II, 90 [187].

  58. 58.

    Shaftesbury 2001a [1710] (Soliloquy, part I, section 3): t. I, 99 [198-199]. La Mothe Le Vayer already noticed that this kind of writing was despised in his time (La Mothe Le Vayer 1988: 12).

  59. 59.

    «We need not wonder, therefore, that the sort of moral Painting, by way of Dialogue, is so much out of fashion; and that we see no more of these philosophical Portraitures now-a-days. For where are the Originals?» (Shaftesbury 2001b [1709], The Moralists, A Philosophical Rhapsody, part I, section 1: t. II, 91 [188]).

  60. 60.

    Shaftesbury 2001b [1709], The Moralists, A Philosophical Rhapsody, part I, section 1: t. II, 91 [189]).

  61. 61.

    Primer 1975: 140–141.

  62. 62.

    Mandeville 1954 [1732]: 25.

  63. 63.

    Mandeville 1988c. A Vindication of the book: 405. The word «rhapsody» is used again in the Preface of the second part (Mandeville 1988d: 5), and in A Letter to Dion (Mandeville 1954 [1732]: 30). Mandeville also applies it to An Essay on Charity, and Charity-Schools (Mandeville 1988b: 322).

  64. 64.

    Shaftesbury 2001c [1711] (Miscellaneous Reflections): t. III, 119 [285].

  65. 65.

    Shaftesbury 2001c [1711] (Miscellaneous Reflections): t. III, 120 [287].

  66. 66.

    See Wolff 1960; Jaffro 1998.

References

Primary Sources

  • Casaubon, Isaac. 1605. «In Persium Prolegomena». In Auli Persi Flacci Satirarum liber. Isaacus Casaubonus recensuit, & Commentario libro illustravit. Parisiis: apud Ambrosium & Hieronymum Drouart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dryden, John. 1693. Discourse concerning the original and progress of Satire. In 1974 The works of John Dryden, H.T. Swedenberg dir., vol. IV. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erasmus, Desiderius. 1910. Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami t. II, ed. P.S. Allen. Oxonii: in typographeo Clarendoniano.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erasmus, Desiderius. 1668. Moriæ Encomium; or, The Praise of Folly, written Originally in Latine, by Des. Erasmus of Rotterdam; and Translated into English, by John Wilson. London: printed for William Leak.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gassendi, Pierre. 1959. Dissertations en forme de paradoxes contre les aristotéliciens. Exercitationes Paradoxicæ Adversus Aristoteleos, livres I et II, ed. Bernard Rochot. Paris: Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Mothe Le Vayer (François de). 1988. Dialogues faits à l'imitation des Anciens. Paris: Fayard.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Rochefoucauld (François de). 1694. Moral maxims and reflections. London: Gillyflower in Westminster Hall, S. Sare at Grays Inn-Gate and J. Everingham in Ludgate street.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Rochefoucauld (François de). 1992. Maximes, ed. Jacques Truchet. Paris: Bordas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandeville, Bernard. 1954 [1732]. A letter to Dion, ed. Bonamy Dobrée. University Press of Liverpool.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandeville, Bernard. 1988a [1924]. The fable of the bees, vol. 1, ed. F.B. Kaye. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandeville, Bernard. 1988b [1924]. An essay on charity and charity-schools. In The fable of the bees, ed. F.B. Kaye, t. I, 253–322. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandeville, Bernard. 1988c [1924]. A vindication of the book. In The fable of the bees, ed. F.B. Kaye, t. I, 381–412. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandeville, Bernard. 1988d [1924]. The fable of the bees, vol. 2, ed. F.B. Kaye. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martial, Martin (ed.). 2007. Satyre ménippée. Paris: Champion.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper. 2001 [1709]. The moralists, a philosophical rhapsody. In Characteristicks of men, manners, opinions, times t. II, ed. Douglas Den Uyl. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper. 2001 [1710]. Soliloquy. In Characteristicks of men, manners, opinions, times t. I, ed. Douglas Den Uyl. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper. 2001 [1711]. Miscellaneous reflections. In Characteristicks of men, manners, opinions, times t. III, ed. Douglas Den Uyl. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

Secondary Sources

  • Debailly, Pascal. 2012. La Muse indignée. Tome I. La satire en France au XVIe siècle. Paris: Classiques Garnier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dekker, Rudolph. 1992. ‘Private vices, public virtues’ revisited: The Dutch background of Bernard Mandeville. History of European Ideas 14(4): 481–498.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elkin, P.K. 1973. The Augustan defence of satire. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frye, Northrop. 1969 [1957]. The mythos of winter: Irony and satire. In Anatomy of criticism. Four essays, 223–239. New York: Atheneum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorak, Irene E. 1990. The satirist as producer: Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees Part Two. Genre XXIII: 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grégoire, F. 1947. Bernard de Mandeville et la ‘Fable des abeilles’. Nancy: Imprimerie Georges Thomas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hind, George. 1968. Mandeville’s Fable of the bees as Menippean satire. Genre I: 307–315.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hirzel, Rudolph. 1963 [1895]. Der Dialog. Ein literarhistorischer Versuch, Hildesheim, Olms, 2 vol.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horne, Thomas A. 1978. Mandeville and the French moral tradition. In The social thought of Bernard Mandeville. Virtue and commerce in early eighteenth-century England, 19–31. London: MacMillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hundert, E.J. 1996 [1994]. The enlightenment’s Fable. Bernard Mandeville and the discovery of society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jack, Ian. 1964 [1952]. Augustan satire. Intention and idiom in English poetry 1660–1750. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jack, Malcolm. 1987. The social and political thought of Bernard Mandeville. New York/London: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaffro, Laurent. 1998. Éthique de la communication et art d’écrire. Shaftesbury et les Lumières anglaises. Paris: PUF.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, E.D. 1975. Faith, sincerity and morality: Mandeville and Bayle. In Mandeville studies. New explorations in the art and thought of Dr. Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733), ed. Irwin Primer, 43–65. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Henry Knight. 1956. The paradoxical encomium with special reference to its vogue in England, 1600–1800. Modern Philology LIII(3): 145–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Noel, Thomas. 1975. Theories of the fable in the eighteenth century. New York/London: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinkus, Philip. 1975. Mandeville’s paradox. In Mandeville studies. New explorations in the art and thought of Dr. Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733), ed. Irwin Primer, 193–211. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Primer, Irwin. 1975. Mandeville and Shaftesbury: Some facts and problems. In Mandeville studies. New explorations in the art and thought of Dr. Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733), ed. Irwin Primer, 126–141. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

    Google Scholar 

  • Primer, Irwin. 1993. Erasmus and Bernard Mandeville: A reconsideration. Philological Quarterly 72: 313–335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prince, Michael. 1996. Philosophical dialogue in the British enlightenment. Theology, aesthetics, and the novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Puster, Rolf W. 1991. Britische Gassendi-Rezeption am Beispiel John Lockes. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, John. 2005. The case for the enlightenment. Scotland and Naples 1680–1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Simonazzi, Mauro. 2008. Le favole della filosofia. Saggio su Bernard Mandeville. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tolonen, Mikko. 2013. Mandeville and Hume: Anatomists of civil society. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viner, Jacob. 1991 [1953]. Introduction to Bernard Mandeville, A letter to Dion (1732). In Essays on the intellectual history of economics, ed. Douglas A. Irwin, 176–188. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheeler, Angela J. 1992. English verse satire from Donne to Dryden. Imitation of classical models. Heidelberg: Carl Winter/Universitätsverlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Erwin. 1960. Shaftesbury und seine Bedeutung für die Englische Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts. Der Moralist und die literarische Form. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculté des lettres, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France

    Béatrice Guion

Authors
  1. Béatrice Guion
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Béatrice Guion .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculdade de Letras-Universidade de Coimbra, Largo da Porta Férrea, Coimbra, Baixo Mondego, Portugal

    Edmundo Balsemão Pires

  2. Faculdade de Letras-Universidade de Coimbra, Largo da Porta Férrea, Coimbra, Baixo Mondego, Portugal

    Joaquim Braga

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Guion, B. (2015). The Fable of the Bees: proles sine matre?. In: Balsemão Pires, E., Braga, J. (eds) Bernard de Mandeville's Tropology of Paradoxes. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 40. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19381-6_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation