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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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