CHAPTER V.

The author permitted to see the grand academy of Lagado. The academy

largely described. The arts wherein the professors employ themselves.

This academy is not an entire single building, but a continuation of

several houses on both sides of a street, which growing waste, was

purchased and applied to that use.

I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the

academy. Every room has in it one or more projectors; and I believe I

could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms.

The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face,

his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His

clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He had been

eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers,

which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm

the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that,

in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens

with sunshine, at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his stock

was low, and entreated me “to give him something as an encouragement to

ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for

cucumbers.” I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me

with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from

all who go to see them.

I went into another chamber, but was ready to hasten back, being almost

overcome with a horrible stink. My conductor pressed me forward,

conjuring me in a whisper “to give no offence, which would be highly

resented;” and therefore I durst not so much as stop my nose. The

projector of this cell was the most ancient student of the academy; his

face and beard were of a pale yellow; his hands and clothes daubed over

with filth. When I was presented to him, he gave me a close embrace, a

compliment I could well have excused. His employment, from his first

coming into the academy, was an operation to reduce human excrement to

its original food, by separating the several parts, removing the

tincture which it receives from the gall, making the odour exhale, and

scumming off the saliva. He had a weekly allowance, from the society,

of a vessel filled with human ordure, about the bigness of a Bristol

barrel.

I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder; who likewise

showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of

fire, which he intended to publish.

There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method

for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working downward to

the foundation; which he justified to me, by the like practice of those

two prudent insects, the bee and the spider.

There was a man born blind, who had several apprentices in his own

condition: their employment was to mix colours for painters, which

their master taught them to distinguish by feeling and smelling. It was

indeed my misfortune to find them at that time not very perfect in

their lessons, and the professor himself happened to be generally

mistaken. This artist is much encouraged and esteemed by the whole

fraternity.

In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector who had

found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the charges

of ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method is this: in an acre of

ground you bury, at six inches distance and eight deep, a quantity of

acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast or vegetables, whereof these

animals are fondest; then you drive six hundred or more of them into

the field, where, in a few days, they will root up the whole ground in

search of their food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time

manuring it with their dung: it is true, upon experiment, they found

the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop.

However it is not doubted, that this invention may be capable of great

improvement.

I went into another room, where the walls and ceiling were all hung

round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artist to go in and

out. At my entrance, he called aloud to me, “not to disturb his webs.”

He lamented “the fatal mistake the world had been so long in, of using

silkworms, while we had such plenty of domestic insects who infinitely

excelled the former, because they understood how to weave, as well as

spin.” And he proposed further, “that by employing spiders, the charge

of dyeing silks should be wholly saved;” whereof I was fully convinced,

when he showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully coloured,

wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us “that the webs would take a

tincture from them; and as he had them of all hues, he hoped to fit

everybody’s fancy, as soon as he could find proper food for the flies,

of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter, to give a strength

and consistence to the threads.”

There was an astronomer, who had undertaken to place a sun-dial upon

the great weathercock on the town-house, by adjusting the annual and

diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer and coincide with

all accidental turnings of the wind.

I was complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my conductor

led me into a room where a great physician resided, who was famous for

curing that disease, by contrary operations from the same instrument.

He had a large pair of bellows, with a long slender muzzle of ivory.

This he conveyed eight inches up the anus, and drawing in the wind, he

affirmed he could make the guts as lank as a dried bladder. But when

the disease was more stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle while

the bellows were full of wind, which he discharged into the body of the

patient; then withdrew the instrument to replenish it, clapping his

thumb strongly against the orifice of the fundament; and this being

repeated three or four times, the adventitious wind would rush out,

bringing the noxious along with it, (like water put into a pump), and

the patient recovered. I saw him try both experiments upon a dog, but

could not discern any effect from the former. After the latter the

animal was ready to burst, and made so violent a discharge as was very

offensive to me and my companions. The dog died on the spot, and we

left the doctor endeavouring to recover him, by the same operation.

I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my reader with

all the curiosities I observed, being studious of brevity.

I had hitherto seen only one side of the academy, the other being

appropriated to the advancers of speculative learning, of whom I shall

say something, when I have mentioned one illustrious person more, who

is called among them “the universal artist.” He told us “he had been

thirty years employing his thoughts for the improvement of human life.”

He had two large rooms full of wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at

work. Some were condensing air into a dry tangible substance, by

extracting the nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid particles

percolate; others softening marble, for pillows and pin-cushions;

others petrifying the hoofs of a living horse, to preserve them from

foundering. The artist himself was at that time busy upon two great

designs; the first, to sow land with chaff, wherein he affirmed the

true seminal virtue to be contained, as he demonstrated by several

experiments, which I was not skilful enough to comprehend. The other

was, by a certain composition of gums, minerals, and vegetables,

outwardly applied, to prevent the growth of wool upon two young lambs;

and he hoped, in a reasonable time to propagate the breed of naked

sheep, all over the kingdom.

We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I have

already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided.

The first professor I saw, was in a very large room, with forty pupils

about him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a

frame, which took up the greatest part of both the length and breadth

of the room, he said, “Perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a

project for improving speculative knowledge, by practical and

mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of its

usefulness; and he flattered himself, that a more noble, exalted

thought never sprang in any other man’s head. Every one knew how

laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences;

whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable

charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in

philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without

the least assistance from genius or study.” He then led me to the

frame, about the sides, whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was

twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies

was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but

some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender

wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with paper

pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their

language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions; but without

any order. The professor then desired me “to observe; for he was going

to set his engine at work.” The pupils, at his command, took each of

them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the

edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole

disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded

six-and-thirty of the lads, to read the several lines softly, as they

appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words

together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four

remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four

times, and at every turn, the engine was so contrived, that the words

shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down.

The frame

Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour; and

the professor showed me several volumes in large folio, already

collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together,

and out of those rich materials, to give the world a complete body of

all arts and sciences; which, however, might be still improved, and

much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and

employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers

to contribute in common their several collections.

He assured me “that this invention had employed all his thoughts from

his youth; that he had emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame, and

made the strictest computation of the general proportion there is in

books between the numbers of particles, nouns, and verbs, and other

parts of speech.”

I made my humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious person, for his

great communicativeness; and promised, “if ever I had the good fortune

to return to my native country, that I would do him justice, as the

sole inventor of this wonderful machine;” the form and contrivance of

which I desired leave to delineate on paper, as in the figure here

annexed. I told him, “although it were the custom of our learned in

Europe to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby at least

this advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right owner;

yet I would take such caution, that he should have the honour entire,

without a rival.”

We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in

consultation upon improving that of their own country.

The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables

into one, and leaving out verbs and participles, because, in reality,

all things imaginable are but nouns.

The other project was, a scheme for entirely abolishing all words

whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health,

as well as brevity. For it is plain, that every word we speak is, in

some degree, a diminution of our lungs by corrosion, and, consequently,

contributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore

offered, “that since words are only names for _things_, it would be

more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were

necessary to express a particular business they are to discourse on.”

And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease

as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the

vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion unless

they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after

the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies

to science are the common people. However, many of the most learned and

wise adhere to the new scheme of expressing themselves by things; which

has only this inconvenience attending it, that if a man’s business be

very great, and of various kinds, he must be obliged, in proportion, to

carry a greater bundle of things upon his back, unless he can afford

one or two strong servants to attend him. I have often beheld two of

those sages almost sinking under the weight of their packs, like

pedlars among us, who, when they met in the street, would lay down

their loads, open their sacks, and hold conversation for an hour

together; then put up their implements, help each other to resume their

burdens, and take their leave.

But for short conversations, a man may carry implements in his pockets,

and under his arms, enough to supply him; and in his house, he cannot

be at a loss. Therefore the room where company meet who practise this

art, is full of all things, ready at hand, requisite to furnish matter

for this kind of artificial converse.

Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it would

serve as a universal language, to be understood in all civilised

nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the same kind, or

nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily be comprehended. And

thus ambassadors would be qualified to treat with foreign princes, or

ministers of state, to whose tongues they were utter strangers.

I was at the mathematical school, where the master taught his pupils

after a method scarce imaginable to us in Europe. The proposition, and

demonstration, were fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed

of a cephalic tincture. This, the student was to swallow upon a fasting

stomach, and for three days following, eat nothing but bread and water.

As the wafer digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the

proposition along with it. But the success has not hitherto been

answerable, partly by some error in the _quantum_ or composition, and

partly by the perverseness of lads, to whom this bolus is so nauseous,

that they generally steal aside, and discharge it upwards, before it

can operate; neither have they been yet persuaded to use so long an

abstinence, as the prescription requires.