The Fable of the Bees and Other Writings


Book Description

Although never censored, Bernard Mandeville's anonymously published The Fable of the Bees; or Private Vices, Public Benefits came to be regarded soon after its publication in 1723 as the Enlightenment's epitome of immorality. As a naturalistic account of the mechanisms that condition human desire and of the unintended stabilizing social consequences of self-interested action, it has since been recognized as one the eighteenth century's most significant works of social theory. More sharply focused on Mandeville's social theory than any previous collection of his writings, this abridged and modernized edition includes the most pertinent sections of The Fable, a selection from Mandeville's An Enquiry into the Origin of Honor, and essential background reading from two of Mandeville's most important sources: Pierre Bayle and the Jansenist Pierre Nicole. E. J. Hundert's Introduction places Mandeville in a number of central eighteenth-century debates - particularly that of the nature and morality of commercial modernity - and underscores the degree to which Mandeville's reconception of egoism as a positive social force stood as a central problem, not only for his immediate English contemporaries, but for such philosophers as Hume, Rousseau, and Kant.













Uses of Education


Book Description

What is education for? The question framed in the second half of the eighteenth century in England is still urgent. Posed in textbooks, histories, conduct books, economic treatises, novels, and other kinds of writing, it was asked about punishment, the classical curriculum, the low status of teachers, education of the poor, public school or private tutor, and the education of girls. Uses of Education shows the fundamental question to be about the potential and limits of Enlightenment thought as it seeks to be embodied in institutions.




Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge


Book Description

V.1-20 are, like missing vols. 21-26, also freely available online at the the China-America Digital Academic Library (CADAL), & can be accessed with the following individual urls: http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv1 Note: Click to view v.1 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv2 Note: Click to view v.2 via CADAL http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv3 Note: Click to view v.3 via CADAL http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv4 Note: Click to view v.4 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv5 Note: Click to view v.5 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv6 Note: Click to view v.6 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv7 Note: Click to view v.7 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv8 Note: Click to view v.8 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv9 Note: Click to view v.9 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv10 Note: Click to view v.10 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv11 Note: Click to view v.11 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv12 Note: Click to view v.12 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv13 Note: Click to view v.13 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv14 Note: Click to view v.14 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv15 Note: Click to view v.15 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv16 Note: Click to view v.16 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv17 Note: Click to view v.17 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv18 Note: Click to view v.18 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv19 Note: Click to view v.19 via CADAL. -- http://lookup.lib.hku.hk/lookup/bib/B3144507Xv20 Note: Click to view v.20 via CADAL.