"The Brain of an Animal cannot be look'd and search'd into whilst it is alive. Should you take the main Spring out of a Watch, and leave the Barrel that contain'd it, standing empty, it would be impossible to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it shew'd the Time"
— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
J. Roberts
Date
1729
Metaphor
"The Brain of an Animal cannot be look'd and search'd into whilst it is alive. Should you take the main Spring out of a Watch, and leave the Barrel that contain'd it, standing empty, it would be impossible to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it shew'd the Time"
Metaphor in Context
HOR.
These are very airy Conjectures, but nothing of all this can be proved; the Smallness of the Parts, you'll say, is the Reason; but if greater Improvements were made in Optick Glasses, and Microscopes could be invented that magnify'd Objects three or four Millions of Times more than they do now, then certainly those minute Particles, so immensely remote from the Senses you speak of, might be observed, if that which does the Work is corporeal at all.
CLEO.
That such Improvements are impossible, is demonstrable; but if it was not, even then we could have little Help from Anatomy. The Brain of an Animal cannot be look'd and search'd into whilst it is alive. Should you take the main Spring out of a Watch, and leave the Barrel that contain'd it, standing empty, it would be impossible to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it shew'd the Time. We might examine all the Wheels, and every other Part belonging, either to the Movement or the Motion, and, perhaps, find out the Use of them, in relation to the Turning of the Hands; but the first Cause of this Labour would remain a Mystery for ever.
These are very airy Conjectures, but nothing of all this can be proved; the Smallness of the Parts, you'll say, is the Reason; but if greater Improvements were made in Optick Glasses, and Microscopes could be invented that magnify'd Objects three or four Millions of Times more than they do now, then certainly those minute Particles, so immensely remote from the Senses you speak of, might be observed, if that which does the Work is corporeal at all.
CLEO.
That such Improvements are impossible, is demonstrable; but if it was not, even then we could have little Help from Anatomy. The Brain of an Animal cannot be look'd and search'd into whilst it is alive. Should you take the main Spring out of a Watch, and leave the Barrel that contain'd it, standing empty, it would be impossible to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it shew'd the Time. We might examine all the Wheels, and every other Part belonging, either to the Movement or the Motion, and, perhaps, find out the Use of them, in relation to the Turning of the Hands; but the first Cause of this Labour would remain a Mystery for ever.
Categories
Provenance
OLL
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).
Date of Entry
08/23/2005
