Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/515

Rh would be supposed to act in opposition to the common sense and reason of mankind. And yet I will undertake to overthrow it, by appealing to that very reason and common sense, upon which they suppose it to be founded. I shall only beg of my reader that he would lay aside for a while any preposession he may have entertained of that kind, and candidly examine what I shall advance in support of the opposite side of the question; and if he finds the arguments there laid down unanswerable, that he will not obstinately persist in errour, by whatever numbers it may be supported, but ingenuously yield to conviction. The position I mean to prove is, that the whole apologue of the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos, far from being intended as a debasement of human nature, if rightly understood, is evidently designed to show in what the true dignity and perfection of man's nature consists, and to point out the way by which it may be attained.

In order to this, let us first see with what design the fourth book of the Travels was written. In the first three books he has given various views of the different vices, follies, and absurdities of mankind, not without some mixture of good qualities, of virtue and wisdom, though in a small proportion to the others, as they are to be found in life. In his last book, he meant to exhibit two new portraits; one, of pure unmixed vice; the other, of perfect unadulterated virtue. In order that the native deformity of the one, might excite in us a deeper abhorrence of evil; and the resplendent charms of the other, allure us to what is good. To represent these to us in sensible forms, he clothes the one with the body of a man; VOL. I.