While in Lagado, Gulliver investigates the grand Academy of Projectors and describes many of their current investigations, which seem pointless and useless for the benefit of mankind.
The first project in Swift's satire is that of "extracting Sun-beams out of Cucumbers" which had been worked on for eight years at the Academy (Swift 171). The scientist working on this project stated the purpose of it as being "to supply the Governors Gardens with Sun-shine at a reasonable Rate" (Swift 171). Here Swift describes scientific studies that are undertaken to improve on something that has no necessity of being improved. In this case, it is ridiculous to try to improvise sunshine because the sun is readily available to all. This satire may have been based on the "recent investigations of John Hales into the action of sunlight in promoting the respiration of plants" (Turner 334).
Next Gulliver encounters a projector who had been working on the same study since he had come to the Academy many years ago. His experiment 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 (Swift 172).
This project shows the futility of scientific experiments that will have no useful benefit for mankind, because no matter what he does to restore the excrement to its original form no one is going to want to consume it. This project satirizes scientists' tendencies to expend large amounts of time, money, and energy on investigations which are useless and even largely ridiculous.
The physical description of the two aforementioned scientists satirizes how scientists are neglectful of their appearance and personal hygiene. The first projector is a man of "meagre aspect" with "sooty hands and face" (Swift 171). His hair and beard are worn long and are "ragged and singed in several places" (Swift 171). The second scientist is described as the:
most ancient Student of the Academy. His Face and Beard were of a pale yellow; his Hands and Clothes dawbed over with Filth (Swift 171-72).
Swift attempts to show that scientists, being so immersed in their studies, neglect their outward appearance, which makes them an object of ridicule in polite society.
Swift also satirizes scientists for undertaking projects that they claim will improve upon current practices when there is nothing wrong with the present system. One of these projects described is that of an architect who asserts humans should follow the practices of bees and spiders in building houses "by beginning at the Roof and working downwards to the Foundation" (Swift 172). While this works well for bees and spiders, it is plainly ridiculous for humans to do so.
Other projects that Gulliver encounters include using hogs to plow and fertilize farmland, instead of the traditional method of cattle and man made plows. This new method of plowing does not make the system any better, but rather "the Charge and Trouble" was found to be "very great" (Swift 172). Furthermore, this method produced "little or no Crop" (Swift 172). Nonetheless, the scientists refuse to give up their project as fruitless, and continue working on the invention.
Another projector counsels Gulliver that using spiders' webs for thread instead of silkworms is infinitely much better. He maintains that by feeding the spiders with flies of different colors their webs would be of many different colors, which would save people from having to dye the silk. This is another instance of trying to replace a current way of doing things in which there is nothing wrong with the present system. Swift's attitudes concerning science and scientists become explicit in his descriptions of the experiments of the "universal artist" (Swift 175).
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 (Swift 175).
Sowing land with chaff is "the traditional images for wasted labor" (Turner 336). This reveals Swift's belief that most of the work of scientists is only so much wasted labor. The experiments of trying to breed naked sheep delineate Swift's belief that studying animals is useless for mankind; how would sheep with no wool benefit people?
After Gulliver visits the scientists working on utilitarian projects, he goes to see some of the inventions classified under speculative sciences. The first invention he investigates is a "Frame" that is designed to improve "speculative knowledge by practical and mechanical Operations" (Swift 175). This Frame consists of all the words in the English language written on pieces of paper which were then pasted onto bits of wood. By turning a handle, the words shifted around as the bits of wood were moved. By using this Frame, the scientist claimed that "the most ignorant person" could "write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks and Theology, without the least Assistance from Genius or Study" (Swift 176). In this passage, Swift is satirizing people's desire to gain knowledge through artificial means instead of reading and studying for the attainment of knowledge.
Another instance of attaining knowledge by artificial means is seen in the project of teaching mathematics to students by writing the information on a "thin Wafer with Ink composed of a Cephalick Tincture" (Swift 178). The students were required to swallow these wafers "upon a fasting stomach and for three Days following eat nothing but Bread and Water" (Swift 178). This was supposed to work by as the wafer would be digested, the "Tincture mounted to his brain" carrying the information with it (Swift 178). This project was unsuccessful due to the "perverseness" of the students who refused to adhere to the scientist's instructions regarding fasting.
In the School of Languages, Gulliver finds projectors who are endeavoring to make the English language more efficient. The methods proposed are: (1) to "shorten discourse by cutting Polysyllables into one, and leaving out Verbs and Participles"; and (2) to abolish all words altogether. In this last method, people would communicate with physical objects which they would "carry about" with them to "express the particular Business they are to discourse on" (Swift 177).
This proposal was not very successful with the women and the "Vulgar and Illiterate" who demanded to be able to "speak with their Tongues, after the Manner of their Forefathers" (Swift 177). Nonetheless, many of the "Learned and Wise" accepted the use of this method of communication. Swift shows the ludicrousness of this method by describing the inconveniences of it:
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 Streets 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 Burthens, and take their Leave (Swift 178).
This passage demonstrates how some projects are not only useless to mankind, but detrimental also. Such a scenario as this would cause unnecessary physical strain, which would lead to many serious health problems.
In the School of political projectors, Swift has Gulliver denounce what Swift himself is in favor of; namely that monarchs choose people to fill posts based upon their "Wisdom, Capacity, and Virtue" (Swift 179). The projectors also propose that "Ministers consult the publick Good" and that people should be rewarded based upon "Merit, great Abilities, and eminent Services" (Swift 179). Gulliver takes the opposite side and calls these scientists "unhappy people" who are "wholly out of their Senses" (Swift 179). While this practice of choosing people for employment and favors based upon merit would be useful for mankind, Swift shows (through Gulliver's deprecation of it) how most people would not appreciate this being put into practice since most do not achieve their posts due to their merit.
Perhaps the most useless project described in Gulliver's Travels is that of "discovering Plots and Conspiracies against the Government" (Swift 182). The projector claims that by examining the excrement of a person minutely, one would be able to "form a Judgment of their Thoughts and Designs" (Swift 182).
Gulliver informs the projector of his own country's manner of discovering plots, which are equally ludicrous:
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 other Papers, and put the Owners in Chains. These Papers are delivered to a Set of Artists very dextrous [sic] in Finding out the mysterious Meanings of Words, Syllables, and Letters. For instance, they can decypher a Close-stool to signify A Privy-Council; a Flock of Geese, a Senate; a lame Dog, an Invader; The Plague, a standing Army, a Buzard...(Swift 183).
In this passage, Swift satirizes people's ability to twist words and phrases into meaning whatever they wish them to mean, disregarding the obvious meaning of the words and phrases contained in the letters and other papers of suspected insurgents.
Thus in the voyage to Laputa, Swift gives his view of science and scientists. He satirizes their absentmindedness, their detachment from humanity, their disregard for studying mankind, and their lack of social graces. Swift views much of scientific studies as a waste of time, money, and energy in that it does little to benefit mankind. This view of Swift's is expressed through his satires of scientific projects.
Bibliography
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Ed. Paul Turner. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Turner, Paul. "Introduction and Footnotes." Gulliver's Travels. By Jonathan Swift. Ed. Paul Turner. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ix-xxvi, 289-371.
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