Because the outside of women is "more curiously wove" and like "fine cloth" in comparison to men's coarseness, "There is no Reason to imagine, that Nature should have been more neglectful of them out of Sight, than she has where we can trace her; and not have taken the same Care of them in the Formation of the Brain, as to the Nicety of the Structure, and superior Accuracy in the Fabrick, which is so visible in the rest of their Frame."
— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
J. Roberts
Date
1729
Metaphor
Because the outside of women is "more curiously wove" and like "fine cloth" in comparison to men's coarseness, "There is no Reason to imagine, that Nature should have been more neglectful of them out of Sight, than she has where we can trace her; and not have taken the same Care of them in the Formation of the Brain, as to the Nicety of the Structure, and superior Accuracy in the Fabrick, which is so visible in the rest of their Frame."
Metaphor in Context
CLEO.
Only for want of Practice, Application and Assiduity. Thinking on abstruse Matters, is not their Province in Life; and the Stations they are commonly placed in, find them other Employment: but there is no Labour of the Brain, which Women are not as capable of performing, at least, as well as the Men, with the same Assistance, if they set about, and persevere in it: sound Judgment is no more than the Result of that Labour: he that uses himself to take Things to Pieces, to compare them together, to consider them abstractly and impartially; that is, he, who of two Propositions he is to examine, seems not to care which is true; he that lays the whole Stress of his Mind on every Part alike, and puts the same Thing in all the Views it can be seen in: he, I say, that employs himself most often in this Exercise, is most likely, cæteris paribus, to acquire what we call a sound Judgment. The Workmanship in the Make of Women seems to be more elegant, and better finish'd: the Features are more delicate, the Voice is sweeter, the whole Outside of them is more curiously wove, than they are in Men; and the difference in the Skin between theirs and ours is the same, as there is between fine Cloth and coarse. There is no Reason to imagine, that Nature should have been more neglectful of them out of Sight, than she has where we can trace her; and not have taken the same Care of them in the Formation of the Brain, as to the Nicety of the Structure, and superior Accuracy in the Fabrick, which is so visible in the rest of their Frame.
Only for want of Practice, Application and Assiduity. Thinking on abstruse Matters, is not their Province in Life; and the Stations they are commonly placed in, find them other Employment: but there is no Labour of the Brain, which Women are not as capable of performing, at least, as well as the Men, with the same Assistance, if they set about, and persevere in it: sound Judgment is no more than the Result of that Labour: he that uses himself to take Things to Pieces, to compare them together, to consider them abstractly and impartially; that is, he, who of two Propositions he is to examine, seems not to care which is true; he that lays the whole Stress of his Mind on every Part alike, and puts the same Thing in all the Views it can be seen in: he, I say, that employs himself most often in this Exercise, is most likely, cæteris paribus, to acquire what we call a sound Judgment. The Workmanship in the Make of Women seems to be more elegant, and better finish'd: the Features are more delicate, the Voice is sweeter, the whole Outside of them is more curiously wove, than they are in Men; and the difference in the Skin between theirs and ours is the same, as there is between fine Cloth and coarse. There is no Reason to imagine, that Nature should have been more neglectful of them out of Sight, than she has where we can trace her; and not have taken the same Care of them in the Formation of the Brain, as to the Nicety of the Structure, and superior Accuracy in the Fabrick, which is so visible in the rest of their Frame.
Categories
Provenance
Reading at Online Library of Liberty
Citation
Complicated publication history. At least 16 entries for The Fable of the Bees in ESTC (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.
See The Fable of the Bees. Part II. By the Author of the First. (London: Printed: and sold by J. Roberts in Warwick-Lane, 1729). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
See also 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).
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.
See The Fable of the Bees. Part II. By the Author of the First. (London: Printed: and sold by J. Roberts in Warwick-Lane, 1729). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
See also 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).
Theme
Inner and Outer
Date of Entry
08/23/2005
Date of Review
12/03/2008
