Читать книгу The Fable of the Bees - Bernard Mandeville - Страница 25

Line 321. No honour now, &c.

Honour, in its figurative sense, is a chimera without truth or being, an invention of moralists and politicians, and signifies a certain principle of virtue not related to religion, found in some men that keeps them close to their duty and engagements whatever they be; as for example, a man of honour enters into a conspiracy with others to murder a king; he is obliged to go thorough stitch with it; and if overcome by remorse or good nature, he startles at the enormity of his purpose, discovers the plot, and turns a witness against his accomplices, he then forfeits his honour, at least among the party he belonged to. The excellency of this principle is, that the vulgar are destitute of it, and it is only to be met with in people of the better sort, as some oranges have kernels, and others not, though the outside be the same. In great families it is like the gout, generally counted hereditary, and all the lords children are born with it. In some that never felt any thing of it, it is acquired by conversation and reading (especially of romances), in others by preferment; but there is nothing that encourages the growth of it more than a sword, and upon the first wearing of one, some people have felt considerable shoots of it in four and twenty hours.

The chief and most important care a man of honour ought to have, is the preservation of this principle, and rather than forfeit it, he must lose his employments and estate, nay, life itself; for which reason, whatever humility he may show by way of good-breeding, he is allowed to put an inestimable value upon himself, as a possessor of this invisible ornament. The only method to preserve this principle, is to live up to the rules of honour, which are laws he is to walk by: himself is obliged always to be faithful to his trust, to prefer the public interest to his own, not to tell lies, nor defraud or wrong any body, and from others to suffer no affront, which is a term of art for every action designedly done to undervalue him.

The men of ancient honour, of which I reckon Don Quixote to have been the last upon record, were very nice observers of all these laws, and a great many more than I have named; but the moderns seem to be more remiss: they have a profound veneration for the last of them, but they pay not an equal obedience to any of the other; and whoever will but strictly comply with that I hint at, shall have abundance of trespasses against all the rest connived at.

A man of honour is always counted impartial, and a man of sense of course; for nobody never heard of a man of honour that was a fool: for this reason, he has nothing to do with the law, and is always allowed to be a judge in his own case; and if the least injury be done either to himself or his friend, his relation, his servant, his dog, or any thing which he is pleased to take under his honourable protection, satisfaction must be forthwith demanded; and if it proves an affront, and he that gave it like wise a man of honour, a battle must ensue. From all this it is evident, that a man of honour must be possessed of courage, and that without it his other principle would be no more than a sword without a point. Let us, therefore, examine what courage consists in, and whether it be, as most people will have it, a real something that valiant men have in their nature distinct from all their other qualities or not.

There is nothing so universally sincere upon earth, as the love which all creatures, that are capable of any, bear to themselves; and as there is no love but what implies a care to preserve the thing beloved, so there is nothing more sincere in any creature than his will, wishes, and endeavours, to preserve himself. This is the law of nature, by which no creature is endued with any appetite or passion, but what either directly or indirectly tends to the preservation either of himself or his species.

The means by which nature obliges every creature continually to stir in this business of self-preservation, are grafted in him, and, in man, called desires, which either compel him to crave what he thinks will sustain or please him, or command him to avoid what he imagines might displease, hurt, or destroy him. These desires or passions have all their different symptoms by which they manifest themselves to those they disturb, and from that variety of disturbances they make within us, their various denominations have been given them, as has been shown already in pride and shame.

The passion that is raised in us when we apprehend that mischief is approaching us, is called fear: the disturbance it makes within us is always more or less violent in proportion, not of the danger, but our apprehension of the mischief dreaded, whether real or imaginary. Our fear then being always proportioned to the apprehension we have of the danger, it follows, that while that apprehension lasts, a man can no more shake off his fear than he can a leg or an arm. In a fright, it is true, the apprehension of danger is so sudden, and attacks us so lively (as sometimes to take away reason and senses), that when it is over we often do not remember we had any apprehension at all; but, from the event, it is plain we had it, for how could we have been frightened if we had not apprehended that some evil or other was coming upon us?

Most people are of opinion, that this apprehension is to be conquered by reason, but I confess I am not: Those that have been frightened will tell you, that as soon as they could recollect themselves, that is, make use of their reason, their apprehension was conquered. But this is no conquest at all, for in a fright the danger was either altogether imaginary, or else it is past by that time they can make use of their reason; and therefore if they find there is no danger, it is no wonder that they should not apprehend any: but, when the danger is permanent, let them then make use of their reason, and they will find that it may serve them to examine the greatness and reality of the danger, and that, if they find it less than they imagined, the apprehension will be lessened accordingly; but, if the danger proves real, and the same in every circumstance as they took it to be at first, then their reason, instead of diminishing, will rather increase their apprehension. While this fear lasts, no creature can fight offensively; and yet we see brutes daily fight obstinately, and worry one another to death; so that some other passion must be able to overcome this fear, and the most contrary to it is anger: which, to trace to the bottom, I must beg leave to make another digression.

No creature can subsist without food, nor any species of them (I speak of the more perfect animals) continue long unless young ones are continually born as fast as the old ones die. Therefore the first and fiercest appetite that nature has given them is hunger, the next is lust; the one prompting them to procreate, as the other bids them eat. Now, if we observe that anger is that passion which is raised in us when we are crossed or disturbed in our desires, and that, as it sums up all the strength in creatures, so it was given them, that by it they might exert themselves more vigorously in endeavouring to remove, overcome, or destroy whatever obstructs them in the pursuit of self preservation; we shall find that brutes, unless themselves or what they love, or the liberty of either are threatened or attacked, have nothing worth notice that can move them to anger, but hunger or lust. It is they that make them more fierce, for we must observe, that the appetites of creatures are as actually crossed, while they want and cannot meet with what they desire (though perhaps with less violence) as when hindered from enjoying what they have in view. What I have said will appear more plainly, if we but mind what nobody can be ignorant of, which is this: all creatures upon earth live either upon the fruits and product of it, or else the flesh of other animals, their fellow-creatures. The latter, which we call beasts of prey, nature has armed accordingly, and given them weapons and strength to overcome and tear asunder those whom she has designed for their food, and likewise a much keener appetite than to other animals that live upon herbs, &c. For, as to the first, if a cow loved mutton as well as she does grass, being made as she is, and having no claws or talons, and but one row of teeth before, that are all of an equal length, she would be starved even among a flock of sheep. Secondly, as to their voraciousness, if experience did not teach us, our reason might: in the first place, it is highly probable, that the hunger which can make a creature fatigue, harass and expose himself to danger for every bit he eats, is more piercing than that which only bids him eat what stands before him, and which he may have for stooping down. In the second, it is to be considered, that as beasts of prey have an instinct by which they learn to crave, trace, and discover those creatures that are good food for them; so the others have likewise an instinct that teaches them to shun, conceal themselves, and run away from those that hunt after them: from hence it must follow, that beasts of prey, though they could almost eat forever, go yet more often with empty bellies than other creatures, whose victuals neither fly from nor oppose them. This must perpetuate as well as increase their hunger, which hereby becomes a constant fuel to their anger.

If you ask me what stirs up this anger in bulls and cocks that will fight to death, and yet are neither animals of prey, nor very voracious, I answer, lust. Those creatures, whose rage proceeds from hunger, both male and female, attack every thing they can master, and fight obstinately against all: But the animals, whose fury is provoked by a venereal ferment, being generally males, exert themselves chiefly against other males of the same species. They may do mischief by chance to other creatures; but the main objects of their hatred are their rivals, and it is against them only that their prowess and fortitude are shown. We see likewise in all those creatures, of which the male is able to satisfy a great number of females, a more considerable superiority in the male, expressed by nature in his make and features, as well as fierceness, than is observed in other creatures, where the male is contented with one or two females. Dogs, though become domestic animals, are ravenous to a proverb, and those of them that will fight being carnivorous, would soon become beasts of prey, if not fed by us; what we may observe in them is an ample proof of what I have hitherto advanced. Those of a true fighting breed, being voracious creatures, both male and female, will fasten upon any thing, and suffer themselves to be killed before they give over. As the female is rather more salacious than the male; so there is no difference in their make at all, what distinguishes the sexes excepted, and the female is rather the fiercest of the two. A bull is a terrible creature when he is kept up, but where he has twenty or more cows to range among, in a little time he will become as tame as any of them, and a dozen hens will spoil the best game cock in England. Harts and deers are counted chaste and timorous creatures, and so indeed they are almost all the year long, except in rutting time, and then on a sudden they become bold to admiration, and often make at the keepers themselves.

That the influence of those two principal appetites, hunger and lust, upon the temper of animals, is not so whimsical as some may imagine, may be partly demonstrated from what is observable in ourselves; for, though our hunger is infinitely less violent than that of wolves and other ravenous creatures, yet we see that people who are in health, and have a tolerable stomach, are more fretful, and sooner put out of humour for trifles when they stay for their victuals beyond their usual hours, than at any other time. And again, though lust in man is not so raging as it is in bulls, and other salacious creatures, yet nothing provokes men and women both sooner, and more violently to anger, than what crosses their amours, when they are heartily in love; and the most fearful and tenderly educated of either sex, have slighted the greatest dangers, and set aside all other considerations, to compass the destruction of a rival.