Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/207

Rh it is generally affirmed, or confessed, that learning puffeth men up: and secondly, they proved it by the following syllogism; words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind. For this reason, the philosophers among them, did, in their schools, deliver to their pupils, all their doctrines and opinions, by eructation, wherein they had acquired a wonderful eloquence, and of incredible variety. But the great characteristick, by which their chief sages were best distinguished, was a certain position of countenance, which gave undoubted intelligence, to what degree or proportion, the spirit agitated the inward mass. For, after certain gripings, the wind and vapours issuing forth, having first by their turbulence and convulsions within, caused an earthquake in man's little world, distorted the mouth, bloated the cheeks, and gave the eyes a terrible kind of relievo; at such junctures all their belches were received for sacred, the sourer the better, and swallowed with infinite consolation by their meager devotees. And, to render these yet more complete, because the breath of man's life is in his nostrils, therefore the choicest, most edifying, and most enlivening belches, were very wisely conveyed through that vehicle, to give them a tincture as they passed.

Their gods were the four winds, whom they worshiped, as the spirits that pervade and enliven the universe, and as those from whom alone all inspiration can properly be said to proceed. However, the chief of these, to whom they performed the adoration of latria, was the almighty North; an