Bitter Honey: Recuperating the Medical and Scientific Context of Bernard Mandeville by Phillip Hilton (review)

Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) was a Dutch philosopher, political economist, and satirist who spent his working life in England and is known for his commentary on early eighteenth-century British society. His most famous work is The Fable of the Bees, which offended not only his academic peers but also most of British society. His philosophy was considered false and degenerate. In general, he propagated the view that so-called Christian virtues were detrimental to the commercial and intellectual progress of the state, whereas vices (particularly excessive ones) motivated society to actively develop means to cater and satisfy those vices, which in turn stimulated the economy. For Mandeville, private vices were public benefits.

Bitter Honey, however, reveals another, somewhat contradictory, aspect of Mandeville's work. In it, Philip Hilton examines the Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Diseases (1730), a satire in the form of a series of dialogues between a doctor and two patients who are suffering mental and discursive inconsistency (depression). In this case, the egotism found within the medical profession, which is the main feature of the Treatise, is not a vice that generates public benefit. On the contrary, while egotism was an accepted vice of physicians, it was not valorised by Mandeville, who instead condemned it. Hilton examines the scientific and medical context of the treatise, its autobiographical content, the treatise as a literary artefact, its contemporary political and ethical implications, and its legacy.

Mandeville's satire remains sharp despite the inconsistency in his philosophy. He had an ironic detachment from the world that was ideal for his speculative performances, and successfully combined satire, natural science, and art to convince the reader to accept his worldview. According to Hilton, 'The Treatise is a monument to a consciousness adapted to a mercatorial order by way of satire, irony and cynicism, and is an artefact of an early attempt to educate readers in accommodating themselves to a culture that is incorrigibly utilitarian or instrumentalist' (p. 175). The Treatise is a significant work in its own right, and an important Baconian contribution to medicine and science. Bitter Honey highlights this significance and places the Treatise firmly within the canon of scientific and medical literature. Hilton's study on this unknown work of Mandeville's is an important contribution to the history of ideas of the eighteenth century.