Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/522

 to be a worse book to peruse, than those which we are forbid, as the most flagitious and obscene. One absurdity in this author (a wretched philosopher, though a great wit) is well worth remarking — in order to render the nature of man odious, and the nature of beasts amiable, he is compelled to give human characters to his beasts, and beastly characters to his men: so that we are to admire the beasts, not for being beasts, but amiable men; and to detest the men, not for being men, but detestable beasts." I believe so strange an interpretation of an author's meaning, never fell from the pen of any commentator. He first assumes that the end proposed by Swift in this fable, is, to render the nature of man odious, and the nature of beasts amiable. This surely was a most unaccountable design in any human creature; and before it can be admitted, it ought to be first proved that Swift was of a beastly disposition, which engaged him on the side of his fellow brutes. And if this were his object, no mortal ever used more unlikely means to attain it, and no one ever more completely failed of his end. By representing a beast in a human form, without any one characteristical mark of man, he could hardly expect to render human nature itself odious: and by exhibiting so strange a phenomenon as the soul of man actuating a quadruped, and regulating his conduct by the rules of right reason, he could as little hope to render the nature of irrational beasts more amiable. And accordingly I believe no mortal ever had a worse opinion of human nature, from his description of the Yahoos; nor a better of the brute creation, from that of the Houyhnhnms. And all the ill effect produced by this