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Bernard Mandeville, Preface, The Fable of the Bees
The people who continually find Fault with others, by reading them, would be taught to look at home, and examining their own Consciences, be made asham’d of always railing at what they are more or less guilty of themselves, and that in the next, those who are so fond of the East and Comforts, and reap all the Benefits that are the Consequence of a great and flourishing Nation, would learn more patiently to submit to those Inconveniences, which no Government upon Earth can remedy, when they should see the Imposibility of enjoying any great share of the first, without partaking likewise of teh latter.
If people were to be made better by anything that could be said to them; but Mankind having for so many ages Ages remain’d still the same, notwithstanding the ma ny instructive and elaborate Writings, by wich their Amendment has endeavor’d, I am not so vain as to hope for better success from so incosiderable a Trifle.
