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.