The Human-Animal Debate and the Enlightenment Body Politic: Emilie Du Châtelet’s Reading of Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees

Abstract

This article rereads Bernard Mandeville’s infamous poem The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices Publick Benefits (1714; 1723; 1729) and Emilie du Châtelet’s French translation (1735-1738) in the context of the eighteenth-century debates around the differences between humans and animals. It argues that the considerable alterations to the text undertaken by Châtelet should be understood as a response to Mandeville’s vitalistic theories of physical and political bodies, and their implications for his theory of political economy. Through close readings of the two versions of the Fable, the article shows that Châtelet’s reworking circumvents the idea – central to Mandeville’s text – that all living bodies, whether human or animal, are interconnected systems animated by vital ‘spirits’. I thus use Mandeville’s and Châtelet’s texts as a window for exploring the implications of different positions in the debate on the animal-human hierarchy.