Shooting an Elephant Read online

  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 earliest 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. have mainly a local application and spring 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 Elton, 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 Relplum 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 Brobdingnagians) 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 Transcendentals, 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.1 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 flapping 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 Swif
t 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:

  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 advantage 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.1 Intheisland of sorcerers, where the spirits of the dead can be called up at will:

  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 Ancester Junius, Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato the younger, 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 an 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 Conjectures, when he used merely 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 c
alled Langdon... the Bulk of the People consist, in a Manner, wholly of Discoverers, Witnesses, Informers, Accusers, Prosecutors, Evidences, Swearers.... It is first agreed, and settled among them, what suspected

  Persons shall be accused of a Plot: Then, 'effectual Care is taken to secure all their Letters and Papers, and put the Owners

  in Chains. These papers are delivered to a Sett of Artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious Meanings of Words,

  Syllables, and Letters.... Where this Method fails, they have two others more effectual, which the Learned among them call Acrostics and Anagrams. First, they can decypher all initial Letters into political Meanings: Thus, N shall signify a Plot, B a Regiment of Horse, L a Fleet at Sea: Or, Secondly, by transposing the Letters of the Alphabet in any suspected Paper, they can lay open the deepest Designs of a discontented Party. So, for Example, if I should say in a Letter to a Friend, Our Brother Tom has just got the Piles, a skilful Decypherer would discover that the same Letters, which compose that Sentence, may be analysed in the following Words: Resist - a Plot is brought Home - The Tour.1 And this is the anagrammatic Method.

  Other professors at the same school invent simplified languages, write books by machinery, educate their pupils by inscribing the lessons on a wafer and causing them to swallow it, or propose to abolish individuality altogether by cutting off part

  of the brain of one man and grafting it on to the head of another. There is something queerly familiar in the atmosphere of

  these chapters, because, mixed up with much fooling, there is a perception that one of the aims of totalitarianism is not

  merely to make sure that people will think the right thoughts, but actually to make them less conscious. Then, again, Swift's account of the Leader who is usually to be found ruling over a tribe of Yahoos, and of the 'favourite'

  who acts first as a dirty-worker and later as a scapegoat, fits remarkably well into the pattern of our own times. But are

  we to infer from all this that Swift was first and foremost an enemy of tyranny and a champion of the free intelligence? No: