One of the most outspoken and provocative authors of his century, Bernard Mandeville influenced many later writers including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Claude Adrien Helvétius, David Hume, and Adam Smith. He is remembered by historians of economic theory for his ideas on luxury, wealth and poverty, and government regulation of commerce, and he is also recognized as a significant forerunner of modern sociology. When we ponder his wide cultural impact, the paucity of facts about his life seems most regrettable.

The son of Michael and Judith (Verhaar) de Mandeville, he was born in Dort or Rotterdam in 1670, attended the Erasmian School in Rotterdam, and later studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Leyden, receiving the M.D. in 1691 and thereby continuing a family tradition with a career in medicine. A few passages in his published work suggest that he may have visited Paris and Rome. In...