"Good Manners have nothing to do with Virtue or Religion; instead of extinguishing, they rather inflame the Passions"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
J. Roberts
Date
1705, 1714, 1732
Metaphor
"Good Manners have nothing to do with Virtue or Religion; instead of extinguishing, they rather inflame the Passions"
Metaphor in Context

It is very Advantageous to the Knowledge of our selves, to be able well to distinguish between good Qualities and Virtues. The Bond of Society exacts from every Member a certain Regard for others, which the Highest is not exempt from in the presence of the Meanest even in an Empire: but when we are by our selves, and so far remov'd from Company as to be beyond the Reach of their Senses, the Words Modesty and Impudence lose their meaning; a Person may be Wicked, but he cannot be Immodest while he is alone, and no Thought can be Impudent that never was communicated to another. A Man of Exalted Pride may so hide it, that no Body shall be able to discover that he has any; and yet receive greater Satisfaction from that Passion than another, who indulges himself in the Declaration of it before all the World. Good Manners have nothing to do with Virtue or Religion; instead of extinguishing, they rather inflame the Passions. The Man of Sense and Education never exults more in his Pride than when he hides it with the greatest Dexterity;1 and in feasting on the Applause, which he is sure all good Judges will pay to his Behaviour, he enjoys a Pleasure altogether unknown to the Short-sighted, surly Alderman, that shews his Haughtiness glaringly in his Face, pulls off his Hat to no Body, and hardly deigns to speak to an Inferior.
(78-9)
Citation
16 entries in ESTC (1714, 1723, 1724, 1725, 1728, 1729, 1732, 1733, 1734, 1740, 1750, 1755, 1755, 1772, 1795).

The Grumbling Hive was printed as a pamphlet in 1705. 1st edition of The Fable of the Bees published in 1714, 2nd edition in 1723 (with additions, essays "On Charity Schools" and "Nature of Society"). Part II, first published in 1729. Kaye's text based on 6th edition of 1732.

The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices Publick Benefits. Containing, Several Discourses, to Demonstrate, That Human Frailties, During the Degeneracy of Mankind, May Be Turn'd to the Advantage of the Civil Society, and Made to Supply the Place of Moral Virtues. (London: Printed for J. Roberts, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, 1714). <Link to ECCO>

See The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits. the Second Edition, Enlarged With Many Additions. As Also an Essay on Charity and Charity-Schools. and a Search Into the Nature of Society. (London: Printed for Edmund Parker at the Bible and Crown in Lomb-rd-Street, 1723). <Link to ECCO>

Reading Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, ed. F.B. Kaye, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988). Orig. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924. Reading first volume in Liberty Fund paperback; also searching online ed. <Link to OLL>

I am also working with another print edition: The Fable of the Bees, ed. F. B. Kaye, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957).
Date of Entry
11/08/2004

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.