to hurt the individual, and neither disturb nor offend the society.
It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book * 1.1to represent every passion as wholly vi|tious which is so in any degree and in any di|rection. It is thus that he treats every thing as vanity which has any reference either to what are or to what ought to be the senti|ments of others: and it is by means of this sophistry that he establishes his favourite con|clusion, that private vices are public benefits. If the love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage, for architecture, statuary, paint|••ng and music, is to be regarded as luxury, sensuality and ostentation, even in those whose situation allows, without any inconveniency, the indulgence of those passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality and ostentation are public benefits: since, without the qualities upon which he thinks proper to bestow such opprobrious names, the arts of refinement could never find encouragement, and must ••anguish for want of employment. Some popular ascetic doctrines which had been cur|rent
