The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits

PREFACE.

Laws and government are to the political bodies of civil societies, what the vital spirits and life itself are to the natural bodies of animated creatures; and as those that study the anatomy of dead carcases may see, that the chief organs and nicest springs more immediately required to continue the motion of our machine, are not hard bones, strong muscles and nerves, nor the smooth white skin, that so beautifully covers them, but small trifling films, and little pipes, that are either overlooked or else seem inconsiderable to vulgar eyes; so they that examine into the nature of man, abstract from art and education, may observe, that what renders him a sociable animal, consists not in his desire of company, good nature, pity, affability, and other graces of a fair outside; but that his vilest and most hateful qualities are the most necessary accomplishments to fit him for the largest, and, according to the world, the happiest and most flourishing societies.

The following Fable, in which what I have said is set forth at large, was printed above eight years ago, in a six penny pamphlet, called, The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turn'd Honest; and being soon after pirated, cried about the streets in a halfpenny sheet. Since the first publishing of it, I have met with several that, either wilfully or ignorantly mistaking the design, would have it, that the scope of it was a satire upon virtue and morality, and the whole wrote for the encouragement of vice. This made me resolve, whenever it should be reprinted, some way or other to inform the reader of the real intent this little poem was wrote with. I do not dignify these few loose lines with the name of Poem, that I would have the reader expect any poetry in them, but barely because they are rhyme, and I am in reality puzzled what name to give them; for they are neither heroic nor pastoral, satire, burlesque, nor heroi-comic; to be a tale they want probability, and the whole is rather too long for a fable. All I can say of them is, that they are a story told in doggerel, which, without the least design of being witty, I have endeavoured to do in as easy and familiar a manner as I was able: the reader shall be welcome to call them what he pleases. It was said of Montaigne, that he was pretty well versed in the defects of mankind, but unacquainted with the excellencies of human nature: if I fare no worse, I shall think myself well used.

What country soever in the universe is to be understood by the Bee-Hive represented here, it is evident, from what is said of the laws and constitution of it, the glory, wealth, power, and industry of its inhabitants, that it must be a large, rich and warlike nation, that is happily governed by a limited monarchy. The satire, therefore, to be met with in the following lines, upon the several professions and callings, and almost every degree and station of people, was not made to injure and point to particular persons, but only to show the vileness of the ingredients that altogether compose the wholesome mixture of a well-ordered society; in order to extol the wonderful power of political wisdom, by the help of which so beautiful a machine is raised from the most contemptible branches. For the main design of the Fable (as it is briefly explained in the Moral), is to show the impossibility of enjoying all the most elegant comforts of life, that are to be met with in an industrious, wealthy and powerful nation, and at the same time, be blessed with all the virtue and innocence that can be wished for in a golden age; from thence to expose the unreasonableness and folly of those, that desirous of being an opulent and flourishing people, and wonderfully greedy after all the benefits they can receive as such, are yet always murmuring at and exclaiming against those vices and inconveniences, that from the beginning of the world to this present day, have been inseparable from all kingdoms and states, that ever were famed, for strength, riches, and politeness, at the same time.

To do this, I first slightly touch upon some of the faults and corruptions the several professions and callings are generally charged with. After that I show that those very vices, of every particular person, by skilful management, were made subservient to the grandeur and worldly happiness of the whole. Lastly, by setting forth what of necessity must be the consequence of general honesty and virtue, and national temperance, innocence and content, I demonstrate that if mankind could be cured of the failings they are naturally guilty of, they would cease to be capable of being raised into such vast potent and polite societies, as they have been under the several great commonwealths and monarchies that have flourished since the creation.

If you ask me, why I have done all this, cui bono? and what good these notions will produce? truly, besides the reader's diversion, I believe none at all; but if I was asked what naturally ought to be expected from them, I would answer, that, in the first place, the people who continually find fault with others, by reading them, would be taught to look at home, and examining their own consciences, be made ashamed of always railing at what they are more or less guilty of themselves; and that, in the next, those who are so fond of the ease and comforts, and reap all the benefits that are the consequence of a great and flourishing nation, would learn more patiently to submit to those inconveniences, which no government upon earth can remedy, when they should see the impossibility of enjoying any great share of the first, without partaking likewise of the latter.

This, I say, ought naturally to be expected from the publishing of these notions, if people were to be made better by any thing that could be said to them; but mankind having for so many ages remained still the same, notwithstanding the many instructive and elaborate writings, by which their amendment has been endeavoured, I am not so vain as to hope for better success from so inconsiderable a trifle.

Having allowed the small advantage this little whim is likely to produce, I think myself obliged to show that it cannot be prejudicial to any; for what is published, if it does no good, ought at least to do no harm: in order to this, I have made some explanatory notes, to which the reader will find himself referred in those passages that seem to be most liable to exceptions.

The censorious, that never saw the Grumbling Hive, will tell me, that whatever I may talk of the Fable, it not taking up a tenth part of the book, was only contrived to introduce the Remarks; that instead of clearing up the doubtful or obscure places, I have only pitched upon such as I had a mind to expatiate upon; and that far from striving to extenuate the errors committed before, I have made bad worse, and shown myself a more barefaced champion for vice, in the rambling digressions, than I had done in the Fable itself.

I shall spend no time in answering these accusations: where men are prejudiced, the best apologies are lost; and I know that those who think it criminal to suppose a necessity of vice in any case whatever, will never be reconciled to any part of the performance; but if this be thoroughly examined, all the offence it can give must result from the wrong inferences that may perhaps be drawn from it, and which I desire nobody to make. When I assert that vices are inseparable from great and potent societies, and that it is impossible their wealth and grandeur should subsist without, I do not say that the particular members of them who are guilty of any should not be continually reproved, or not be punished for them when they grow into crimes.