Thursday, November 26, 2020



A journey
through 
human 
passions.


By: Jorge L. Villate

 






Love, why do we one passion call,

When’tis a compound of them all?

Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet,

In all their equipages meet;

Where pleasures mixed with pains appear,

Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear. 


From Cadenus and Vanessa

 

Contents:

[1] • Proem.

•The microscopic perspective: Fear and power.

•The macroscopic perspective: Boldness (confidence) and Desire (or The other side of fear: reactive - active)

•The Ethereal Perspective.

. - Laputa. (An island on the air)

. - The lower word perspective: The hidden history or The falling of idols.

. - The Chimera of immortality.

•The rational perspective (or our oldest and more cherished lie)

•The human perspective (or The return to the Cave.)

 

Abstract: Against rationalist assumptions on human nature, Gulliver’s Travels… offers a trip through human passions to reveal how far are humans from being rational creatures as it has been philosophically assumed. The set of passions embodied by characters-symbols are shown in action through different perspectives, assuming rational appearances and outcomes. All this leads us to question whether reason is capable of describing and ultimately amending passions, without becoming or discovering itself as the most powerful of them at once, but not being ultimately more than “a slave of passions” or a passion itself.

 Proem.

If Gulliver’s Travels into several remote nations of the world [GT. hereinafter] has some peculiar way to be read, it is because one need to read the letter to “…his cousin Sympsom”[1] both as prolog and epilog.  The real meaning of this letter as introduction to depict human nature, can be understood since the whole description of human passions through the first three parts is completed by comparing two kind of archetypal creatures: the brutal ones called Yahoos with this sort of rational beings called Houyhnhnms, but having in mind all the previous characters which represent distinctly some aspects of human nature mixed with and comprehended from the usual assumptions or figurations that humans usually have about themselves.

One of the questions aroused when comparing such allegorical creatures between them and to humans, and rereading all the G.T. previous part is: How do supposedly rational beings, humans, are dominated most of the time by passions barely indistinguishable from their thoughts and mind (rational proposals: morals, aesthetics, politics…)? Is there any solution to such muddle or there is more than that or even something totally different and even worse? How to sustain still the fundamental Aristotelian assumption –assumed by all the post Aristotelians and renovated by the Rationalism in 17th, not without some doubts since 16th[2]– which defines humans as rational animals? Is it Reason something essential to humans or it is just a mere accident driven by passions? How could reason transform passions into virtues or tame them if it is so seducible (manageable)? How to be so sure that the so called virtues are not outcomes of any passion, and ultimately are serving to it? Would reason have to seduce passions to dominate, lessen or tame them? If so, would it be any other leading passion rather than reason as it has been traditionally recognized and assumed? Ultimately, all these questions drive us to inquiry about what it means to be human since reason had been recognized until the eighteenth century as an important element at least of human nature.

This letter introduces Gulliver’s (G. hereinafter) doubts about his proposal to amend humans, and ultimately whether humans can be called as such or they better deserve the appellation of Yahoos or even something worse. Curiously, G. doesn’t  refer directly to stories about “humans” (Europeans or British) through all his writing, except to himself, who begins this travel just for his “… insatiable desire of seeing foreign countries…”[3] which could be interpreted as a desire of knowing different people or cultures than of England and Europe.

But this travel is only an attempt to describe deeply common passions inherent to a wide gradation of ‘rational creatures’ facing unusual challenges, whose rationality seems, on the one hand,  to vanish itself on Yahoos and to reach, on the other hand, its highest level in Houyhnhnms, as two-faces of an extreme representation about humans, which leads to question why do Yahoos fit to humans so disturbingly well, while Houyhnhnms attracts us so powerfully?

As both character and narrator, G. himself and all the characters assume opposed perspectives from passions to virtues: from fear to courage, from despair to hope, from ambition to selflessness, from hatred to love, from lying-concealing to truth, and ultimately from passion to reason and vice versa. His writing works as a mental experiment which sets risky situations, amplifying some human features to expose how characters display virtues, vices, passions,  since facing unexpected (limit, extreme) situations.[4] Therefore, all parts and characters of GT. embody the interaction of passions and reason that leads to an incisive description of human nature as essentially a passional one.[5]

Since somehow referred to a historical background, the characters represent some biographical references, but they aim furthermore to epitomize passions by using psycho-physiological features[6] to show how passions work not only as fuel of human behavior, but as a driving force. Such characters do not represent people, though they could parody some concrete personage, but embody human passions, to stretch or magnify them, especially their metamorphosis to rational constructs (laws, customs, beliefs…). Just an example is how Lilliputians laws are conceived to reinforce the Emperor's power, which means to calm his fears and satisfy his unmeasurable ambition. The trail of Hobbesian’ thoughts about how fear works as an essential part of human nature are clear here, but G. does not quote Hobbes or any other modern author directly as a philosophical background of his observations.[7]  In fact, he seems to be only a curious surgeon, deeply interested in knowing other countries, who eventually is driven to describe human nature to ultimately help to change it.[8]

This journey exerts a decisive turn in G’s life as a kind of initiatory experience, giving him motives as well to imitate Houyhnhnms as to reject Yahoos and even more to consider humans as consummated Yahoos. Thus, G. culminates his journey like a sort of prisoner, escaped from Plato’s Cave, who has fallen in love with the archetypical virtues (forms or ideas) but who is also committed to communicate them to whose that only can see and live amongst shadows or distorted reflections of these virtues. So, the missive to his cousin works both as an introduction and a conclusion to his journey throughout human nature. In fact, it was supposedly written years after his final return to England.

Therefore, is it justified G. commitment to reform (reshape) humans through reason at a sight of human resilience to remove passions, vices, and corruptions? Does it only mean G’s total failure in such commitment or moreover the absolute incapacity of humans for living rationally?

To answer the previous questions and other ones, we will highlight G’s description of passions in action. Our writing will not intend to discover the real keys in Swift’s thoughts by comparison with his other works. Rather, it will study G’s thoughts  as if they were not a symbol or Swift’s persona, but G’s opinions as a ‘real’ character –with his own life– who is driven to question his assumptions about human nature.

 

The microscopic perspective: Fear and power.

 

At a first glance the Lilliputians' tiny world doesn't look dangerous or ominous, rather, it looks insignificant, even cute, as usually happens when something small is observed at a glance. What we call microscopic perspective refers to how do Lilliputians deal with the unexpected arrival of such a giant creature, who would watch them as if they were not bees, but microscopic creatures[9] fighting for imposing one another and eventually attacking G, too. This kind of perspective (placing or putting humans in front of themselves as if they had to deal with more powerful creatures, humans in this case) makes human passions to emerge as the very fuel of any behavior. Therefore, this is a privileged point of view to describe them in action, which places a new perspective in Hobbes’ theory about fear, because it changes lightly the terms of “…the natural equality of men…in their mutual will of hurting” since G’s dimensions breaks any hypothetical balance of force and consequently the configuration of fear. It is so formidable his strength that exceeds overwhelmingly the equilibrium or balance of forces that supports fear[10], before it becomes religious adoration and/or reverential fear. Instead, G. rarely feels or acts driven by fear in Lilliput.

The Lilliputians size is only the special perspective conceived to highlight fear as a common source of passions for humans facing formidable events such as dealing with a sort of creature “…dropped from the moon, or one of the stars…”[11]; just a sort of demigod, who would give them ambivalent motives either to admire or to fear or even to increase their ambitions to manipulate him as a submissive servant or slave. The polluted temple used to lodge G. –first as jail and then as residence– epitomizes the compound of fear and amazement that fearful but aggressive creatures feel facing deities, demigods or enormous beasts, which require a special place to be dealt, but not to worship, because it was “…looked upon as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use…” just to chain any of them instead of venerating. Whether G. was considered a demigod or not, he would have been chained anyway.

Lilliputians’ aggressiveness could be explained as an outcome of their inner and incurable fear –almost paranoid-, which it is not only because of G presence, but for their constant fear of any one as a potential enemy. They feel as if they had to quarrel all the time and defeat their eternal enemies (Blefuscudians) to be safe (secured), just as microscopic creatures feed incessantly itself from the bigger ones, as Hooke had described by using his microscope.[12]

The first challenge G. unexpectedly set before Lilliputians’ fear was how to deal with a disproportionate alien –moreover if it looks so rational (smart) as Lilliputians seem to be–,  by suspending or reshaping usual legal and moral rules for calculating how dangerous could be such a creature. For doing so, the Colonel uses bound ringleaders as lab-mice pushed into G’s hand, just to observe and calculate how dangerous he might be and the advantages and disadvantages of treating with such a creature.[13] In the same way, G. would not has been liberated so soon “… if it had not been for the present Situation of things at Court…” just because he was wanted and required to be used as a weapon against the Emperor's enemies.

Therefore, being primarily an inexhaustible fear that drives Lilliputian Emperor and his Council to exploit G’s strength, they manipulate him in order to definitely defeat their enemies, vaguely promising liberty in exchange of being “… our Ally against our Enemies in the Island of Blefuscu…”[14]

But fear was soon complemented naturally by the “unmeasurable … ambition” after G. seized the Blefuscudian fleet and showed his potentiality as a formidable weapon, which however should be kept under Lilliputian Emperor’s will. Even when G. was “… created a Nardac … which is the highest title of honour among them…” it did not exclude him from complying The Articles – which “… I disliked, upon account of their being too servile…” – in order to recover his liberty.[15]

The conditions under which G. is liberated were shaped to keep him as a docile servant and powerful weapon at once. In the interim, just before ‘liberating’ him after signing the Articles, he was watched as an entertainer; just to observe his capabilities without risking the King’s realm.[16] But long before agreeing to liberate G, it was pondered profusely how to kill him and eliminate safely his carcass.[17]

The religious controversies and all the political rivalries show Lilliputians as driven for fear metamorphosed in an insatiable desire of power (dominion), which is epitomized in their endless inner struggles for power, rationalized absurdly as religious and legal differences. These struggles show how absurd can be people blinded by passions rather than guided by reasons. Even though just rational arguments are used, they are distorted by fear and ambition, which twist any sense of equity in the struggle for seeming truths. In addition, it is not by chance that the Emperor and all his servants refer grandiloquently to his realm and himself, so compensating their inner fears.

 This microscopic perspective gives an opportunity to observe and compare the apparently huge humans’ quarrels (conflicts) with those corresponding to tiny creatures, almost insects, which also fight for minutiae since this tiny world is described from a higher perspective. The unusual G’s way of solving apparently that conflict by seizing the Blefuscudians’ fleet, works as disruption in the usual order of solving conflicts among aggressive and fearful creatures, who keep momentarily without arguments to quarrel as usual, as a consequence of G’s unexpected actions.

Far of placating fear and ambition by seizing the main part of Blefuscudians’ fleet, G. displays such a powerful impression that awakes ambition, hatred and envy at once[18]. Both fear and ambition, as also hatred and envy, soon becomes  an exigency for seizing the remaining part of the fleet, just for “…reducing the whole Empire of Blefuscu into a Province, and governing it by a Viceroy;… destroying the Big-Endian Exiles…by which he would remain the sole Monarch of the whole World”. “…so unmeasurable is the Ambition of Princes…” that it exceeds any other passion except fear as fuel of such ambition.

It is noteworthy how fear generates other passions, not leading necessarily to recognize reason or any agreement to achieve some kind of civil “commonwealth by institution” or at least some compromise based on mutual recognition, but the chance for a sovereign to reign through fear[19], which eventually would generate hatred, ambition, lying, …  So, Lilliputian Emperor’s “unmeasurable ambition” is a consequence of deep-rooted fear, which surpasses any kind of gratitude to G for risking his life “…when [it is] put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.”[20]

G’s strength mixed with his refusal to acquiesce to the Monarch's designs to enslave “…free and Brave People…” rises and discovers at once envy, hatred, and ambition of his “…secrets Enemies…” who were running a plot to kill him. The plot was so secret as passions that would support the Emperor's edict against G.

The interests of Blefuscudian Kingdom in G’s “…prodigious Strength…” and its curiosity for knowing such strength would have awaken dangerous suspicions on G’s loyalty to the Emperor.[21] As their Lilliputian pairs did, the Blefuscudian ambassadors asked G. for entertaining them to observe how useful he could be to their Emperor designs against Lilliput. So, as their Lilliputians pairs, the ambassadors are also driven by the same passions and goals than those.

As if not all that were enough, G’s help for extinguishing the Palace fire by urinating on it[22], contrarily to any reasonable assumption, raises the Empress’ abhorrence and revenge instead of thankfulness for preventing being burnt to its ground. This action would be accounted later as delinquency to indict G, because it violated “…the fundamental Laws of the Realm…”

A special mention for showing how passions run under apparent rational deliberations deserves the imperial Council hypocrisy when deliberating G’s fate. By comparing G’s services to Lilliput with his supposed faults, shows clearly the “unmeasurable ambition” leading the Emperor and his council’s behavior as outcome of their continuous fear for losing power, each one of them according to their hierarchical ambitions.

So, they openly ponder how dangerous could be G. since his refusal to enslave people could be a worrying and incomprehensible signal of putting virtues (moral and/or rational values) above passions, just because all their thoughts in order to keep power by subjugating other people are driven by passions not by real morals. Even their science (mathematics) and technology function to satisfy imperial ambitions since they are mainly intended for bellicose purposes. [23]

Accusing G. “…of high-treason…” through distorting facts, arguments, and retouched laws[24] to indict him, exemplifies how his former “protector” – the Emperor – betrays  G, since false testimony, malevolent suppositions, ingratitude and lies are used to do that in the “Articles of Impeachment against QuinbusFlestrin”. What really Lilliputians begin to fear is G’s moral scruples – which works as deterrent to his passions (fears)– as menace against Emperor’s designs for not attacking innocent and brave people, and thus risking his life for apparently violating “Articles and Conditions” of is liberty, where had been stated that “…He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of Blefuscu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now preparing to invade us.”

 Probably, the most incomprehensible thing to Lilliputians – and thus the most feared – was  why G. did not take advantage of his enormous strength to become himself high-Admiral or help the Blefuscudian Empire to seize power.[25] All the “Articles and Conditions” aimed to restrain and ultimately control such overwhelming strength.[26] Certainly, it made some members of Emperor’s council to conceive artfully an intrigue – just for preventing any uncontrollable outburst – because  they were projecting their own “unmeasurable ambition” into the giant, so what they deeply feared were their own passions, not G’s actually, though they could not see such passions as their own, but ascribing them solely to G's intentions.[27]

The Council meeting to decide G’s fate evidences how does hatred – motivated by jealousness, envy, caprice … and ultimately Empress’ malice, but at the very bottom by fear – move some members to propose stubbornly death penalty, while the emperor seems decided to spear his life, but for no other reason than weighing pros and cons of eliminating such a prodigious weapon. So, the Emperor’s Chamberlain trays to mediate by proposing blinding G. instead of killing him, just to show Emperor’s ‘mercy’ and mainly for satisfying his concern regard blinding giant’s eyes “...would be no Impediment to [his] bodily strength, by which [he] might still be useful to his Majesty.”

Even so, these ‘reasonable’ ponderings only raises Admiral’s fury up, which serves as catalysis to reveal his fear and Empress’ malice as “Reason of State”.[28] Therefore, the main ‘reason’ alleged –either openly accepted– was treason or, better said, presumably treason, because there was no evidence of that, but just fear fueling other passions. The Admiral, Bolgolam, feared to lose relevance as army commander because of G’s portents. The Treasurer jealousy feared losing his wife, who publicly had met G. in his lodging, but most of all his reputation, which had been diminished much more for G’s promotion as Nardac (Duke), while the Treasurer was only Clumglum (Marquis). It is worth to note that Treasurer had tried before to convince Emperor for dismissing G because he “… had cost his Majesty above a Million and half of Sprugs (their greatest gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle)…“[29] So, even the Treasurer's financial knowledge is put to work by his envy and ultimately his fear to lose ascendancy to the Emperor.

Regard Empress’ malice against G, it could be seem as probable consequence of fearing “…an Inundation … to drown the whole Palace…” and eventually being drowned by his urine (or maybe something worst) of which she got a hint by “…dinning with me…”, and watching him eating “… more than usual…to fill the Court with Admiration.”

From here it is clearer how G's account is a gradual disenchanting of Lilliput Laws since they can not only be manipulated (distorted) by passions, but created and/or conditioned by them, too. So, toughness of rules to punish treason, lying, false testimony, and fraud can be more a result of desire for power (fear and revenge at their very bottom) than of justice for establishing equity and reason. Only so could be explained why the laws can be used to punish innocent people and even more as a means of vengeance applied on people who have served to power (government). Therefore, it is even clearer that any rule could work as a disguise used by the desire of power (or anything else wanted, hated or desired), and ultimately by fear of losing it.

Such disenchanting makes itself visible in G’s account of “… such terrible Effects of them [intrigues] in so remote a Country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe.”[30] These maxims were distorted (denaturalized) as follow:

.- The laws conceived to judge crimes against the State are usually applied to punish its more capable and loyal servants, instead of rewarding properly their good services.[31]

.- Since “…choosing persons for all employments…” is based “… more regard to good moral than to great abilities…”[32] the choosers basically pick docile servants rather than efficient ones, because servility (blind obedience) is usually conditioned by fear, which is exerted largely by the choosers. So, virtues (Truth, Justice, Temperance) supported by servility could be easily distorted (tricked) by passions at a sight of something wanted or feared. For the absolutistic power acquiescence (blind obedience) is more important than dissention, as it was largely attested by penalizing G. to be blinded for his dissention. Good moral understood as obedience is preferred rather than sharp intelligence, because the power could be tricked by a “… superior endowments of the mind…” as G. shows by seizing Blefuscudian fleet instead of simply destroying it; which would have been the easier way to serve Lilliput without risking his life at once.

.- Since “…the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station…” and “…Kings avow themselves to be deputies of Providence…” any disrespect or disbelief to a King is alike to disown or disobey God, by showing no fear to King or God. Therefore, it is an indispensable requirement at least to show fear –the more the better- to hold a public position, because fear guarantees obedience and no dissention. [33]

.- Ingratitude, “… a capital crime…among them…”, could be used as a tool by powerful people to judge, penalize and ultimately submit others, because the powerful ones usually like to appear like the sole generous ones, as the Emperor displayed artfully and his servants supported (corroborate) servilely in G’s trial. Therefore, ingratitude is a role reserved to ordinary people, who usually appear as the sole recipients of gratitude and are supposed to show eternal gratitude, even when there was no reason for that, but just for the contrary. Therefore, G is marked as an ungrateful person, who should be thankful for being blinded and pierced by hundreds of poisoned arrows instead of being burned alive. That way, gratitude is distorted by fear, just because thankfulness becomes mandatory, since it is owed for fear to be accused of ingratitude.[34]

Since power is exerted from fear, it usually distorts values, virtues, and morals giving way to a huge inversion – or even ethic destruction – where the usual content of virtues, values, customs, and morals becomes mere pretenses to exert power or satisfy the immeasurable ambition … Thus, the hypocrisy or double standard empty values, virtues, and morals of their original meanings and makes them masks, tools of fear and ambition at last.

Lilliput looks even more like a parody – distorted version or masquerade – of Hobbesian conception of the State in De Cive, just a State built and managed from the original fear implied in Homo homini lupus est, and the original state of war (nature), which undertakes, manages or seizes the sovereignty ceded by men to preserve civility or so called state of peace. Thus, since running education is a way to exert such sovereignty, the concupiscence as “... great law of nature…”, destined to propagate human race through “…the conjunction of male and female…”, is redirected by cutting any bond between parents and their descendant in order to educate them, because concupiscence as cause of tenderness could not be a valid principle to educate.

But the question is, since tenderness is not a valid principle to educate, which else could be? The rigid educational discipline described by G. is conceived to obtain (produce) docile servants, rather than citizens under the rule of their own consciousness, which means liberty. Even though “…They are bred up in the principles of honor, justice, courage, modesty, clemency, religion, and love of their country…”, and to “…avoid those early bad impressions of folly and vice…”, these are not what precisely support council deliberations to judge G’s actions, but fear to lose power disguised as legal precepts, perhaps because tenderness tends to debilitate fear as principle of servile obedience.

An elaborated cruelty, rather than supposedly “…majesty’s mercy…” and “…great lenity and tenderness…” is what transpires from Emperor’s speech to announce G’s punishment, just as a token of someone well educated in such educational principles “… because it was observed, that the more these praises were enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer more innocent." Just for not being educated as courtier, G could not see any mercy or lenity in Emperor’s announcement[35], because it only could be understood by people to whom cruelty –as exercise of want to power and punishment to any dissention- is a principle of governing accepted as usual and more effective than real tenderness, lenity or mercy. Such understanding could not be openly recognized as such, because the Emperor's cruelty drives people to hypocrisy, which is supported by fear to dare his authority and as a direct consequence of terrifying “… the people so much as those encomiums on his majesty’s mercy…”

So, Lilliputians' principles of education become soon discredited by the effects of “…the dispositions of great princes and ministers…” As any other kind of tool, the laws can be manipulated or used to reach opposite porpoises to which they were conceived. Thus, looking for a solution to safe G’s life, “… Reldresal, principal secretary (as they style him) for private affairs…” tries to commute death penalty in exchange of putting “…out both your eyes…” At a first glance it looks reasonable (less bad), but it only shows how fear transmutes itself in a “balanced solution”, since G’s guilty is never directly impugned –which had supposed facing more powerful fears –, but accepted from the assumptions of a servile servant –whose rivals he tries to diminish– to whom liberty is an unknown concept, but fear a very known passion which reaches its climax by delivering a crueler solution: starving slowly a previously blinded G, just to use gradually his diminished strength in the meantime. From here, it is tough to know whether it was better facing a quick death or agonizing until finally dying.

Though Reldresal’s proposal of blinding the giant intended to save G’s life, his intentions would not be considered without a reasonable doubt about his further purposes of keeping a decisive ally in the enemy field (Empire), who might decide future events.[36] Moreover, it was ultimately fear to risk his position for being considered a traitor like G what prompts him to do that, but he thought equivocally it was mercy and friendship.

If blinding G. rather than killing him immediately could save his life, on the other hand, it would make G. a dependable tool, easily controllable. But Reldresal’s fear doesn’t appear as such publicly. It is a reactive passion which seeks to discharge inner tension through customs socially accepted, ergo, disguising itself as justice, lenity,… virtues at last. At least it could be said that he sought a compromise whereby G would have to sacrifice his eyes to keep himself alive until he had been starved and finally killed.

Gaining time seemed to be the Reldresal’s stratagem to warn and somehow suggest G. escaping to Befluscu, whereupon the secretary would have in G. a strong ally in the ‘enemy’ field. So, fear, interest, and ultimately ambition seem to be his main motives, not compassion, mercy or friendship. By saving G’s life or at least for warning him, Reldresal guaranteed a strong ally to himself and debilitated at once his opponents in the royal council, while all of them had created a formidable enemy. By leaving “…to your prudence what measures you will take…” it was more than probable that G. would leave to Blefuscu and probably he would return the fleet to the Blefuscudian, for Reldresal knew G had obtained Majesty permission to make this trip and had been eagerly invited to do it.

G’s “…many doubts and perplexities of mind…” does refer to the whole situation, including Reldresal’s mediation, because he “… could not discover the lenity and favor of this sentence, but conceived it (perhaps erroneously) rather to be rigorous than gentle…” Though G. does not suspect openly about Reldresal intentions, his doubts include the extreme harshness of his supposed lenity. Therefore, fear drives both his enemies and ‘friend’ alike to use respectively law as a tool of fear, envy, revenge, and ambition. But fear and ambition disguise themselves additionally as lenity and friendship, while envy and revenge use bluntly fear to declare G. as a traitor.

At the bottom of Emperor’s resentment against G. lies what at a first glance seems only fear to his strength, but such resentment shows itself as “justice” (masked vengeance) through a refined cruelty, thought to provoke a calculated panic in his servants rather than recognition of his benevolence, but appearing as virtuous person for its supposed mercy or lenity for apparently forgiving G’s life and punishing justly his supposed crimes.  Since virtues are socially recognized as valuable rules, they are more appreciated for those passions – fear, vengeance, ambition, cruelty, concupiscence… publicly repudiated, but privately blessed– which need virtues to disguise themselves for acting in public.

The accusers finally appeal to the Emperor’s and Council’s inner conviction to substitute proofs for fearing to G’s portents, presented as convictions to condemn him rather than merits to be praise: his strength begins to be feared by all of them since it could be exerted from dissention as a result of putting his moral scruples above any previous compromise.[37] So, his dissent against fear and immeasurable ambition, which works as an attempt to dominate them, is the real issue condemned.

So, the “Articles of Impeachment against QuinbusFlestrin, (the Man-Mountain.)" is the most elaborated example about how fear, hatred, envy, and ambition can distort laws, but still keeping a solid appearance of legality. It sets a problem not only for G. but to anyone who would have to deal with laws, ergo, every one. The problem is how laws -being rational constructs aroused ultimately from fear, but enacted to presumably control fear-, could be further distorted by the same passions they try to control. It looks like a vicious (eternal) circle that is the nature of passions (essence).[38] Equally important, if not more, than people think upon where maxims, rules, laws and morals lead them is where their passions drive these norms, because what they really mean will be decided for the kind of passions that generated and drive them.

The accusers finally appeal to Emperor’s and Council’s inner fears to present G’s portents as proof of conviction to condemn him instead of praising them: his strength begins to be feared since it could be exerted from dissention as a result of putting his moral scruples above any previous compromise. Those accusers knew very well that people are usually more inclined to punish than to reward or to thank because they are prompted mainly by fear rather than other passions as love, desires, concupiscence, which could be eventually consequence of fear.

For Lilliputians, fear is the most powerful passion, which metamorphoses in and feeds itself from incommensurable ambition (desire of power), avarice, hatred, jealousness, cruelty, mendacity, hypocrisy,…[39] But not only fear, but all of them usually distort laws, maxims, customs, … which ultimately are either directly or indirectly driven by fear.  Both fear and immeasurable ambition tend essentially to set an unlimited and mutual feedback. So, it sets an essential difference between the Emperor and his servants, on the one hand, and G. on the other hand, about how fear works. While G fears being enslaved (submitted), the Emperor’s fear looks for enslaving  (submitting ) as many people as he could.[40]

As well as the desire of liberty and sense of justice compels G. to dissent from Emperor’s designs of enslaving his opponents, fear to be considered a slave again makes G rejecting Blefuscudian Emperor’s proposal for being at his service and fully protected for “… I resolved never more to put any confidence in princes or ministers, where I could possibly avoid it … [to] be an occasion of difference between two such mighty monarchs …”[41] His collaboration to make peace between these two countries was another motive for hatred by Bolgolam and the Treasurer, because they needed war to keep their respective positions and increase their reputation. G. was feared and hated by being at once peacemaker and enormous menace dreaded by Emperors, their ministers  and courtiers.

Being a disruptive element between these Kingdoms, the Befluscudian Emperor was gladly pleased of knowing G’s proposal for departing to his country, just because he knew Befluscadian’s version of what had happened in Lilliput. So, G would be an uncontrollable physical force and source of dissention and disturbance against the main goal of both Emperors: destroying and enslaving each other. As peace could not be imposed unless it was really wanted “… both empires would be freed from so insupportable an encumbrance...” to restart their conflict without any interference and feeding back their mutual fears.[42]

So, G’s function as a distention force is definitely destroyed by identical disposition to quarrel and dominate both in Blefuscu and in Lilliput, driven by the unavoidable fuel of all human actions in both reigns: fear.

 

The macroscopic perspective: Virtues and Desire (and The other side of fear: reactive - active)

 

The upside down of G’s experience in Brobdingnag turns abruptly into fear just as Lilliputians had felt for him. As well as G. seemed a demigod to Lilliputians[43]Brobdingnagians seem a “…prodigious race of mortals…” to him. However, there is a difference that sets an inverse  proportion between Lilliputians’ bulk[44] (smallness) and their immeasurable ambition, great cruelty, and self significance[45]. Since G. tries to set a relation between creatures size and reason, by which “…reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body…”, he could not assume that little creatures would be smarter than the bigger ones just because their bulk . His own account about human affairs denies his groundless assumption, as it is shown by the Brobdingnagian King’s sharp judgment about “…the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”[46]

So, passions are not proportional to the bulk of any human being, and following “…that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison…” it could be said that passions are usually more uncontrollable since people feel menaced and therefore more fearful, be they Lilliputians or Brobdingnagians.

 However, there is a fundamental difference between Lilliputians’ fear and G’s fear. The first one could be called reactive as it comes from fear to lose power and leads to subjugate others by any means. Fear to lose power acts from an extreme feeling of impotence or vacuity which constantly needs to reassure itself by conquering and subduing anything useful not only to keep but to increase power (assurance)[47]. Thus, it could explain how fear to lose power usually projects itself inversely as vainglory or overvaluing its own strength. Under such fear, liberty and all values and virtues are distorted by being subordinate to reassure power as it is shown in all conditions of G’s letter of liberty.

 Therefore, the want of power looks in Lilliput as a kind of insatiable desire understood as “unmeasurable ambition”. Its reactivity could be better appreciated when it is compared to G’s fear to lose liberty (or being enslaved) which is rooted in respecting liberty based on natural rights (Laws) and committed to preserve his own and others liberty, rather than acquiescing monarchs’ caprices, which means not being managed as slaves without rights, subjected to will, caprices or passions of others, and eventually to their own as we'll see later. 

Compared to Lilliputians and G., Brobdingnagians, instead, look like stars or planets, driven by other passions than fear and ruled by regularities (laws) as planets usually do.[48] Their passions and virtues seem so far away from human nature as planets are from Earth. So, G. is forced by circumstances to adopt what I call the macroscopic perspective, which attempts to get closer to distant but gigantic creatures and make visible (comprehensible) their driving passions to a much smaller scale dominated basically by reactive fear. If Lilliputians had found “… some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me…” probably they also had behaved as they did regard G., because their highest passion was fear to lose the power (to be insignificant).

G. is forced to change his human perspective to evaluate such gigantic creatures, because contrary to their size, they do not act “…as human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk…”. At a first glance, curiosity seems to be the first feature G. notices when he is captured by a peasant, who keeps astonished for finding what seemed “…a small dangerous animal…” who seemed to “… pronounce articulate words, although he could not understand them…” Only after giving to him convincing signals of being “… a rational creature…” it was clear they could communicate with one another and so to satisfy the peasant's curiosity.

The first scared reaction of farmer’s wife “…at the sight of a toad or a spider…” was quickly substituted for an extreme tenderness to G., just a kind of transitional feeling which usually grows in people who feel themselves powerful or at least self-confident. Moreover, they delighted seeing G. eating, which is a very important feeling, usual to people deeply happy (strong, powerful, and secure of themselves). By contrast, Lilliputians “…were highly delighted at this mark of … clemency…” just for feeling relieved of not being crushed by G.

Instead of assuming a servile attitude in front the farmer as a consequence of his fear mixed with astonishment, he shows “…presence of Mind…” by adopting a “… supplicating Posture…” which is not cowardly or servility, but the usual reaction to keep safe oneself in front of overwhelming and unbeknown powers. It would be a temerity (suicide) to fight or struggle against such a giant, and usually temerity is consequence of not “…presence of Mind…”, weak animus or, better said, cowardliness or lack of judgment[49]; contrarily, G. shows dignity even until being ridiculous by defending human honor against overwhelming circumstances that exceed any probability of being successfully faced. It shows that what G. calls human honor is mainly supported by passions rather than reason or common sense.[50]

Having escaped from slavery in Lilliput, G. ironically ends being enslaved by a farmer, whose greed (avarice) and a miserable advice led him to exploit such “…a strange animal… exactly shaped in every part like a human creature…” as if he was not human at all, but a talking tool, ergo, a slave. Avarice blinds the farmer to respect G’s humanity, because he had given the farmer several proofs (signals) of being even more human like anyone, just by showing an acute and communicable sense of humor for “…laughing very heartily...” at  the Master neighbor’s spectacles “… for his eyes appeared like the full moon shining into a chamber at two windows…” It motivated to this shortsighted and “…great miser…” person to exert revenge by advising the farmer to expose G “… for money as a public spectacle, to the meanest of the people…” and thus awakening Master's greed for exposing hazardously the “strange animal”, though by his “… own interest would not suffer anyone to touch me, except my nurse…”

If avarice had driven the farmer[51] his daughter, by contrast, was driven by a sort of infantile sense of maternity and ultimately real affection to her believed baby toy, even more than she had professed to her lamb.[52] So, G begins to be treated like a newborn, who needs to be educated, dressed, fed, and even named as she does by naming him manikin (little man), while he names her Glumdalclitch (little nurse). However, while Glumdalclitch became more affectionate, his father got worried about selling G at a sight of his quick deterioration as a consequence of traveling and exposing ceaselessly such rarity.

And so, as a rarity, he was sold to the Queen, who was “…surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive animal.” Just her curiosity introduces the quest about G’s humanity as per Brobdingnagians’ standards. So, G is observed and evaluated as a diminutive animal[53] like he had done to Lilliputians before.[54]

At a first glance he seemed to the King “…a piece of clock-work…”, but since he heard G’s rational accounts and answers to his questioning, his perplexity grew to such a grade he decided to call scholars to investigate what kind of creature was G exactly. Curiosity works here as the first step of the insatiable desire of knowledge the King shared with G, though none of them knew yet this coincidence, and how many discrepancies they would have ahead.

At scholars opinion G was nothing more than ReplumScalcath (LususNaturae: a freak of nature), which “…could not be produced according to the regular laws of nature…because [he] was not framed with a capacity of preserving [his] life…” and therefore could not be classified as per Brobdingnags conception of humanity, which only required physical and physiological features, not rational or emotional abilities[55], because these latter were thought as “instructed” (induced) by the farmer as usually it is done to animals destined to entertain[56] It was the King who searched for rationalities in G. at the sight of his scholar disagreement regarding his nature and their doubts about his supposed rational abilities.

G. feels being watched as a tiny creature, as he had watched Lilliputians before, though he never had doubted their human nature, meaning their rational ability, most of all to plot against him. The macroscopic perspective applied to observe such kinds of giants is inversely proportional to the microscopic perspective used to watch Lilliputians. So, G. feels questioned and diminished his honor as a member of humankind since being watched as a rare creature, doubtfully rational.

Once the King is convinced by himself of G’s authentic accounts and his rational nature, there began a very fruitful inquiry in human features about which G tries to illustrate proudly to the monarch, based on the idea according to what “…nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison…”[57], just as means to magnify human features for compensating the undeniably sense of impotence G felt facing such an oversized world.[58] His tendency to magnify (exaggerate) the European civilized wonders, makes him give ideal accounts of England politics, history, government, and customs for supposedly preserving and enhancing “…the honor of my country...”, and for demonstrating rational abilities out of reach of any “diminutive animal”.

But the King could not take G’s depiction of European customs but as a risible example of “how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects …” So, the philosophical principle of proportionality is relativized by insinuating that passions (pride, ambition, fear,…) are not proportional to the bulk of any person but a constant in any human being whatever his size be, though they could be aggravated (intensified) since any servile person fears to be displaced of his believed or real duties or being diminished for any reason.

The courtier dwarf exemplifies “…how contemptible a thing was human grandeur…” because even he was considered human by Broabdignagnians’ standards[59], he felt a deep resentment to G. “…at seeing a creature so much beneath him …” His resentment could be explained (is motivated) just for not being as small as G. and ultimately for having been ignored (displaced) as the Queen’s (Court) favorite. Therefore, he felt himself as a diminished buffoon (slave), who struggled for retaking his place as favorite servant through such perfidious means[60] that G’s life was compromised at least two times, by using trickeries to pretend doing mere jokes instead of tenebrous (mortal) tricks. Fear to be ignored, resentment, malice, jealousness and envy meet in this character to underline how dangerous (coolly explosive) could be a servile servant displaced of his believed or real duties or favors. Servility in this case displays its noxious stuff.

Another kind of fear is what G. feels for being a creature so diminutive, constantly menaced by insignificancies coming from people of bigger bulk. His size gives him the opportunity to experience what is intangible at simple sight, as sun dots or moon holes usually are unless observed through a telescope. So, G. can not only watch but hear, smell and even defend himself from flies –their excrements and spawn–and also from wasps' ferocity. However, while the Dwarf’s desires aim to be a more valuable (servile) servant, G. wants to be recognized as rational and smart as per Brobdingnagians’ standards. The Dwarf is a slave at heart for being a slave of his own passions. He has renounced his dignity as human. On the contrary, G. endeavors to be honored as human, though he would have to struggle with his own and other’s passions to try to be recognized as such.

The dwarf's and insects’ passages emphasize something subtle announced in the King’s response to G’s narration of Europe’s customs; that is, how proportion can be understood through disproportion, and vice versa. It could be called Proportional disproportion or Disproportional proportion, which matches with the equivalence between microscopic and macroscopic perspectives, perhaps an echo of Nicholas of Cusa’s Coincidentia oppositorum. The King’s response makes G. to rise to a more comprehensive perspective[61] from where he could assume gradually a deeper view of humans’ passions, which will conclude finally under Houyhnhnms’ influence. However, this gradual assumption is not exempt from not understanding why having such princes’ qualities the King does not seize all the power, as European Princes used to do.[62] So, principle of proportion does not precisely works as G. had stated to justify his own worth because the King’s qualities, talents, and  his subjects' veneration do not give way to what G thought would be the proportional or logical outcome of such features in making a monarch the “…absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people.”

Additionally, there is an irony or self parody on proportion principle which proposes to correct geographers by recognizing G’s supposition of a “…vast tract of land (Brobdingnag)…” between Japan and California, supported in “… that there must be a balance of Earth to counterpoise the Great Continent of Tartary: and therefore, they ought to correct the maps….” So, principle of proportion is shown (parodied) as mere speculation (hypothetical principle at most), which might fail both in moral and science.[63] Therefore, proportion could have only a limited scope to understand nature, human nature and customs (moral), unless it were filled with disproportions, which is obviously a rampant irrationality more compatible with passions instead of reason.

Having to deal with such a disproportionate world, G discovers gradually by his own experience how humans tend naturally (instinctively) to look for proportion, just for making this world familiar to their physical and mental scopes. However, looking for disproportions is also a human feature based on passions since proportions become a sort of bird cage, overproportional in this case, which could assure vital securities, but not coping real life, primarily driven by passions whose essence are disproportions. G’s trips through Brobdingnag in a cage gives him a privileged point of view to describe imbalance (instability) between proportion and disproportion, and how proportion is only illusion or a kind of perspective –surrounded by disproportions, with disproportion as background – which looks for rationalities where hardly can be find it.

As well as G could observe Brobdingnagians’ disproportions regard himself and humans in general, the King could detect from his moral and physical superiority how disproportionate was human pride (passions) compared to its real scope in humans, and ultimately how they are subdued by passions even when they think being led by reason. It applies not only to the physical world but mainly to the moral or passional world, to which could not be applied rational principles to calculate or even describe links between passions,  and all kinds of rationalities derived from them, because passions do not seem to have limits. If human size, strength, physical and intellectual power can be measured, passions are immeasurable, as it is shown by the “unmeasurable ambition” and “ridiculous… comparison” between human scope and its pride (passions). Lilliputians’ incommensurable ambition, fear, violence, and cruelty compared with the scarce presence of reactive passions in Brobdingnagians’ behavior shows how the principle of disproportionate proportion (or proportionate disproportion) works. This comparison can only be settled through a microscopic-macroscopic method (observation, perspective), which allows exposing the paradoxical nature of human beings by comparing them to stronger human creatures, as it happened to Lilliputians regarding G. and to him respecting Brobdingnagians.

The description of G’s adventures in Brobdingnag shows the nature of its inhabitants, featured mostly by epicurean feelings instead of reactive passions, just as if their strength and solitude (absence of enemies or rivals) had supported joyfulness as primary feeling instead of fearfulness or boredom. Even what is somehow disagreeable for G. results in joy for Brobdingnagians, including when he enjoyed as dinner an unconcerned linnet “…seemed to be somewhat larger than an English swan…”, which had boxed boldly him, hurting more his prideful presumptions about self-significance than his body. So, his supposed dignity (pride) seemed also hurt for being used by maids of honor “…like a creature who had no sort of consequence… on purpose to have the pleasure of seeing and touching…” and “… lay [him] at full length in their bosoms…” The Brobdingnagians Ladies do not fear enjoying sensuality (carnality) within a very new experience with a creature out of their bulk, who doesn’t reject plainly such sensual games except because he could not stand “…the very offensive smell…” of these Ladies, which seemed “…much more supportable, than when they used perfumes…”, and ultimately because he could not enjoy such sensual affairs alike maids did.[64]

Unlike Brobdingnagians[65], Lilliputians education rejects any kind of sensuality (joyfulness)[66], just as token of their fear of debilitating obedience to the Emperor as primary principle, though it paradoxically transforms sensuality in cruelty as shown through the whole trial and final sentence against G.

Unlike Lilliputians, most of the Brobdingnagians use G. for amusement, which shows a kind of special joyfulness and sensuality as intrinsic part of their life, not subordinated to any moral rule, except their custom for reciprocal enjoyment of corporeality (nature), which obviously could not be enjoyed by G. because of his acute senses and his little size. As a “…creature who had no sort of consequence…” G. is neither slave nor servant, but an exceptional guest –at any rate innocuous– eager to show his talents  and somehow ready to share corporal pleasures alike maids used to do. However, disproportion –as impediment for enjoyment– could not be experienced by them as source of unshared amusement and of G’s unpleasant experiences “…because [his] littleness was beyond all degrees of comparison…”

Even though G. had been considered like a toy between such gigantic creatures, most of them treated him respectfully, though not having in mind hazardous consequences of disproportion for his littleness. The most powerful and respectable creature amongst them, the King, shows  the kindest treatment despite his severe but exact judgments about G’s prideful accounts of European customs, as well as his occasional hilarity for G attempts of polishing (healing) his damaged pride as when he was captured by a monkey, which strokes and feeds him like a “…young one of his own species…” instead of ripping his body apart. His pretensions for illustrating the King could be understood as an intent to restore his supposedly stained honor[67] even before the monkey episode.

But for establishing a link between body size and reason, according to which “… reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body…” – because “…the tallest persons were usually the least provided with it…” – G. discovers himself trying to compare in vain to taller creatures ruled by different proportions and passional experiences which affect humans in a different way.[68] So, when G tries to illustrate the monarch by idyllically picturing government and political matters in Europe and England “…that might deserve imitation…”, he does not obtain any response except deep practical questions and piercing judgments aimed to unveil some uncontrollable passions as fundamental components of human behavior.

King’s questions aim mainly to ask about the dark side of any Government, that is, what role play passions and vices in promoting its members in all its branches and in managing its internal business; how does justice work; how is managed the Treasure (public treasure); what are the leaders’ customs and hobbies; how do laws are interpreted and applied.[69]

As per G’s account it might be inferred a strong desire of acquiring and keeping power at any price as the most conspicuous feature in humans, which usually represent itself legitimized as virtues rather than passions. Thus, ignorance, idleness, ambition, and ultimately fear, drive to distort laws and virtues, so their contents and aims –which is justice, perfection, or supreme good (Summum bonum) – are replaced by illegitimate personal interests and ambitions. By applying commonsense to G’s narrative, the King discovers his proud partiality, but most of all fear and unmeasurable ambition as real fuel and aim that actually moves human behavior.[70]

Far of impressing positively the King through an idyllic but foolishly biased account of human affairs[71], G. hardly escapes of being considered as part of “…the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth…” However, his eagerness to emulate Brobdingnagians by showing his humanity and illustrate the King beyond his “…narrow principles and views” in politics, leads him to offer the most destructive weapon to obtain more power by using force: gunpowder. So acquainted was ambition to G’s comprehension of government and politics that he did not realize the King’s harshness to judge his accounts aimed much more to discover features of human nature than its episodic weaknesses.

It was so much his eagerness “In hopes to ingratiate myself further into his majesty’s favour…”, that G. forgets that Brobdingnagians were not interested in expanding their realms beyond their intended seclusion, because any other creature would be worthless to them, except for being an object of curiosity, as the King showed by having G as a rarity. They had no enemies, secrets of state and ultimately fear, therefore they did not need to disguise their passions in distorted rationalization. It is not that passions were unknown to them[72], but they tended to cultivate virtues (perfection) along with the natural joy of life as a reasonable way of living.

The King does not feel desire of becoming “… absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people…” just for being founded in “… the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, […] common sense and reason, […] justice and lenity, […] the speedy determination of civil and criminal causes…”  Whereby G. ends paradoxically proposing to the King almost the same Lilliputian Emperor’s proposition for enslaving free and brave people which G. had rejected to avoid becoming “…an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery…”

Much more than G’s behavior in Brobdingnag, his accounts display features of human nature, which are wisely assessed by the King. However, his behavior is driven by fear to be insignificant and consequently to defend his “honor” –just a false perception on what is worthy and valuable –, which can corrupt even the deepest believing in human dignity until impeding to recognize that such desire of power at any price is an overreaction against fear to be insignificant and it beats under the desires of being significant and can distort virtues – so  becoming vices – until the extent of transforming the desire of serving (veneration, respect, perfection) in servitude. G. shows a recurrent feeling of human beings insignificance by facing the immensity of nature –specifically man facing outer space as Pascal states[73] -, but especially referred to an imagined gigantic race of humans symbolizing perfection as the orbit of planets represents the unmovable fulfillment of an inner and  eternal law, which leads living cycles and rules everything in nature.

Contrary to G’s expectations of being recognized as worthy as Brobdingnagians[74], his proposal of facilitating the King access to unlimited power by using gunpowder as weapon, makes the King summarize briefly what could be considered essentially human: an “…impotent and groveling an insect …” who “…could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation … of those destructive machines…” Though G. does not want power itself, he typifies the feeling of human insignificance (fear) as fuel of unmeasurable ambition, which he believes erroneously a feature shared between humans and giants. Instead of professing any “… mystery, refinement, and intrigue…” or unnecessary secrecy for governing, the King preferred “…common sense and reason … justice … lenity…” and “… speedy determination of civil and criminal causes…” as a political tool, which is a way to build a durable civility, and shows courage –or at least absence of fear to lose power– as  motive of his preferences.

Since humans learn and behave through comparing themselves to other people or things, it shows a radical feeling of insecurity (a mix of fear and desire of imposing oneself), metamorphosed as competitiveness, survival instinct or state of war, as ultimate foundations of human nature.[75] Lilliputians and G. himself evidence fear as fundamental passion, though the desire of knowledge works more radically in G. as a more powerful passion than fear. Only when he sees himself overwhelmed by giants’ superiority, fear momentarily owns him. However, he behaves with Lilliputians alike the giant King behaved regarding him. Somehow, G. could be considered a virtuous giant regarding Lilliputians, though he uses his physical superiority for fulfilling his compromises of favoring one of the rival kingdoms against the other one, but just without knowing the real scope of Lilliputian emperor’s ambitions. The enormous advantage given to him by his colossal strength is not an inner source of ambition, cruelty or fear. Lilliputians’ fear makes them morally small creatures driven by desire of power (unmeasurable ambition) and all the other passions and corruptions, while Brobdingnagians’ size represents and supports preponderance of virtues. Just as littleness works as a symbol of lacking virtues, bigness does as plenitude of virtues.

The Brobdingnagians comprehension of decadence or weakness of “species of men” presumes a supposedly pristine status of perfection or at least of superior strength, which is broken for unknown causes, giving way to decadence or fall from this primal status.[76] The giant race, as per its moralists’ accounts, had debilitated themselves because “… the very laws of nature absolutely required we should have been made, in the beginning of a size more large and robust; not so liable to destruction from every little accident …”, which sets a thesis as per which littleness, physical, and even moral decadence are linked to natural decadence, which is doubted by G. because there is not sufficient ground to charge nature for human decadence “…rather matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raise with nature…”, quarrels that “…might be shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people.”[77]

Instead of charging humans for their own decadence and failing to dominate their passions, the King states corruption or passions as the very human nature. So, G’s account of England history in the sixteenth century is judged by the King as “…the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.” It is not that giants did not have passions, but somehow they could restrain them as they do to their prejudicial opinions.[78] Like any other human race, Giants have passions, but they can restrain or dominate them because they know the devastating consequences of driving reason to servitude by passions and provoking all kinds of confrontations, usually tragic ones, as civil wars between Brobdingnagians had largely shown.[79]

Though Giants seem a very resilient race against passions, they are not totally immune as it is showed by the farmer avarice, the public execution of a murder, and inner conflicts driven by “...the same disease to which the whole race of mankind is subject; the nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and the king for absolute dominion.” However, their laws and wisdom[80] had “happily tempered” such disease, achieving a relative peace by setting “…a general composition…”, and finally keeping the militia “… in the strictest duty…” by setting it “… with common consent…” which could represent a sort of fulfillment of Hobbesian state of peace, but supported by Giants’ moral feature of achieving and keeping “… common consent…” as the foundation of their humanity.

It seems that the most conspicuous Brobdingnagians' feature is keeping their word or, better said, assuming their passions sincerely, without need of deceiving about their desires through any moral, legal or ideological disguise. It is noticeable that G. does not make any reference to lying, fearing or ambition as Brobdingnagians features, while some Lilliputians did not cease of machinating to keep G. as servile servant, then to indict him by distorting legal proofs, and finally to starve him surreptitiously.

That moral stature really matter is a truth that G. experiences as a rare limbo in between serfdom, slavery, eternal guest, and entertainer, definitely treated as a curiosity, which could not be catalogued as human as per Broabdignagnians’ standards. Even though he had struggled for demonstrating his human nature and for barely upholding the “dignity of humankind”, the results did not get other outcome that being defined as “…impotent and groveling… insect…” belonging to “…the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth…”, though his continuous travels could hardly have excluded him of being influenced entirely by such “…little odious vermin…”[81]

Although G. was in much better condition than usual captives were, recovering his liberty became a growing desire of being ‘human’ again “… without fear of being trod…” both physically and morally. He missed human nature (condition) for being incapable of imitating giants in any aspect and for failing miserably all intents of impressing them. Interacting with giants remembers him how miserable human condition appears since compared to exceptional creatures, be real or symbolic ones, even if rationality was showed as a distinct or exceptional human feature, but definitely so “…blurred and blotted by corruptions…” alike the original institution (Legislature) “rationally” engendered.[82] However, G. could not see his  circumstance but as affront to “…dignity of humankind…” not really intended by anybody, though it would be a more than probable setting for being a rarity without any chance of interacting as per giants’ physical and moral standards. There had been humiliation if G had been purposely mistreated. Except the farmer –whose avarice drives him to exploit such oddity– and the dwarf –whose moral dwarfism did not allow him being more than an envious buffoon –, the rest of characters take good care of G, but obviously, he wasn’t capable of improving his human nature –both physical and moral – to giants’ standards.

 

The Ethereal Perspective

 

.-  Laputa. (An island on the air)

Laputa represents (symbolizes), so to speak, a new kind of passion, the passion for speculating about impractical (absurd) topics[83] –but having appearances of true urges or needs – which comes from “…fear and disquietudes”. It might be as strong as any other passion, leading people even to neglect their own body and any others ordinary or “common actions”[84], as if they were living in ethereal bubbles for mistaking reality with impractical abstractions or ideas (projects) with ridiculous outcomes.

As any other passion, speculation is characterized by “…continual disquietudes…”, “apprehensions” or “disturbances”, but its motives are centered on very distant and frequently false problems or questions. However, it seems to give Laputians some kind of infantile pleasure[85], which could work as twisted succedaneum “…for the common pleasures and amusements of life.”

The counterbalance and consequence at once of these speculative and interminable escapes of reality is the Laputians’ wives and daughters' custom of picking liberally gallants and flirting openly with them, even in their husbands or fathers’ presence for being “…so rapt in Speculation…” that their women prefer escaping from Laputa in the arms of any footman and even being despised and mistreated rather than coming back to the flying island, where usually they “…are allowed to do whatever they please…”.

Far from being reasonable people, Laputians usually engage in limitless disputes due to the impossibility of paying attention to any proof for checking their speculative theories or opinions. Therefore, speculating and disputing have become vices (passions) instead of means to reach agreements to solve any question, even though it were by recognizing common ignorance about some topics. So, the King usually takes extreme decisions when “suppressing insurrections” or getting his proposals done, but only since the safety of the Island is not at risk. It is contradictory that being a very cultivated person in astronomy, math, and music the King is not a conciliatory one guided by reason or common sense to solve any dispute or rebellion in his realms. Fear of improbable events makes him not taking due care of his subjects’ claims and needs, except to repress their rebellions, mutinies or resistance to pay tributes by depriving them of sun and rain, and consequently starving them “…by keeping the island hovering over…” cities or towns.

The contrast between speculation and common sense makes it clearer that speculation is an unfruitful outcome of what could be hardly called rational exercise without any reference to experience. Usually, speculative opinions are driven by fear, obstinacy … (passions at last), and ultimately by an unlimited desire of nothing for speculation does not tend to prove its statements, but to assert them by supporting indefinitely opinions in other opinions. It seems like the highest fruit of reason, but at the bottom it is nothing else than some masked passion. Thus, it cannot solve any dispute; on the contrary, it feeds itself from engendering endlessly disagreements and theories upon highly improbable and impractical subjects. 

Laputians' speculation is supported by fearing to face reality, which is substituted by imagining very remote perils, aiming to infinite and uncheckable goals[86] (subjects, matters,…). They are incapable of figure out any reachable objectives (limit, boundary …) aimed at specific goals, be right or wrong, true or false, but always delimited and ultimately provable.

Since it is applied to solve practical problems, speculation becomes disastrous, getting surely twisted and useless results. It is even worse than speculating about remote subjects for leading into surrealistic projects, which become absurd experiments and regulations.

As a flying city, Laputa symbolizes absurdities and obsessions of a speculative mind neglecting its body (Balnibari), but governing its body by exerting a heavy (negative) pressure on it until the extreme of fabricating libels to pursue and defame people who do not obey or follow governors’ unrealistic projects.[87] So, its real purpose is ruling, leading, governing, and dominating. Speculation is only a way of dominance by setting absurd “…new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and manufactures…”,  pretending improve everything, but just impoverishing people, while giving themselves long terms to bring “…these projects… to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without foods and clothes.” It shows how speculation (speculative goals, bad theories, utopias) can subdue science by putting it to serve the desire of power. It would be innocuous if it were not stubbornly imposed to reality “...driven equally on by hope and despair...” Speculation could have a reactive side by reacting to what is familiar in reality (customs, traditions, beliefs …) but it apparently seems (pro) active for the innovative and “…innumerable other happy proposals…”, all unrealistic, included in its theories.

The Academy of Lagado experiments underline the surrealistic essence of speculation applied to perform “happy proposals”, especially the “…project for improving speculative knowledge by practical and mechanical operations…” This experiment shows speculation as the craziest pseudo intellectual passion (just a vice) replicating indefinitely itself by fabricating all kind of supposed rational discourses throughout mechanical operations to increase endlessly speculative books written by even “…the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour … without the least assistance from genius or study.”

As any other vice or passion, speculation drives to madness and eventually to tragedy, but in this case it is emphasized its particular tendency to suppress ridiculously itself by suppressing any kind of verbal communication by showing things instead of using words, which is also a veiled reference to the consequences of an extreme nominalism.[88] Every passion eventually becomes tragic or comic or even absurd, because it tends to be either excessive or defective by definition, but only vices as uncontrollable passions are actually extreme.[89]

As usual in GT, almost all the characters and their circumstances could be described through inverse proportionality between appearances and reality. So, at a first glance Laputians, especially their superiors and soldiers, seem very ingenious, kind, and neat, but also bellicose people because, as they try to apply their schemes to real life, they become avid seekers of gains and power, supposedly  prompted by good intentions.[90]

It is evident “… in the school of political projectors…” how speculation could have a special branch to apply literally the same medical prescriptions to cure and preserve healthy both human and political bodies for keeping “...a strict universal resemblance between …” them. The extreme absurdities, in this case, fill the role of intending to purge both human and political body from their typical diseases, but it also could drive to paranoia, as it is showed by intending discover and prevent “… plots and conspiracies against the government…” examining circumstances as “…the diet of all suspected persons… times of eating… which side they lay in bed… which hand they wipe their posteriors… a strict view of their excrements… [to] …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…” Thus, anyone might be accused and convicted of plotting and conspiracy, supported in pseudoscientific suppositions and  assumptions, whereby they become dangerous tools to restrain any disobedience and ultimately impose the will of any authority, which is supported basically by all these absurdities.

Once again fear appears at the bottom of passions. In this case, speculation is the way through which fear, ambition, and desire of power exert their control and eventually create apparent rational constructs.

 

 

.- The lower word perspective (The hidden stories in history or The falling of idols)

 

As usual in GT, the contrast between apparent opposite human perspectives that we have called respectively ethereal (speculative knowledge) and subterranean (“lower word” or hidden history) is used to demystify false assumptions about science as speculative and submissive knowledge, history as vainglory or absurd veneration for past, and immortality as false hope based in fear to death.

After leaving Laputa, G. meets in Glubbdubdrib historical personages died a long time ago, just to discover history as a gallery of misinterpretations, falsehoods, inaccuracies and injustices. Far from being an edifying teaching, the real stories narrated by their protagonists show that passions, rather than moral rules, have been the real impulses inciting people to act. It would be said that G. is driven by the passion of knowledge to watch the hidden stories of history led by the “…insatiable desire I had to see the world in every period of antiquity placed before me…” [91]

The voyage to Glubbdubdrib (Island of Sorcerers or Magicians) works as an introduction to question the desire of immortality in the next chapter. What would be worth in history, since the past recounted in this island by its protagonists' real testimonies means that those stories believed as truth or even venerated as such would become probably very relative, different or contrary to what they seemed or had been narrated by disciples, chroniclers, and historians? Would it be worth living a life full of false accounts? Especially modern History appears mainly as a very false account of what really happened, where “…the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers…” Thus, historical accounts involving illustrious protagonists are usually a consequence of human passions more than of reason or common sense. It is not because greatest virtues had been absent from history, but for having been attributed to the wrong people and consequently corrupted or diminished alike facts and protagonists.

Both historians and protagonists share frequently the same passions, weakness and vices (false pride), and most of all they tend to falsify and misinterpret (distort) events from their own perspectives (passions), even more when protagonists, biographers and/or historians are the same persons. So the limits between assumptions and prejudices in historical accounts are much more uncertain than it is thought, since they usually are mostly guided by passions rather than reason or common sense. It is highly significant that only the lower world could be a reliable source of historical and real moral knowledge “…for lying was a talent of no use in the lower world.” Passions have nothing to do with this world because there is no life, actions or “reasons” to lie.[92]

Whatever are causes of misinterpretation, history shows itself more than any other as a field subject to human weakness and consequently it could not be a trusted source of exemplarity or guides for life. That way ancient models could not be recognized anymore as a source of moral guide for human life. G’s insatiable desire of knowing the past is somehow tempered by lowering his unfounded high expectations of finding moral heroes in the past.[93]

Talking directly to some protagonist or chroniclers would be sufficient to question history as a source of moral guide. So, Alexander the Great did not die poisoned, but by excessive drinking; Caesar and Brutus appear “… in good intelligence with each other…” being Brutus not a usual villain (traitor) but a virtuous Roman; Senate of Rome appears like “… an assembly of heroes and demigods…”, while “… an assembly of somewhat a later age… a knot of pedlars, pick-pockets, highwayman, and bullies.” For having “… so horribly misrepresented the meaning of those authors to posterity…” Aristotle and Homer’s commentators were unknown to both of them, and vice versa, because they tried to keep themselves distant from these authors, instead of looking to know them better or even rectify their statements.

Respecting new systems of nature, Aristotle states its relativity as any other human knowledge founded either in mathematical principles or human senses, which only could bring “…new fashions, which would vary in every age; and even those, who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles, would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that was determined.” Thus, all systems of nature founded in rational (metaphysical or mathematical) principles are subject to be outdated, contrarily to philosophers’ aspirations to absolute truth, as Aristotle indirectly recognizes.[94]  Why does it happen is a question that G could not answer until knowing Houyhnhnms.

Even though G. finds truly (moral) models in Caesar, Brutus, Hannibal, Julius, Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato the younger, Sir Thomas More, Homer, Plato, and Aristotle[95] … the prevalence of passions (vices) and corruptions is definitely a trend increased along modern history, but also abundantly present in the ancient world since passions were profusely examined by several ancient philosophers and writers and “…grown so high and so quick in that empire [Roman], by the force of luxury so lately introduced…”

Therefore, all kinds of incontrollable passions or vices are equally common to ancients and moderns, whereby there is no ground to consider moderns in any respect superior than ancients. But considering that ancients were less corrupt than moderns seems to G. something plausible as corruption becomes usually deeper instead of lessening along the history. So, corruption in imperial Rome looks deeper than in Roman republican period as a result of “…the force of luxury so lately introduced…”[96], as well as corruption looks less deeper in Ancient Rome than in the modern world, though in either of them loyal servants have been finally despised and “… represented as the vilest of rogues and traitors…”, which shows constant ingratitude in all times.

Under the experience of Laputa and Balnibarbi G. introduces an indirect questioning about human rationality, which is acutely examined under the Houyhnhnms’ experience, where Aristotelian man’s definition as rational animal –since it was formulated and latter reformulated by the modern rationalism– is strongly questioned.

 

.-The Chimera of Immortality.

 

G’s voyage to Luggnagg opens an inquiry on immortality apparently far from questioning history, but both matters are connected since death (aging) and history are both consequence of any (living) temporal process, and immortality as fame (celebrity, historical prominence, illustrious personages) could be considered as victory on death and oblivion. So, the desire of immortality could be considered as a consequence of fear to die and as unrealistic as only could be any desires or passions driven by their essential trend to ignore natural limits. The supposed “… great happiness and advantages of immortal life…” are so important to any human fulfillment that only a deity could give it, but it looks as if Luggnaggians do not worship any god capable of doing so or at least do it by keeping the everlasting youth at once.

His unrealistic vision of immortality makes G. formulate a “scheme of living” grounded in the unlimited duration of life as if life in general and his own in particular were not destined to decline or even degenerate. So, by “…understanding the difference between life and death…” G. aims to “…procure … richness…”, “…apply … to the study of Arts and Science…[and]record every action and event…” to become a sort of “…living treasure of knowledge and wisdom, and certainly become the oracle of the nation.” Paradoxically, G’s desire of immortality aims to watch everything becoming, changing, degenerating, and eventually disappearing, except him. His passion for immortality does not allow him to realize that any human body – including himself – is subjected to decrepitude as anything else is, even if it had been awarded with immortality, like Struldbrugs were.

There is no change in nature aimed indefinitely to perfection, because nature works cyclically, and the human body is not an exception. If dying is impossible for Struldbrugs, only endless decrepitude is what is left to them. Even when immortality could be thought as something exceptional but even so natural, the desire of immortality could not be attributed to nature as a whole but only to human nature as a consequence of fear of death, which is solely a human feeling.[97] So, the desire of immortality is a kind of false belief or delusional desire originated by one of the more powerful human passions, which is fear of death, which cannot even distinguish between immortality and everlasting youth. It is noteworthy that neither Brobdingnagians or Houyhnhnms feel any kind of fear, thus they are rarely inclined to conceive false beliefs.

Since “…long life [is] the universal desire and wish of mankind…” it is supported by fear of death, which does not realize if it is worth to live endlessly without everlasting youth at once. The desire of living at any cost, even in the worst circumstances, does not realize how useless is wanting immortality because endless life would intensify only our natural decadence, not our real or supposed virtues.

Struldbrugs’ aging shows G’s desire of immortality expressed in his system of living as “…unreasonable and unjust; because it supposed a perpetuity of youth, health, and vigour, which no man could be so foolish to hope, however extravagant he may be in his wishes…” Therefore, immortality would be a disgrace rather than a blessing because it would imply to “…pass a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it…” But the desire of immortality or desire of living endlessly is so strong that even men usually prefer to live a little longer though such disadvantages may be abundant, “…except [they] were incited by the extremity of grief or torture…”

Immortality itself does not guarantee anything else than endless worsening of human corruptions, infirmities, passions, and limitations rather than some kind of improvement of human nature.[98] The Struldbrugs’ aging accounts given to G. describes perfectly how humans usually age. There is nothing different in them except unlimited duration of lifetime, which worsens follies and infirmities for “… the dreadful prospect of never dying…”, especially their envy for “…the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old...” So, they envy exactly what mortals usually want and fear more, respectively[99]. Their envy is only surpassed by their avarice, which if it were not deterred by tough laws “…those immortals would in time become proprietors of the whole nation, and engross the civil power, which, for want of abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of the public.” Inasmuch as “… avarice is the necessary consequence of old age…”, the Struldbrugs would become increasingly much more miserable than mortals without being satisfied ultimately.

However, humans do not usually care if corruptions and vices intensify for aging; what really matter to them is the prospect of immortality naively mistaken with everlasting youth, which G. regrets for “…the pleasing visions I had formed; and thought no tyrant could invent a death into which I would not run with pleasure, from such a life.” After this experience, fear of death switches to fear of endless decrepitude, both moral and physical, whereby neither death itself would be anymore the most feared disadvantage or immortality the most wanted feature.

 

 

The rational perspective (or our oldest and more cherished lie.)

 

Until now G. did not have any point of comparison to compare directly humans to any other creature in his voyage, just because Lilliputians were so small, Brobdingnagians too tall, Laputians excessively speculative, and Struldbrugs very unfortunate immortals. Apparently, the principle of proportion is used once again to compare creatures called Houyhnhnms (the perfection of nature) and Yahoos (an odious animal), but breaking any possibility of equalizing their features as they represent virtues (reason, common sense) and vices (passions), respectively. The comparison in this case makes sense only since comparing both of them to humans is represented by the latter as a matching point, though actually nearer to Yahoos than Houyhnhnms.

Reason (virtues, common sense) and passions (vices, brutality) are represented exclusively (antagonistically) by these creatures, who do not share anything except their mutual contempt and occasionally fear, but it makes G. questioning what is really rational in humans under Houyhnhnms sharp suggestions, and ultimately how to define humans given their similarity with Yahoos. But, the most piercing matter for G. would be his purpose of improving humans by spreading within them Houyhnhnms’ morals[100] by struggling with the indelible Yahoo trends both in himself and in those humans whom he would have inevitably to deal.

Part IV basically resembles a kind of maieutic style of displaying what essentially humans are and do. Through Yahoos clinical depictions and Houyhnhnms’ acute judgments about humans, it is gradually established a lively picture about passions in motion. There is not mostly a moral judgment but a kind of anatomical procedure displaying human passions as if they were muscles, veins, bones, and tendons concealed by a colorful skin, which works as G’s first accounts of human affairs to Houyhnhnms, including his defensive hesitations before giving an exact account about such affairs. 

At a first glance Houyhnhnms and Yahoos seem brute creatures, but only the second ones show brutality as essential to them, while Houyhnhnms seem to embody common sense or a kind of reason hardly mixed with passions, which can be cultivated in order “…to be wholly governed by it…”[101] Not having any inner trend toward vices or even any slight idea about passions makes reason a kind of natural endowment to them, almost an infallible sense of justice, which means to judge rightly according to natural rules ordered to correct any breach in their customs or simply to guide ordinary life.

G’s Master shows this infallibility by discovering passions (vices) as the main drives of humans (though usually covered with rationalities or figurations) by comparing human actions to Yahoos’ usual behavior. However, his Master cannot catch initially the“…perfect human figure…” in a Yahoo male when compared to G. because of his clothing and dislike for Yahoos’ food.[102]

G’s dislike for Yahoos works as common ground for establishing initially empathy with his host, but such dislike is supported in “…horror and astonishment…” for watching his amazing resemblance with this “…abominable animal…”, without any noticeable difference with them at first, even though G. considers himself between “…greater lovers of mankind at that time…” and Yahoos as part of mankind.[103] However, G. was not very sure whether such animals were part of mankind, neither his Master about G’s kin because of his clothes, which he thought were a corporal extension of G’s body.

At a first glance Yahoos look physically similar to G, but they behave so detestably impudent  that he cannot see some point of resemblance to his civilized behavior and his Master seemed confused respect G’s kin, because he did not doubt at all whether G was a Yahoo, but what kind of rare Yahoo he was.

This first comparative encounter with Yahoos is only the initial step for G, his Master, and ultimately all the other Houyhnhnms in a long process of realizing not only similarities between human and Yahoos, but also human’s upgrading of Yahoos’ brutality for using reason to intensify (aggravate) the passions (avarice, lust, envy, desire of power, fear,...) shared by all of them. If Yahoos are incorrigible creatures, who could not have been educated or at least tamed by Houyhnhnms, humans will be revealed as creatures whose cultural and social context only intensifies their common features with Yahoos. So, if there were not essential differences between humans and Yahoos, humans would be reasonable only in a very questionable sense, it would say, only to intensify and upgrade their pristine brutality.

As per G’s initial appearance in front of his Master, he was not different from Yahoos, except for rejecting Yahoos’ food, his clothing, and for giving signals of detesting them. Moreover, using an alien language to communicate was an intriguing sign in a supposed Yahoo, who also shows capable of learning both native and foreign language, which means capable of communicating beyond the narrow limits of corporal signals. All this amazed Master’s family “…for they looked upon it as a prodigy, that a brute animal should discover such marks of a rational creature.” capable of communicating ideas, feelings, concepts, and experiences.

The Master’s eagerness for knowing how such unmistakable Yahoo was teachable, clean, and civilized only increased his doubts about G’s nature -and also on his convincement about “…some glimmerings of reason…” in him[104]- just because of an incidental discovery of G’s nudity, which momentarily convinced the Master of his truth Yahoo nature. But then, G. gives another hint of human nature by explaining his needs for clothes “…as well for decency as to avoid the inclemencies of air, both hot and cold…” and “…not expose those parts that nature taught us to conceal…”. What looks obvious and absolutely reasonable to G. is discovered as an unnatural trend “…to conceal what nature had given…” no having any reason then for being “…ashamed of any parts of their bodies…”

It is obvious how the natural need to protect the body is rationalized as moral matter within the human tendency to conceal or lie. Humans need clothes as unnatural covering to protect their bodies because these clothes do not allow showing humans bodies as they really are. So, there is an essential human need to conceal the body. Concealing in this case is not an exception –as it is for Houyhnhnms[105]-, but a basic rule of human survival connected to lying, which also would prevent exposing the human body to usual concupiscence or, on the contrary, it would allow exposing some appealing parts, just to provoke lust, envy, courtship, awe...[106] Therefore, clothes could be considered as disguises, or even tools, which work both to conceal and ignite passions at once. Even though they conceal most of the human body for presumably protecting it against both elements and concupiscence, it just makes the body paradoxically more desired. Just for not knowing all these customs of covering the body and the passions implied in doing that, G’s Master could see clearly the incongruities of a presumably rational being guided by something so called decency and/or shame for its own nudity.

Just for counteracting his undeniable corporal likeness to Yahoos, G. states openly humans' rational nature to differentiate himself from Yahoos’ “…degenerate and brutal nature…”, so promising at once to tell his Master about human wonders such as their skills to make ships and to govern.

Hearing G’s statements “…with great appearances of uneasiness in his countenance…” for feeling that G. was telling “…the thing which was not…”, which distorts ultimate goals of any speech what is “…to make us understand one another, and to receive information of facts…”, his Master defines what lying means without having any previous concept or experience about it, except its negative definition (saying “…the thing which was not…”) but setting what it would be understood hereafter as truth, and discovering lying, disguising and falsehood as essential human features, absolutely opposed to G’s account of humans as rational beings.

Since reason aims to truth and lying distorts the right sense of any speech, humans are not really endowed mainly with reason but with other powerful trends (passions), which usually distort any attempt of being rightly understood because they struggle for imposing each other rather than establishing facts or real understandings. It would explain why humans generally would need so many words, more to confuse than to clarify.[107] So, the usual goal of any human argument could be to make believable what-is-not instead of showing or seeking the truth, because any question has at least (two)  “both sides”, and to make believable implies somehow imposing a particular point of view and defeating or assimilating another at once by using arguments. Any conviction implies struggle within an argumentation, and therefore supposed winners and losers.[108]

Establishing the truth for humans is not usually a point of reason, but of passions because what leads to conviction are arguments whose actual weight is pondered out of term of truth or false, though it seems all the contrary. Since “reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either. …” the higher point “… a creature pretending to reason…” can only reach is to set “…conjectures…”, not properly truth and even less trying to impose or present such conjectures as if they were the ultimate truth, either speculative or practical.[109]

On this basis G’s account to his Master about how were employed Houyhnhnms in his country discovers at least human ambiguity when giving trustworthy accounts. First, G gives an ideal story describing humans as if they were Houyhnhnms’ docile and loving keepers, which leads his master to think wrongly “…that whatever share of reason the Yahoos pretend to, the Houyhnhnms are your masters…” It is not clear what compels G to tell the darker side of this story, but his account surely shows how the truth can be distorted by simply concealing some facts. Probably fearing to displease his Master compels G to conceal part of reality at first, but his further account about horses' treatment by humans provoked “…great indignation…” and “…noble resentment…” followed by judging humans as not having “… the least tincture of reason, any more than the Yahoos in this country…”

Moreover, humans are so weak compared to other animals and scarcely apt to survive by their plain body and instincts that they hardly could employ reasoning to compensate for such weakness.[110] Compared to other animals, especially Houyhnhnms, the human ill-contrived body does not seem designed to be governed by reason or for “…employing that reason in the common offices of life…”, even incapable of curing “…that natural antipathy, which every creature discovered against us; nor consequently how we could tame and render them serviceable.” Therefore, if humans had some tincture of reason, this would be useless for the overwhelming need of caring themselves and the consequent fear derived from it, which would chain essentially reason to fear, since living in constant fear is the main human feature.

Not having experiences, words or ideas to describe or simply name human vices and passions[111], the Master unfolds an impressive comprehension “…of what human nature…is capable to perform…” guided by passions as consequence of human corporal weakness, which promotes dominance of mendacity, desire of power, cruelty, egoism …over reason, but most of all fear as an essential human feature.

Through G’s description about causes or motives of wars it is stated how avarice, fear, opportunism, desire of power, envy, treason, hatred, bias … passions at last, move people to quarrel[112]; but his Master attributes it ironically to “…effects of that reason you pretend to…” and that G. had proudly called “…the general reason of mankind…” But it would be “…happy that the shame is greater than the danger…” if this ridiculous reason would not produce so disastrous wars by devising and using lethal weapons, which provoke huge loss of lives instead of a few ones, because if the human body were naturally capable of producing some mortal wounds, it were not capable of killing massively by its only own strength.[113]

Therefore, much more than unreasonable (irrational) is such supposed reason in humans since it is corrupted by passions and in return it intensifies their malice to produce “…such enormities…” until such a degree that it would be almost impossible to call it reason instead of “…some quality fitted to increase our natural vices …”[114]

It is pretty obvious for G’s Master that those trends called vices or passions are more powerful than reason, because there is always one of them driving the rest, despite G’s struggle for curing himself helped by creatures who do not have nothing to do with the most powerful passions, though they feel deep hatred to Yahoos and love to his country.  So, while G feels gradually less tempted to lie and to let passions drive him, he feels more inclined to imitate Houyhnhnms maxims.

Since the laws are usually explained by G. as the pinnacle of human rationality, supposedly “…intended for every man’s preservation …”, his Master questions how they “…should be any man’s ruin …” But the most piercing question is why (how) a supposedly rational being would need to create other rules than reason and nature as guides for “…showing us what he ought to do, and what to avoid.” The Master did not understand how twisted (unnecessarily complicated) and simple at once is human nature, since laws are intended to rule by imposing a particular sight about right and wrong, good and bad, fair or unfair…

Rather than explaining why laws lead man to ruin their lives instead of preserving them, G. tries to describe how humans seemingly use reason to guide their lives, but the only outcome of such an attempt was his Master’s sharp questioning regarding passions using reason to get what they want (need) and to drive humans.[115] Humans use reason, but just founded in their passional nature, which means that passions use both reason and humans as a whole. So, those supposed servants of the law use reason through “…practice of law …” to probe “…by words multiplied for the purpose …” not what is just, but “…that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid …” It would say that defending falsehood at best is their specialty, rather than defending clients (causes) on just basis (“…truth and equity…”). Perhaps the laws could be just or unjust, but the “…practice of law…” distorts any sense of justice or rationality, confounding “…the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong…”[116]

But even worse is when twisted judgments become legal precedents, malpractice becomes part of established interests, and judges “…are picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression.” Mainly guided by avarice, laziness, fatigue or incapacity, at the bottom is fear “…by doing anything unbecoming their nature or their office …” what really guides all the judicial branches and lawyers in general. So, lying becomes vice, which usually corrupts “... every other subject of discourse as in that of their own profession…” preventing that such prodigious minds could be used to instruct “…others in wisdom and knowledge…”

If Houyhnhnms, who embody virtues, epitomize the rational perspective, it is not without some traces of passions, as it will be analyzed later. However, Houyhnhnms and Yahoos give G. two extreme but essential points of comparison, which usually coexist unbalanced in human nature: reason and passions; virtues and vices, because the passional side tends to prevail over its opposite. Neither Lilliputians nor Brobdingnagians embody such features to such a pure degree as Yahoos and Houyhnhnms do. Therefore, they both neither pristinely reflect human nature nor a point of view which could be independently used as absolute reference to define it.

As a kind of Kantian creatures, whose passions barely interfere with reason, Houyhnhnms do not need to dominate passions, though they feel “violent hatred” (aversion) to Yahoos and love for their country. They cannot understand most of the human passions for not being capable of feeling most of them, however, they can describe perfectly Yahoo (human) behavior just because, on the one hand, they hardly could suffer these insufferable creatures and thus detest (hate) them, and on the other hand, they are aware of human incongruences by knowing what rationality really is. All this sets both enough distance or estrangement and proximity at once, allowing to describe such behavior almost dispassionately.

So, for instance, understanding avarice is almost impossible for his Master because as any other passion it exceeds all kinds of moral and natural harmonies, equilibrium, limits or boundaries, which characterize Houyhnhnms’ rational behavior. The “unmeasurable ambition” is shown as avarice regards money or some other goods.[117]

Since avarice is ultimately a consequence of fear for not having “…enough of it [money] to spend, or to save…” it comes from a reactive sentiment (resentment) which is fear-to-not-have-enough, not from active ones which could be joy and generosity. This feeling of fear is so rooted that it is almost impossible to placate by giving any amount of goods to “…make a few live plentifully…” But if it is added caprices (rarities) to the desire of quantity, then avarice appears more twisted than it is by itself, because “… in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of the males, and the vanity of the females…”, there will be necessary to waste uncountable sources of goods usually neglected to supply many people’s natural necessities.

The ultimate source of Masters’ difficulties to understand humans’ customs is plainly stated in Houyhnhnms’ beliefs that since “…nature … works all things to perfection…”,  there is no reason for too many humans getting sick easily.[118] If nature works to perfection, humans seem to work backward by eating incompatible foods when not hungry, drinking very strong beverages (liquors) when not thirsty “…which disposed us to sloth, inflamed our bodies, and precipitated or prevented digestion…” It shows not only how natural instincts are corrupted in humans, so becoming vices, but also how the whole natural tendency to perfection is distorted. Following this natural tendency becomes impossible for human passions, because their essence is going-beyond-any-limit, without knowing ever completeness (totality).[119] Therefore, what humans have always thought as natural, ergo, passions, are really unnatural, because nature could not work against itself since it “…works all things to perfection…” and perfection means harmony, intelligibility, and ultimately completeness.

However, curing such physiological consequences of passions is even worse than the diseases themselves, for relying on speculative principles invented by physicians, who make the human body work unnaturally and invent imaginary cures for imaginary diseases, both outcomes of the twisted nature of human actions driven by speculation as a passion.

Their skill to predict death is only matched by the ability “…to approve their sagacity to the world…” even if it supposes using “…seasonable doses…” to fulfill their own fatal prognostics. However, this late ‘service’ is very appreciated by princes, “…great ministers of state…”, “…eldest sons…”, and “…husbands and wives who are grown weary of their mates…” Therefore, medical (mal) practice is a consequence of applying speculative principles to cure real or imaginary diseases intending to either cure or intensify them.

In this way, medical practice becomes a tool to serve the chief minister’s “…violent desire of wealth, power, and titles…” which brings lies to a higher pinnacle than any other human passion, converting such practices in a component of political intrigue and treachery either to hold or acquire more power. The desire of power is so powerful that it dominates “…joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger…” and eventually spreads to others.[120]

However, since the desire of power recedes as a driving passion in nobility, the aristocracy becomes gradually weaker for being driven by “…idleness and luxury…” which finally leads to diseases and ruin. Even worse than such decadent “…illustrious body…” is that “…no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered…” without its consent, so spreading decadence (“…imperfections of his mind…”) through its decisions on laws and possessions.

So, G’s country – England in particular, but also Europe, both considered at first as epitome of any human culture, which means epitome of reason – is definitely pictured as a kingdom driven by passions and vices rather than reason and common sense, predisposing him to “…view the actions and passions of man in a very different light…” through a kind of catharsis, which cleans passions, false pride and affections, and convinces him “…of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the least perception before…”. Having in front his Master’s example to detest “…all falsehood or disguise…”, the “…truth appeared so amiable to me, that I determined upon sacrificing every thing to it.” It is noteworthy that while Houyhnhnms cannot share nor understand human passions, especially what falsehood and lying are, G. begins to hate such passions as outcomes of his false concept of honor and dignity[121], though it does not impede him giving a plain account of the mechanisms and consequences of passions.    

Thus, G. begins a path to amend himself by imitating Houyhnhnms, which later he would commit to apply to his kin. This path is guided primarily by his Master inquisitive questioning, which prevents G. of saying “what is not” about the supposedly wonders of England and Europe and then for the sharpest comparison between humans and the odious Yahoos. But even though fear, shame, and regret seem to drive G’s catharsis, it is “…love and veneration…” what ultimately drove G’s to imitate Houyhnhnms. The proposal for staying in Houyhnhnmland forever reflects G’s resolution of following a kind of path of contemplation and imitation of virtues as essences or ideas, which recalls the Platonic Stoicism.[122] However it is worth to notice that such “…love and veneration…” was being counterbalanced by a growing hatred of humankind.

At this point it should be asked whether “love and veneration” was a mutual feeling (passion) shared with Houyhnhnms or were they only capable of feeling pity or some else limited affection to G and his congeners?[123] The kind of love Houyhnhnms are endowed with is led only to “…love the whole species…” not to individuals, whereby Master’s definition of humans as “…a sort of animals…” with ”…some small pittance of reason…” fallen in them by “accident”, only used “…to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which nature had not given us…” does not leave room to other feelings (passions) than the reactive ones, as it will see later. 

Since Houyhnhnms are incapable of understanding human behavior except by comparing them to similar creatures, the Master uses Yahoos as reference to understand G’s account of human affairs. Though he found that aborigine Yahoos surpassed G. in “…strength, speed, and activity …”, humans show not only “…resemblance in the disposition of our minds…” but a superior disposition for corruption and malice, paradoxically due to the “…small pittance of reason…” which aggravates passions and corruptions and has “…disarmed ourselves of the few abilities she [nature] had bestowed…” 

All this shows humans incapable of leading themselves rationally, even though their outcomes look apparently created by using reason, because everything so created only would increase “…original wants…” and “…natural corruptions...” (not lessening or satisfying them). So, laws, institutions of government, medical practices … are consequences of passions intensified by reason, because rational creatures would not need anything except reason to govern themselves. Thus, what really drives both humans and Yahoos are passions, but men’s pride like to think themselves as rational (intelligent) animals, essentially capable of being guided by reason, but if it so it is only to prevail in disputes by using arguments as weapons, but usually not for getting the truth or being truly virtuous.

Within these passions, the mutual hatred – due to “…the odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the rest, but not in themselves…” – seems to be the most powerful for driving yahoos (human) to fight incessantly against each other. Hatred, however, is not but also a consequence of avarice as it is shown either for their insatiable appetite, incessant quarrels for shining stones, and the trend to steal and take any kind of advantage from rival weakness. It does not matter that “…shining stones abound…” they fight fiercely for appropriating the main possible amount of stones.

The unnatural appetites (desire of power) give way to disguise rudimentarily passions in Yahoos as envy mixed with avarice usually does, perhaps because ‘unnatural’ means trespassing a ‘natural’ red line, which works as natural rule (custom) for tricking or deceiving rivals.[124] Humans’ trespass of such a line is more artfully; “…art and reason…” concur to disguise such appetites or passions, but they are essentially identical as it is shown when a Yahoo-leader deposes his favorite servant by using general hatred (envy) against him, roused for squalid privileges due to his services. Though humans and Yahoos share appetites, passions, tricking, concealing and disguising, lying is what defines human features instead of reason or telling the truth, because it supposes to tell stories about what-is-not. Yahoos can conceal, trick, mislead, and even disguise, but not lying, because they do not know what-it-is (truth) to then distort it, except if it means what they want. Their wants can be concealed, which could be considered a proto-lying.

There is certainly more in humans than in Yahoos, but not something essentially different in the first of them.[125] In this case, more does not mean better, but just the opposite. Yahoos show what humans are basically, but only humans increase exponentially “…original wants…” and “…natural corruptions...” which belong to both of them.

It is obvious that nature has been so twisted in both races that there is no reason to keep talking about them as different races, because much of their features are only inherent to them, not to any other natural creature. The Master’s description of Yahoos’ features uses suggestions just to emphasize equivalences between both men and Yahoos as “…their strange disposition to nastiness and dirt…” – only comparable to swine, who were unknown in Houyhnhnms Land – understood both physically and morally; their “…infamous brutality…” by sharing pregnant females and fighting fiercely with them “…as no other sensitive creature ever arrived at…”; the seeds of human spleen in Yahoos’ laziness…[126]

Though female Yahoos show some “…rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal…” placed “…by instinct in womankind…” they do not have entirely displayed them as human both sexes do, because if such rudiments are “…natural corruptions…” their politer appearances are not natural outcomes, but “…entirely the productions of art and reason on our side of the globe.”

Such grade of exactness from Master’s speculations –supported by his random observations and what was told to him by his congeners – encourages G. “…to apply the character he gave of the Yahoos to myself and my countrymen…” and to initiate his own observations to better understand human nature, even though he kept some doubts yet about whether he “…was of their own species…”, and even he was at once prevented of being corrupted as consequence of “…the hatred I bore these brutes…”

But more than curiosity it is G’s fear to be totally identified as one of “…these brutes…” what drives his interest in watching them closely. However, hatred was a mutual passion between G. and Yahoos, because they tried to “…imitate [his] actions after the manner of monkeys, but ever with great signs of hatred…” as a way not only to show their resentment to one of them who did not behave as usual, but to imitate him as G. did respect Hs’ virtues and even appearance. Nevertheless, instead of hating or imitating Houyhnhnms, Yahoos felt “…natural awe…” to creatures they cannot understand (imitate or even mock) at all. So, if they could imitate G. it is because somehow they could see G. as their imitable congener, which would have had tragic consequences to G’s aspiration of passing “…the rest of my life among these admirable Houyhnhnms, in the contemplation and practice of every virtue…", because it would have reminded him constantly his essential similarities with such hated creatures.

Hatred to Yahoos –more than love and veneration to Houyhnhnms – prevents G. of becoming a more brutal creature, but paradoxically it is also hatred what prevents Yahoos of becoming supposedly more advanced creatures because their imitation was simply mockery based on hatred, not recognition of G’s pretended superiority supported by love and veneration to Houyhnhnms, on the one hand, and by hatred to Yahoos on the other hand. Yahoos’ mockery questions if having a superior reference to imitate is enough to improve morally. Somehow, Yahoos understand G’s superiority, but they hate (reject) precisely his attempt of becoming someone beyond their ability to imitate. Their mockery is not but a way of understanding negatively (reactively) perfection from hatred or envy. However, such mockery could also work as an ironic sign of G’s vain intent of imitating what he never would be for not being capable of becoming something higher than a simple Yahoo as they congeners enviously saw him.

By imitating G., Yahoos could not acquire any knowledge or virtue because of their perverse and restive disposition “…for they are cunning, malicious, treacherous, and revengeful…” Their insolence, abjection, and cruelty are consequences of a strong body shape mixed with a cowardly spirit, which intensifies (supports) their trend to use force measureless in an uncompassionate manner.  However, they are naturally endowed with primary abilities to survive by themselves by building rudimental shelters and procuring food by themselves.[127]

Nevertheless, the hatred to G. was not an obstacle for unleashing sexual instincts by a female Yahoo who felt appealed by his nudity. Such “…natural propensity…” would have proved G. as belonging to Yahoos’ kin, but it surely shows how some passions (sexual desire) can override momentarily other ones (hatred) or even blend with them.

This incident definitely left G. defenseless facing his evident likeness to Yahoos, because it was not a rational comparison that decided about such similarity, but a “…natural propensity…” what chose sexually and showed an irrefutable identity, at least corporally. It is noteworthy that what really amuses Houyhnhnms was G’s erroneous presumption of belonging to a different species, which is either denied by the female Yahoo’s ardent desires for him and indirectly by G’s frantic rejection of her lust. It couldn’t be but absurd, risible and somehow tragic-comic for such kind of rational creatures to observe a whole Yahoo attempting “…to cultivate reason, and to be wholly governed by it…” but being questioned at once in such a passionate way either by the female Yahoo lust and his rejection for her. The female-Yahoo's frantic desires were not usual within her kin because they usually exercised some kind of primitive coquetry in their seductive affairs[128], whereby such frenzy only could be due to G’s shape as a highly attractive paradigm of beauty (sex appeal) for male-Yahoos, highly envied and desired for that reason at once.

By contrast, Houyhnhnms’ virtue (maxims) highlights how far G. was of being a rational creature “…because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either…” Being not sure whether he was a Yahoo, as his Master had plainly attested since he watched G’s nudity, his accounts about England were leaded initially by false sense of human honor (pride), while his judgment about Yahoos was driven more by hatred than by reason in order to distinguish himself from such brutes. So, G. discovers gradually that what is called reason could be easily “…mingled, obscured, or discoloured, by passion and interest...”, driving humans mainly to chimeras supported by their prevalence instead of guiding to happiness (energeia, calm, serenity) brought by imitating actual rational creatures, but not before assuming a sort of Socratic ignorance as initial path for knowing themself.[129]

Therefore, the Master recognizes Socrates just because his knowledge of reason limits, which means that the scope of any rational argument is ultimately supported by such limits, not by human attempts to prevail in disputes. So, what really supports the finding of reason nature is a kind of virtue capable of recognizing intrinsic limits, not surpassing them.[130] That way, G. uses Houyhnhnms’ virtues to describe the brighter side of humans, symbolized in those abstract equine creatures. However, while the darker side (passions) of human-Yahoos seems to characterize most people, the brighter side (virtues) features are limited to the fewest of them. The Socratic point of view according to which virtues cannot be taught but can be only known through the maieutic method is subtlety referred by mentioning Socrates and Plato as human references to match with Houyhnhnms natural disposition related “…to love the whole species…”, which endows these creatures to cultivate virtues such as friendship, benevolence, decency, and civility without unnecessary ceremony, and endows reason at once to distinguish “…where there is a superior degree of virtue.”

If “…Friendship and benevolence are the two principal virtues among the Houyhnhnms…”, fear and hatred (malice) are the two principal passions in humans “…not confined to particular objects, but universal to the whole race…” So, renouncing to fear and hatred or at least taming them is only possible through a special passion which is love (Eros) platonically understood as desire of the beloved’s perfection and veneration of perfection, so what it is loved at last is perfection, just a going-beyond any particular person or thing but necessarily throughout them. That some humans are exceptionally capable of driving such passion to reason is showed by G’s love and veneration to Houyhnhnms who embody virtues, but he keeps also “…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.”[131]

However, such love as any other passion is ultimately inexplicable and very unstable, since humans, alike Yahoos, usually show a “…strange disposition to nastiness and dirt…” both physical and moral “whereas there appears to be a natural love of cleanliness in all other animals...” All this makes even harder to answer why humans are capable of loving something beyond their nature like, for instance, the rhythm of the celestial dome as a symbol of perfection as incorruptible, eternal, and very useful for traveling as G knew very well.

Houyhnhnms’ "acosmist love"[132] is praised by G.[133], whose love for them is more platonic since he feels attracted by principal virtues as friendship and benevolence, and all the other ones (comeliness, strength, temperance, industry, exercise, cleanliness, …) The worldly love –and also courtship, presents, jointures, settlements...– has  “…no place in their thoughts, or terms whereby to express them in their language…”, because their love points at the whole race – which embody all virtues – rather than to particular creatures, who are rationally distinguished by their “…superior degree of virtue…” rather than by other passional affections.

So, preserving “…the race from degenerating…” is a token of this love, which cares the whole species throughout individuals and preserves both of them from degenerating[134]. Subtly, G. compares “…love to the whole species…” with concupiscence as methods “…in order to propagate and continue the species…”  While concupiscence could be a natural path to allow procreation –but as a want or passion it could not be a valid principle for education, at least for Lilliputians, - the Houyhnhnms' “…love to the whole species…” is both a natural teaching and procreative principle, because that love guides reason to arrange marriages in order to avoid degeneration of race, instead of satisfying any want, passion or interest.

Since human marriage is driven mainly by concupiscence and all kind of passions and interests against nature – which “… works all things to perfection…”– its   outcomes could not be other than degenerating human race, moreover if children’s care is trusted to people “...good for nothing but bringing children into the world…”[135] by any motive except preserving “…the race from degenerating…” Curiously, Houyhnhnms usually distinguish between “inferior” (imperfect, worst) and “superior” (perfection, better) nature, because they do not even have any word for “…what is evil in a rational creature…”. Good (righteous) and evil do not have any moral significance, except because good means natural or according to nature, and the opposite is called Yahoo[136] (against nature, out of natural order[137]) Therefore, nature has different levels, which are catalogued regarding grades of perfection.[138]

Nevertheless, the point is how an inferior creature – be them both the inferior Houyhnhms or G. – could aim to perfection and be attracted by it? Is this an exception – it would be said, an anomaly – or is it because the “…small pittance of reason…” allows him aiming to such perfection? Could any other human being be enticed (attracted) by virtues embodied in such archetypical creatures? If so, it would be only a question mainly about passion (love), not exclusively about reason, because even being endowed by nature with love to the whole species, the inferior Houyhnhnms are barred from breeding with the superior ones for avoiding to corrupt the specie, which is an obvious rational choice done from those superior Houyhnhnms and abided by everyone, but driven both by fear to degenerate racially and love to the whole species at once.[139]

However, could G. become a Houyhnhnm ever?[140] He felt attracted by virtues which he could imitate, but facing at once the latent risk of being seduced by “… example[s] or incitement[s] to vice…” out of Houyhnhnms’ environment, while the equine race did not know such seductions and even were incapable of feeling and understanding them. Far of imitating virtues, Houyhnhnms only follow their instincts[141], though through a training process which arises from their inner potentiality. Ultimately, it was not reason that drove G. to imitate Houyhnhnms but love and veneration, emotions (passions, affects) at last.[142] However, might it suppose at least that because G could feel like Houyhnhnms do, by imitating them, would he become one of them? If so, then Yahoos might imitate G’s rudiment of reason? But while G feels love and veneration to H, they did not reciprocate such feelings, because though “..nature teaches them to the whole species…” their love was surpassed by fear and hatred regarding Yahoos, even G. as a considered part of this species.

G’s exceptionality becomes a point of discrepancies, which introduces Houyhnhnms to debate –first indirectly and then openly- about what was really G. and how to deal ahead with him? So, Houyhnhnms’ Council deliberations complete Yahoos’ depiction and deepen in their origin and behavior (nature). Regarding their origin it is established they “…were the most filthy, noisome, and deformed animals which nature ever produced …” So, though nature tends to work “…all things to perfection…” Yahoos seem to be an inexplicable anomaly in this order, which should be eliminated to somehow restore it.[143] So, Yahoos  as a race pose a fundamental question to rationality and nature not only as per Houyhnhnms standards but overall as per some philosophical perspectives at XVII and XVIII centuries.[144]

If nature works “…all things to perfection…” it would be incomprehensible how something so imperfect (” … an animal so savage by nature…”) could be “…aborigines of the land…” and even less why were they so unteachable.  So, determining whether Yahoos were “…aborigines of the land…” is an important question to define their fate due to “…their evil disposition…” and for being “…the most unteachable of all brutes” capable of being tamed, but not educated at all.[145] What tradition had established was the very filthy origin of the “…two of these brutes…” probably “…produced by the heat of the sun upon corrupted mud and slime, or from the ooze and froth of the sea…”.[146]

Yahoos fear and fight each other as Hobbesian creatures do in the State of War, but reason does not emerge in them as an intermediate path to any agreement. So, the fear does not mark an essential difference between Yahoos and humans but the “small pittance of reason”, though Yahoos bestow “…natural awe…” toward Houyhnhnms as virtuous creatures alike other animals which neither can understand (imitate) rationally them at all.[147] Therefore, if Hobbesian creatures can eventually reach a state of peace through some kind of agreements, either Lilliputians, Laputians, Yahoos and conspicuously humans are barely equipped to reach any reasonable agreement, because reason is not only driven but totally subordinated (obscured) by passions to such point that is highly questionable its role as mediator amongst these powerful desires.

Although Yahoo’s uncertain natural origin (like evil is to Philosophy and Theology), it was much more certain that they were totally strangers to this land, “…because of the violent hatred the Houyhnhnms, as well as all other animals, bore them…” in which case they should be substituted by aborigines “…asses, which are a comely animal, easily kept, more tame and orderly, without any offensive smell, strong enough for labour…” So Houyhnhnms, which symbolize reason, agree not to dominate Yahoos (passions) but to eliminate them, because they are essentially uncontrollable and thus much more that simply incompatible with reason as they could corrupt it by generating fear in its most conspicuous carriers. For having fewer passions than humans[148], Houyhnhnms do not know how to deal with them except by eliminating them, which suggests that somehow the equines could feel fear. Contrary to humans, who suffer passions as an uncontrollable disease, which could not be healed, controlled, and even less eliminated by any means, Houyhnhmns decide to suppress the incipient fear they feel or at least its source.

Contrary to his congeners' main opinions, G’s teachability is used by his Master to find a solution to Yahoos’ annihilation “…without destroying life…”, but it also works as a possible explanation to the essential question derived from Yahoos’ presence in this land and to Houyhnhnms’ assumptions about reason and nature: Is it nature so perfect if it is capable at once of generating or creating irrational creatures, incapable of being improved (educated, cultivated), and averse to any order, cleanness, civility, …because are dominated by passions without some trace of reason? Could Nature degenerate? And ultimately, are passions the outcomes of such degeneration?

Beyond these questions, there is perhaps a more worrisome issue derived from G's accounts about horses in England, that is: could Houyhnhnms be subjected to degradation as the horses in England were?[149]Ergo, is reason at risk to be degraded (corrupted) by passions or, on the contrary, passions at risk to be worsened by reason?

It is worth to notice that among Houyhnhnms only G’s Master and some of his  companions had witnessed the outcomes of uncontrollable passions corrupting reason either from G’s stories or his behavior too. So, the Master uses G’s presence in Houyhnhnmland to explain Yahoos as a sort of alien creatures “…driven thither over the sea…” whose small rationality had degenerated as G’s case could demonstrate by having “…all the qualities of a Yahoo, only a little more civilized by some tincture of reason…”.[150]

Even though recognizing such “…tincture of reason…” in Yahoos’ human ancestors, the Master does not think probable that degraded Yahoos might recover such incipient reason except for worsening their corruption. So, taming them provisionally by castrating the youngest –as human-Yahoos usually do to horses in England– is the provisional solution to annihilate the whole race at last. So, this is the practical answer to avoid the consequences of allowing raising passions (Yahoos) which could not be otherwise dominated. Thus, Houyhnhnms cannot see any possibility of dominating rationally passions or even setting a conciliatory relationship between passions and reason (moral), otherwise the Master probably would have endorsed G. as an exceptional Yahoo who could educate his congeners as G. promised to do with his “...own species…”[151] On the contrary, the Assembly and even G’s Master fear that such “tincture of reason” could corrupt even more the passions given by nature to Yahoos.

This impossibility would plant the seed of G’s tragedy, because imitating Houyhnhnms or wanting to be a rational being for loving and venerating them, and following their maxims and virtues would not be enough to be accepted as a rational being. While Houyhnhnms  “…are endowed by nature with a general disposition to all virtues…” Yahoos are prone to an “… evil disposition…”, and the highest goal G. could reach was to cure himself “… of some bad habits and dispositions, by endeavouring, as far as [he] inferior nature was capable, to imitate the Houyhnhnms.”[152] Therefore, by imitating Houyhnhnms G. could not be capable of eliminating his nature, initiating that way an incipient questioning about his intentions of helping his congeners to amend themselves by imitating Houyhnhnms examples.[153]

Curiously, although Houyhnhnms had degenerated intellectually in England or Europe, they instincts did not become corrupted[154] or irrational, dominated by passions to lie, desire of power, cruelty,… as it happened to Yahoos since they were supposedly “…forsaken by their companions…”, which might means that reason is not human essence or nature, because what is essential to something is what constitutes that thing as such and it could not fade without making disappear it and/or even being transformed in another thing.

Since the “small pittance of reason” had faded absolutely in Yahoos for being forsaken long time ago, it means that reason was not their innate essence, both in humans or Yahoos, because in humans the reason is also “…mingled, obscured, or discoloured, by passion and interest”, corrupted and capable of corrupting at once, not being more than an accident in them.[155] Even more, all this drives to recognize passion as their essence, ergo, what never fades under any circumstance. Thus, humans are simply Yahoos (passional creatures), but worsened as a result of passions corrupting reasons to intensify their scope and command and vice versa. Only exceptionally, but also very defectively, they might be governed by reason, just for loving, imitating, and consequently, being attracted by virtues to renounce to be driven by passions (hatred, cruelty, lying ...) as G eventually tried to do.

Imitating virtues embodied by Houyhnhnms’ Spartan customs[156] is the way that love drives G. to almost a perfect rational life and eventually to happiness.[157] However, his tragedy is loving (venerating) creatures which barely tolerate and definitely fear him just as a Yahoo “…only a little more civilized by some tincture of reason…”[158] Except Master’s family and himself, the Assembly seems to feel fear for G’s “… some rudiments of reason…” which might seduce Yahoos to increase their natural depravity. But, how could rational creatures feel afraid of reason? It would be a paradox if it were not for they “… understand the nature of Yahoos much better than myself…”, because if they hated Yahoos’ behavior it is because what they feared most was the mixture of such rudimentary reason with strong passions and even more the worsening of passions through the influence of this “… quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not only larger but more distorted.” 

Perhaps for the first time Houyhnhnms feel that fear (passions) might corrupt their reason (virtues) with devastating consequences at the sight of G’s accounts about Yahoos in England, who “…acted as the governing, rational animal, and held the Houyhnhnms in servitude…”.

Since fear intensifies and unleashes other passions[159], at least among all the creatures previously described by G., Houyhnhnms reason might be also at risk of falling in servitude to placate their own fears. So, instead of reason it would be fear who would begin to reign among Houyhnhnms,  but with a reasonable appearance. Fear would be then more heard and obeyed than common sense, love, or benevolence precisely for preventing falling under Yahoos’ dominance (rule of passions).

That way, Houyhnhnms find themselves trapped in an unnoticed paradox because deciding to expel G. to avoid the uprising of passions (Yahoos) was only possible by fearing these passions. Being fear and not reason which decides at last, because reason becomes only a means, not a reference to judge G, he is not judged regard what is reasonable in him but what is passional in his congeners and consequently feared by creatures which incarnate reason and virtues but cannot understand passions and consequently fear them. So, the only way Houyhnhnms find to control passions (fear) is to cut any bonds with any eventual source of disturbance. It could be discussed if Houyhnhnms fear is weaker than in humans, but at least this time their decision is driven by fear disguised as common sense (need of protecting the cattle and ultimately themselves from Yahoos).

It is noteworthy that G’s Master was the only one among Hs. who judges reasonably him, but only because he “…had cured [himself] of some bad habits and dispositions, by endeavouring, as far as [his] inferior nature was capable, to imitate the Houyhnhnms.” However, it was not enough to lessen Assembly’s fear and to make its decision “…less rigorous…” even if it had been opposed with very practical reasons to avoid sending G. to a certain death.[160] It was solely G’s Master’s benevolence and presence of mind which mediated between both Assembly's and G’s fears, but by giving complete satisfaction to the Assembly’s exhortation, allowing G. to build a boat to definitely leave, and renouncing at once “…to keep [him] in his service as long as [he] lived.”

Just as G’s love of virtues was an exception among humans, also his Master was an exception for treating a “…brute animal…” as a rational creature.[161] Neither those who knew personally G. nor the whole Assembly considered G. as his Master did, which finally led them to judge him more influenced by fearing reason contaminated by passions than guided by reasonable (benevolent) considerations. The arguments to condemn G. were no more than consequence of not knowing how to deal with passions intensified by a rudimentary reason and fearing this mixture, because if the sole passions are Yahoos’ nature, their mix with reason is rationally incomprehensible, unamendable, and consequently much more dangerous and uncontrollable than mere passions. At the sight of their strength and capacity to exterminate easily Yahoos[162] and having in mind that G. had healing himself as per his Master’s account, their verdict could have been “…less rigorous…”; moreover it becomes a fearful excuse to avoid dealing with unintelligible passions intensified by a rudimentary reason, whose outcomes would be unnatural, unknown, and most of all very destructive for Houyhnhnms as G’s accounts about human’s treatment of horses in England had already showed.

 

The human perspective. (The return to the Cave)

G’s return to England could be compared with Plato’s character who returns into the Cave to teach Truth, Beauty and Good (things as they really should be and in fact are regarding their perfection) to those who never have seen them, except by distorted reflections.[163] But such teaching supposes G. as one of the exceptions among humans (Yahoos), who could not only assimilate virtues and values but also use his rudimentary reason to teach them. But being so basic, would it be capable of that? Would it be anything else necessary  than such a reason not only to assimilate virtues but to teach or spread them among humans? Besides reason it is not but love (veneration) to these virtues and values who engages G. in his final destiny, but also some kind of implicit hope for amending humans that drives him to be “...useful to my own species”.[164] However, it was also G’s reason who was mainly guided by fear in defending human honor by concealing some facts or even by explaining distortedly some human practices –passions (vices)– that G. said he had already dominated.

Somehow G’s destiny is a tragic one because even though he is obliged to depart from where he wanted to pass his “…life in the contemplation and practice of every virtue…”[165], he still keeps loving and venerating virtues embodied by those who have considered him a potential disruptive and passional creature. Moreover, G’s promise to his Master “…of being useful to my own species, by celebrating the praises of the renowned Houyhnhnms, and proposing their virtues to the imitation of mankind…” depends on how these rudiments of reason were capable of removing, seducing or guiding passions, and how such love to virtues would be capable of defeating the deep hatred to Yahoos-human raised in him as a consequence of his love to the values incarnated by Houyhnhnms. Paradoxically, while his love for these rational equines increasingly grows, his hatred for Yahoos likewise deepens. Would it not be a sign of the inextricable link between love and hatred in humans? On the other hand, it is noteworthy that the scope of Houyhnhnms’ love reaches "...the whole species..." except those irrational creatures they cannot understand.

To accomplish his commitment G. uses his rudimentary reason to communicate his congeners Houyhnhnms’ virtues and values he had seen and practiced –just the opposite to his Master’s definition of reason’s purpose in humans.[166] Somehow, writing his experiences of travels is a way to accomplish his promise, but it only could be possible by focusing his “…small pittance of reason…” in unmasking what he had understood as human reason by describing accurately how do passions work to distort it and how at least two of these passions –love and veneration to virtues– might eventually enhance reason to remove infernal habits, corruptions, vices and passions.[167] So. G’s writing is a kind of ascetic process not only intending to distinguish reason from passions but also looking for liberating reason from passions.

Howsoever that passions are an essential part in humans – contrary to that accident called “rudiments of reason” – what do such rudiments mean? Are they enough not only to intensify but, contrarily and additionally, to dominate (control, appease, drive…) passions? Were these rudiments who allowed G. to understand and imitate Houyhnhnms’ virtues or was love to truth, virtues and values who additionally inclined his reason to understand and imitate such creatures?

If far from lessening passions, human reason intensifies any passion, be it low or high, its main goal (the truth) is subdued and distorted “… mingled, obscured, or discoloured, by passion and interest.” In fact, G. does not say explicitly which passions exert a more powerful influence on reason, instead he describes how they prompt and disguise themselves as rational outcomes. Even love, being the most complex and praised passion, might obstruct reaching the truth as it impedes  giving  a fair account of human affairs, just because in this case love works mostly driven by the intent of preserving “…the honour of my own kind…” rather than by being aimed at real virtues.

In his voyages G. discovers gradually either his own passions (false pride, fear, lying, love, hatred, …) as the subjacent stream in apparent reasonable behaviors, arguments or narrations, but it was only totally clear since he discovers himself as a lover of virtues and realizes that any other passion distorts and misleads reason instead of obeying (venerating) it and even love can distort reason since it aims to people or things separated from virtues.[168] It is so, however, that G’s love is discovered ultimately as a philosophical one (maybe moral) since it aims to venerate truth and the virtues embodied by his Master, and to reject his own faults and “… all falsehood or disguise…”. As well as G. could avoid salt[169] , he could put away other wants and therefore, passions. But these latter are rejected by the leading passion (love) in this case, which imposes itself to the other ones, most of all because it drives primarily reason to follow virtues and values. However, it could not be forgotten that such love grows proportionally to hatred and contempt for Yahoos.

G. does not want only to describe Houyhnhnms virtues as rational paradigms or archetypes, but also Yahoos’ passions (vices and corruption), as a way to reject any misconception, false assumptions or even lies about a supposed rational nature of humans, because if such archetypes are examples to imitate, those passions are drives to be driven and ultimately removed by a “rudimentary reason”. It is worth questioning what is the role of love in G’s commitment, because it could not be understood without seeing love (platonic Eros) to truth, beauty and good as capable of attracting reason and defining what human reason means and how it works, at least exceptionally.[170]

G’s love is so focused in virtues and values[171] that even though Houyhnhnms' assembly had ruled against him, it was not enough to raise his hatred and spite against them and thus to obliterate the virtues embodied by them. Although benevolence is a consequence of obeying the reason – which only love to the whole species could see gradually incarnated in everything, except in Yahoos –, Houyhnhnms were not capable of detecting any seed of these virtues in them, though G. already had given proof of imitating Houyhnhnms’ behavior. However, both Yahoos and human affairs initially related by G. overshadow virtues instead of giving some signal of recognizing or following them. Even G’s initial recognition of virtues and values seems mediated by a misunderstood honor, which gradually fades (melts) in front of his Master’s clever sight on both Yahoos and humans affairs (behavior) and their motivations.

Dismounting gradually G’s arguments and false assumptions about human rationality (honor) by comparing subtly the mechanisms in Yahoos’ passional (corrupt) behavior with human actions, his Master lead him to a kind of pristine perplexity (emotional nudity), which prepares G’s reason to assimilate virtues and values through love and veneration[172], but also to reject his own species, even his own family, until almost its total abhorrence because the “…example or incitement to vice...” they represented. This rejection comprehends not only human vices, passions or corruptions but even physiological features as human scent, perhaps as a symbol of corruption produced by passions. If Houyhnhnms awake G's love and veneration, conversely Yahoos trigger the fear as fuel of his understanding and his whole body, as it had happened when he met Lilliputians, Brobdingnagians, Laputians, Luggnaggians,

It is noteworthy that if G’s reason is attracted by Houyhnhnms’ virtues throughout “love and veneration”, that love is not like Houyhnhnms’ love “to the whole species”, but at best as a “lover of mankind”.[173]  While the scope of human love is barely constrained to mankind, supported mainly by desires, and rarely displayed, Houyhnhnms’ love reaches the whole species, except Yahoos. Theirs is a kind of love guided by moral reasons rather than by desires.[174]

Since Yahoos are prone to nastiness, dirty, and thus no sense and no reason, they embody the imperfection of nature, which is a paradox because nature “…works all things to perfection…” But comparing such imperfections with the “…enormities…” that abhorred the Master in G’s accounts about human affairs, these later ones surpasses any “…natural vices…” observed either in Yahoos and others brutes, which is attributed “…instead of reason…” to “…some quality fitted to increase our natural vices…” However, both imperfection and consequently, but rarely at once, desire of perfection is what constitutes human nature; otherwise G’s desires of perfection could not be explained but “…for The word Houyhnhnm…” which means “…the perfection of nature.”[175]

One of G’s challenges is to find a way of using what he still calls reason to placate or dominate vices by redirecting human love to virtues. It was the main purpose of his writing, which relates his voyage describing human nature from different perspectives for contributing hopefully to amend it.[176]

At this point G. finds a disjunctive between keeping himself as an exceptional creature, capable of dominating passions among Yahoos’, or giving or not his writing to ”… animals utterly incapable of amendment by precept or example…” His hope of Yahoos-readers’ amendment in a reasonable time depends on a question: Could human nature as a whole be amended (changed, transformed) by appealing to reason or any other means?[177] The only effect his writing had obtained was a profusion of “…libels, and keys, and reflections, and memoirs, and second parts …” which lead more to confusion than to amendment, just the foreseeable outcomes of human reason subdued (tinted) by the “…infernal habit of lying, shuffling, deceiving, and equivocating…” and incapable of grasping some indubitable truth (or any truth at all) and even less of following it decidedly.

From here, it seems that the only thing human beings want to get is mainly satisfying their passions, even the weirdest. But if so, reason would be the most powerful and weakest faculty at once –barely distinguishable from passions– because since it tries to command passions there is no other consequence than intensifying and making them more powerful. G. finishes his writing with a great paradox, which is the chimera of reason for dominating passions, because it is not but reason who intensifies passions since it tries to dominate them. Such an attempt of dominating would be no more than a passion itself, perhaps the most powerful and hopeless at once.

If there is human nature at all it should be no other than a passional one, barely capable of loving virtues and values and incapable at all of attaining to them, except by cutting all passional bonds as G. had proposed by not coming back to humans ever. But, could be passions cut without killing love to truth at once and all the other passions which compose love?[178]

G’s failure for dominating or cutting any bonds to passions reveals definitely how chimerical is such an intend since humans could not renounce to or reform totally their nature; and even when some of them might exceptionally and voluntarily repudiate passions, the later ones could not be eradicate as G’s admits by recognizing that “…some corruptions of my Yahoo nature have revived in me… by an unavoidable necessity…”[179] His regret for having attempted to reform the human race and his further (consequent) renouncement to any project of amending it through rational ways is rooted in this tragic experience of checking how impotent is human reason to govern passions and drive humans to virtues. It would be highly paradoxical that reason were driven by love for cutting other passions, because other passions could exert similar or even stronger drives on it. If reason were not a passion at once, how could it have any power to cut, govern or substitute any other passion?

Though G. does not reject “...reason itself…” which “…is true and just…”[180], he also knows that reason does not exist but through the “… reason of every particular man [which] is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.” Being human reason so dependent of passions –which could be eventually engulfed by passions until disappear totally, as it happened to Yahoos supposedly forsaken in Houyhnhnmland–, it is always at risk of disappearing under its own corruptions, ergo, lies, prejudices, false assumptions. This extreme would be only known by our own reason if it were driven by a paradoxical passion: love of truth, because passions do not seek truth, but only imposing each other through any means.[181]

 

 



[1] We have followed two editions of Gulliver’s travels into several remote nations of the World. By LEMUEL GULLIVER, first a Surgeon and then a Captain of several Ships.

The first of these: Dublin: Printed by and for Bookseller, in Essex Street, opposite to the Bridge. MDCCXXXV, published in The Writings of Jonathan Swift. W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London, 1973.

The second one: George Bell and Sons edition by David Price, 1892, published in the Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/829/829-h/829-h.htm

The quotations have been taken from the latter. The Roman numerals would refer to the Parts and the Arabic ones to the Chapters.

 

[2]   There were exceptions as Michel de Montaigne, just a renaissance man, who questioned usual assumptions regarding differences between humans and animals, and consequently the Aristotelian definition.

[3] I – 8 “I stayed but two months with my wife and family, for my insatiable desire of seeing foreign countries, would suffer me to continue no longer.”

III – 7  “…that insatiable desire I had to see the world in every period of antiquity placed before me…”

[4] Beyond a based optic perspectivist description, Gulliver offers a genealogy of passions by describing human reactions in front of overwhelming situations. The magnifying glasses are used by Swift-Gulliver as symbols of how passions work by magnifying, reducing, and even distorting what they help to watch or more over how they modify, create or even condition reality. As magic lanterns rather than simply spectacles, they are the actual a priori of human behavior (conduct) which condition the usual perspectivism of human life. Passions are not simply disposable magnifying glasses, but the ineludible condition of any human perception of and projection in reality.

To abound in Swift-Gulliver’s use of magnifying glasses as literary device to discover what usually lies behind appareances and to experiment the perspectivism in human life, see: Donoghue, Denis Jonathan Swift: a Critical Introduction. Cambridge Univerrsity Press, 1969. The digitally printed version, 2010. http://books.google.com/books?id=TcqZpVQlNRoC&pg=PA233&dq=swift+jonathan+Baruch+Spinoza&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EZD6U_WkLsyeyASnvYDoCQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=swift%20jonathan%20Baruch%20Spinoza&f=false

[5] https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Socrates%27+practical+reply+to+the+learner%27s+paradox+in+the+Meno-a093700298

[6] Damrosch, Leo   Jonathan Swift: His Life and his World. Yale University Pressbooks, London, 2013

http://books.google.com/books?id=Cdo_AQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=

“ There’s not much psychological characterization, but physical sensations are vividly recorded, and Swift constantly make us feel what it would be like to be Gulliver”

[7] Even though it is known Swift's aversion to metaphysical and abstruse themes, there is no reason to think he did not comprehend and appreciate such matters until the extent of not being capable of rethinking them from a kind of perspectivism used literarily by Cyrano de Bergerac, and also used but philosophically  by B. Pascal and G.W. Leibniz in the 17th century.

See:

       Carnochan, W. B. Lemuel Gulliver's Mirror for Man. University of California Press, 1968. P.122

http://books.google.com/books?id=W026JULyt10C&pg=PA224&dq=swift+jonathan+Baruch+Spinoza&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EZD6U_WkLsyeyASnvYDoCQ&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=swift%20jonathan%20Baruch%20Spinoza&f=false

       Crampton, Nancy, "The Influence of Cyrano De Bergerac's "Voyages to the Sun and the Moon" on Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels"" (1935). Graduate Thesis Collection. Paper 150. http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/grtheses/150

       McDowell, Charles “Catastrophism and PuritanThought:The Newton Era” From: "A Symposium on Creation" (Vol. VI), 1977 - Pacific Meridian Publishing Co. pg 57-90 http://www.creationism.org/symposium/symp6no3.htm

 

[8] Frances, David “Swift and Hobbes –A Neglected Parallel” BostonUniversity Studies in English 3 (1957): p.243

“[Swift] was a basically philanthropic man convinced against his own will that Hobbes’s Leviathan is truer to human nature than The Sermon of the Mount. As a result, he often intellectually accepted what he instinctively and emotionally disliked.”

[9] G. does not openly quote Robert Hooke’s treatise about microscopic world: Micrographia, where Hooke states in The preface: “By the means of Telescopes, there is nothing so far distant but may be represented to our view; and by the help of Microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible World discovered to the understanding By this means the Heavens are open'd, and a vast number of new Stars, and new Motions, and new Productions appear in them, to which all the ancient Astronomers were utterly Strangers. By this the Earth it self, which lyes so neer us, under our feet, shews quite a new thing to us, and in every little particle of its matter; we now behold almost as great a variety of Creatures, as we were able before to reckon up in the whole Universe it self.” But it is obvious G’s knowledge about Hooke's work.

Hooke, Robert Microphagia. LONDON, Printed by Jo. Martyn, and Ja. Allestry, Printers to the ROYAL SOCIETY, and are to be sold at their Shop at the Bell in S. Paul's Church-yard. M DC LX V.

http://www.gutenberGULLIVERorg/files/15491/15491-h/15491-h.htm

[10]  Hobbes, Thomas De cive. LONDON.  Printed by J. G for R. Royston, at the Angel in Ivie-lane. 1651.

“The cause of mutual fear consists partly in the natural equality of men, partly in their mutual will of hurting: whence it comes to pass that we can neither expect from others, nor promise to ourselves the least security.” “All men therefore among themselves are by nature equal; the inequality we now discern, hath its spring from the civil law.” P. 25

[11] I – 4 “For as to what we have heard you affirm, that there are other kingdoms and states in the world inhabited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon, or one of the stars; because it is certain, that a hundred mortals of your bulk would in a short time destroy all the fruits and cattle of his majesty’s dominions…”

[12] Hooke, R. Ibid.   “…the Creature was so greedy, that though it could not contain more, yet it continued sucking as fast as ever, and as fast emptying it self behind: the digestion of this Creature must needs be very quick, for though I perceiv'd the blood thicker and blacker when suck'd, yet, when in the guts, it was of a very lovely ruby colour, and that part of it, which was digested into the veins, seemed white; whence it appears, that a further digestion of blood may make it milk, at least of a resembling colour…”

There is a passage where G seems to be quoting Hooke’s microscopic observations except by his curiosity as surgeon, which makes him think in dissecting the vermin, which Hooke could not have thought, and also by rejecting such revolting sight instead of being fascinated as Hooke was:

II – 4 “But the most hateful sight of all, was the lice crawling on their clothes. I could see distinctly the limbs of these vermin with my naked eye, much better than those of a European louse through a microscope, and their snouts with which they rooted like swine. They were the first I had ever beheld, and I should have been curious enough to dissect one of them, if I had had proper instruments, which I unluckily left behind me in the ship, although, indeed, the sight was so nauseous, that it perfectly turned my stomach.“

Damrosch, Leo   Jonathan Swift: His Life and his World. Yale University Pressbooks, London, 2013

http://books.google.com/books?id=Cdo_AQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

 “Hooke was fascinated by a live louse under his microscope, nothing that the blood it sucked from his hand “was very lovely ruby colour”  

[13] I – 2  “But the colonel ordered six of the ringleaders to be seized, and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them bound into my hands; which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them forward with the butt-ends of their pikes into my reach.”

[14] I – 3 “He shall be our ally against our enemies in the island of Blefuscu, and do his utmost to destroy their fleet, which is now preparing to invade us.”

I – 4 “He began with compliments on my liberty; said “he might pretend to some merit in it;” but, however, added, “that if it had not been for the present situation of things at court, perhaps I might not have obtained it so soon.  For,” said he, “as flourishing a condition as we may appear to be in to foreigners, we labour under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion, by a most potent enemy, from abroad.”

[15] I – 5 “…when I signed those articles upon which I recovered my liberty, there were some which I disliked, upon account of their being too servile; neither could anything but an extreme necessity have forced me to submit …”

[16] See G’s descriptions of his displays as entertainer, especially in chapter 3.

[17] I – 2 “Sometimes they determined to starve me; or at least to shoot me in the face and hands with poisoned arrows, which would soon despatch me; but again they considered, that the stench of so large a carcass might produce a plague in the metropolis, and probably spread through the whole kingdom.”

[18] I – 5 “This open bold declaration of mine was so opposite to the schemes and politics of his imperial majesty, that he could never forgive me.  He mentioned it in a very artful manner at council, where I was told that some of the wisest appeared, at least by their silence, to be of my opinion; but others, who were my secret enemies, could not forbear some expressions which, by a side-wind, reflected on me.  And from this time began an intrigue between his majesty and a junto of ministers, maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, and had like to have ended in my utter destruction.  Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.”

[19]Jakonen, Mikko “Thomas Hobbes on fear, mimesis, aisthesis and politics” in Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory. Volume 12, Issue 2, 2011

“Hobbes's theory of fear has two major implications for his political theory. One implication is how men's mutual fear is the source of a commonwealth by institution. The second implication is that sovereign power is the source of fear, and that sovereign power also uses that fear to govern people. These two implications have not been analyzed fully in past studies. In a way, a sovereign captures mutual fear reigning in a multitude and transforming it into a political tool designed for government of the subjects. Possessing the right and power to cause death, a sovereign takes the place of God on earth. A sovereign has certain expectations of citizens: they should obey and honour the sovereign as they obey and honour God. Analyzing Hobbes's concepts of mimesis, aisthesis and honouring reveals how Hobbes aimed to construct a political object, the State, that would effect the whole sense experience of the subject. It shows that Hobbes's political thought is not only a legal political thought, but is based also on a thoroughly new setting of esthetical, ontological and semiotic politics.”

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1600910X.2011.579491#preview

[20] I – 5  “Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.”

It could also be an echo of Machiavelli statement about the role of fear in governing.

Machiavelli, N. “The Prince.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm#link2HCH0017

See especially Chapter XVII — Concerning Cruelty and Clemency, and whether it is better to be loved than feared: “Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”

[21] I – 5 “They began with many compliments upon my valour and generosity, invited me to that kingdom in the emperor their master’s name, and desired me to show them some proofs of my prodigious strength, of which they had heard so many wonders; wherein I readily obliged them, but shall not trouble the reader with the particulars.”

“I desired his general license to wait on the Blefuscudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant me, as I could perceive, in a very cold manner; but could not guess the reason, till I had a whisper from a certain person, “that Flimnap and Bolgolam had represented my intercourse with those ambassadors as a mark of disaffection;” from which I am sure my heart was wholly free.  And this was the first time I began to conceive some imperfect idea of courts and ministers.”

[22] It’s perhaps a wink to Rabelais’ Pantagruel  climbing the towers of Notre-Dame's church just to urinate on the crowd below.

See: Rovillain, Eugène E.  “Jonathan Swift's a Voyage to Lilliput and the Thousand and One Quarters of an Hour, Tartarian Tales of Thomas Simon Gueulette.” Modern Language Notes Vol. 44, No. 6 (Jun., 1929), pp. 362-364. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

[23] I – 1 “These people are most excellent mathematicians, and arrived to a great perfection in mechanics, by the countenance and encouragement of the emperor, who is a renowned patron of learning. This prince has several machines fixed on wheels, for the carriage of trees and other great weights.  He often builds his largest men of war, whereof some are nine feet long, in the woods where the timber grows, and has them carried on these engines three or four hundred yards to the sea.”

[24] I – 7 “…that his sacred majesty and the council, who are your judges, were, in their own consciences, fully convinced of your guilt, which was a sufficient argument to condemn you to death, without the formal proofs required by the strict letter of the law.”

“…It was strictly enjoined, that the project of starving you by degrees should be kept a secret; but the sentence of putting out your eyes was entered on the books…”

[25] I – 7 “You are very sensible that SkyreshBolgolam” (galbet, or high-admiral) “has been your mortal enemy, almost ever since your arrival.  His original reasons I know not; but his hatred is increased since your great success against Blefuscu, by which his glory as admiral is much obscured.”

[26] I – 3 “I swore and subscribed to these articles with great cheerfulness and content, although some of them were not sohonourable as I could have wished; which proceeded wholly from the malice of SkyreshBolgolam, the high-admiral…”

[27] I – 7  “…that he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt-acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put to death.”

[28] I – 7 “…that the services you had performed were, by all true reasons of state, the great aggravation of your crimes…”

[29] I – 6 “He represented to the emperor “the low condition of his treasury; that he was forced to take up money at a great discount; that exchequer bills would not circulate under nine per cent. below par; that I had cost his majesty above a million and a half of sprugs” (their greatest gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle) “and, upon the whole, that it would be advisable in the emperor to take the first fair occasion of dismissing me.”

[30] I – 7 “I had been hitherto, all my life, a stranger to courts, for which I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition.  I had indeed heard and read enough of the dispositions of great princes and ministers, but never expected to have found such terrible effects of them, in so remote a country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe.”

[31] I – 5 “…although I had done a very eminent piece of service, yet I could not tell how his majesty might resent the manner by which I had performed it: for, by the fundamental laws of the realm, it is capital in any person, of what quality soever, to make water within the precincts of the palace.  But I was a little comforted by a message from his majesty, “that he would give orders to the grand justiciary for passing my pardon in form:” which, however, I could not obtain; and I was privately assured, “that the empress, conceiving the greatest abhorrence of what I had done, removed to the most distant side of the court, firmly resolved that those buildings should never be repaired for her use: and, in the presence of her chief confidents could not forbear vowing revenge.”

Lamprecht, Sterling P. Introduction to De Cive. APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS, , London, 1949

“Hobbes treated reasoning as sedition against authority, criticism as treason, discussion of policy as a mark of the dissolution of commonwealth. He seems to have supported the notion that strong government is one under which reasoning and criticism and discussion are not visible.”

[32] I – 6 “In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities; for, since government is necessary to mankind, they believe, that the common size of human understanding is fitted to some station or other; and that Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs a mystery to be comprehended only by a few persons of sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born in an age: but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to be in every man’s power; the practice of which virtues, assisted by experience and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and, at least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous disposition, would never be of such fatal consequence to the public weal, as the practices of a man, whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his corruptions.”

[33] I – 6  “In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as disown the authority under which he acts.”

[34]  I – 7 “It was a custom introduced by this prince and his ministry (very different, as I have been assured, from the practice of former times,) that after the court had decreed any cruel execution, either to gratify the monarch’s resentment, or the malice of a favourite, the emperor always made a speech to his whole council, expressing his great lenity and tenderness, as qualities known and confessed by all the world.  This speech was immediately published throughout the kingdom; nor did any thing terrify the people so much as those encomiums on his majesty’s mercy; because it was observed, that the more these praises were enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer more innocent.  Yet, as to myself, I must confess, having never been designed for a courtier, either by my birth or education, I was so ill a judge of things, that I could not discover the lenity and favour of this sentence, but conceived it (perhaps erroneously) rather to be rigorous than gentle.”

[35] Ibid.

[36] I – 7 “His lordship did so; and I remained alone, under many doubts and perplexities of mind.”

[37] I – 7 “…upon pretence of unwillingness to force the consciences, or destroy the liberties and lives of an innocent people.”

[38] Reilly, Patrick Jonathan Swift: the brave desponder. Manchester University Press.

http://books.google.com/books?id=TgsNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=swift+jonathan+Hobbes+Leviathan&source=bl&ots=thrEYV0BVV&sig=dhoYfBKy1fjiPPmrGVY4jecBz1g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7MmNU53xA7PNsAS_rIG4Dg&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=true

Jiang-ping Fan The Political Allegories & Allusions in The Voyage to Lilliput

http://students.english.ilstu.edu/jfan/Identity/GulliverTravels2.html

“Possessing a historian’s foresight of politics, and being convinced that human beings are the same in all ages, shaken by the same passions, and stirred by the same interest, Swift successfully uses allegories and allusions in Gulliver’s Travels to expose the cruelty of the political persecutions.”

 Even though focused in the political background of Lilliput, this essay emphasizes the vicious circle as essence of politics and human history because passions drive to the same patterns of human behavior. It is also what G. notes throughout the narrations of personages died long time ago. 

[39] “He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.” “

Though this passage is referred to England or any European country history, ironically most of these passions drive Lilliputians to judge and eventually condemn Gulliver.

[40] Hobbes, Thomas De Cive London. Printed by J. G for R. Royston, at the Angel in Ivie-lane. 1651.

 “This man's will to hurt ariseth from vain glory, and the false esteem he hath of his own strength; the other's, from the necessity of defending himself, his liberty, and his goods, against this man's violence.” P. 25

For more coincidences between Swift and Hobbes regard the comprehension of fear role in human nature, see: Reilly, Patrick  Ibid.

[41] IV –8

[42] I – 8 “… “that as for sending me bound, his brother knew it was impossible; that, although I had deprived him of his fleet, yet he owed great obligations to me for many good offices I had done him in making the peace.  That, however, both their majesties would soon be made easy; for I had found a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up, with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped, in a few weeks, both empires would be freed from so insupportable an encumbrance.”…”

[43] I -4  “…that there are other kingdoms and states in the world inhabited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon, or one of the stars…”

[44] II -1 “…as human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk”

[45] “…nor did any thing terrify the people so much as those encomiums on his majesty’s mercy; because it was observed, that the more these praises were enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer more innocent. …”

[46] II - 6 “But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

[47] Hobbes, T. Ibid.“This man's will to hurt ariseth from vain glory, and the false esteem he hath of his own strength; the other's, from the necessity of defending himself, his liberty, and his goods, against this man's violence.”

“The cause of mutual fear consists partly in the natural equality of men, partly in their mutual will of hurting: whence it comes to pass that we can neither expect from others, nor promise to ourselves the least security.”

II -7  “…for, in the course of many ages, they have been troubled with the same disease to which the whole race of mankind is subject; the nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and the king for absolute dominion.”

[48] IV - 12 “… among which the least corrupted are the Brobdingnagians; whose wise maxims in morality and government it would be our happiness to observe.”

I - 4 “…that there are other kingdoms and states in the world inhabited by human creatures as large as yourself, our philosophers are in much doubt, and would rather conjecture that you dropped from the moon, or one of the stars…”

 

[49] I -“But having in my life perused many state-trials, which I ever observed to terminate as the judges thought fit to direct, I durst not rely on so dangerous a decision, in so critical a juncture, and against such powerful enemies.”

II-“And as I have been always told, and found true by experience in my travels, that flying or discovering fear before a fierce animal, is a certain way to make it pursue or attack you, so I resolved, in this dangerous juncture, to show no manner of concern.”

[50] II –6  “I did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular which I thought might redound to the honour of my country.” 

[51] II – 3 “The more my Master got by me, the more insatiable he grew.”

[52] II – 3 “She said, her papa and mamma had promised that Grildrig should be hers; but now she found they meant to serve her as they did last year, when they pretended to give her a lamb, and yet, as soon as it was fat, sold it to a butcher.”

[53] II –3  “…and that I had lived several years, as it was manifest from my beard, the stumps whereof they plainly discovered through a magnifying glass…”

II – 3 “The queen […] was […] surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive an animal.” 

[54] I –1  “I remember when I was at Lilliput, the complexion of those diminutive people appeared to me the fairest in the world; and talking upon this subject with a person of learning there, who was an intimate friend of mine, he said that my face appeared much fairer and smoother when he looked on me from the ground, than it did upon a nearer view, when I took him up in my hand, and brought him close, which he confessed was at first a very shocking sight.” 

[55] II –3  “They all agreed that I could not be produced according to the regular laws of nature, because I was not framed with a capacity of preserving my life, either by swiftness, or climbing of trees, or digging holes in the earth.  They observed by my teeth, which they viewed with great exactness, that I was a carnivorous animal; yet most quadrupeds being an overmatch for me, and field mice, with some others, too nimble, they could not imagine how I should be able to support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects, which they offered, by many learned arguments, to evince that I could not possibly do.  One of these virtuosi seemed to think that I might be an embryo, or abortive birth.  But this opinion was rejected by the other two, who observed my limbs to be perfect and finished; and that I had lived several years, as it was manifest from my beard, the stumps whereof they plainly discovered through a magnifying glass.  They would not allow me to be a dwarf, because my littleness was beyond all degrees of comparison; for the queen’s favourite dwarf, the smallest ever known in that kingdom, was near thirty feet high.”

[56] II –3  “that I came from a country which abounded with several millions of both sexes, and of my own stature; where the animals, trees, and houses, were all in proportion, and where, by consequence, I might be as able to defend myself, and to find sustenance, as any of his majesty’s subjects could do here; which I took for a full answer to those gentlemen’s arguments.”  To this they only replied with a smile of contempt, saying, “that the farmer had instructed me very well in my lesson.”  

[57] II - 1  “…Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison.  It might have pleased fortune, to have let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me.  And who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery.”

[58] II – 3 “For, after having been accustomed several months to the sight and converse of this people, and observed every object upon which I cast mine eyes to be of proportionable magnitude, the horror I had at first conceived from their bulk and aspect was so far worn off, that if I had then beheld a company of English lords and ladies in their finery and birth-day clothes, acting their several parts in the most courtly manner of strutting, and bowing, and prating, to say the truth, I should have been strongly tempted to laugh as much at them as the king and his grandees did at me.”

[59] II – “They would not allow me to be a dwarf, because my littleness was beyond all degrees of comparison; for the queen’s favourite dwarf, the smallest ever known in that kingdom, was near thirty feet high.”

[60] “…for I could not tell to what extremities such a malicious urchin might have carried his resentment.”

[61] II – “But as I was not in a condition to resent injuries, so upon mature thoughts I began to doubt whether I was injured or no.  For, after having been accustomed several months to the sight and converse of this people, and observed every object upon which I cast mine eyes to be of proportionable magnitude, the horror I had at first conceived from their bulk and aspect was so far worn off, that if I had then beheld a company of English lords and ladies in their finery and birth-day clothes, acting their several parts in the most courtly manner of strutting, and bowing, and prating, to say the truth, I should have been strongly tempted to laugh as much at them as the king and his grandees did at me.  Neither, indeed, could I forbear smiling at myself, when the queen used to place me upon her hand towards a looking-glass, by which both our persons appeared before me in full view together; and there could be nothing more ridiculous than the comparison; so that I really began to imagine myself dwindled many degrees below my usual size.”

[62] II - “A strange effect of narrow principles and views! that a prince possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirable talents, and almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice, unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands that would have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people!”

[63]Lynall, Gregory  Swift’s Caricatures of Newton. In: Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

http://books.google.com/books?id=6NgVm1VC5tsC&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=swift+jonathan+leibniz&source=bl&ots=fbPXbJHY92&sig=PkvpSyZcFty7Ixpha36KnONaeS0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FlrlUrKbDOuhsATSiYG4Cg&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=swift%20jonathan%20leibniz&f=true

It is true that Newtonian principle of Universal gravitation was no more than an empirical hypothesis (theory), which would be furtherly tested. Though referred to basic facts in nature (the falling of any object), it could not pass of being more than hypothesis as referred to specific conditions in Hearth, as it has been proved outer space.

 

[64] II – 5 “I am sure to me was very far from being a tempting sight, or from giving me any other emotions than those of horror and disgust: their skins appeared so coarse and uneven, so variously coloured, when I saw them near, with a mole here and there as broad as a trencher, and hairs hanging from it thicker than packthreads,…”

 II – 5  “The handsomest among these maids of honour, a pleasant, frolicsome girl of sixteen, would sometimes set me astride upon one of her nipples, with many other tricks, wherein the reader will excuse me for not being over particular.  But I was so much displeased, that I entreated Glumdalclitch to contrive some excuse for not seeing that young lady any more.”

[65] II – 7  “The learning of these people is very defective, consisting only in morality, history, poetry, and mathematics, wherein they must be allowed to excel.  But the last of these is wholly applied to what may be useful in life, to the improvement of agriculture, and all mechanical arts;…”

[66] I – 6  “Their parents are suffered to see them only twice a year; the visit is to last but an hour; they are allowed to kiss the child at meeting and parting; but a professor, who always stands by on those occasions, will not suffer them to whisper, or use any fondling expressions, or bring any presents of toys, sweetmeats, and the like.”

[67] II – 6 “I one day took the freedom to tell his majesty, “that the contempt he discovered towards Europe, and the rest of the world, did not seem answerable to those excellent qualities of mind that he was master of; that reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body; on the contrary, we observed in our country, that the tallest persons were usually the least provided with it; that among other animals, bees and ants had the reputation of more industry, art, and sagacity, than many of the larger kinds; and that, as inconsiderable as he took me to be, I hoped I might live to do his majesty some signal service.” …”

[68] II – 5 “This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavour to do himself honour among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.”

[69] II – “What qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new lords: whether the humour of the prince, a sum of money to a court lady, or a design of strengthening a party opposite to the public interest, ever happened to be the motive in those advancements?  What share of knowledge these lords had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-subjects in the last resort?  Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them?”

[70] II – 7 “He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.”

 “… you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator…”

[71] Ibidem “I artfully eluded many of his questions, and gave to every point a more favourable turn, by many degrees, than the strictness of truth would allow.  For I have always borne that laudable partiality to my own country, which Dionysius Halicarnassensis, with so much justice, recommends to an historian: I would hide the frailties and deformities of my political mother, and place her virtues and beauties in the most advantageous light.” 

[72] Ibid. “He said, “he knew no reason why those, who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public, should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them.  And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enforce the second: for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cordials.”…”

[73] Pascal, Blaise Thoughts. Section II. The Misery Of Man Without God. Epig. 60 (April 27, 2006 [EBook #18269])

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm

 “But to show him another prodigy equally astonishing, let him examine the most delicate things he knows. Let a mite be given him, with its minute body and parts incomparably more minute, limbs with their joints, veins in the limbs, blood in the veins, humours in the blood, drops in the humours, vapours in the drops. Dividing these last things again, let him exhaust his powers of conception, and let the last object at which he can arrive be now that of our discourse. Perhaps he will think that here is the smallest point in nature. I will let him see therein a new abyss. I will paint for him not only the visible universe, but all that he can conceive of nature’s immensity in the womb of this abridged atom. Let him see therein an infinity of universes, each of which has its firmament, its planets, its earth, in the same proportion as in the visible world; in each earth animals, and in the last mites, in which he will find again all that the first had, finding still in these others the same thing without end and without cessation. Let him lose himself in wonders as amazing in their littleness as the others in their vastness. For who will not be astounded at the fact that our body, which a little ago was imperceptible, in the universe, itself imperceptible in the bosom of the whole, is now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole, in respect of the nothingness which we cannot reach? He who regards himself in this light will be afraid of himself, and observing himself sustained in the body given him by nature between those two abysses of the Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at the sight of these marvels; and I think that, as his curiosity changes into admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than to examine them with presumption.”

Compare to II – 1  “Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. It might have pleased fortune, to have let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me. And who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery.”

The idea of worlds within worlds is obviously shared for these two thinkers and so many others at least since the microscopic world was discovered. However, regarding Pascal’s influences on Swift’s GT, it hardly could be stated. See; Émile Pons ``Swift et Pascal.” Les langues modernes 45 (1951): 135-5ed

[74] II – 7  “I was the favourite of a great king and queen, and the delight of the whole court; but it was upon such a foot as ill became the dignity of humankind.”

[75] II – 8  “For indeed, while I was in that prince’s country, I could never endure to look in a glass, after mine eyes had been accustomed to such prodigious objects, because the comparison gave me so despicable a conceit of myself…”

II – 5 “This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavour to do himself honour among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.”

II – 3 “Neither, indeed, could I forbear smiling at myself, when the queen used to place me upon her hand towards a looking-glass, by which both our persons appeared before me in full view together; and there could be nothing more ridiculous than the comparison; so that I really began to imagine myself dwindled many degrees below my usual size.”

II – 3 “They would not allow me to be a dwarf, because my littleness was beyond all degrees of comparison…”

II – 1 “Undoubtedly philosophers are in the right, when they tell us that nothing is great or little otherwise than by comparison. It might have pleased fortune, to have let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me. And who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world, whereof we have yet no discovery.”

("man is the measure of all things", as Protagoras stated)

[76] II – 7 “it was very reasonable to think, not only that the species of men were originally much larger, but also that there must have been giants in former ages; which, as it is asserted by history and tradition, so it has been confirmed by huge bones and skulls, casually dug up in several parts of the kingdom, far exceeding the common dwindled race of men in our days.”

[77] Ibidem “From this way of reasoning, the author drew several moral applications, useful in the conduct of life, but needless here to repeat. For my own part, I could not avoid reflecting how universally this talent was spread, of drawing lectures in morality, or indeed rather matter of discontent and repining, from the quarrels we raise with nature. And I believe, upon a strict inquiry, those quarrels might be shown as ill-grounded among us as they are among that people.”

Moral attributes of nature arises from such quarrels by morally understanding nature and by ascribing to it meanings only attributable to some human actions. It seems that Gulliver shares Newtonian mechanics vision of nature, which does not attribute any purposes, passions or moral values to it, though nature entitles passional features to every one of its creatures.  Nature itself does not know passions (hatred, envy, love, hope, remorse, evil, good, wants, ambition, fear…), but it would be the only source of passions and reason in its creatures if any other unnatural source were excluded.

[78] Ibid. “He said, “he knew no reason why those, who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public, should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them.  And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enforce the second: for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cordials.”…”

[79] Ibid. “…All which, however happily tempered by the laws of that kingdom, have been sometimes violated by each of the three parties, and have more than once occasioned civil wars;…”

[80] IV – 12 “I shall say nothing of those remote nations where Yahoos preside; among which the least corrupted are the Brobdingnagians; whose wise maxims in morality and government it would be our happiness to observe.” 

[81] II – 6“…As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country.  But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

II – “…I had always a strong impulse that I should some time recover my liberty,… He was strongly bent to get me a woman of my own size, by whom I might propagate the breed: but I think I should rather have died than undergone the disgrace of leaving a posterity to be kept in cages, like tame canary-birds, and perhaps, in time, sold about the kingdom, to persons of quality, for curiosities. I was indeed treated with much kindness: I was the favourite of a great king and queen, and the delight of the whole court; but it was upon such a foot as ill became the dignity of humankind. I could never forget those domestic pledges I had left behind me. I wanted to be among people, with whom I could converse upon even terms, and walk about the streets and fields without being afraid of being trod to death like a frog or a young puppy.”

[82] II – 6 “…you have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.  I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions.”

[83] III – 2  “…but I rather take this quality to spring from a very common infirmity of human nature, inclining us to be most curious and conceited in matters where we have least concern, and for which we are least adapted by study or nature.”

[84] Ibidem “It seems the minds of these people are so taken up with intense speculations, that they neither can speak, nor attend to the discourses of others, without being roused by some external taction upon the organs of speech and hearing; for which reason, those persons who are able to afford it always keep a flapper (the original is climenole) in their family, as one of their domestics; nor ever walk abroad, or make visits, without him.  And the business of this officer is, when two, three, or more persons are in company, gently to strike with his bladder the mouth of him who is to speak, and the right ear of him or them to whom the speaker addresses himself.  This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to give him a soft flap on his eyes; because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post; and in the streets, of justling others, or being justled himself into the kennel.”

Ibid.  “And although they are dexterous enough upon a piece of paper, in the management of the rule, the pencil, and the divider, yet in the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people, nor so slow and perplexed in their conceptions upon all other subjects, except those of mathematics and music.  They are very bad reasoners, and vehemently given to opposition, unless when they happen to be of the right opinion, which is seldom their case.  Imagination, fancy, and invention, they are wholly strangers to, nor have any words in their language, by which those ideas can be expressed; the whole compass of their thoughts and mind being shut up within the two forementioned sciences.”

[85] Ibid. “They are so perpetually alarmed with the apprehensions of these, and the like impending dangers, that they can neither sleep quietly in their beds, nor have any relish for the common pleasures and amusements of life.  When they meet an acquaintance in the morning, the first question is about the sun’s health, how he looked at his setting and rising, and what hopes they have to avoid the stroke of the approaching comet.  This conversation they are apt to run into with the same temper that boys discovering delighting to hear terrible stories of spirits and hobgoblins, which they greedily listen to, and dare not go to bed for fear.”

[86] Ibid. “Their apprehensions arise from several changes they dread in the celestial bodies: for instance, that the earth, by the continual approaches of the sun towards it, must, in course of time, be absorbed, or swallowed up; that the face of the sun, will, by degrees, be encrusted with its own effluvia, and give no more light to the world; that the earth very narrowly escaped a brush from the tail of the last comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to ashes; and that the next, which they have calculated for one-and-thirty years hence, will probably destroy us.”

[87] III – 4  “…that some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country.”…”

“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.”

[88] III – “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.”

[This parody seems aimed at Berkeley subjectivism. As any other passion brought to extremes, speculation ends speechless, but Swift’s mockery by reductio ad absurdum does not refer to any mystical conclusion about ineffability, but just to the consequences of following speculative postulates (esse est percipii) in ordinary life.]

[89] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/

“First, there is the thesis that every virtue is a state that lies between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency.”

[90] I – 1 “He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness.”

[91] Marzola, Alessandra “Hamlet and the Passion of Knowledge”. In: Thinking with Shakespeare. pp. 203-220 (January 2014)

From this point of view, G. seems a Shakespearian character, Hamlet in this case, whose inquiry is guided by passions (irresistible desire) rather than by reason, though their respective motivations apparently seem very different. Both characters are driven by a strong desire to know the past, though their personal implications in it does not have any point of comparison.

[92] III – 7  “And one thing I might depend upon, that they would certainly tell me the truth, for lying was a talent of no use in the lower world.”

[93] III – 8 “I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by what methods great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of honour, and prodigious estates;”

“I had often read of some great services done to princes and states, and desired to see the persons by whom those services were performed.  Upon inquiry I was told, “that their names were to be found on no record, except a few of them, whom history has represented as the vilest of rogues and traitors.”  As to the rest, I had never once heard of them.  They all appeared with dejected looks, and in the meanest habit; most of them telling me, “they died in poverty and disgrace, and the rest on a scaffold or a gibbet.”…”

[94] Ibidem “This great philosopher freely acknowledged his own mistakes in natural philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as all men must do; and he found that Gassendi, who had made the doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and the vortices of Descartes, were equally to be exploded.  He predicted the same fate to attraction, whereof the present learned are such zealous asserters.  He said, “that new systems of nature were but new fashions, which would vary in every age; and even those, who pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles, would flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that was determined.” …”

[95] Swift’s opinion regard the quarrel between Ancients and Moderns does not keep equidistant since Ancients seem to establish unsurpassable canons. But, paradoxically, Swift himself might be cataloged as modern if this concept means innovation in literary style regarding his antecessors, and creating a paradigm in English language to further generations. Obviously, it was possible for having a solid background in classic languages.

Damrosch, Leo Jonathan Swift: His Life and his World. Yale University Pressbooks, London, 2013

http://books.google.com/books?id=Cdo_AQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

See especially “Boarding School Boy”

[96] III – 8 “I was surprised to find corruption grown so high and so quick in that empire, by the force of luxury so lately introduced; which made me less wonder at many parallel cases in other countries, where vices of all kinds have reigned so much longer, and where the whole praise, as well as pillage, has been engrossed by the chief commander, who perhaps had the least title to either.”

[97] Animals alike toddlers cannot feel fear to death for not having the concept of dying, though animals try to avoid pain and usually surpass humans in foreseeing perils or painful and dangerous situations. Death is not a feeling but a concept and reality at once. They cannot feel fear to death because they are not conscious (aware)  ofthe differences between being alive or death.

http://www.grandin.com/inc/animals.in.translation.ch5.html

http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=3119

[98] III – 10 “When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren.  Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions.  But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old.  By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament and repine that others have gone to a harbour of rest to which they themselves never can hope to arrive.  They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle-age, and even that is very imperfect; and for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition, than upon their best recollections.  The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.”

[99] Ibidem “Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions.”

[100] IV – 10  “Whereas a traveller’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad, as well as good, example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.”

[101] IV – 4 “…because their wants and passions are fewer than among us.”

IV – 7 “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.”

[102] IV – 2 “The master horse ordered a sorrel nag, one of his servants, to untie the largest of these animals, and take him into the yard.  The beast and I were brought close together, and by our countenances diligently compared both by master and servant, who thereupon repeated several times the word Yahoo.  My horror and astonishment are not to be described, when I observed in this abominable animal, a perfect human figure: the face of it indeed was flat and broad, the nose depressed, the lips large, and the mouth wide; but these differences are common to all savage nations, where the lineaments of the countenance are distorted, by the natives suffering their infants to lie grovelling on the earth, or by carrying them on their backs, nuzzling with their face against the mothers’ shoulders.  The fore-feet of the Yahoo differed from my hands in nothing else but the length of the nails, the coarseness and brownness of the palms, and the hairiness on the backs.  There was the same resemblance between our feet, with the same differences; which I knew very well, though the horses did not, because of my shoes and stockings; the same in every part of our bodies except as to hairiness and colour, which I have already described.

The great difficulty that seemed to stick with the two horses, was to see the rest of my body so very different from that of a Yahoo, for which I was obliged to my clothes, whereof they had no conception.  The sorrel nag offered me a root, which he held (after their manner, as we shall describe in its proper place) between his hoof and pastern; I took it in my hand, and, having smelt it, returned it to him again as civilly as I could.  He brought out of the Yahoos’ kennel a piece of ass’s flesh; but it smelt so offensively that I turned from it with loathing: he then threw it to the Yahoo, by whom it was greedily devoured.  He afterwards showed me a wisp of hay, and a fetlock full of oats; but I shook my head, to signify that neither of these were food for me.  …”

[103] Ibidem “And indeed I now apprehended that I must absolutely starve, if I did not get to some of my own species; for as to those filthy Yahoos, although there were few greater lovers of mankind at that time than myself, yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more I came near them the more hateful they grew, while I stayed in that country.”

[104] IV – 3 “Several horses and mares of quality in the neighbourhood came often to our house, upon the report spread of “a wonderful Yahoo, that could speak like a Houyhnhnm, and seemed, in his words and actions, to discover some glimmerings of reason.”

[105] Ibidem  “I requested likewise, “that the secret of my having a false covering to my body, might be known to none but himself, at least as long as my present clothing should last; for as to what the sorrel nag, his valet, had observed, his honour might command him to conceal it.”…”

[106] For G. the use of attire and garments to conceal and thus to lie is a general trend of human nature, not only pertaining to female, even though the feminine use of them is more conspicuous in some cultural contexts.

A detailed analysis from a feminist perspective of Swift’s understanding of clothes and garments as feminine disguises can be found in:

  Ktenas, Stella   Gender Performance in Jonathan Swift’s “The Lady’s Dressing Room” Philament Volume 23 • 2017

 “Celia has collected the garments for their presentational or performative uses rather than for the mere utility of body covering clothing. Dresses, handkerchiefs, and gloves are equintessentially theatrical items, integral components that mark one’s sartorial identity. The significations of these elements of costume denote not only Celia’s abjection, however, but her role as a woman: they indicate the way in which Celia plays her role as woman and—just as any theatrical role requires backstage preparation—so does Celia’s role require that she maintains her sartorial identity and masquerade.” Pg.15-16

IV – 6 “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.”

 

 

[107] IV – 4 “…for their language does not abound in variety of words, because their wants and passions are fewer than among us…”

[108] Ibidem “…if any one said the thing which was not, these ends were defeated, because I cannot properly be said to understand him; and I am so far from receiving information, that he leaves me worse than in ignorance; for I am led to believe a thing black, when it is white, and short, when it is long.”  And these were all the notions he had concerning that faculty of lying, so perfectly well understood, and so universally practised, among human creatures.”

The Latin root for conviction makes reference to vincere [to win, to defeat, and ultimately to conquer]

[109] IV – 8 “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.” …”

[110] IV – 5 “…considering the frame of our bodies, and especially of mine, … no creature of equal bulk was so ill-contrived for employing that reason in the common offices of life…”

[111] Ibid. – “…for their language does not abound in variety of words, because their wants and passions are fewer than among us.”

[112] Ibid. - “…He asked me, “what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another?”…  “

[113] Ibid.-“…“What you have told me,” said my master, “upon the subject of war, does indeed discover most admirably the effects of that reason you pretend to: however, it is happy that the shame is greater than the danger; and that nature has left you utterly incapable of doing much mischief. …”

[114] Ibid. “But when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself.  He seemed therefore confident, that, instead of reason we were only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not only larger but more distorted.”…”

[115] IV – 7 “…“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…”

[116] IV – 5  “It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong…”

[117] IV - 6 “Therefore since money alone was able to perform all these feats, our Yahoos thought they could never have enough of it to spend, or to save, as they found themselves inclined, from their natural bent either to profusion or avarice; that the rich man enjoyed the fruit of the poor man’s labour, and the latter were a thousand to one in proportion to the former; that the bulk of our people were forced to live miserably, by labouring every day for small wages, to make a few live plentifully.”

[118]  Ibidem “He could easily conceive, that a Houyhnhnms, grew weak and heavy a few days before his death, or by some accident might hurt a limb; but that nature, who works all things to perfection, should suffer any pains to breed in our bodies, he thought impossible, and desired to know the reason of so unaccountable an evil.”

[119] Swift uses the stoic-Aristotelian teleology (maybe St. Thomas’ version of that) as Houyhnhnms’ wisdom or moral criteria, which is: follow nature in all its trends.

[120] IV – 6 “…that a first or chief minister of state, who was the person I intended to describe, was the creature wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger; at least, makes use of no other passions, but a violent desire of wealth, power, and titles; that he applies his words to all uses, except to the indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth but with an intent that you should take it for a lie; nor a lie, but with a design that you should take it for a truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs are in the surest way of preferment…”

[121] IV – 7  “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…”

[122] Ibidem “…in the contemplation and practice of every virtue, where I could have no example or incitement to vice…”

[123] IV – 5 “Here my master interposing, said, “it was a pity, that creatures endowed with such prodigious abilities of mind, as these lawyers, by the description I gave of them, must certainly be, were not rather encouraged to be instructors of others in wisdom and knowledge.”…”

[124] IV – 7 “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.”

 

[125] Varona, Enrique Jose  “There is more in men than in animals, but not anything essentially different”  Obras de Enrique José Varona ...: Literatura III: Violetas y ortigas

[126] IV – 7

[127] IV – 8  “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.”

[128] IV – 7 “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…

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.”

[129] IV-7 “ 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.” (the underlined text is our)

[130] IV- 8 “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.”

[131] IV-7 “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.”

[132] This concept has been borrowed from Max Weber’s philosophy to name Gulliver’s description of Houyhnhnms principal virtues.

See: Bellah, Robert N.  “Max Weber and World-Denying Love: A Look at the Historical Sociology of Religion”

http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_3.htm

Liebesakosmismus: "World-denying love" is a more accessible English translation, but even that reverses the German noun and adjective. "World-denying love;' as opposed to worldly love, which is always love for particular persons, is love for all, without distinction--love for whoever comes, friends, strangers, enemies—“

[133] IV – 8 “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.”

[134] IV- 8 “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.”

[135] IV - 8 “…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.”

[136] IV - 9 “…the Houyhnhnms have no word in their language to express any thing that is evil, except what they borrow from the deformities or ill qualities of the Yahoos.“

[137] IV – 10 “…because he found I had cured myself of some bad habits and dispositions, by endeavouring, as far as my inferior nature was capable, to imitate the Houyhnhnms.”…”

[138]IV – 4  “But he insisted in commanding me to let him know the best and the worst.”

[139] IV -7 “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.”

[140]  Could this “imitation” be a serious parody of “imitatio Christi”? Imitatio Christi does not mean someone might become Christ, but only follow his example.

[141] IV – 8 “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.”

[142] Nevertheless, these questions need a more detailed study on Swift’s reception of Platonism than it might be done here. However, it could not be fully sustained that GT is basically a parody of Plato’s Republic without having in mind that the main ideas regards human capacity to be driven by reason are retaken in Plato’s Laws whith a more realistic perspective. Of course, it could be very difficult for Swift, if not impossible at all, having considered the Laws as a Platonic work because it was very dubious at this time to attribute this work to Plato as Jaeger states in his book “Paideia: The ideals of Greek culture”.

If it were a parody of Plato’s Republic, then it would be hard to comprehend why GT ends with a very realistic –someone would say bitter - reflection on human nature which does not neglect Plato as truth lover, as Gulliver in fact is also, but rectifies the later rationalistic assumptions of reason as an absolute guide in human nature. Another question would be if Houyhnhnms could be considered truth-lovers or only rational and passionless creatures, incapable of knowing evil?

See: https://sites.google.com/site/jeffsliteraturecafe/jonathan-swift-s-gulliver-s-travels-as-a-parody-of-plato-s-republic

[143] IV – 9 “The question to be debated was, “whether the Yahoos should be exterminated from the face of the earth?”…”

[144] It is known how Voltaire’s “Candide, ou l'Optimisme” and Micromegas parodie both Christian Wolf and G.W. Leibniz teleology regards their optimist outcomes. Houyhnhnms do not understand what the evil place in their world is, but Wolf-Leibniz intended to explain it as something necessary to keep working the universal harmony or being a part of such harmony.

[145] IV – 9 “… “that Yahoos had not been always in their country; but that many ages ago, two of these brutes appeared together upon a mountain; whether produced by the heat of the sun upon corrupted mud and slime, or from the ooze and froth of the sea, was never known; that these Yahoos engendered, and their brood, in a short time, grew so numerous as to overrun and infest the whole nation…”

[146] It looks like a parody of Genesis' account of Adam and Eve’s creation.

[147] IV -4 “…that natural awe, which the Yahoos and all other animals bear toward them…”

“…the most unteachable of all animals: their capacity never reaching higher than to draw or carry burden. … 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. …”

[148] IV – 4 “…because their wants and passions are fewer than among us…”

[149] IV – 12 “… to lament the brutality of [to (internet edition)] Houyhnhnms in my own country, but always treat their persons with respect, for the sake of my noble master, his family, his friends, and the whole Houyhnhnm race, whom these of ours have the honour to resemble in all their lineaments, however their intellectuals came to degenerate.” (The underline text is our emphasis)

[150] In another twist Swift states that “Beasts may degenerate into men” as G’s Master also stated by saying that reason seems to be a faculty to corrupt passions. There is not room to fear that reason could be corrupt by passions

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174532

[151] IV – 10 “… and if ever I returned to England, was not without hopes of being useful to my own species, by celebrating the praises of the renowned Houyhnhnms, and proposing their virtues to the imitation of mankind.”

[152] IV - 10

[153] A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON. “And it must be owned, that seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and folly to which Yahoos are subject, if their natures had been capable of the least disposition to virtue or wisdom.

Such questioning may have been formulated as follow: Could human imitate virtues? Is this an effective deterrent (method, way) for placating passions? Are virtues innate dispositions (part of human nature) as passions seem to be?

[154] IV -11 “The first money I laid out was to buy two young stone-horses, which I keep in a good stable; and next to them, the groom is my greatest favourite, for I feel my spirits revived by the smell he contracts in the stable. My horses understand me tolerably well; I converse with them at least four hours every day. They are strangers to bridle or saddle; they live in great amity with me and friendship to each other.”

IV -12       “…to lament the brutality to Houyhnhnms in my own country, but always treat their persons with respect, for the sake of my noble master, his family, his friends, and the whole Houyhnhnm race, whom these of ours have the honour to resemble in all their lineaments, however their intellectuals came to degenerate. …”

[155] VI -7 “…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,…”

[156] GULLIVER description of Hs. customs seems being inspired by Spartan customs related by Xenophon’s Lycurgus and Plutarch’s The Ancient Customs of the Spartans

[157] IV – 10   “…I admired the strength, comeliness, and speed of the inhabitants; and such a constellation of virtues, in such amiable persons, produced in me the highest veneration.  At first, indeed, I did not feel that natural awe, which the Yahoos and all other animals bear toward them; but it grew upon me by decrees, much sooner than I imagined, and was mingled with a respectful love and gratitude, that they would condescend to distinguish me from the rest of my species. …”

[158] IV – 10 “…the representatives had taken offence at his keeping a Yahoo (meaning myself) in his family, more like a Houyhnhnm than a brute animal; that he was known frequently to converse with me, as if he could receive some advantage or pleasure in my company; that such a practice was not agreeable to reason or nature, or a thing ever heard of before among them; the assembly did therefore exhort him either to employ me like the rest of my species, or command me to swim back to the place whence I came: that the first of these expedients was utterly rejected by all the Houyhnhnms who had ever seen me at his house or their own; for they alleged, that because I had some rudiments of reason, added to the natural pravity of those animals, it was to be feared I might be able to seduce them into the woody and mountainous parts of the country, and bring them in troops by night to destroy the Houyhnhnms’ cattle, as being naturally of the ravenous kind, and averse from labour.” …”            

[159] Though not quoted directly by G. Hobbes' comprehension of fear as a source of human features seems to be assumed as principle to explain why reason could not be explained without reference to passions.

Hobbes, T.  De cive

Preface

“Can men give a clearer testimony of the distrust they have each of other, and all, of all.? How since they do

thus, and even countries as well as men, they publicly profess their mutual fear and diffidence?”

“Unless therefore we will say that men are naturally evil, because they receive not their education and use of reason from nature, we must need acknowledge that men may derive desire, fear, anger, and other passions from nature, and yet not impute, the evil effects of those unto nature.”

Part I Liberty

“We must therefore resolve, that the original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will men had towards each other, but in the mutual fear * they had of each other.”

“*It is objected: it is so improbable that men should grow into civil societies out of fear, that if they had been afraid, they would not have endured each other's looks. They presume, I believe, that to fear is nothing else than to be affrighted. I comprehend in this word fear, a certain foresight of future evil; neither do I conceive flight the sole property of fear, but to distrust, suspect, take heed, provide so that they may not fear, is also incident to the fearful. They who go to sleep, shut their doors; they who travel, carry their swords with them, because they fear thieves. Kingdoms guard their coasts and frontiers with forts and castles; cities are compact with walls, and all for fear of neighbouring kingdoms and towns; even the strongest armies, and most accomplished for fight, yet sometimes parley for peace, as fearing each other's power, and lest they might be overcome. It is through fear that men secure themselves, by flight indeed, and in corners, if they think they cannot escape otherwise;

but for the most part by arms and defensive weapons; whence it happens, that daring to come forth, they know each other's spirits; but then, if they fight, civil society ariseth from the victory, if they agree, from their agreement.”

 

[160] IV -10 “… “that death would have been too great a happiness; that although I could not blame the assembly’s exhortation, or the urgency of his friends; yet, in my weak and corrupt judgment, I thought it might consist with reason to have been less rigorous; that I could not swim a league, and probably the nearest land to theirs might be distant above a hundred: that many materials, necessary for making a small vessel to carry me off, were wholly wanting in this country; which, however, I would attempt, in obedience and gratitude to his honour, although I concluded the thing to be impossible, and therefore looked on myself as already devoted to destruction; that the certain prospect of an unnatural death was the least of my evils; for, supposing I should escape with life by some strange adventure, how could I think with temper of passing my days among Yahoos, and relapsing into my old corruptions, for want of examples to lead and keep me within the paths of virtue?...”

[161] IV –10 “…the representatives had taken offence at his keeping a Yahoo (meaning myself) in his family, more like a Houyhnhnm than a brute animal; that he was known frequently to converse with me, as if he could receive some advantage or pleasure in my company; that such a practice was not agreeable to reason or nature, or a thing ever heard of before among them…”

[162] IV –9 “…that these Yahoos engendered, and their brood, in a short time, grew so numerous as to overrun and infest the whole nation; that the Houyhnhnms, to get rid of this evil, made a general hunting, and at last enclosed the whole herd; and destroying the elder, every Houyhnhnm kept two young ones in a kennel, and brought them to such a degree of tameness, as an animal, so savage by nature, can be capable of acquiring, using them for draught and carriage…”

[163] IV -10 “When I happened to behold the reflection of my own form in a lake or fountain, I turned away my face in horror and detestation of myself, and could better endure the sight of a common Yahoo than of my own person.”

“… quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not only larger but more distorted.”

[164] IV -10 “… if ever I returned to England, was not without hopes of being useful to my own species, by celebrating the praises of the renowned Houyhnhnms, and proposing their virtues to the imitation of mankind.”

[165] IV -11  “For in such a solitude as I desired, I could at least enjoy my own thoughts, and reflect with delight on the virtues of those inimitable Houyhnhnms, without an opportunity of degenerating into the vices and corruptions of my own species.”

[166]IV –7  “…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…”

[167]A letter from Captain GULLIVER to his cousin Sympson “…by the instructions and example of my illustrious master, I was able in the compass of two years (although I confess with the utmost difficulty) to remove that infernal habit of lying, shuffling, deceiving, and equivocating, so deeply rooted in the very souls of all my species; especially the Europeans.”

[168] ON THE TRINITY.

 http://www.gutenberGULLIVERorg/cache/epub/12746/pg12746.html

“First: It would be well, if people would not lay so much weight on their own reason in matters of religion, as to think everything impossible and absurd which they cannot conceive. How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices. Let any man but consider, when he hath a controversy with another, although his cause be ever so unjust, although the world be against him, how blinded he is by the love of himself, to believe that right is wrong, and wrong is right, when it maketh for his own advantage. Where is then the right use of his reason, which he so much boasts of, and which he would blasphemously set up to control the commands of the Almighty?”

[169] IV -2 “I was at first at a great loss for salt, but custom soon reconciled me to the want of it; and I am confident that the frequent use of salt among us is an effect of luxury, and was first introduced only as a provocative to drink… for we observe no animal to be fond of it but man, and as to myself, when I left this country, it was a great while before I could endure the taste of it in anything that I ate.”

[170] IV -12 “Whereas a traveller’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad, as well as good, example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.”

These values are capable of awakening any kind of passion, but ultimately reason through Eros, which is  eventually one the most powerful passions and could animate reason to discover and venerate such values. However, as Max Scheler has showed, the ressentiment  and others passions could be powerful ways of subverting these values.

[171] IV – 10 “I freely confess, that all the little knowledge I have of any value, was acquired by the lectures I received from my master, and from hearing the discourses of him and his friends; to which I should be prouder to listen, than to dictate to the greatest and wisest assembly in Europe.”

[172] IV – 7 “…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.”

[173] IV –2 “…for as to those filthy Yahoos, although there were few greater lovers of mankind at that time than myself, yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more I came near them the more hateful they grew, while I stayed in that country.”

[174] I – 6  “…that men and women are joined together, like other animals, by the motives of concupiscence; and that their tenderness towards their young proceeds from the like natural principle…”

Such difference between Hs' and human love could explain the genesis of other human passions, because nothing else than love supported by desires could generate or contain fear, hatred, cruelty, immeasurable ambition, lying, resentment …as potential passions as well as abnegation, perseverance, benevolence, comeliness, when it is aimed to Goodness, Truth and Beauty.

[175]   IV –3  “The word Houyhnhnm, in their tongue, signifies a horse, and, in its etymology, the perfection of nature.”

[176] Letter to his cousin Sympson.  “I wrote for their amendment, and not their approbation.”

[177]  Ibid. “…that the Yahoos were a species of animals utterly incapable of amendment by precept or example: and so it has proved; for, instead of seeing a full stop put to all abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island, as I had reason to expect; behold, after above six months warning, I cannot learn that my book has produced one single effect according to my intentions.  I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright; pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility’s education entirely changed; the physicians banished; the female Yahoos abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all disgracers of the press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink.  These, and a thousand other reformations, I firmly counted upon by your encouragement; as indeed they were plainly deducible from the precepts delivered in my book.  And it must be owned, that seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and folly to which Yahoos are subject, if their natures had been capable of the least disposition to virtue or wisdom. …”

Some resonance of Pascal’s thoughts in Swift are unavoidable when revising GULLIVER’s comprehension of reason-passions relationship. However, it has been difficult to find a direct link between both writers. See: Pons, Emile “Swift and Pascal” Les langues modernes 45 (1951): 135-52. Cited by Damrosch, Leo: in Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World. Yale University Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=Xcw_AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA499&lpg=PA499&dq=swift+jonathan+Blaise+Pascal&source=bl&ots=1Il63MFi94&sig=nEjw3PBZsc0CjQFBK1rqZh4nmYs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TVZ7U8CPI4SpyASLiYCACA&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=swift%20jonathan%20Blaise%20Pascal&f=true

 “Emile Pons was unable to find definite echoes of Pascal in Swift’s writings, and thought that occasional similarities of thinking were due to both of them having read the same authors:…”

[178] From Cadenus and Vanessa

http://www.gutenberGULLIVERorg/cache/epub/13621/pg13621.html

Love, why do we one passion call, / When’tis a compound of them all? / Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, / In all their equipages meet; / Where pleasures mixed with pains appear, / Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.

[179] IV -12 “ I must freely confess, that since my last return, some corruptions of my Yahoo nature have revived in me by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity; else I should never have attempted so absurd a project as that of reforming the Yahoo race in this kingdom: But I have now done with all such visionary schemes for ever.”

[180] ON THE TRINITY.  http://www.gutenberGULLIVERorg/cache/epub/12746/pg12746.html

“First: It would be well, if people would not lay so much weight on their own reason in matters of religion, as to think everything impossible and absurd which they cannot conceive. How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices. Let any man but consider, when he hath a controversy with another, although his cause be ever so unjust, although the world be against him, how blinded he is by the love of himself, to believe that right is wrong, and wrong is right, when it maketh for his own advantage. Where is then the right use of his reason, which he so much boasts of, and which he would blasphemously set up to control the commands of the Almighty?” (The underlined text is our emphasis)

[181]   Reilly, Patrick Jonathan Swift: the brave desponder. Manchester University Press.

http://books.google.com/books?id=TgsNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=swift+jonathan+Hobbes+Leviathan&source=bl&ots=thrEYV0BVV&sig=dhoYfBKy1fjiPPmrGVY4jecBz1g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7MmNU53xA7PNsAS_rIG4Dg&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=true

“But there can be no question of Gullliver’s relevance to Swift in what a modern reader might consider his others role as hero – not ethical hero, preferring hazardous liberty to the degrading comfort of Brobdingnag, not the champion of human dignity against the behaviourist psychologists and genetic engineers who will programme him for happiness, but hero of truth, scientific hero, always looking, always seeking, intrepidly intent on finding out, whatever the cost. That Swift had this in mind in creating Gulliver is indisputable; the only doubt is in determining the degree to which he underwrote this notion of the hero as truth-seeker, upheld it as unreservedly exemplary.” P. 160