CHAPTER V



[The author permitted to see the grand academy of Lagado.
The academy largely described. The arts wherein the professors
employ themselves.]


This academy is not an entire single building, but a continuation
of several houses on both sides of a street, which growing waste,
was purchased and applied to that use.

I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days
to the academy. Every room has in it one or more projectors; and
I believe I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms.

The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and
face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several
places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same
colour. He has been eight years upon a project for extracting
sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials
hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement
summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years
more, he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with
sunshine, at a reasonable rate: but he complained that his stock
was low, and entreated me "to give him something as an
encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very
dear season for cucumbers." I made him a small present, for my
lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew
their practice of begging from all who go to see them.

I went into another chamber, but was ready to hasten back, being
almost overcome with a horrible stink. My conductor pressed me
forward, conjuring me in a whisper "to give no offence, which
would be highly resented;" and therefore I durst not so much as
stop my nose. The projector of this cell was the most ancient
student of the academy; his face and beard were of a pale yellow;
his hands and clothes daubed over with filth. When I was
presented to him, he gave me a close embrace, a compliment I
could well have excused. His employment, from his first coming
into the academy, was an operation to reduce human excrement to
its original food, by separating the several parts, removing the
tincture which it receives from the gall, making the odour
exhale, and scumming off the saliva. He had a weekly allowance,
from the society, of a vessel filled with human ordure, about the
bigness of a Bristol barrel.

I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder; who likewise
showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability
of fire, which he intended to publish.

There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new
method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working
downward to the foundation; which he justified to me, by the like
practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider.

There was a man born blind, who had several apprentices in his
own condition: their employment was to mix colours for painters,
which their master taught them to distinguish by feeling and
smelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find them at that time
not very perfect in their lessons, and the professor himself
happened to be generally mistaken. This artist is much
encouraged and esteemed by the whole fraternity.

In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector who
had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the
charges of ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method is this: in
an acre of ground you bury, at six inches distance and eight
deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast or
vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest; then you drive six
hundred or more of them into the field, where, in a few days,
they will root up the whole ground in search of their food, and
make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their
dung: it is true, upon experiment, they found the charge and
trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However it
is not doubted, that this invention may be capable of great
improvement.

I went into another room, where the walls and ceiling were all
hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artist
to go in and out. At my entrance, he called aloud to me, "not to
disturb his webs." He lamented "the fatal mistake the world had
been so long in, of using silkworms, while we had such plenty of
domestic insects who infinitely excelled the former, because they
understood how to weave, as well as spin." And he proposed
further, "that by employing spiders, the charge of dyeing silks
should be wholly saved;" whereof I was fully convinced, when he
showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully coloured,
wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us "that the webs would
take a tincture from them; and as he had them of all hues, he
hoped to fit everybody's fancy, as soon as he could find proper
food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous
matter, to give a strength and consistence to the threads."

There was an astronomer, who had undertaken to place a sun-dial
upon the great weathercock on the town-house, by adjusting the
annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer
and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind.

I was complaining of a small fit of the colic, upon which my
conductor led me into a room where a great physician resided, who
was famous for curing that disease, by contrary operations from
the same instrument. He had a large pair of bellows, with a long
slender muzzle of ivory: this he conveyed eight inches up the
anus, and drawing in the wind, he affirmed he could make the guts
as lank as a dried bladder. But when the disease was more
stubborn and violent, he let in the muzzle while the bellows were
full of wind, which he discharged into the body of the patient;
then withdrew the instrument to replenish it, clapping his thumb
strongly against the orifice of then fundament; and this being
repeated three or four times, the adventitious wind would rush
out, bringing the noxious along with it, (like water put into a
pump), and the patient recovered. I saw him try both experiments
upon a dog, but could not discern any effect from the former.
After the latter the animal was ready to burst, and made so
violent a discharge as was very offensive to me and my companion.

The dog died on the spot, and we left the doctor endeavouring to
recover him, by the same operation.

I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my reader
with all the curiosities I observed, being studious of brevity.

I had hitherto seen only one side of the academy, the other being
appropriated to the advancers of speculative learning, of whom I
shall say something, when I have mentioned one illustrious person
more, who is called among them "the universal artist." He told
us "he had been thirty years employing his thoughts for the
improvement of human life." He had two large rooms full of
wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at work. Some were
condensing air into a dry tangible substance, by extracting the
nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid particles percolate;
others softening marble, for pillows and pin-cushions; others
petrifying the hoofs of a living horse, to preserve them from
foundering. The artist himself was at that time busy upon two
great designs; the first, to sow land with chaff, wherein he
affirmed the true seminal virtue to be contained, as he
demonstrated by several experiments, which I was not skilful
enough to comprehend. The other was, by a certain composition of
gums, minerals, and vegetables, outwardly applied, to prevent the
growth of wool upon two young lambs; and he hoped, in a
reasonable time to propagate the breed of naked sheep, all over
the kingdom.

We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I
have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided.

The first professor I saw, was in a very large room, with forty
pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look
earnestly upon a frame, which took up the greatest part of both
the length and breadth of the room, he said, "Perhaps I might
wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative
knowledge, by practical and mechanical operations. But the world
would soon be sensible of its usefulness; and he flattered
himself, that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang in any
other man's head. Every one knew how laborious the usual method
is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his
contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge,
and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy,
poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the
least assistance from genius or study." He then led me to the
frame, about the sides, whereof all his pupils stood in ranks.
It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The
superfices was composed of several bits of wood, about the
bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all
linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were
covered, on every square, with paper pasted on them; and on these
papers were written all the words of their language, in their
several moods, tenses, and declensions; but without any order.
The professor then desired me "to observe; for he was going to
set his engine at work." The pupils, at his command, took each
of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed
round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the
whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then
commanded six-and-thirty of the lads, to read the several lines
softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found
three or four words together that might make part of a sentence,
they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This
work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn, the
engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places,
as the square bits of wood moved upside down.

Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour;
and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio,
already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to
piece together, and out of those rich materials, to give the
world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however,
might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would
raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames in
Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their
several collections.

He assured me "that this invention had employed all his thoughts
from his youth; that he had emptied the whole vocabulary into his
frame, and made the strictest computation of the general
proportion there is in books between the numbers of particles,
nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech."

I made my humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious person, for
his great communicativeness; and promised, "if ever I had the
good fortune to return to my native country, that I would do him
justice, as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine;" the
form and contrivance of which I desired leave to delineate on
paper, as in the figure here annexed. I told him, "although it
were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal inventions from
each other, who had thereby at least this advantage, that it
became a controversy which was the right owner; yet I would take
such caution, that he should have the honour entire, without a
rival."

We next went to the school of languages, where three professors
sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country.

The first project was, to shorten discourse, by cutting
polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles,
because, in reality, all things imaginable are but norms.

The other project was, a scheme for entirely abolishing all words
whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of
health, as well as brevity. For it is plain, that every word we
speak is, in some degree, a diminution of our lunge by corrosion,
and, consequently, contributes to the shortening of our lives.
An expedient was therefore offered, "that since words are only
names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to
carry about them such things as were necessary to express a
particular business they are to discourse on." And this
invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as
well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with
the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a
rebellion unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with
their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such
constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people.

However, many of the most learned and wise adhere to the new
scheme of expressing themselves by things; which has only this
inconvenience attending it, that if a man's business be very
great, and of various kinds, he must be obliged, in proportion,
to carry a greater bundle of things upon his back, unless he can
afford one or two strong servants to attend him. I have often
beheld two of those sages almost sinking under the weight of
their packs, like pedlars among us, who, when they met in the
street, would lay down their loads, open their sacks, and hold
conversation for an hour together; then put up their implements,
help each other to resume their burdens, and take their leave.

But for short conversations, a man may carry implements in his
pockets, and under his arms, enough to supply him; and in his
house, he cannot be at a loss. Therefore the room where company
meet who practise this art, is full of all things, ready at hand,
requisite to furnish matter for this kind of artificial converse.

Another great advantage proposed by this invention was, that it
would serve as a universal language, to be understood in all
civilised nations, whose goods and utensils are generally of the
same kind, or nearly resembling, so that their uses might easily
be comprehended. And thus ambassadors would be qualified to
treat with foreign princes, or ministers of state, to whose
tongues they were utter strangers.

I was at the mathematical school, where the master taught his
pupils after a method scarce imaginable to us in Europe. The
proposition, and demonstration, were fairly written on a thin
wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture. This, the
student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days
following, eat nothing but bread and water. As the wafer
digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the
proposition along with it. But the success has not hitherto been
answerable, partly by some error in the QUANTUM or composition,
and partly by the perverseness of lads, to whom this bolus is so
nauseous, that they generally steal aside, and discharge it
upwards, before it can operate; neither have they been yet
persuaded to use so long an abstinence, as the prescription
requires.

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