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Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness (Hardcover)
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Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness (Hardcover)
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Bernard Mandeville was best known for "The Fable of the Bees," in
which he demolishes the supposed moral basis of society by a
Hobbesian demonstration that civilization depends on vice. Today
Mandeville is seen as a trenchant satirist of the manners and
foibles of his age. He is also seen as a precursor of some of Adam
Smith's doctrines, a forerunner in the field of sociology. A
prescient analyst of the dynamics of our modern consumer society,
Mandeville is author of a striking naturalistic account of the
gradual evolution of modern society from its primitive antecedents.
His literary signature, in a manner of speaking, is his famous
paradox, "private vices, public benefits."
This new edition of "Free Thoughts" is prefaced by a lengthy and
informative introduction by Irwin Primer, who recreates not only
the literary, political, and religious atmosphere surrounding
Mandeville, but also the controversies that surrounded his writing
in mid-eighteenth-century England. Primer includes textual notes on
the first and second editions of this classic work. To understand
Mandeville's "Free Thoughts," one needs to situate it within the
context of the religious and political controversies, ongoing
subversion, fear and dormant warfare of his times. Those would
eventually erupt again and for the last time in the bloody Jacobite
rebellion of 1745-46.
The first five chapters of the book explore religious and
theological issues including the nature of belief and knowledge,
the significance of rites and ceremonies, and controversies about
Christian mysteries such as the Trinity and free will and
predestination. The next five chapters explore controversial issues
of church politics, including persecution and toleration across the
centuries, the basis of Mandeville's anticlericalism. In the
eleventh chapter, he turns aside from matters of religion to review
the balance of powers in Britain's government, a mixed or limited
monarchy. The final chapter is essentially a repetition of
Mandeville's pleas for civil and religious peace through mutual
toleration by opposing religious parties. Mandeville's work is of
continuing interest to students of culture and history, religion
and theology, and political science.
Irwin Primer is professor emeritus at Rutgers University who has
written widely on Mandeville and the Scottish tradition in
philosophy.
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