[1670-1733.] MANDEVILLE was author of 'The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices, Public Benefits' (1714).

This work is a satire upon artificial society, having for its chief aim to expose the hollowness of the so-called dignity of human nature.

Dugald Stewart considered it a recommendation to any theory of the mind that it exalted our conceptions of human nature.

Shaftesbury's views were entitled to this advantage; but, observes Mandeville, 'the ideas he had formed of the goodness and excellency of our nature, were as romantic and chimerical, as they are beautiful and amiable.' Mandeville examined not what human nature _ought to be_, but what it really _is_.

In contrast, therefore, to the moralists that distinguish between a higher and a lower in our nature, attributing to the higher everything good and noble, while the lower ought to be persecuted and despised, Mandeville declares the fancied higher parts to be the region of vanity and imposture, while the renowned deeds of men, and the greatness of kingdoms, really arise from the passions usually reckoned base and sensual.