GULLIVER’S
TRAVELS
PART 25
CHAPTER VII.
The author’s great love of his
native country. His master’s observations upon the constitution and
administration of England, as described by the author, with parallel cases and
comparisons. His master’s observations upon human nature.
The reader
may be disposed to wonder how I could prevail on myself to give so free a
representation of my own species, among a race of mortals who are already too
apt to conceive the vilest opinion of humankind, from that entire congruity
between me and their Yahoos. But I must freely confess, that the
many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human
corruptions, had so far opened my eyes and enlarged my understanding, that I
began to view the actions and passions of man in a very different light, and to
think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which, besides, it was
impossible for me to do, before a person of so acute a judgment as my master,
who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the
least perception before, and which, with us, would never be numbered even among
human infirmities. I had likewise learned, from his example, an utter
detestation of all falsehood or disguise; and truth appeared so amiable to me,
that I determined upon sacrificing every thing to it.
Let me
deal so candidly with the reader as to confess that there was yet a much
stronger motive for the freedom I took in my representation of things. I
had not yet been a year in this country before I contracted such a love and
veneration for the inhabitants, that I entered on a firm resolution never to
return to humankind, but to pass the rest of my life among these admirable Houyhnhnms,
in the contemplation and practice of every virtue, where I could have no
example or incitement to vice. But it was decreed by fortune, my
perpetual enemy, that so great a felicity should not fall to my share.
However, it is now some comfort to reflect, that in what I said of my
countrymen, I extenuated their faults as much as I durst before so strict an
examiner; and upon every article gave as favourable a turn as the matter would
bear. For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias
and partiality to the place of his birth?
I have
related the substance of several conversations I had with my master during the
greatest part of the time I had the honour to be in his service; but have,
indeed, for brevity sake, omitted much more than is here set down.
When I had
answered all his questions, and his curiosity seemed to be fully satisfied, he
sent for me one morning early, and commanded me to sit down at some distance
(an honour which he had never before conferred upon me). He said, “he had
been very seriously considering my whole story, as far as it related both to myself
and my country; that he looked upon us as a sort of animals, to whose share, by
what accident he could not conjecture, some small pittance of reason had
fallen, whereof we made no other use, than by its assistance, to aggravate our
natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which nature had not given us;
that we disarmed ourselves of the few abilities she had bestowed; had been very
successful in multiplying our original wants, and seemed to spend our whole
lives in vain endeavours to supply them by our own inventions; that, as to
myself, it was manifest I had neither the strength nor agility of a common Yahoo;
that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make
my claws of no use or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was
intended as a shelter from the sun and the weather: lastly, that I could
neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my brethren,” as he called them,
“the Yahoos in his country.
“That our
institutions of government and law were plainly owing to our gross defects in
reason, and by consequence in virtue; because reason alone is sufficient to
govern a rational creature; which was, therefore, a character we had no
pretence to challenge, even from the account I had given of my own people;
although he manifestly perceived, that, in order to favour them, I had
concealed many particulars, and often said the thing which was not.
“He was
the more confirmed in this opinion, because, he observed, that as I agreed in
every feature of my body with other Yahoos, except where it was to my
real disadvantage in point of strength, speed, and activity, the shortness of
my claws, and some other particulars where nature had no part; so from the
representation I had given him of our lives, our manners, and our actions, he
found as near a resemblance in the disposition of our minds.” He said,
“the Yahoos were known to hate one another, more than they did any
different species of animals; and the reason usually assigned was, the
odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the rest, but not in
themselves. He had therefore begun to think it not unwise in us to cover
our bodies, and by that invention conceal many of our deformities from each
other, which would else be hardly supportable. But he now found he had been
mistaken, and that the dissensions of those brutes in his country were owing to
the same cause with ours, as I had described them. For if,” said he, “you
throw among five Yahoos as much food as would be sufficient for fifty,
they will, instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the ears, each single
one impatient to have all to itself; and therefore a servant was usually
employed to stand by while they were feeding abroad, and those kept at home
were tied at a distance from each other: that if a cow died of age or accident,
before a Houyhnhnm could secure it for his own Yahoos, those in
the neighbourhood would come in herds to seize it, and then would ensue such a
battle as I had described, with terrible wounds made by their claws on both
sides, although they seldom were able to kill one another, for want of such
convenient instruments of death as we had invented. At other times, the
like battles have been fought between the Yahoos of several
neighbourhoods, without any visible cause; those of one district watching all
opportunities to surprise the next, before they are prepared. But if they
find their project has miscarried, they return home, and, for want of enemies,
engage in what I call a civil war among themselves.
“That in
some fields of his country there are certain shining stones of several colours,
whereof the Yahoos are violently fond: and when part of these stones is
fixed in the earth, as it sometimes happens, they will dig with their claws for
whole days to get them out; then carry them away, and hide them by heaps in
their kennels; but still looking round with great caution, for fear their
comrades should find out their treasure.” My master said, “he could never
discover the reason of this unnatural appetite, or how these stones could be of
any use to a Yahoo; but now he believed it might proceed from the same
principle of avarice which I had ascribed to mankind. That he had once,
by way of experiment, privately removed a heap of these stones from the place
where one of his Yahoos had buried it; whereupon the sordid animal,
missing his treasure, by his loud lamenting brought the whole herd to the
place, there miserably howled, then fell to biting and tearing the rest, began
to pine away, would neither eat, nor sleep, nor work, till he ordered a servant
privately to convey the stones into the same hole, and hide them as before;
which, when his Yahoo had found, he presently recovered his spirits and
good humour, but took good care to remove them to a better hiding place, and
has ever since been a very serviceable brute.”
My master
further assured me, which I also observed myself, “that in the fields where the
shining stones abound, the fiercest and most frequent battles are fought,
occasioned by perpetual inroads of the neighbouring Yahoos.”
He said,
“it was common, when two Yahoos discovered such a stone in a field, and
were contending which of them should be the proprietor, a third would take the
advantage, and carry it away from them both;” which my master would needs
contend to have some kind of resemblance with our suits at law; wherein I
thought it for our credit not to undeceive him; since the decision he mentioned
was much more equitable than many decrees among us; because the plaintiff and
defendant there lost nothing beside the stone they contended for: whereas our
courts of equity would never have dismissed the cause, while either of them had
any thing left.
My master,
continuing his discourse, said, “there was nothing that rendered the Yahoos
more odious, than their undistinguishing appetite to devour every thing that
came in their way, whether herbs, roots, berries, the corrupted flesh of
animals, or all mingled together: and it was peculiar in their temper, that
they were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth, at a greater
distance, than much better food provided for them at home. If their prey
held out, they would eat till they were ready to burst; after which, nature had
pointed out to them a certain root that gave them a general evacuation.
“There was
also another kind of root, very juicy, but somewhat rare and difficult to be
found, which the Yahoos sought for with much eagerness, and would suck
it with great delight; it produced in them the same effects that wine has upon
us. It would make them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another;
they would howl, and grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall
asleep in the mud.”
I did
indeed observe that the Yahoos were the only animals in this country
subject to any diseases; which, however, were much fewer than horses have among
us, and contracted, not by any ill-treatment they meet with, but by the
nastiness and greediness of that sordid brute. Neither has their language
any more than a general appellation for those maladies, which is borrowed from
the name of the beast, and called hnea-yahoo, or Yahoo’s evil;
and the cure prescribed is a mixture of their own dung and urine, forcibly put
down the Yahoo’s throat. This I have since often known to have
been taken with success, and do here freely recommend it to my countrymen for
the public good, as an admirable specific against all diseases produced by
repletion.
“As to
learning, government, arts, manufactures, and the like,” my master confessed,
“he could find little or no resemblance between the Yahoos of that
country and those in ours; for he only meant to observe what parity there was
in our natures. He had heard, indeed, some curious Houyhnhnms
observe, that in most herds there was a sort of ruling Yahoo (as among
us there is generally some leading or principal stag in a park), who was always
more deformed in body, and mischievous in disposition, than any of the rest;
that this leader had usually a favourite as like himself as he could get, whose
employment was to lick his master’s feet and posteriors, and drive the female Yahoos
to his kennel; for which he was now and then rewarded with a piece of ass’s
flesh. This favourite is hated by the whole herd, and therefore, to
protect himself, keeps always near the person of his leader. He usually
continues in office till a worse can be found; but the very moment he is
discarded, his successor, at the head of all the Yahoos in that
district, young and old, male and female, come in a body, and discharge their
excrements upon him from head to foot. But how far this might be
applicable to our courts, and favourites, and ministers of state, my master
said I could best determine.”
I durst
make no return to this malicious insinuation, which debased human understanding
below the sagacity of a common hound, who has judgment enough to distinguish
and follow the cry of the ablest dog in the pack, without being ever mistaken.
My master
told me, “there were some qualities remarkable in the Yahoos, which he
had not observed me to mention, or at least very slightly, in the accounts I
had given of humankind.” He said, “those animals, like other brutes, had
their females in common; but in this they differed, that the she Yahoo
would admit the males while she was pregnant; and that the hes would quarrel
and fight with the females, as fiercely as with each other; both which
practices were such degrees of infamous brutality, as no other sensitive
creature ever arrived at.
“Another
thing he wondered at in the Yahoos, was their strange disposition to
nastiness and dirt; whereas there appears to be a natural love of cleanliness
in all other animals.” As to the two former accusations, I was glad to
let them pass without any reply, because I had not a word to offer upon them in
defence of my species, which otherwise I certainly had done from my own
inclinations. But I could have easily vindicated humankind from the
imputation of singularity upon the last article, if there had been any swine in
that country (as unluckily for me there were not), which, although it may be a sweeter
quadruped than a Yahoo, cannot, I humbly conceive, in justice, pretend
to more cleanliness; and so his honour himself must have owned, if he had seen
their filthy way of feeding, and their custom of wallowing and sleeping in the
mud.
My master
likewise mentioned another quality which his servants had discovered in several
Yahoos, and to him was wholly unaccountable. He said, “a fancy would
sometimes take a Yahoo to retire into a corner, to lie down, and howl,
and groan, and spurn away all that came near him, although he were young and
fat, wanted neither food nor water, nor did the servant imagine what could
possibly ail him. And the only remedy they found was, to set him to hard
work, after which he would infallibly come to himself.” To this I was
silent out of partiality to my own kind; yet here I could plainly discover the
true seeds of spleen, which only seizes on the lazy, the luxurious, and the
rich; who, if they were forced to undergo the same regimen, I would undertake
for the cure.
His honour
had further observed, “that a female Yahoo would often stand behind a
bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males passing by, and then appear, and
hide, using many antic gestures and grimaces, at which time it was observed
that she had a most offensive smell; and when any of the males advanced, would
slowly retire, looking often back, and with a counterfeit show of fear, run off
into some convenient place, where she knew the male would follow her.
“At other
times, if a female stranger came among them, three or four of her own sex would
get about her, and stare, and chatter, and grin, and smell her all over; and
then turn off with gestures, that seemed to express contempt and disdain.”
Perhaps my
master might refine a little in these speculations, which he had drawn from
what he observed himself, or had been told him by others; however, I could not
reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of
lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in
womankind.
I expected
every moment that my master would accuse the Yahoos of those unnatural
appetites in both sexes, so common among us. But nature, it seems, has
not been so expert a school-mistress; and these politer pleasures are entirely
the productions of art and reason on our side of the globe.
CHAPTER VIII.
The author relates several
particulars of the Yahoos. The great virtues of the Houyhnhnms.
The education and exercise of their youth. Their general assembly.
As I ought
to have understood human nature much better than I supposed it possible for my
master to do, so it was easy to apply the character he gave of the Yahoos
to myself and my countrymen; and I believed I could yet make further
discoveries, from my own observation. I therefore often begged his honour
to let me go among the herds of Yahoos in the neighbourhood; to which he
always very graciously consented, being perfectly convinced that the hatred I
bore these brutes would never suffer me to be corrupted by them; and his honour
ordered one of his servants, a strong sorrel nag, very honest and good-natured,
to be my guard; without whose protection I durst not undertake such
adventures. For I have already told the reader how much I was pestered by
these odious animals, upon my first arrival; and I afterwards failed very
narrowly, three or four times, of falling into their clutches, when I happened
to stray at any distance without my hanger. And I have reason to believe
they had some imagination that I was of their own species, which I often assisted
myself by stripping up my sleeves, and showing my naked arms and breasts in
their sight, when my protector was with me. At which times they would
approach as near as they durst, and imitate my actions after the manner of
monkeys, but ever with great signs of hatred; as a tame jackdaw with cap and
stockings is always persecuted by the wild ones, when he happens to be got
among them.
They are
prodigiously nimble from their infancy. However, I once caught a young
male of three years old, and endeavoured, by all marks of tenderness, to make
it quiet; but the little imp fell a squalling, and scratching, and biting with
such violence, that I was forced to let it go; and it was high time, for a
whole troop of old ones came about us at the noise, but finding the cub was
safe (for away it ran), and my sorrel nag being by, they durst not venture near
us. I observed the young animal’s flesh to smell very rank, and the stink
was somewhat between a weasel and a fox, but much more disagreeable. I
forgot another circumstance (and perhaps I might have the reader’s pardon if it
were wholly omitted), that while I held the odious vermin in my hands, it
voided its filthy excrements of a yellow liquid substance all over my clothes;
but by good fortune there was a small brook hard by, where I washed myself as
clean as I could; although I durst not come into my master’s presence until I
were sufficiently aired.
By what I
could discover, the Yahoos appear to be the most unteachable of all
animals: their capacity never reaching higher than to draw or carry
burdens. Yet I am of opinion, this defect arises chiefly from a perverse,
restive disposition; for they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and
revengeful. They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and, by
consequence, insolent, abject, and cruel. It is observed, that the red
haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom
yet they much exceed in strength and activity.
The Houyhnhnms
keep the Yahoos for present use in huts not far from the house; but the
rest are sent abroad to certain fields, where they dig up roots, eat several
kinds of herbs, and search about for carrion, or sometimes catch weasels and luhimuhs
(a sort of wild rat), which they greedily devour. Nature has taught them
to dig deep holes with their nails on the side of a rising ground, wherein they
lie by themselves; only the kennels of the females are larger, sufficient to
hold two or three cubs.
They swim
from their infancy like frogs, and are able to continue long under water, where
they often take fish, which the females carry home to their young. And,
upon this occasion, I hope the reader will pardon my relating an odd adventure.
Being one
day abroad with my protector the sorrel nag, and the weather exceeding hot, I
entreated him to let me bathe in a river that was near. He consented, and
I immediately stripped myself stark naked, and went down softly into the
stream. It happened that a young female Yahoo, standing behind a
bank, saw the whole proceeding, and inflamed by desire, as the nag and I
conjectured, came running with all speed, and leaped into the water, within
five yards of the place where I bathed. I was never in my life so
terribly frightened. The nag was grazing at some distance, not suspecting
any harm. She embraced me after a most fulsome manner. I roared as
loud as I could, and the nag came galloping towards me, whereupon she quitted
her grasp, with the utmost reluctancy, and leaped upon the opposite bank, where
she stood gazing and howling all the time I was putting on my clothes.
This was a
matter of diversion to my master and his family, as well as of mortification to
myself. For now I could no longer deny that I was a real Yahoo in
every limb and feature, since the females had a natural propensity to me, as
one of their own species. Neither was the hair of this brute of a red
colour (which might have been some excuse for an appetite a little irregular),
but black as a sloe, and her countenance did not make an appearance altogether
so hideous as the rest of her kind; for I think she could not be above eleven
years old.
Having
lived three years in this country, the reader, I suppose, will expect that I
should, like other travellers, give him some account of the manners and customs
of its inhabitants, which it was indeed my principal study to learn.
As these
noble Houyhnhnms are endowed by nature with a general disposition to all
virtues, and have no conceptions or ideas of what is evil in a rational
creature, so their grand maxim is, to cultivate reason, and to be wholly
governed by it. Neither is reason among them a point problematical, as
with us, where men can argue with plausibility on both sides of the question,
but strikes you with immediate conviction; as it must needs do, where it is not
mingled, obscured, or discoloured, by passion and interest. I remember it
was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the
meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason
taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge
we cannot do either. So that controversies, wranglings, disputes, and
positiveness, in false or dubious propositions, are evils unknown among the Houyhnhnms.
In the like manner, when I used to explain to him our several systems of
natural philosophy, he would laugh, “that a creature pretending to reason,
should value itself upon the knowledge of other people’s conjectures, and in
things where that knowledge, if it were certain, could be of no use.”
Wherein he agreed entirely with the sentiments of Socrates, as Plato delivers
them; which I mention as the highest honour I can do that prince of
philosophers. I have often since reflected, what destruction such
doctrine would make in the libraries of Europe; and how many paths of fame
would be then shut up in the learned world.
Friendship
and benevolence are the two principal virtues among the Houyhnhnms; and
these not confined to particular objects, but universal to the whole race; for
a stranger from the remotest part is equally treated with the nearest
neighbour, and wherever he goes, looks upon himself as at home. They
preserve decency and civility in the highest degrees, but are altogether ignorant
of ceremony. They have no fondness for their colts or foals, but the care
they take in educating them proceeds entirely from the dictates of
reason. And I observed my master to show the same affection to his
neighbour’s issue, that he had for his own. They will have it that nature
teaches them to love the whole species, and it is reason only that makes a
distinction of persons, where there is a superior degree of virtue.
When the
matron Houyhnhnms have produced one of each sex, they no longer accompany
with their consorts, except they lose one of their issue by some casualty,
which very seldom happens; but in such a case they meet again; or when the like
accident befalls a person whose wife is past bearing, some other couple bestow
on him one of their own colts, and then go together again until the mother is
pregnant. This caution is necessary, to prevent the country from being
overburdened with numbers. But the race of inferior Houyhnhnms,
bred up to be servants, is not so strictly limited upon this article: these are
allowed to produce three of each sex, to be domestics in the noble families.
In their
marriages, they are exactly careful to choose such colours as will not make any
disagreeable mixture in the breed. Strength is chiefly valued in the
male, and comeliness in the female; not upon the account of love, but to
preserve the race from degenerating; for where a female happens to excel in
strength, a consort is chosen, with regard to comeliness.
Courtship,
love, presents, jointures, settlements have no place in their thoughts, or
terms whereby to express them in their language. The young couple meet,
and are joined, merely because it is the determination of their parents and
friends; it is what they see done every day, and they look upon it as one of
the necessary actions of a reasonable being. But the violation of
marriage, or any other unchastity, was never heard of; and the married pair
pass their lives with the same friendship and mutual benevolence, that they
bear to all others of the same species who come in their way, without jealousy,
fondness, quarrelling, or discontent.
In
educating the youth of both sexes, their method is admirable, and highly
deserves our imitation. These are not suffered to taste a grain of oats,
except upon certain days, till eighteen years old; nor milk, but very rarely;
and in summer they graze two hours in the morning, and as many in the evening,
which their parents likewise observe; but the servants are not allowed above
half that time, and a great part of their grass is brought home, which they eat
at the most convenient hours, when they can be best spared from work.
Temperance,
industry, exercise, and cleanliness, are the lessons equally enjoined to the
young ones of both sexes: and my master thought it monstrous in us, to give the
females a different kind of education from the males, except in some articles
of domestic management; whereby, as he truly observed, one half of our natives
were good for nothing but bringing children into the world; and to trust the
care of our children to such useless animals, he said, was yet a greater
instance of brutality.
But the Houyhnhnms
train up their youth to strength, speed, and hardiness, by exercising them in
running races up and down steep hills, and over hard stony grounds; and when
they are all in a sweat, they are ordered to leap over head and ears into a
pond or river. Four times a year the youth of a certain district meet to
show their proficiency in running and leaping, and other feats of strength and agility;
where the victor is rewarded with a song in his or her praise. On this
festival, the servants drive a herd of Yahoos into the field, laden with
hay, and oats, and milk, for a repast to the Houyhnhnms; after which,
these brutes are immediately driven back again, for fear of being noisome to
the assembly.
Every
fourth year, at the vernal equinox, there is a representative council of the
whole nation, which meets in a plain about twenty miles from our house, and
continues about five or six days. Here they inquire into the state and
condition of the several districts; whether they abound or be deficient in hay
or oats, or cows, or Yahoos; and wherever there is any want (which is
but seldom) it is immediately supplied by unanimous consent and
contribution. Here likewise the regulation of children is settled: as for
instance, if a Houyhnhnm has two males, he changes one of them with
another that has two females; and when a child has been lost by any casualty,
where the mother is past breeding, it is determined what family in the district
shall breed another to supply the loss.
To be continued
