Mandeville, Bernard de

a cynical writer, born at Dordrecht, Holland; bred to medicine; came to London to practise; wrote in racy English the "Fable of the Bees," intended to show, as Stop ford Brooke says, how the "vices of society are the foundation of civilisation," or as Profe or Saints bury says, how "vice makes some bees happy, and virtue makes them miserable"; the latter calls him "The Diogenes of English Philosophy"; he affirmed that "private vices are public benefits," and reduced virtue into a form of selfishne ; his satire is directed against the ethics of Shaftesbury ( q. v .) (1670-1733).