Mandeville, Bernard de (16701733)

Mandeville, Bernard de, a cynical writer, born at Dordrecht, Holland; bred to medicine; came to London to practise; wrote in racy English the “Fable of the Bees,” intended to show, as Stopford Brooke says, how the “vices of society are the foundation of civilisation,” or as Professor Saintsbury says, how “vice makes some bees happy, and virtue makes them miserable”; the latter calls him “The Diogenes of English Philosophy”; he affirmed that “private vices are public benefits,” and reduced virtue into a form of selfishness; his satire is directed against the ethics of Shaftesbury (q.v.) (16701733).

Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)

Mandarin * Mandeville, Sir John
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Manasseh-ben-Israel
Manby, Captain
Mancha, La
Manche, La
Manchester
Manchester, Edward Montagu, Earl of
Manchuria
Mandæans
Mandalay
Mandarin
Mandeville, Bernard de
Mandeville, Sir John
Mandingoes
Manes
Manes, Mani
Manetho
Manfred
Manfred, Count
Manhattan
Manichæism
Manila