A cynical writer, born at Dordrecht, Holland; bred to medicine; came to London to practise; wrote in racy English the "Fable of the Bees," intended to show, as Stopford Brooke says, how the "vices of society are the foundation of civilisation," or as Professor Saintsbury says, how "vice makes some bees happy, and virtue makes them miserable"; the latter calls him "The Diogenes of English Philosophy"; he affirmed that "private vices are public benefits," and reduced virtue into a form of selfishness; his satire is directed against the ethics of Shaftesbury (q. v .) (1670-1733).
The Nuttall Encyclopædia: Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge[1] is a late 19th-century encyclopedia, edited by Rev. James Wood, first published in London in 1900 by Frederick Warne & Co Ltd.
WikipediaEditions were recorded for 1920, 1930, 1938 and 1956 and was still being sold in 1966. Editors included G. Elgie Christ and A. L. Hayden for 1930, Lawrence Hawkins Dawson for 1938 and C. M. Prior for 1956.[2]
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