GULLIVER’S
TRAVELS
PART 19
CHAPTER V.
The author permitted to see the
grand academy of Lagado. The academy largely described. The arts
wherein the professors employ themselves.
This
academy is not an entire single building, but a continuation of several houses
on both sides of a street, which growing waste, was purchased and applied to
that use.
I was
received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the
academy. Every room has in it one or more projectors; and I believe I
could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms.
The first
man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard
long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin,
were all of the same colour. He has been eight years upon a project for
extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials
hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement
summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he
should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable
rate: but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me “to give him
something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a
very dear season for cucumbers.” I made him a small present, for my lord
had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of
begging from all who go to see them.
I went
into another chamber, but was ready to hasten back, being almost overcome with
a horrible stink. My conductor pressed me forward, conjuring me in a
whisper “to give no offence, which would be highly resented;” and therefore I
durst not so much as stop my nose. The projector of this cell was the
most ancient student of the academy; his face and beard were of a pale yellow;
his hands and clothes daubed over with filth. When I was presented to
him, he gave me a close embrace, a compliment I could well have excused.
His employment, from his first coming into the academy, was an operation to
reduce human excrement to its original food, by separating the several parts,
removing the tincture which it receives from the gall, making the odour exhale,
and scumming off the saliva. He had a weekly allowance, from the society,
of a vessel filled with human ordure, about the bigness of a Bristol barrel.
I saw another
at work to calcine ice into gunpowder; who likewise showed me a treatise he had
written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publish.
There was
a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method for building houses,
by beginning at the roof, and working downward to the foundation; which he
justified to me, by the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and
the spider.
There was
a man born blind, who had several apprentices in his own condition: their
employment was to mix colours for painters, which their master taught them to
distinguish by feeling and smelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find
them at that time not very perfect in their lessons, and the professor himself
happened to be generally mistaken. This artist is much encouraged and
esteemed by the whole fraternity.
In another
apartment I was highly pleased with a projector who had found a device of
ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the charges of ploughs, cattle, and
labour. The method is this: in an acre of ground you bury, at six inches
distance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast
or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest; then you drive six hundred or
more of them into the field, where, in a few days, they will root up the whole
ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time
manuring it with their dung: it is true, upon experiment, they found the charge
and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However it is not
doubted, that this invention may be capable of great improvement.
I went
into another room, where the walls and ceiling were all hung round with
cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artist to go in and out. At my
entrance, he called aloud to me, “not to disturb his webs.” He lamented
“the fatal mistake the world had been so long in, of using silkworms, while we
had such plenty of domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because
they understood how to weave, as well as spin.” And he proposed further,
“that by employing spiders, the charge of dyeing silks should be wholly saved;”
whereof I was fully convinced, when he showed me a vast number of flies most
beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us “that the webs
would take a tincture from them; and as he had them of all hues, he hoped to
fit everybody’s fancy, as soon as he could find proper food for the flies, of
certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter, to give a strength and
consistence to the threads.”
There was
an astronomer, who had undertaken to place a sun-dial upon the great
weathercock on the town-house, by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of
the earth and sun, so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of
the wind.
I was
complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my conductor led me into a
room where a great physician resided, who was famous for curing that disease,
by contrary operations from the same instrument. He had a large pair of
bellows, with a long slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up
the anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make the guts as lank
as a dried bladder. But when the disease was more stubborn and violent,
he let in the muzzle while the bellows were full of wind, which he discharged
into the body of the patient; then withdrew the instrument to replenish it,
clapping his thumb strongly against the orifice of then fundament; and this
being repeated three or four times, the adventitious wind would rush out, bringing
the noxious along with it, (like water put into a pump), and the patient
recovered. I saw him try both experiments upon a dog, but could not
discern any effect from the former. After the latter the animal was ready
to burst, and made so violent a discharge as was very offensive to me and my
companion. The dog died on the spot, and we left the doctor endeavouring
to recover him, by the same operation.
I visited
many other apartments, but shall not trouble my reader with all the curiosities
I observed, being studious of brevity.
I had
hitherto seen only one side of the academy, the other being appropriated to the
advancers of speculative learning, of whom I shall say something, when I have
mentioned one illustrious person more, who is called among them “the universal
artist.” He told us “he had been thirty years employing his thoughts for
the improvement of human life.” He had two large rooms full of wonderful
curiosities, and fifty men at work. Some were condensing air into a dry
tangible substance, by extracting the nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid
particles percolate; others softening marble, for pillows and pin-cushions;
others petrifying the hoofs of a living horse, to preserve them from
foundering. The artist himself was at that time busy upon two great designs;
the first, to sow land with chaff, wherein he affirmed the true seminal virtue
to be contained, as he demonstrated by several experiments, which I was not
skilful enough to comprehend. The other was, by a certain composition of
gums, minerals, and vegetables, outwardly applied, to prevent the growth of
wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped, in a reasonable time to propagate the
breed of naked sheep, all over the kingdom.
We crossed
a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I have already said, the
projectors in speculative learning resided.
The first
professor I saw, was in a very large room, with forty pupils about him.
After salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a frame, which took up
the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he said, “Perhaps
I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative
knowledge, by practical and mechanical operations. But the world would
soon be sensible of its usefulness; and he flattered himself, that a more
noble, exalted thought never sprang in any other man’s head. Every one
knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences;
whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge,
and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry,
politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from
genius or study.” He then led me to the frame, about the sides, whereof
all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the
middle of the room. The superfices was composed of several bits of wood,
about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all
linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on
every square, with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all
the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions;
but without any order. The professor then desired me “to observe; for he
was going to set his engine at work.” The pupils, at his command, took
each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the
edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the
words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads,
to read the several lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where
they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence,
they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was
repeated three or four times, and at every turn, the engine was so contrived,
that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside
down.
Six hours
a day the young students were employed in this labour; and the professor showed
me several volumes in large folio, already collected, of broken sentences,
which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials, to give
the world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however, might be
still improved, and much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making
and employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers to
contribute in common their several collections.
He assured
me “that this invention had employed all his thoughts from his youth; that he
had emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame, and made the strictest
computation of the general proportion there is in books between the numbers of
particles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech.”
I made my
humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious person, for his great
communicativeness; and promised, “if ever I had the good fortune to return to
my native country, that I would do him justice, as the sole inventor of this
wonderful machine;” the form and contrivance of which I desired leave to
delineate on paper, as in the figure here annexed. I told him, “although
it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal inventions from each
other, who had thereby at least this advantage, that it became a controversy
which was the right owner; yet I would take such caution, that he should have
the honour entire, without a rival.”
We next
went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation
upon improving that of their own country.
The first
project was, to shorten discourse, by cutting polysyllables into one, and
leaving out verbs and participles, because, in reality, all things imaginable
are but norms.
The other
project was, a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this
was urged as a great advantage in point of health, as well as brevity.
For it is plain, that every word we speak is, in some degree, a diminution of
our lunge by corrosion, and, consequently, contributes to the shortening of our
lives. An expedient was therefore offered, “that since words are only
names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them
such things as were necessary to express a particular business they are to
discourse on.” And this invention would certainly have taken place, to
the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction
with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion unless
they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner
of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the
common people. However, many of the most learned and wise adhere to the
new scheme of expressing themselves by things; which has only this
inconvenience attending it, that if a man’s business be very great, and of
various kinds, he must be obliged, in proportion, to carry a greater bundle of
things upon his back, unless he can afford one or two strong servants to attend
him. I have often beheld two of those sages almost sinking under the
weight of their packs, like pedlars among us, who, when they met in the street,
would lay down their loads, open their sacks, and hold conversation for an hour
together; then put up their implements, help each other to resume their
burdens, and take their leave.
But for
short conversations, a man may carry implements in his pockets, and under his
arms, enough to supply him; and in his house, he cannot be at a loss.
Therefore the room where company meet who practise this art, is full of all
things, ready at hand, requisite to furnish matter for this kind of artificial
converse.
Another
great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it would serve as a
universal language, to be understood in all civilised nations, whose goods and
utensils are generally of the same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses
might easily be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified to
treat with foreign princes, or ministers of state, to whose tongues they were
utter strangers.
I was at
the mathematical school, where the master taught his pupils after a method
scarce imaginable to us in Europe. The proposition, and demonstration,
were fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic
tincture. This, the student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and
for three days following, eat nothing but bread and water. As the wafer
digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the proposition along with
it. But the success has not hitherto been answerable, partly by some
error in the quantum or composition, and partly by the perverseness of
lads, to whom this bolus is so nauseous, that they generally steal aside, and
discharge it upwards, before it can operate; neither have they been yet
persuaded to use so long an abstinence, as the prescription requires.
CHAPTER VI.
A further account of the academy.
The author proposes some improvements, which are honourably received.
In the
school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained; the professors
appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses, which is a scene that
never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing
schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their
wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good;
of rewarding merit, great abilities, eminent services; of instructing princes
to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of
their people; of choosing for employments persons qualified to exercise them,
with many other wild, impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the
heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, “that there
is nothing so extravagant and irrational, which some philosophers have not
maintained for truth.”
But,
however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the Academy, as to
acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary. There was a most
ingenious doctor, who seemed to be perfectly versed in the whole nature and
system of government. This illustrious person had very usefully employed
his studies, in finding out effectual remedies for all diseases and corruptions
to which the several kinds of public administration are subject, by the vices
or infirmities of those who govern, as well as by the licentiousness of those
who are to obey. For instance: whereas all writers and reasoners have
agreed, that there is a strict universal resemblance between the natural and
the political body; can there be any thing more evident, than that the health
of both must be preserved, and the diseases cured, by the same prescriptions?
It is allowed, that senates and great councils are often troubled with
redundant, ebullient, and other peccant humours; with many diseases of the
head, and more of the heart; with strong convulsions, with grievous
contractions of the nerves and sinews in both hands, but especially the right;
with spleen, flatus, vertigos, and deliriums; with scrofulous tumours, full of
fetid purulent matter; with sour frothy ructations: with canine appetites, and
crudeness of digestion, besides many others, needless to mention. This
doctor therefore proposed, “that upon the meeting of the senate, certain
physicians should attend it the three first days of their sitting, and at the
close of each day’s debate feel the pulses of every senator; after which,
having maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of the several
maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day return to the
senate house, attended by their apothecaries stored with proper medicines; and
before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives,
abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics,
icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their several cases required; and,
according as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them, at
the next meeting.”
This
project could not be of any great expense to the public; and might in my poor
opinion, be of much use for the despatch of business, in those countries where
senates have any share in the legislative power; beget unanimity, shorten
debates, open a few mouths which are now closed, and close many more which are
now open; curb the petulancy of the young, and correct the positiveness of the
old; rouse the stupid, and damp the pert.
Again:
because it is a general complaint, that the favourites of princes are troubled
with short and weak memories; the same doctor proposed, “that whoever attended
a first minister, after having told his business, with the utmost brevity and
in the plainest words, should, at his departure, give the said minister a tweak
by the nose, or a kick in the belly, or tread on his corns, or lug him thrice
by both ears, or run a pin into his breech; or pinch his arm black and blue, to
prevent forgetfulness; and at every levee day, repeat the same operation, till
the business were done, or absolutely refused.”
He
likewise directed, “that every senator in the great council of a nation, after
he had delivered his opinion, and argued in the defence of it, should be
obliged to give his vote directly contrary; because if that were done, the
result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public.”
When
parties in a state are violent, he offered a wonderful contrivance to reconcile
them. The method is this: You take a hundred leaders of each party; you
dispose them into couples of such whose heads are nearest of a size; then let
two nice operators saw off the occiput of each couple at the same time, in such
a manner that the brain may be equally divided. Let the occiputs, thus
cut off, be interchanged, applying each to the head of his opposite
party-man. It seems indeed to be a work that requires some exactness, but
the professor assured us, “that if it were dexterously performed, the cure
would be infallible.” For he argued thus: “that the two half brains being
left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull,
would soon come to a good understanding, and produce that moderation, as well
as regularity of thinking, so much to be wished for in the heads of those, who
imagine they come into the world only to watch and govern its motion: and as to
the difference of brains, in quantity or quality, among those who are directors
in faction, the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, that “it was a
perfect trifle.”
I heard a
very warm debate between two professors, about the most commodious and
effectual ways and means of raising money, without grieving the subject.
The first affirmed, “the justest method would be, to lay a certain tax upon
vices and folly; and the sum fixed upon every man to be rated, after the
fairest manner, by a jury of his neighbours.” The second was of an
opinion directly contrary; “to tax those qualities of body and mind, for which
men chiefly value themselves; the rate to be more or less, according to the
degrees of excelling; the decision whereof should be left entirely to their own
breast.” The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of
the other sex, and the assessments, according to the number and nature of the
favours they have received; for which, they are allowed to be their own
vouchers. Wit, valour, and politeness, were likewise proposed to be
largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person’s giving his
own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honour, justice,
wisdom, and learning, they should not be taxed at all; because they are
qualifications of so singular a kind, that no man will either allow them in his
neighbour or value them in himself.
The women
were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill in dressing,
wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be determined by their own
judgment. But constancy, chastity, good sense, and good nature, were not
rated, because they would not bear the charge of collecting.
To keep
senators in the interest of the crown, it was proposed that the members should
raffle for employment; every man first taking an oath, and giving security,
that he would vote for the court, whether he won or not; after which, the
losers had, in their turn, the liberty of raffling upon the next vacancy.
Thus, hope and expectation would be kept alive; none would complain of broken
promises, but impute their disappointments wholly to fortune, whose shoulders
are broader and stronger than those of a ministry.
Another
professor showed me a large paper of instructions for discovering plots and
conspiracies against the government. He advised great statesmen to
examine into the diet of all suspected persons; their times of eating; upon
which side they lay in bed; with which hand they wipe their posteriors; take a
strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste,
the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of
their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and
intent, as when they are at stool, which he found by frequent experiment; for,
in such conjunctures, when he used, merely as a trial, to consider which was
the best way of murdering the king, his ordure would have a tincture of green;
but quite different, when he thought only of raising an insurrection, or
burning the metropolis.
The whole
discourse was written with great acuteness, containing many observations, both
curious and useful for politicians; but, as I conceived, not altogether
complete. This I ventured to tell the author, and offered, if he pleased,
to supply him with some additions. He received my proposition with more
compliance than is usual among writers, especially those of the projecting
species, professing “he would be glad to receive further information.”
I told
him, “that in the kingdom of Tribnia, [454a] by the natives called Langdon, [454b] where I had sojourned some time in my
travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers,
witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with
their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the
conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and their deputies. The
plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire
to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigour to
a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their
coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as
either shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and
settled among them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then,
effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the
owners in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very
dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and
letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy
council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a
standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet,
a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court
lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a
treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court
of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration. [455]
“When this
method fails, they have two others more effectual, which the learned among them
call acrostics and anagrams. First, they can decipher all initial letters
into political meanings. Thus N, shall signify a plot; B, a
regiment of horse; L, a fleet at sea; or, secondly, by transposing the
letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they can lay open the deepest
designs of a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say, in a
letter to a friend, ‘Our brother Tom has just got the piles,’ a skilful
decipherer would discover, that the same letters which compose that sentence,
may be analysed into the following words, ‘Resist ---, a plot is brought
home—The tour.’ And this is the anagrammatic method.”
The
professor made me great acknowledgments for communicating these observations,
and promised to make honourable mention of me in his treatise.
I saw
nothing in this country that could invite me to a longer continuance, and began
to think of returning home to England.
To be continued
