Gulliver's Travels

he 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 had 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 the 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 companions. 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 superficies
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.

The frame

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 nouns.

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 lungs 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.