Evidence: | 'JOHNSON. "The fallacy of that book [Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees"] is, that Mandeville defines neither vices nor benefits. He reckons among vices everything that gives pleasure. He takes the narrowest system of morality, monastick morality, which holds pleasure itself to be a vice, such as eating salt with our fish, because it makes it eat better; and he reckons wealth as a publick benefit, which is by no means always true. Pleasure of itself is not a vice. Having a garden, which we all know to be perfectly innocent, is a great pleasure. [Johnson discusses Mandeville at length, concluding] I read Mandeville forty, or, I believe, fifty years ago. He did not puzzle me; he opened my views into real life very much".' |
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Century: | 1700-1799 | ||||||||||
Date: | From: 30 Apr 1738 | ||||||||||
Country: | England | ||||||||||
Time: | n/a | ||||||||||
Place: | n/a | ||||||||||
Type of Experience (Reader): |
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Type of Experience (Listener): |
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Reader: | Samuel Johnson |
Age | Adult (18-100+) |
Gender | Male |
Date of Birth | 18 Sep 1709 |
Socio-economic group: | Professional / academic / merchant / farmer |
Occupation: | writer |
Religion: | Anglican |
Country of origin: | England |
Country of experience: | England |
Listeners present if any: (e.g. family, servants,
friends, workmates) |
n/a |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Author: | Bernard Mandeville |
Title: | Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits |
Genre: | Politics, Philosophy |
Form of Text: | Print: Book |
Publication details: | n/a |
Provenance: | unknown |
Record ID: | 21935 | |
Source - | ||
Author: | James Boswell | |
Editor: | R.W. Chapman | |
Title: | Life of Johnson | |
Place of Publication: | Oxford | |
Date of Publication: | 1980 | |
Vol: | n/a | |
Page: | 948 | |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Citation: | James Boswell, R.W. Chapman (ed.), Life of Johnson (Oxford, 1980), p. 948, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=21935, accessed: 01 June 2023 |
Originally published 1791 |
Reading Experience Database version 2.0. Page updated: 27th Apr 2016 3:15pm (GMT)