Fifty Orwell Essays

by George Orwell

of the palace, 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.

  According to Professor G. M. Trevelyan (ENGLAND UNDER QUEEN ANNE), part

  of the reason for Swift's failure to get preferment was that the Queen

  was scandalized by A TALE OF A TUB--a pamphlet in which Swift probably

  felt that he had done a great service to the English Crown, since it

  scarifies the Dissenters and still more the Catholics while leaving the

  Established Church alone. In any case no one would deny that GULLIVER'S

  TRAVELS is a rancorous as well as a pessimistic book, and that especially

  in Parts I and III it often descends into political partisanship of a

  narrow kind. Pettiness and magnanimity, republicanism and

  authoritarianism, love of reason and lack of curiosity, are all mixed up

  in it. The hatred of the human body with which Swift is especially

  associated is only dominant in Part IV, but somehow this new

  preoccupation does not come as a surprise. One feels that all these

  adventures, and all these changes of mood, could have happened to the

  same person, and the inter-connexion between Swift's political loyalties

  and his ultimate despair is one of the most interesting features of the

  book.

  Politically, Swift was one of those people who are driven into a sort of

  perverse Toryism by the follies of the progressive party of the moment.

  Part I of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, ostensibly a satire on human greatness, can

  be seen, if one looks a little deeper, to be simply an attack on England,

  on the dominant Whig Party, and on the war with France, which--however

  bad the motives of the Allies may have been--did save Europe from being

  tyrannized over by a single reactionary power. Swift was not a Jacobite

  nor strictly speaking a Tory, and his declared aim in the war was merely

  a moderate peace treaty and not the outright defeat of England.

  Nevertheless there is a tinge of quislingism in his attitude, which

  comes out in the ending of Part I and slightly interferes with the

  allegory. When Gulliver flees from Lilliput (England) to Blefuscu

  (France) the assumption that a human being six inches high is inherently

  contemptible seems to be dropped. Whereas the people of Lilliput have

  behaved towards Gulliver with the utmost treachery and meanness, those of

  Blefuscu behave generously and straightforwardly, and indeed this section

  of the book ends on a different note from the all-round disillusionment

  of the earlier chapters. Evidently Swift's animus is, in the first place,

  against ENGLAND. It is "your Natives" (i.e. Gulliver's fellow-countrymen)

  whom the King of Brobdingnag considers to be "the most pernicious Race

  of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the

  surface of the Earth", and the long passage at the end, denouncing

  colonization and foreign conquest, is plainly aimed at England, although

  the contrary is elaborately stated. The Dutch, England's allies and

  target of one of Swift's most famous pamphlets, are also more or less

  wantonly attacked in Part III. There is even what sounds like a personal

  note in the passage in which Gulliver records his satisfaction that the

  various countries he has discovered cannot be made colonies of the

  British Crown:

  The HOUYHNHNMS, indeed, appear not to be so well prepared for War, a

  Science to which they are perfect Strangers, and especially against

  missive Weapons. However, supposing myself to be a Minister of State, I

  could never give my advice for invading them...Imagine twenty thousand

  of them breaking into the midst of an EUROPEAN army, confounding the

  Ranks, overturning the Carriages, battering the Warriors' Faces into

  Mummy, by terrible Yerks from their hinder hoofs...

  Considering that Swift does not waste words, that phrase, "battering the

  warriors' faces into mummy", probably indicates a secret wish to see the

  invincible armies of the Duke of Marlborough treated in a like manner.

  There are similar touches elsewhere. Even the country mentioned in Part

  III, where "the Bulk of the People consist, in a Manner, wholly of

  Discoverers, Witnesses, Informers, Accusers, Prosecutors, Evidences,

  Swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern

  Instruments, all under the Colours, the Conduct, and Pay of Ministers of

  State", is called Langdon, which is within one letter of being an anagram

  of England. (As the early editions of the book contain misprints, it may

  perhaps have been intended as a complete anagram.) Swift's PHYSICAL

  repulsion from humanity is certainly real enough, but one has the feeling

  that his debunking of human grandeur, his diatribes against lords,

  politicians, court favourites, etc., has mainly a local application and

  springs from the fact that he belonged to the unsuccessful party. He

  denounces injustice and oppression, but he gives no evidence of liking

  democracy. In spite of his enormously greater powers, his implied

  position is very similar to that of the innumerable silly-clever

  Conservatives of our own day--people like Sir Alan Herbert, Professor G.

  M. Young, Lord Eiton, the Tory Reform Committee or the long line of

  Catholic apologists from W. H. Mallock onwards: people who specialize in

  cracking neat jokes at the expense of whatever is "modern" and

  "progressive", and whose opinions are often all the more extreme because

  they know that they cannot influence the actual drift of events. After

  all, such a pamphlet as AN ARGUMENT TO PROVE THAT THE ABOLISHING OF

  CHRISTIANITY, etc., is very like "Timothy Shy" having a bit of clean fun

  with the Brains Trust, or Father Ronald Knox exposing the errors

  of Bertrand Russell. And the ease with which Swift has been forgiven--and

  forgiven, sometimes, by devout believers--for the blasphemies of A TALE

  OF A TUB demonstrates clearly enough the feebleness of religious

  sentiments as compared with political ones.

  However, the reactionary cast of Swift's mind does not show itself

  chiefly in his political affiliations. The important thing is his

  attitude towards Science, and, more broadly, towards intellectual

  curiosity. The famous Academy of Lagado, described in Part III of

  GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, is no doubt a justified satire on most of the

  so-called scientists of Swift's own day. Significantly, the people at

  work in it are described as "Projectors", that is, people not engaged in

  disinterested research but merely on the look-out for gadgets which will

  save labour and bring in money. But there is no sign--indeed, all

  through the book there are many signs to the contrary--that "pure"

  science would have struck Swift as a worth-while activity. The more

  serious kind of scientist has already had a kick in the pants in Part II,

  when the "Scholars" patronized by the King of Brobdingnag try to account

  for Gulliver's small stature:

  After much Debate, they concluded unanimously that I was only RELP
LUM

  SCALCATH, which is interpreted literally, LUSUS NATURAE, a Determination

  exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of EUROPE, whose Professors,

  disdaining the old Evasion of OCCULT CAUSES, whereby the followers of

  ARISTOTLE endeavoured in vain to disguise their Ignorance, have invented

  this wonderful solution of All Difficulties, to the unspeakable

  Advancement of human Knowledge.

  If this stood by itself one might assume that Swift is merely the enemy

  of SHAM science. In a number of places, however, he goes out of his way

  to proclaim the uselessness of all learning or speculation not directed

  towards some practical end:

  The learning of (the Brobdingnaglans) 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 so that among us it would be little esteemed. And as to Ideas,

  Entities, Abstractions, and Transcen-dentals, I could never drive the

  least Conception into their Heads.

  The Houyhnhnms, Swift's ideal beings, are backward even in a mechanical

  sense. They are unacquainted with metals, have never heard of boats, do

  not, properly speaking, practise agriculture (we are told that the oats

  which they live upon "grow naturally"), and appear not to have invented

  wheels. [Note, below] They have no alphabet, and evidently have not much

  curiosity about the physical world. They do not believe that any

  inhabited country exists beside their own, and though they understand

  the motions of the sun and moon, and the nature of eclipses, "this is

  the utmost progress of their ASTRONOMY". By contrast, the philosophers

  of the flying island of Laputa are so continuously absorbed in

  mathematical speculations that before speaking to them one has to

  attract their attention by napping them on the ear with a bladder. They

  have catalogued ten thousand fixed stars, have settled the periods of

  ninety-three comets, and have discovered, in advance of the astronomers

  of Europe, that Mars has two moons--all of which information Swift

  evidently regards as ridiculous, useless and uninteresting. As one might

  expect, he believes that the scientist's place, if he has a place, is in

  the laboratory, and that scientific knowledge has no bearing on

  political matters:

  [Note: Houyhnhnms too old to walk are described as being carried on

  "sledges" or in "a kind of vehicle, drawn like a sledge". Presumably these

  had no wheels. (Author's note.)]

  What I...thought altogether unaccountable, was the strong Disposition

  I observed in them towards News and Politics, perpetually enquiring into

  Public Affairs, giving their judgements in Matters of State, and

  passionately disputing every inch of a Party Opinion. I have, indeed,

  observed the same Disposition among most of the Mathematicians I have

  known in EUROPE, though I could never discover the least Analogy between

  the two Sciences; unless those people suppose, that, because the smallest

  Circle hath as many Degrees as the largest, therefore the Regulation and

  Management of the World require no more Abilities, than the Handling and

  Turning of a Globe.

  Is there not something familiar in that phrase "I could never discover

  the least analogy between the two sciences"? It has precisely the note of

  the popular Catholic apologists who profess to be astonished when a

  scientist utters an opinion on such questions as the existence of God or

  the immortality of the soul. The scientist, we are told, is an expert

  only in one restricted field: why should his opinions be of value in any

  other? The implication is that theology is just as much an exact science

  as, for instance, chemistry, and that the priest is also an expert whose

  conclusions on certain subjects must be accepted. Swift in effect makes

  the same claim for the politician, but he goes one better in that he will

  not allow the scientist--either the "pure" scientist or the ad hoc

  investigator--to be a useful person in his own line. Even if he had not

  written Part III of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, one could infer from the rest of

  the book that, like Tolstoy and like Blake, he hates the very idea of

  studying the processes of Nature. The "Reason" which he so admires in the

  Houyhnhnms does not primarily mean the power of drawing logical

  inferences from observed facts. Although he never defines it, it appears

  in most contexts to mean either common sense--i.e. acceptance of the

  obvious and contempt for quibbles and abstractions--or absence of

  passion and superstition. In general he assumes that we know all that we

  need to know already, and merely use our knowledge incorrectly. Medicine,

  for instance, is a useless science, because if we lived in a more natural

  way, there would be no diseases. Swift, however, is not a simple-lifer or

  an admirer of the Noble Savage. He is in favour of civilization and the

  arts of civilization. Not only does he see the value of good manners,

  good conversation, and even learning of a literary and historical kind,

  he also sees that agriculture, navigation and architecture need to be

  studied and could with advantages be improved. But his implied aim is a

  static, incurious civilization--the world of his own day, a little

  cleaner, a little saner, with no radical change and no poking into the

  unknowable. More than one would expect in anyone so free from accepted

  fallacies, he reveres the past, especially classical antiquity, and

  believes that modern man has degenerated sharply during the past hundred

  years. [Note, below] In the island of sorcerers, where the spirits of the

  dead can be called up at will:

  [Note: The physical decadence which Swift claims to have observed may have

  been a reality at that date. He attributes it to syphilis, which was a new

  disease in Europe and may have been more virulent than it is now. Distilled

  liquors, also, were a novelty in the seventeenth century and must have led

  at first to a great increase in drunkenness. (Author's footnote.)]

  I desired that the Senate of ROME might appear before me in one large

  chamber, and a modern Representative in Counterview, in another. The

  first seemed to be an Assembly of Heroes and Demy-Gods, the other a Knot

  of Pedlars, Pick-pockets, Highwaymen and Bullies.

  Although Swift uses this section of Part III to attack the truthfulness

  of recorded history, his critical spirit deserts him as soon as he is

  dealing with Greeks and Romans. He remarks, of course, upon the

  corruption of imperial Rome, but he has an almost unreasoning admiration

  for some of the leading figures of the ancient world:

  I was struck with profound Veneration at the sight of BRUTUS, and could

  easily discover the most consummate Virtue, the greatest Intrepidity and

  Firmness of Mind, the truest Love of his Country, and general Benevolence

  for Mankind, in every Lineament of his Countenance...I had the honour

  to have much Conversation with BRUTUS, and was told, that his Ancestors

  JUNIUS, SOCRATES, EPAMINONDAS, CATO the yo
unger, SIR THOMAS MORE, and

  himself, were perpetually together: a SEXTUMVIRATE, to which all the Ages

  of the World cannot add a seventh.

  It will be noticed that of these six people, only one is a Christian.

  This is an important point. If one adds together Swift's pessimism, his

  reverence for the past, his incuriosity and his horror of the human body,

  one arrives at an attitude common among religious reactionaries--that

  is, people who defend an unjust order of Society by claiming that this

  world cannot be substantially improved and only the "next world" matters.

  However, Swift shows no sign of having any religious beliefs, at least in

  any ordinary sense of the words. He does not appear to believe seriously

  in life after death, and his idea of goodness is bound up with

  republicanism, love of liberty, courage, "benevolence" (meaning in effect

  public spirit), "reason" and other pagan qualities. This reminds one that

  there is another strain in Swift, not quite congruous with his disbelief

  in progress and his general hatred of humanity.

  To begin with, he has moments when he is "constructive" and even

  "advanced". To be occasionally inconsistent is almost a mark of vitality

  in Utopia books, and Swift sometimes inserts a word of praise into a

  passage that ought to be purely satirical. Thus, his ideas about the

  education of the young are fathered on to the Lilliputians, who have much

  the same views on this subject as the Houyhnhnms. The Lilliputians also

  have various social and legal institutions (for instance, there are old

  age pensions, and people are rewarded for keeping the law as well as

  punished for breaking it) which Swift would have liked to see prevailing

  in his own country. In the middle of this passage Swift remembers his

  satirical intention and adds, "In relating these and the following Laws,

  I would only be understood to mean the original Institutions, and not the

  most scandalous Corruptions into which these people are fallen by the

  degenerate Nature of Man" but as Lilliput is supposed to represent

  England, and the laws he is speaking of have never had their parallel in

  England, it is clear that the impulse to make constructive suggestions

  has been too much for him. But Swift's greatest contribution to political

  thought in the narrower sense of the words, is his attack, especially in

  Part III, on what would now be called totalitarianism. He has an

  extraordinarily clear prevision of the spy-haunted "police State", with

  its endless heresy-hunts and treason trials, all really designed to

  neutralize popular discontent by changing it into war hysteria. And one

  must remember that Swift is here inferring the whole from a quite small

  part, for the feeble governments of his own day did not give him

  illustrations ready-made. For example, there is the professor at the

  School of Political Projectors who "shewed me a large Paper of

  Instructions for discovering Plots and Conspiracies", and who claimed

  that one can find people's secret thoughts by examining their excrement:

  Because Men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they

  are at Stool, which he found by frequent Experiment: for in such

  Conjunctures, when he used meerly as a trial to consider what was the

  best Way of murdering the King, his Ordure would have a tincture of

  Green; but quite different when he thought only of raising an

  Insurrection, or burning the Metropolis.

  The professor and his theory are said to have been suggested to Swift by

  the--from our point of view--not particularly astonishing or disgusting

  fact that in a recent State trial some letters found in somebody's privy

  had been put in evidence. Later in the same chapter we seem to be

  positively in the middle of the Russian purges:

  In the Kingdom of Tribnia, by the Natives called Langdon...the Bulk of

  the People consist, in a Manner, wholly of Discoverers, Witnesses,

  Informers, Accusers, Prosecutors, Evidences, Swearers...It is first agreed,