Quiz: The Fable of the Bees, Parts I and II

All 46 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. How does Remark (X.) judge Spartan greatness?

   As proof that frugality and hardiness bring wealth As the result of their iron mines As empty, since the Spartans enjoyed nothing As the model a trading nation like ours should copy
2. 2. What does Cleomenes say first disposes untaught men toward religion?

   Wonder at the order of heaven Teaching handed down from Adam Fear of some unknown invisible cause Gratitude for the gifts of nature
3. 3. What does the story of the porter in Remark (V.) show?

   That drink makes working men unreliable, so the porter could not be trusted That a man thought lazy may refuse to sell his labour too cheap That porters are idle by nature and must be kept poor if they are to work That country gentlemen are lazier and meaner than the porters of London
4. 4. Whose system does the Search into the Nature of Society set out to refute?

   Lord Shaftesbury’s, in the Characteristicks William Law’s, in his Remarks John Locke’s, in the Two Treatises Thomas Hobbes’s, in Leviathan
5. 5. According to the preface, how was The Grumbling Hive first published?

   As a serial in The Spectator As a sixpenny pamphlet, soon pirated as a halfpenny sheet As a sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen As an appendix to a treatise on the hypochondriack passions
6. 6. How, according to Cleomenes, has nature provided for the men lost in war and at sea?

   Women bear more twins in times of war More boys than girls are born yearly Soldiers marry earlier than other men Widows soon remarry younger men
7. 7. Why are bales of cloth lost at sea as beneficial to the English poor as if they had been sold?

   Replacement cloth comes in from Holland, which lowers prices for the poor The insurers repay the merchant, who then pays the weavers a second time Those who made and carried them were paid before they sailed The poor along the coast salvage the bales from the wreck and sell them
8. 8. What finally becomes of the hive after Jove makes the bees honest?

   It is conquered and plundered by its envious neighbours’ swarms It grows richer than before, its trade reviving under honest rulers It begs Jove to restore its old vices, and he grants them back again The survivors withdraw into a hollow tree, content and honest
9. 9. What does Cleomenes say the doctrine of good manners lacks?

   Any force without the threat of a duel Any precept against the passion of pride itself Any rule about how to treat inferiors and servants Any lesson that is not borrowed from the ancients
10. 10. Why does Mandeville say there is no merit in saving a baby about to fall into the fire?

    Because the law already requires it Because only priests and the devout can perform virtuous acts Because we act to spare ourselves the pain of seeing it Because the child might grow up to be wicked and a burden to the parish
11. 11. Why does Mandeville say great numbers of the poor should be kept ignorant?

    Reading by candlelight would ruin the eyesight they need for their work Learning would lead them into popery and other dangerous errors of religion Knowledge enlarges and multiplies desires, making them harder to content There are not enough honest schoolmasters to teach them without corrupting them
12. 12. Why does Mandeville call worldly pleasures “real” in the Fable?

    Because people are actually seen to pursue them, whatever they say Because the Stoics proved them the highest good Because they cost more money than the pleasures of the mind and of virtue Because Scripture permits them in moderation
13. 13. What does Mandeville propose about duelling?

    Let the Church and the bishops’ courts settle all quarrels of honour License duels before a magistrate Pardon no duellist, yet keep the custom for its civilising effect Abolish the custom of demanding satisfaction altogether, by statute
14. 14. How does Mandeville reconcile his argument with praise of the Czar of Muscovy’s efforts to civilise Russia?

    He says Russia has no poor Russia needs more knowing men; Britain has too many He says the Czar is mistaken and will ruin his country by it He argues that the Czar only educates nobles and officers
15. 15. According to Remark (Q.), what alone produces frugality in a whole nation?

    Sumptuary laws strictly enforced by the magistrates Sermons and moral instruction The example of a frugal court and a sober, thrifty prince Necessity: scarce land, dear food and heavy taxes
16. 16. Which example does Cleomenes give of an art mastered in practice without knowing its theory?

    A child who speaks well without learning grammar A surgeon who operates without studying anatomy A young sailor who steers by habit, knowing no mathematics A gardener who grafts trees without any botany
17. 17. Whom does Mandeville contrast with the Lord Mayor of London to show that power needs no pomp?

    A burgomaster of Amsterdam The Doge of Venice in his council The Stadholder of Holland The Grand Signior
18. 18. How does Mandeville explain what he meant by calling evil the basis of society?

    He meant every defect or want, which trades arise to supply He meant crime, which employs lawyers He meant the Devil’s influence on princes and their ministers He withdrew the passage as a printer’s error
19. 19. What scene does Mandeville imagine to show that pity is a natural passion felt even by criminals?

    A beggar displaying his sores in the street A starving sow devouring a small child in a yard A man being hanged at Tyburn A shipwreck seen from the shore
20. 20. How was the hive of the fable governed?

    By an absolute queen ruling through her drones By its priests By a democratic assembly By kings whose power was limited by laws
21. 21. According to Cleomenes, what struggle decided whether Horatio fought his duel?

    His love of his friends against his hatred of his enemy His Christian conscience against the law His regard for his estate against his wish for a peerage His fear of shame against his fear of death
22. 22. Which law does Mandeville cite to show that taste follows custom?

    The law banning hooped petticoats at court The law requiring burial in woollen The Calico Act The law forbidding the export of tin
23. 23. What does Mandeville report that a group of footmen have done?

    Burned down a charity school they believed was training servants to undercut them Petitioned Parliament for the right to vote and to be exempt from the militia Gone over in a body to the colonies, where servants are scarce and wages high Formed a society setting minimum wages and maximum loads
24. 24. According to the Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue, what are the moral virtues?

    The political offspring of flattery begot upon pride Rules discovered by reason alone, apart from religion The product of revealed religion Innate affections implanted in every man by nature at birth
25. 25. In Remark L, why does Mandeville think luxury cannot weaken a nation’s soldiers?

    Because luxury makes men braver Because soldiers and sailors are forbidden all luxuries by law Because war’s hardships fall on the labouring poor, not the rich Because foreign mercenaries hired by the rich do the fighting
26. 26. What does Cleomenes call the third and last step to society?

    The taming of horses and cattle The worship of one invisible God The first division of land among families The invention of letters
27. 27. What does Cleomenes propose as the first thing that made savages associate?

    Common danger from wild beasts Dread of their priests’ curse A natural love for their species A contract to secure property
28. 28. What does Remark K say of frugality?

    It is the noble sin that makes the chimney smoke and the tradesman thrive It is a mean starving virtue, fit only for small societies It should be enforced by law It is the true source of a nation’s wealth and of its greatness
29. 29. Who, according to Mandeville, committed the great villainies of the year 1720?

    Charity-school boys Poor ignorant rogues who could neither read nor write their names Foreign smugglers Wealthy and educated people, “great Masters in Arithmetick”
30. 30. In Cleomenes’s mock example of social virtue, what does the poor woman spend her forty shillings on?

    Bread for the poor of her parish during a hard winter A place for her son in a charity school, where he could learn to read Paying off a debt that her late husband owed to a neighbour A chimney-sweep apprenticeship for her son
31. 31. What name does Cleomenes coin for the instinct by which every creature values itself above its real worth?

    Self-approbation Self-liking Natural vanity Self-preference
32. 32. According to Cleomenes, what was the first purpose of speech?

    To make one’s thoughts known To teach children the names of things To persuade others to believe or do what the speaker wanted To praise the gods
33. 33. Which passions, according to Cleomenes, combine to produce reverence in a savage child?

    Love, fear and esteem Pride, awe and obedience Hope, envy and admiration Pity, shame and gratitude
34. 34. In Remark G, which liquor does Mandeville call the most destructive to the health and industry of the poor?

    Gin Burgundy Brandy Small beer
35. 35. How does Horatio finally compare the Fable of the Bees with Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks?

    The Fable is wittier and more learned The Characteristicks is truer but duller Both are equally false to nature and equally dangerous to revealed religion The Characteristicks is better written, but the Fable has more truth
36. 36. What false report about the author of the Fable does the Part II preface expose?

    That he had recanted his views in a sermon at Westminster That he had been arrested on a Middlesex Grand Jury warrant That he had fled to Holland to escape prosecution for blasphemy That he had publicly burned his own book at a bonfire before St James’s
37. 37. What does Mandeville say about the famous physician’s will?

    He left everything to a hospital for the poor and nothing to his needy relations He founded a charity school in every parish where he had practised as a young man He left his relations a trifle and a university that needed none a fortune He divided his estate equally among his relations and left nothing to any public body
38. 38. What does Mandeville say the courage useful to the body politic consists in?

    Religious faith in a reward after death Hunger and lust roused by the enemy A natural principle of valour distinct from the passions A horror of shame, instilled by flattery into proud men
39. 39. In the fable in Remark (P.), who debates with the lion?

    A Greek philosopher of the Stoic school A Carthaginian general An African slave hunter from the Gold Coast A shipwrecked Roman merchant
40. 40. To what machine does Cleomenes compare the laws of a well-ordered city, apologising for the low simile?

    A knitting-frame A ship’s chain-pump A printing-press with movable type A water-mill
41. 41. How does Mandeville define envy in Remark (N.)?

    As a virtue misnamed by moralists As a compound of grief and anger As a form of pity turned inward As a mixture of fear and hope
42. 42. Whom does Cleomenes name as the one man in antiquity who sincerely despised riches?

    Diogenes of Sinope Socrates of Athens Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus Anaxagoras of Clazomenae
43. 43. What does Mandeville use London’s dirty streets to illustrate?

    That London ought to copy Amsterdam’s methods of street-cleaning That the city government was corrupt and neglected its duties That some evils are inseparable from a city’s prosperity That the poor were to blame for disorder
44. 44. Who were the “Lords of six Weeks”?

    Spanish nobles living on American treasure Members of a short-lived Dutch government in the crisis of 1672 Dutch East India sailors squandering their pay ashore London apprentices on holiday
45. 45. In Remark B, what gives Decio the advantage over Alcander in their sugar deal?

    A new duty on imported sugar A bribe paid to Alcander’s clerk A forged letter from the West Indies reporting a glut of sugar News that the Barbados fleet had been destroyed by a storm
46. 46. Whom does Cleomenes call the most necessitous and helpless when considered alone?

    The savage living alone in the woods The newborn infant, as Hobbes had argued The nobleman waited on by many servants The day labourer living on daily wages