needed. Mandeville, in contrast to Adam
Smith, put great and repeated stress on the importance of the role of
government in producing a strong and prosperous society, through
detailed and systematic regulation of economic activity.

It is a common misinterpretation of Mandeville in this respect to read
his motto, "Private Vices, Publick Benefits," as a laissez-faire motto,
postulating the natural or spontaneous harmony between individual
interests and the public good. The motto as it appeared on title pages
of _The Fable of the Bees_ was elliptical. In his text, Mandeville
repeatedly stated that it was by "the skilful Management of the clever
Politician" that private vices could be made to serve the public good,
thus ridding the formula of any implication of laissez-faire.

This is made clear beyond reasonable doubt by the _Letter to Dion_.
Berkeley, in _Alciphron_, had made Lysicles say: "Leave nature at full
freedom to work her own way, find all will be well." Mandeville, taking
this as directed against himself, disavows it vigorously, and cites the
stress he had put on "laws and governments" in _The Fable of the Bees_.
(pp. 3-4; see also 55). He repeats from _The Fable of the Bees_ his
explanation that when he used as a subtitle the "Private Vices, Publick
Benefits" motto, "I understood by it, that Private Vices, by the
dexterous Management of a skilful Politician, might be turned into
Publick Benefits." (pp. 36-37). Later he refers to the role of the
"skilful Management" of the "Legislator" (p. 42), and to "the Wisdom of
the Politician, by whose skilful Management the Private Vices of the
Worst of Men are made to turn to a Publick Benefit." (p. 45). "They are
silly People," he says, "who imagine, that the Good of the Whole is
consistent with the Good of every Individual." (p. 49).

A recent work[22] provides indirectly unintentional support to my
denial that Mandeville was an exponent of laissez-faire. In this work
we are told that "The most famous exponent of what Halevy calls the
natural identity of interests is Bernard Mandeville" and that "What
Mandeville did for the principle of the natural identity of interests
Helvetius did for that of their artificial identity," that is, "that
the chief utility of governments consists in their ability to force men
to act in their own best interests when they feel disinclined to do
so." It so happens, however, that Helvetius as an apostle of state
intervention was not only