Mandeville Bernardde

Mandeville, Bernard de (1670-1733), a satirical writer, was the son of a Rotterdam physician. He took his own degree in medicine at Leyden in 1691, but soon afterwards came to London, where he practised as a physician for many years. In 1705 he published a sixpenny pamphlet under the title of The Grumbling Hire; or, Knaves turned Honest, which ridiculed the charges of political corruption then rife. In 1714 this was bound up with An Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Viitue and Remarlts on the former work and these, together with an Essay on Charily' Schools (in which philanthropy was lightly treated) and A Search into the Origin of Society, were brought out together in 1723 under the title of The Fable of the Bees. The leading idea of the whole is that "private vices are public benefits."