Mandeville's Fable of the Bees [pp. 168-175]

FABLE OF THE BEES.
bad, wise or unwise, is immaterial-choose to exercise their
natural right of dissolving their connexion with ihe governments
under which they have lived. In doing this, they no more commit the crime of treason-which necessarily implies treachery,
deceit, breach of faith-than a man commits treason when he
chooses to leave a church or any other voluntary association
with which he has been connected.
This principle was a true one in 1776. It is a true one now.
It is the only one on which any rightful government can rest.
It is the one on which the Constitution itself professes to rest.
If it does not really rest on that basis, it has no right to exist;
and it is the duty of every man to raise his hand against it.
If the men of the Revolution designed to incorporate in the
Constitution the absurd ideas of allegiance and treason which
they had once repudiated, against which they had fought, and by
which the world had been enslaved, they thereby established for
themselves an indisputable claim to the disgust and detestation
of all mankind.
In subsequen~t numbers the author hopes to show that, under
the principle of individual consent, the little government that
mankind need is not only practical, but natural and easy; and
that the Constitution of the United States authorizes no governmeut except one depending wholly on voluntary support.
ART. II.-MANDEVILLE'S FABLE OF THE BEES;
OR,
PRIVATE VICES, PUBLIC BENEFITS.
Is exploitation, dishonesty? We have in our hands the third
edition of above named work, printed in London, in 1724. It
was probably written a century and a half ago. No author's
name appears in our edition, but we krow from a late edition,
that it is the work of a Doctor Mandeville, a native of Amsterdam, but who lived most of his life in England, and became
master of the English language. The book excited much indignation soon after its publication, and was violently assailed and
abused in the press, and was presented by the grand jury of
Middlesex. A calm reply from any one at all versed in Sociological science would have speedily refuted and exposed its sophistry, and disarmed it of all power of doing evil; but no one
then had studied the science of Sociology, and the doctor was un
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