Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/72

xx. II. How some worship a good Being, others an evil. Most people confound the bounds of good and evil. Vain mortals think the Divinity interested in their meanest actions. The scheme of spiritual mechanism left out. Of the usefulness of quilted night-caps, to keep in the heat, to give motion and vigour to the little animals that compose the brain. Sound of far greater use than sense in the operations of the Spirit, as in Musick. Inward light consists of theological monosyllables and mysterious texts. Of the great force of one vowel in canting; and of blowing the nose, hawking, spitting, and belching. The Author to publish an Essay on the Art of Canting. Of speaking through the nose, or snuffling: its origin from a disease occasioned by a conflict betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit. Inspired vessels, like lanterns, have a sorry sooty outside. Fanaticism deduced from the Ancients, in their Orgies, Bacchanals, &c. Of their great lasciviousness on those occasions. The Fanaticks of the first centuries, and those of later times, generally agree in the same principle, of improving spiritual into carnal ejaculations, &c.

Preface informs us, this piece was written in 1697, on account of a famous dispute about Ancient and Modern. Learning, between Sir William Temple and the earl of Orrery on the one side, and Mr. Wotton and Bentley on the other.

War and Invasions generally proceed from the attacks of Want and Poverty upon Plenty and Riches.