In four dialogues between Horatio and Cleomenes, Bernard Mandeville returns to the provocative thesis of The Fable of the Bees: that virtues are human inventions grounded in self-love. He argues that the idea of honour was devised to govern proud men, examines how churches have played upon human passions, and asks how far Christianity can be made useful in war.
A sharp, ironic late work by one of the eighteenth century’s most unsettling moral thinkers. Download the free EPUB.