MANDEVILLE, Bernard.

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The Fable of the Bees; [together with] The Fable of the Bees. Part II. Seventh edition (stated sixth) of the first part, second edition of the second part, of Mandeville's best-known work, demonstrating, through a parable of bees renouncing all luxury and seeing their hive collapse, that the Christian ascetic philosophy cannot lead to a prosperous economy and social system, and consequently, that individual vices of vanity and greed are virtues for the community.The work originated in 1705 as a poem titled The Grumbling Hive, expanded into the first book-length edition in 1714, and revised by Mandeville in further editions. Part II, first published in 1729, matches the length of the first part, and comprises six dialogues in which Cleomenes instructs Horatio as to the Fable's true meaning.Mandeville's implication that religion was damaging to social welfare was contentious, and in 1723 the work was declared a public nuisance by the grand jury of Middlesex, and Mandeville himself accused of blasphemy. Undeterred, he addressed his accusers in the London Journal and published a pamphlet defending himself against such charges; the contents of this "Vindication" are included in the present edition of Part I (along with Mandeville's Essay on Charity Schools, claiming that educating the poor above their station was in nobody's interest, and his Search into the Nature of Society, further espousing the Fable's themes). Mandeville would spend the rest of his life justifying his work to

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