Gulliver's Travels

for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about
them such things as were necessary to express a particular business
they are to discourse on."  And this invention would certainly have
taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if
the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not
threatened to raise a rebellion unless they might be allowed the
liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their
forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are
the common people.  However, many of the most learned and wise
adhere to the new scheme of expressing themselves by things; which
has only this inconvenience attending it, that if a man's business
be very great, and of various kinds, he must be obliged, in
proportion, to carry a greater bundle of things upon his back,
unless he can afford one or two strong servants to attend him.  I
have often beheld two of those sages almost sinking under the
weight of their packs, like pedlars among us, who, when they met in
the street, would lay down their loads, open their sacks, and hold
conversation for an hour together; then put up their implements,
help each other to resume their burdens, and take their leave.

But for short conversations, a man may carry implements in his
pockets, and under his arms, enough to supply him; and in his
house, he cannot be at a loss.  Therefore the room where company
meet who practise this art, is full of all things, ready at hand,
requisite to furnish matter for this kind of artificial converse.

Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it
would serve as a universal language, to be understood in all
civilised nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the
same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be
comprehended.  And thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat
with foreign princes, or ministers of state, to whose tongues they
were utter strangers.

I was at the mathematical school, where the master taught his
pupils after a method scarce imaginable to us in Europe.  The
proposition, and demonstration, were fairly written on a thin
wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture.  This, the student
was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days
following, eat nothing but bread and water.  As the wafer digested,
the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the proposition along
with it.  But the success has not hitherto been answerable, partly
by some error in the quantum or composition, and partly by the
perverseness of lads, to whom this bolus is so nauseous, that they
generally steal aside, and discharge it upwards, before it can
operate; neither have they been yet persuaded to use so long an
abstinence, as the prescription requires.



CHAPTER VI.



[A further account of the academy.  The author proposes some
improvements, which are honourably received.]

In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained;
the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their
senses, which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy.
These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs
to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and
virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of
rewarding merit, great abilities, eminent services; of instructing
princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same
foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employments
persons qualified to exercise them, with many other wild,
impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of
man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, "that
there is nothing so extravagant and irrational, which some
philosophers have not maintained for truth."

But, however, I shall so far do justice to this part of the
Academy, as to acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary.
There was a most ingenious doctor, who seemed to be perfectly
versed in the whole nature and system of government.  This
illustrious person had very usefully employed his studies, in
finding out effectual remedies for all diseases and corruptions to
which the several kinds of public administration are subject, by
the vices or infirmities of those who govern, as well as by the
licentiousness of those who are to obey.  For instance:  whereas
all writers and reasoners have agreed, that there is a strict
universal resemblance between the natural and the political body;
can there be any thing more evident, than that the health of both
must be preserved, and the diseases cured, by the same
prescriptions?  It is allowed, that senates and great councils are
often troubled with redundant, ebullient, and other peccant
humours; with many diseases of the head, and more of the heart;
with strong convulsions, with grievous contractions of the nerves
and sinews in both hands, but especially the right; with spleen,
flatus, vertigos, and deliriums; with scrofulous tumours, full of
fetid purulent matter; with sour frothy ructations:  with canine
appetites, and crudeness of digestion, besides many others,
needless to mention.  This doctor therefore proposed, "that upon
the meeting of the senate, certain physicians should attend it the
three first days of their sitting, and at the close of each day's
debate feel the pulses of every senator; after which, having
maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of the several
maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day
return to the senate house, attended by their apothecaries stored