Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 6.djvu/333

Rh new ones, which nature had not given us: that we disarmed ourselves of the few abilities she had bestowed; had been very successful in multiplying our original wants, and seemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavours, to supply them by our own inventions. That as to myself, it was manifest I had neither the strength nor agility of a common yahoo; that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no use or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was intended as a shelter from the sun and the weather. Lastly, That I could neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my brethren, (as he called them) the yahoos in his country.

That our institutions of government and law, were plainly owing to our gross defects in reason, and by consequence in virtue; because reason alone is sufficient to govern a rational creature; which was therefore a character we had no pretence to challenge, even from the account I had given of my own people; although he manifestly perceived, that in order to favour them, I had concealed many particulars, and often said the thing which was not.

He was the more confirmed in this opinion, because he observed, that as I agreed in every feature of my body with other yahoos, except where it was to my real disadvantage, in point of strength, speed, and activity, the shortness of my claws, and some other particulars where nature had no part; so from the representation I had given him of our lives, our manners, and our actions, he found as near a resemblance in the disposition of our minds. He said, the yahoos were known to hate one another, more than they did any different species of animals; and Rh