which was an extremely disrespectful and perhaps almost blasphemous way of saying: "Please rope off the crowd." He might well have added: "Este procul feminae," which, being interpreted, means: "Why don't the ladies go into the drawing-room?" For I suppose no one has ever heard of a woman who was acquainted with Mandeville's book.
Mandeville is for men—he does not flatter. There is, to be sure, something of illicit and "unprofessional" sensationalism in that sub-title; and there is much of sensationalism and economic fallacy in the mode of his argument for luxury and extravagance as the pathway to national greatness. But Mandeville's fallacies and his exaggerations have been sufficiently emphasized. Once past his outworks, you find yourself in the hands of a serious and masterly analyst of motive, bent on getting at the savage root of the matter.
Take, for illustration, his treatment of pride. As Christianity speaks of it, pride is to be abased, and as medieval theology regards it, pride is one of the seven deadly sins. Perhaps it is, says Mandeville, in those who are preparing themselves for life in another world, but, as this world goes, pride is one of the indispensable pillars of civilized society. It is, as the ancients regarded it, one of the virtues of the magnanimous man. So far, Mandeville may seem to flatter pride and the pagan at the expense of the Christian virtues, in an effort to bring about, like Nietzsche, a "transvaluation of values." But if you subject yourself to the discipline of Mandeville you will ultimately find yourself left without a rag of pride clinging to you. He cuts beneath all the virtues, Christian and pagan alike, until he has dissected out of civil and polite society that nude, mean, nasty and brutish being in whose passion-
