A. W. REED. With a Commentary Critical,
Historical, and Explanatory by F. B. KAVE.Oxford : at the Clarendon Press. 1924.

Mandeville was a Dutchman, born in Rotterdam, and there educated in the Erasmian School. He had a sound training in philosophy and medicine at Ley den, travelled, came to England early in the reign of the Dutch William III., " found the country and the manners agreeable to his humour," and remained.

" Writers are always teaching men what they should be and hardly ever trouble their heads with telling them what they really are. As for my part, I believe man (besides skin, flesh, bones, etc., that are obvious to the eye) to be a compound of various passions, that all of them as they are provoked and come uppermost, govern him by turn whether he will or no." To appreciate his terms vice and virtue, we must understand that all natural impulses are vicious, and only unselfishness is virtuous.

" Private Vices are Publick Benefits." Such selfishness is useful vice!

In a century that saw the foundation of the Foundling Hospital and many other benevolent institutions, as well as the amazing growth of the Charity Schools, this was an irritating doctrine.
National wealth consists in a " multitude of laborious poor."

To such a one, man may well be made for society, but in truth he is naturally the least sociable of animals.

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« For the main Design of the Fable, (as it is briefly explain’d in the Moral) is to shew 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 bless’d with all the Virtue and Innocence that can be wish’d for in a Golden Age; » Mandeville

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