The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 2/A Tale of a Tub/Section 5

by Jonathan Swift

SECT. V.

A DIGRESSION IN THE MODERN KIND.

We, whom the world is pleased to honour with the title of modern authors, should never have been able to compass our great design of an everlasting remembrance, and never dying fame, if our endeavours had not been so highly serviceable to the general good of mankind. This, O universe, is the adventurous attempt of me thy secretary;

—— Quemvis preferre laborem
Suadet, & inducit noctes vigilare serenas.

To this end, I have some time since, with a world of pains and art, dissected the carcase of human nature, and read many useful lectures upon the several parts, both containing and contained; till at last it smelt so strong, I could preserve it no longer. Upon which, I have been at a great expense to fit up all the bones with exact contexture, and in due symmetry; so that I am ready to show a complete anatomy thereof, to all curious gentlemen and others. But not to digress farther in the midst of a digression, as I have known some authors enclose digressions in one another, like a nest of boxes; I do affirm, that having carefully cut up human nature, I have found a very strange, new, and important discovery; that the publick good of mankind is performed by two ways, instruction, and diversion. And I have farther proved in my said several readings, (which perhaps the world may one day see, if I can prevail on any friend to steal a copy, or on any certain gentleman of my admirers to be very importunate) that as mankind is now disposed, he^[1] receives much greater advantage by being diverted than instructed; his epidemical diseases being fastidiosity, amorphy, and oscitation; whereas in the present universal empire of wit and learning, there seems but little matter left for instruction. However, in compliance with a lesson of great age and authority, I have attempted carrying the point in all its heights; and accordingly throughout this divine treatise, have skilfully kneaded up both together, with a layer of utile, and a layer of dulce.

When I consider how exceedingly our illustrious moderns, have eclipsed the weak glimmering lights of the ancients, and turned them out of the road of all fashionable commerce, to a degree, that our choice town-wits^[2], of most refined accomplishments, are in grave dispute, whether there have been ever any ancients or not: in which point, we are likely to receive wonderful satisfaction, from the most useful labours and lucubrations of that worthy modern, Dr. Bentley: I say, when I consider all this, I cannot but bewail, that no famous modern has ever yet attempted a universal system, in a small portable volume, of all things that are to be known, or believed, or imagined, or practised in life. I am however forced to acknowledge, that such an enterprize was thought on some time ago by a great philosopher of O. Brazile^[3]. The method he proposed, was, by a certain curious receipt, a nostrum, which after his untimely death I found among his papers; and do here, out of my great affection to the modern learned, present them with it, not doubting it may one day encourage some worthy undertaker.

You take fair correct copies, well bound in calfskin and lettered at the back, of all modern bodies of arts and sciences whatsoever, and in what language you please. These you distil in balneo mariæ infusing quintessence of poppy Q. S. together with three pints of lethe, to be had from the apothecaries. You cleanse away carefully the sordes and caput mortuum, letting all that is volatile evaporate. You preserve only the first running, which is again to be distilled seventeen times, till what remains will amount to about two drams. This you keep in a glass vial hermetically sealed, for one and twenty days. Then you begin your catholick treatise, taking every morning fasting, first shaking the vial, three drops of this elixir, snuffing it strongly up your nose. It will dilate itself about the brain (where there is any) in fourteen minutes, and you immediately perceive in your head an infinite number of abstracts, summaries, compendiums, extracts, collections, medullas, excerpta quædams, florilegias, and the like, all disposed into great order, and reducible upon paper.

I must needs own, it was by the assistance of this arcanum, that I, though otherwise impar, have adventured upon so daring an attempt, never achieved or undertaken before, but by a certain author called Homer; in whom, though otherwise a person not without some abilities, and for an ancient, of a tolerable genius, I have discovered many gross errours, which are not to be forgiven his very ashes, if by chance any of them are left. For whereas we are assured, he designed his work for a complete body of all knowledge^[4], human, divine, political, and mechanick; it is manifest he has wholly neglected some, and been very imperfect in the rest. For, first of all, as eminent a cabalist as his disciples would represent him, his account of the opus magnum is extremely poor and deficient; he seems to have read but very superficially either Sendivogus, Behmen, or Anthroposophia Theomagica^[5]. He is also quite mistaken about the sphæra pyroplastica, a neglect not to be atoned for; and, if the reader will admit so severe a censure, vix crederem autorem hunc unquam audivisse ignis vocem. His failings are not less prominent in several parts of the mechanicks. For, having read his writings with the utmost application, usual among modern wits, I could never yet discover the least direction about the structure of that useful instrument, a saveall. For want of which, if the moderns had not lent their assistance, we might yet have wandered in the dark. But I have still behind a fault far more notorious to tax the author with; I mean, his gross ignorance in the common laws of this realm, and in the doctrine, as well as discipline of the church of England^[6]. A defect, indeed, for which both he, and all the ancients, stand most justly censured, by my worthy and ingenious friend, Mr. Wotton, bachelor of divinity, in his incomparable treatise of ancient and modern learning: a book, never to be sufficiently valued, whether we consider the happy turns and flowings of the author's wit, the great usefulness of his sublime discoveries upon the subject of flies and spittle, or the laborious eloquence of his style. And I cannot forbear doing that author the justice of my publick acknowledgements, for the great helps and liftings I had out of his incomparable piece, while I was penning this treatise.

But, beside these omissions in Homer already mentioned, the curious reader will also observe several defects in that author's writings, for which he is not altogether so accountable. For whereas every branch of knowledge has received such wonderful acquirements since his age, especially within these last three years, or thereabouts; it is almost impossible, he could be so very perfect in modern discoveries, as his advocates pretend. We freely acknowledge him to be the inventor of the compass, of gun-powder, and the circulation of the blood: but, I challenge any of his admirers to show me, in all his writings, a complete account of the spleen; does he not also leave us wholly to seek in the art of political wagering? What can be more defective and unsatisfactory, than his long dissertation upon tea? And as to his method of salivation without mercury, so much celebrated of late, it is, to my own knowledge and experience, a thing very little to be relied on.

It was to supply such momentous defects, that I have been prevailed on, after long solicitation, to take pen in hand; and I dare venture to promise, the judicious reader shall find nothing neglected here, that can be of use upon any emergency of life. I am confident to have included and exhausted all, that human imagination can rise or fall to. Particularly, I recommend to the perusal of the learned, certain discoveries, that are wholly untouched by others; whereof I shall only mention, among a great many more, my new help for smatterers, or the art of being deep-learned, and shallow-read. A curious invention about mouse-traps. A universal rule of reason, or every man his own carver; together with a most useful engine for catching of owls. All which, the judicious reader will find largely treated on, in the several parts of this discourse.

I hold myself obliged to give as much light as is possible, into the beauties and excellencies of what I am writing: because it is become the fashion and humour most applauded, among the first authors of this polite and learned age, when they would correct the ill-nature of critical, or inform the ignorance of courteous readers. Besides, there have been several famous pieces lately published, both in verse and prose, wherein, if the writers had not been pleased, out of their great humanity and affection to the publick, to give us a nice detail of the sublime and the admirable they contain, it is a thousand to one, whether we should ever have discovered one grain of either. For my own particular, I cannot deny, that whatever I have said upon this occasion, had been more proper in a preface, and more agreeable to the mode, which usually directs it thither. But I here think fit to lay hold on that great and honourable privilege, of being the last writer; I claim an absolute authority in right, as the freshest modern, which gives me a despotick power over all authors before me. In the strength of which title, I do utterly disapprove and declare against that pernicious custom, of making the preface a bill of fare to the book. For I have always looked upon it as a high point of indiscretion in monster-mongers, and other retailers of strange sights, to hang out a fair large picture over the door, drawn after the life, with a most eloquent description underneath: this has saved me many a three-pence; for my curiosity was fully satisfied, and I never offered to go in, though often invited by the urging and attending orator, with his last moving and standing piece of rhetorick; Sir, upon my word, we are just going to begin. Such is exactly the fate at this time of prefaces, epistles, advertisements, introductions, prolegomenas, apparatuses, to the readers. This expedient was admirable at first; our great Dryden has long carried it as far as it would go, and with incredible success. He has often said to me in confidence, that the world would have never suspected him to be so great a poet, if he had not assured them so frequently in his prefaces, that it was impossible they could either doubt, or forget it. Perhaps it may be so; however, I much fear, his instructions have edified out of their place, and taught men to grow wiser in certain points, where he never intended they should; for it is lamentable to behold, with what a lazy scorn, many of the yawning readers of our age, do nowadays twirl over forty or fifty pages of preface and dedication (which is the usual modern stint) as if it were so much Latin. Though it must be also allowed on the other hand, that a very considerable number is^[7] known to proceed criticks and wits, by reading nothing else. Into which two factions, I think, all present readers may justly be divided. Now for myself, I profess to be of the former sort; and therefore having the modern inclination, to expatiate upon the beauty of my own productions, and display the bright parts of my discourse, I thought best to do it in the body of the work; where, as it now lies, it makes a very considerable addition to the bulk of the volume; a circumstance by no means to be neglected by a skilful writer.

Having thus paid my due deference and acknowledgment, to an established custom of our newest authors, by a long digression unsought for, and a universal censure unprovoked; by forcing into the light, with much pains and dexterity, my own excellencies, and other men's defaults, with great justice to myself, and candour to them, I now happily resume my subject, to the infinite satisfaction both of the reader and the author.

1. Neither grammar nor custom will allow this mode of expression; the relative, 'he,' can never agree with, 'mankind:' it should either be, 'as man is now disposed, he' &c. or 'as mankind are now disposed, they' &c.
2. The learned person, here meant by our author, has been endeavouring to annihilate so many ancient writers, that, until he is pleased to stop his hand, it will be dangerous to affirm, whether there have been any ancients in the world.
3. This is an imaginary island, of kin to that, which is called the Painters wives island, placed in some unknown part of the ocean, merely at the fancy of the map maker.
4. Homerus omnes res humanas poematis complexus est. Xenoph. in conviv.
5. A treatise written about fifty years ago, by a Welsh gentleman of Cambridge. His name as I remember, Vaughan, as appears by the answer to it written by the learned Dr. Henry More. It is a piece of the most unintelligible fustian, that perhaps was ever published in any language.
6. Mr. Wotton, (to whom our author never gives any quarter) in his comparison of ancient and modern learning numbers divinity, law, &c. among those parts of knowledge, wherein we excel the ancients.
7. It should be, 'are' known, to agree with the following plurals, criticks and wits.