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_ CHAPTER VII
[The author's great love of his native country. His master's
observations upon the constitution and administration of England,
as described by the author, with parallel cases and comparisons.
His master's observations upon human nature.]
The reader may be disposed to wonder how I could prevail on myself
to give so free a representation of my own species, among a race of
mortals who are already too apt to conceive the vilest opinion of
humankind, from that entire congruity between me and their Yahoos.
But I must freely confess, that the many virtues of those excellent
quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human corruptions, had so
far opened my eyes and enlarged my understanding, that I began to
view the actions and passions of man in a very different light, and
to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which,
besides, it was impossible for me to do, before a person of so
acute a judgment as my master, who daily convinced me of a thousand
faults in myself, whereof I had not the least perception before,
and which, with us, would never be numbered even among human
infirmities. I had likewise learned, from his example, an utter
detestation of all falsehood or disguise; and truth appeared so
amiable to me, that I determined upon sacrificing every thing to
it.
Let me deal so candidly with the reader as to confess that there
was yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my
representation of things. I had not yet been a year in this
country before I contracted such a love and veneration for the
inhabitants, that I entered on a firm resolution never to return to
humankind, but to pass the rest of my life among these admirable
Houyhnhnms, in the contemplation and practice of every virtue,
where I could have no example or incitement to vice. But it was
decreed by fortune, my perpetual enemy, that so great a felicity
should not fall to my share. However, it is now some comfort to
reflect, that in what I said of my countrymen, I extenuated their
faults as much as I durst before so strict an examiner; and upon
every article gave as favourable a turn as the matter would bear.
For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias
and partiality to the place of his birth?
I have related the substance of several conversations I had with my
master during the greatest part of the time I had the honour to be
in his service; but have, indeed, for brevity sake, omitted much
more than is here set down.
When I had answered all his questions, and his curiosity seemed to
be fully satisfied, he sent for me one morning early, and commanded
me to sit down at some distance (an honour which he had never
before conferred upon me). He said, "he had been very seriously
considering my whole story, as far as it related both to myself and
my country; that he looked upon us as a sort of animals, to whose
share, by what accident he could not conjecture, some small
pittance of reason had fallen, whereof we made no other use, than
by its assistance, to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to
acquire new ones, which nature had not given us; that we disarmed
ourselves of the few abilities she had bestowed; had been very
successful in multiplying our original wants, and seemed to spend
our whole lives in vain endeavours to supply them by our own
inventions; that, as to myself, it was manifest I had neither the
strength nor agility of a common Yahoo; that I walked infirmly on
my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no
use or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was
intended as a shelter from the sun and the weather: lastly, that I
could neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my brethren," as
he called them, "the Yahoos in his country.
"That our institutions of government and law were plainly owing to
our gross defects in reason, and by consequence in virtue; because
reason alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature; which
was, therefore, a character we had no pretence to challenge, even
from the account I had given of my own people; although he
manifestly perceived, that, in order to favour them, I had
concealed many particulars, and often said the thing which was not.
"He was the more confirmed in this opinion, because, he observed,
that as I agreed in every feature of my body with other Yahoos,
except where it was to my real disadvantage in point of strength,
speed, and activity, the shortness of my claws, and some other
particulars where nature had no part; so from the representation I
had given him of our lives, our manners, and our actions, he found
as near a resemblance in the disposition of our minds." He said,
"the Yahoos were known to hate one another, more than they did any
different species of animals; and the reason usually assigned was,
the odiousness of their own shapes, which all could see in the
rest, but not in themselves. He had therefore begun to think it
not unwise in us to cover our bodies, and by that invention conceal
many of our deformities from each other, which would else be hardly
supportable. But he now found he had been mistaken, and that the
dissensions of those brutes in his country were owing to the same
cause with ours, as I had described them. For if," said he, "you
throw among five Yahoos as much food as would be sufficient for
fifty, they will, instead of eating peaceably, fall together by the
ears, each single one impatient to have all to itself; and
therefore a servant was usually employed to stand by while they
were feeding abroad, and those kept at home were tied at a distance
from each other: that if a cow died of age or accident, before a
Houyhnhnm could secure it for his own Yahoos, those in the
neighbourhood would come in herds to seize it, and then would ensue
such a battle as I had described, with terrible wounds made by
their claws on both sides, although they seldom were able to kill
one another, for want of such convenient instruments of death as we
had invented. At other times, the like battles have been fought
between the Yahoos of several neighbourhoods, without any visible
cause; those of one district watching all opportunities to surprise
the next, before they are prepared. But if they find their project
has miscarried, they return home, and, for want of enemies, engage
in what I call a civil war among themselves.
"That in some fields of his country there are certain shining
stones of several colours, whereof the Yahoos are violently fond:
and when part of these stones is fixed in the earth, as it
sometimes happens, they will dig with their claws for whole days to
get them out; then carry them away, and hide them by heaps in their
kennels; but still looking round with great caution, for fear their
comrades should find out their treasure." My master said, "he
could never discover the reason of this unnatural appetite, or how
these stones could be of any use to a Yahoo; but now he believed it
might proceed from the same principle of avarice which I had
ascribed to mankind. That he had once, by way of experiment,
privately removed a heap of these stones from the place where one
of his Yahoos had buried it; whereupon the sordid animal, missing
his treasure, by his loud lamenting brought the whole herd to the
place, there miserably howled, then fell to biting and tearing the
rest, began to pine away, would neither eat, nor sleep, nor work,
till he ordered a servant privately to convey the stones into the
same hole, and hide them as before; which, when his Yahoo had
found, he presently recovered his spirits and good humour, but took
good care to remove them to a better hiding place, and has ever
since been a very serviceable brute."
My master further assured me, which I also observed myself, "that
in the fields where the shining stones abound, the fiercest and
most frequent battles are fought, occasioned by perpetual inroads
of the neighbouring Yahoos."
He said, "it was common, when two Yahoos discovered such a stone in
a field, and were contending which of them should be the
proprietor, a third would take the advantage, and carry it away
from them both;" which my master would needs contend to have some
kind of resemblance with our suits at law; wherein I thought it for
our credit not to undeceive him; since the decision he mentioned
was much more equitable than many decrees among us; because the
plaintiff and defendant there lost nothing beside the stone they
contended for: whereas our courts of equity would never have
dismissed the cause, while either of them had any thing left.
My master, continuing his discourse, said, "there was nothing that
rendered the Yahoos more odious, than their undistinguishing
appetite to devour every thing that came in their way, whether
herbs, roots, berries, the corrupted flesh of animals, or all
mingled together: and it was peculiar in their temper, that they
were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth, at a
greater distance, than much better food provided for them at home.
If their prey held out, they would eat till they were ready to
burst; after which, nature had pointed out to them a certain root
that gave them a general evacuation.
"There was also another kind of root, very juicy, but somewhat rare
and difficult to be found, which the Yahoos sought for with much
eagerness, and would suck it with great delight; it produced in
them the same effects that wine has upon us. It would make them
sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another; they would howl, and
grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall asleep in
the mud."
I did indeed observe that the Yahoos were the only animals in this
country subject to any diseases; which, however, were much fewer
than horses have among us, and contracted, not by any ill-treatment
they meet with, but by the nastiness and greediness of that sordid
brute. Neither has their language any more than a general
appellation for those maladies, which is borrowed from the name of
the beast, and called hnea-yahoo, or Yahoo's evil; and the cure
prescribed is a mixture of their own dung and urine, forcibly put
down the Yahoo's throat. This I have since often known to have
been taken with success, and do here freely recommend it to my
countrymen for the public good, as an admirable specific against
all diseases produced by repletion.
"As to learning, government, arts, manufactures, and the like," my
master confessed, "he could find little or no resemblance between
the Yahoos of that country and those in ours; for he only meant to
observe what parity there was in our natures. He had heard,
indeed, some curious Houyhnhnms observe, that in most herds there
was a sort of ruling Yahoo (as among us there is generally some
leading or principal stag in a park), who was always more deformed
in body, and mischievous in disposition, than any of the rest; that
this leader had usually a favourite as like himself as he could
get, whose employment was to lick his master's feet and posteriors,
and drive the female Yahoos to his kennel; for which he was now and
then rewarded with a piece of ass's flesh. This favourite is hated
by the whole herd, and therefore, to protect himself, keeps always
near the person of his leader. He usually continues in office till
a worse can be found; but the very moment he is discarded, his
successor, at the head of all the Yahoos in that district, young
and old, male and female, come in a body, and discharge their
excrements upon him from head to foot. But how far this might be
applicable to our courts, and favourites, and ministers of state,
my master said I could best determine."
I durst make no return to this malicious insinuation, which debased
human understanding below the sagacity of a common hound, who has
judgment enough to distinguish and follow the cry of the ablest dog
in the pack, without being ever mistaken.
My master told me, "there were some qualities remarkable in the
Yahoos, which he had not observed me to mention, or at least very
slightly, in the accounts I had given of humankind." He said,
"those animals, like other brutes, had their females in common; but
in this they differed, that the she Yahoo would admit the males
while she was pregnant; and that the hes would quarrel and fight
with the females, as fiercely as with each other; both which
practices were such degrees of infamous brutality, as no other
sensitive creature ever arrived at.
"Another thing he wondered at in the Yahoos, was their strange
disposition to nastiness and dirt; whereas there appears to be a
natural love of cleanliness in all other animals." As to the two
former accusations, I was glad to let them pass without any reply,
because I had not a word to offer upon them in defence of my
species, which otherwise I certainly had done from my own
inclinations. But I could have easily vindicated humankind from
the imputation of singularity upon the last article, if there had
been any swine in that country (as unluckily for me there were
not), which, although it may be a sweeter quadruped than a Yahoo,
cannot, I humbly conceive, in justice, pretend to more cleanliness;
and so his honour himself must have owned, if he had seen their
filthy way of feeding, and their custom of wallowing and sleeping
in the mud.
My master likewise mentioned another quality which his servants had
discovered in several Yahoos, and to him was wholly unaccountable.
He said, "a fancy would sometimes take a Yahoo to retire into a
corner, to lie down, and howl, and groan, and spurn away all that
came near him, although he were young and fat, wanted neither food
nor water, nor did the servant imagine what could possibly ail him.
And the only remedy they found was, to set him to hard work, after
which he would infallibly come to himself." To this I was silent
out of partiality to my own kind; yet here I could plainly discover
the true seeds of spleen, which only seizes on the lazy, the
luxurious, and the rich; who, if they were forced to undergo the
same regimen, I would undertake for the cure.
His honour had further observed, "that a female Yahoo would often
stand behind a bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males passing
by, and then appear, and hide, using many antic gestures and
grimaces, at which time it was observed that she had a most
offensive smell; and when any of the males advanced, would slowly
retire, looking often back, and with a counterfeit show of fear,
run off into some convenient place, where she knew the male would
follow her.
"At other times, if a female stranger came among them, three or
four of her own sex would get about her, and stare, and chatter,
and grin, and smell her all over; and then turn off with gestures,
that seemed to express contempt and disdain."
Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations,
which he had drawn from what he observed himself, or had been told
him by others; however, I could not reflect without some amazement,
and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure,
and scandal, should have place by instinct in womankind.
I expected every moment that my master would accuse the Yahoos of
those unnatural appetites in both sexes, so common among us. But
nature, it seems, has not been so expert a school-mistress; and
these politer pleasures are entirely the productions of art and
reason on our side of the globe.
______
Content of PART IV - A VOYAGE TO THE COUNTRY OF THE HOUYHNHNMS - CHAPTER VII [Jonathan Swift's novel: Gulliver's Travels] _
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