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Commercial Society and Christian Virtue: The Mandeville-Law Dispute

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Russell Nieli
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Extract

From earliest apostolic and patristic times, Christian writers have generally been suspicious of the common human desire to improve one's economic status. In Britain, however, by the end of the seventeenth century, this suspicion had all but vanished as most Christians began to accommodate themselves to the exigencies of an increasingly dynamic commercial society. This article takes up the early eighteenth-century controversy over the compatibility of traditional Christian moral virtues with the demands of economic and material progress as reflected in the writings of the two most important antagonists in the controversy, Bernard Mandeville and William Law. Although both Mandeville and Law spoke the language of Christian rigorism and perfectionism, and proclaimed attachment to the full austerity of the Christian Gospels, Mandeville, it is explained, was really a hedonist in disguise who feigned attachment to traditional Christian and Stoic ascetic principles merely to be able to discredit those principles. Law, it is explained, was a man of uncommon piety and devoutness who was shocked by the increasing secularism and materialism of his age, and who sought to recall his contemporaries to a life of true Christian holiness. The article concludes with an evaluation of the relative merits of the positions of each of the two thinkers.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , Fall 1989 , pp. 581 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1989

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References

Notes

1. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: New American Library, 1954), p. 95.Google Scholar

2. The quotation is from Langenstein's, Tractatus bipartitus de contractibus emptionis et venditionis, I, 12Google Scholar, as quoted in Schreiber, Edmund, Die volkswirtschaftliche Anschauungen der Scholastik seit Thomas von Aquin (Gustav Fischer, 1913), p. 197.Google Scholar The English translation is that of Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, p. 38.Google Scholar

3. See, for instance, Matthew 6:19–20; 6:24; 16:19–24; Mark 10:17–25; Luke 1:51–53; 6:20–26; 12:13–21; 12:33–36; 16;13; 16:19–31; 18:18–25; James 2:1–8; 4:13–5:16;

4. Besides the general tendency to think of middlemen activities as nonproductive, Christian thinkers have generally been suspicious of wealth acquired through trade and commerce because of their belief: (a) that wealth acquired through such means would have no natural limit and would thus encourage avarice and an allconsuming desire for riches, which would inevitably distract man from his primary task of salvation; (b) that trading and commercial activities provided great temptations to fraud and dishonesty to which many weak souls would inevitably succumb; (c) that trade and commerce tended to stimulate interest in luxuries and frivolities which only catered to the evils of human vanity and pride; and finally, the belief (d) that trade and commerce would bring many foreigners into European cities with alien customs that could easily corrupt European Christians. Even Thomas Aquinas—who approved of profits made through business and trading activities provided that the gain was moderate, and the purpose was a just compensation for one's labor in order to maintain one's household, give to charity, or otherwise contribute toward the public good —shared the general medieval Christian suspicion of mercantile activities. On Aquinas's view of the corrupting effect of merchants on society, see the discussion in Fanfani, Amintore, Catholicism, Protestantism, Capitalism (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1935), pp. 175–77.Google Scholar

5. Birnie, , An Economic History of the British Isles (London: Methuen, 1935), p. 173.Google Scholar

6. “On National Character,” in Essays Moral, Political and Literary (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1985), p. 206.Google Scholar

7. Quoted in Lecky, William E. H., A History of England in the Eighteenth Century 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1879), 2: 577.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., p. 576.

9. See Robertson, , Aspects of the Rise of Economic Individualism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), pp. 176–78.Google Scholar

10. On British economic development during this period, see, besides the material in Birnie, Economic History of the British Isles, chaps. 16–17Google Scholar; Dietz, Frederick C., An Economic History of England (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1942), chaps. 16–18Google Scholar; Cunningham, W., The Growth of English Industry and Commerce In Modem Time 2 vols. (New York: August M. Kelley, 1968), volume 2, chaps. 3–6Google Scholar: Brentano, Lujo, Eine Geschichte der Wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung Englands, volume 2, Die Zeit Des Merkantilismus (New York: Burt Franklin, 1968)Google Scholar; Tawney, , Religion and the Rise of Capitalism pp. 149–163Google Scholar; and Owen, John B., The Eighteenth Century 1714–1815 (London: Nelson, 1974), chap. 6.Google Scholar

11. The Fable is available in a critically annotated modern version by Kaye, F. B., The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924).Google Scholar Mandeville wrote a second volume of the Fable, which is in the form of a dialogue that satirizes the nominal Christianity and other foibles of upper-class British society (the Beau Monde as he calls it). This second volume is also available in a modern version edited by Kaye, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924).Google Scholar Other works of Mandeville which are important for understanding his social thought include An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War (London: Frank Cass and Company, 1971)Google Scholar; A Modest Defense of Public Stews (Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society, University of California, 1973)Google Scholar; An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn (Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society, University of California, 1964)Google Scholar; A Letter to Dion (Los Angeles: The Augustan Reprint Society, University of California, 1953)Google Scholar; and Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness (London: John Brotherton, 1729).Google Scholar The most thorough and in many ways the best book on Mandeville and the controversy surrounding the Fable of the Bees is Sakmann's, PaulBernard de Mandeville unddieBienenfabel-Controverse (Leipzig: J. C. B. Mohr, 1897)Google Scholar; on Mandeville's social and political thought see Home's, Thomas A.The Social Thought of Bernard Mandeville (London: Macmillan, 1978)Google Scholar; other valuable works on Mandeville includeCook, Richard I., Bernard Mandeville (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1974)Google Scholar; Monro, Hector, The Ambivalence of Bernard Mandeville (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975)Google Scholar; and Goldsmith, M. M., Private Vices, Public Benefits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar. See also the material on Mandeville in Stephen's, LeslieHistory of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, volume 2 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962), chap. 3.Google Scholar

12. Extensive summary material on the writings of Mandeville's eighteenth century critics can be found in Sakmann, , Bernard de Mandeville, pp. 192–216;Google ScholarHorne, , Social Thought of Bernard Mandeville., pp. 76–95;Google Scholar and in Kaye's, F. B. edition of the Fable, 2: 401–17.Google Scholar

13. All of Law's major works are contained in the 9 volume The Works of Reverend William Law, M.A., first published in 1762 (London: J. Richardson) and reprinted in 1893 (Canterbury: G. Moreton).Google Scholar Besides his Remarks Upon a Late Book Entitled the Fable of the Bees (1724), the most important of Law's writings for an understanding of his ideas on moral and social issues are The Absolute Unlawfulness of Stage Entertainment Fully Demonstrated (1726); A Practical Treatise Upon Christian Perfection (1726); A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728); An Earnest and Serious Answer to Dr. Trapp's Discourse of the Folly, Sin and Danger of Being Righteous Over-Much (1740); Some Animadversions Upon Dr. Trapp's Reply (1740); and the posthumously published An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy (1763). Law's later theosophical works, which were written under the inspiration of Jacob Boehme (e.g., The Spirit of Prayer, 1749; The Way to Divine Knowledge, 1752; The Spirit of Love, 1752), while important for understanding Law's personal spiritual development, add little if anything to his earlier ideas concerning the moral and social implications of the Christian religion. Of the secondary literature on Law, indispensable is the biography by Overton, J. H., William Law Non-Juror and Mystic (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1881)Google Scholar: and the material on Law in SirStephen's, LeslieA History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2, chap. 12, part 6.Google Scholar See also Walker, H. Keith, William Law His Life and Thought (London: SPCK, 1973);Google ScholarSpurgeon, Caroline, “William Law and the Mystics” in The Cambridge History of English Literature, volume 9, chap. 12 pp. 305–28;Google ScholarFlew, R. Newton, The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology (New York: Humanities Press, 1968), chap. 18;Google ScholarBaker, Eric, A Herald of the Evangelical Revival (London: Epiworth Press, 1948);Google ScholarInge, William Ralph, Studies of English Mystics (London: John Murray, 1907), pp. 124–72;Google ScholarHopkinson, Arthur, About William Law (London: SPCK, 1948);Google Scholar and the article on Law in The Dictionary of National Biography, volume 32 (London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1892).Google Scholar

14. Page references to A Serious Call are to the Paulist Press edition published in 1978.

15. The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon, ed. Murray, John (London: John Murray, 1897), p. 23.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., p. 216.

17. See What Is Political Philosophy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1959, 1973), pp. 9–55.Google Scholar

18. Most conspicuously in A Defense of Public Stews.

19. Stephen, , History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2: 28.Google Scholar

20. Law seems to acknowledge this when he said to the young Wesley, who had initially thought his Christian ideal too high to be achieved, that “we shall do well to aim at the highest degree of perfection if we may thereby attain to mediocrity” (quoted in Flew, , Idea of Perfection, p. 298).Google Scholar