Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
sloth before the general improvement of their country.”
His lordship added, “That he would not, by any further particulars,
prevent the pleasure I should certainly take in viewing the grand
academy, whither he was resolved I should go.” He only desired me to
observe a ruined building, upon the side of a mountain about three
miles distant, of which he gave me this account: “That he had a very
convenient mill within half a mile of his house, turned by a current
from a large river, and sufficient for his own family, as well as a
great number of his tenants; that about seven years ago, a club of
those projectors came to him with proposals to destroy this mill, and
build another on the side of that mountain, on the long ridge whereof a
long canal must be cut, for a repository of water, to be conveyed up by
pipes and engines to supply the mill, because the wind and air upon a
height agitated the water, and thereby made it fitter for motion, and
because the water, descending down a declivity, would turn the mill
with half the current of a river whose course is more upon a level.” He
said, “that being then not very well with the court, and pressed by
many of his friends, he complied with the proposal; and after employing
a hundred men for two years, the work miscarried, the projectors went
off, laying the blame entirely upon him, railing at him ever since, and
putting others upon the same experiment, with equal assurance of
success, as well as equal disappointment.”
In a few days we came back to town; and his excellency, considering the
bad character he had in the academy, would not go with me himself, but
recommended me to a friend of his, to bear me company thither. My lord
was pleased to represent me as a great admirer of projects, and a
person of much curiosity and easy belief; which, indeed, was not
without truth; for I had myself been a sort of projector in my younger
days.
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 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