CHAPTER VII



[The author's great love of his native country. His master's
observations upon the constitution and administration
of England, as described by the author, with parallel cases
and comparisons. His master's observations upon human nature.]


The reader may be disposed to wonder how I could prevail on
myself to give so free a representation of my own species, among
a race of mortals who are already too apt to conceive the vilest
opinion of humankind, from that entire congruity between me and
their YAHOOS. But I must freely confess, that the many virtues of
those excellent quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human
corruptions, had so far opened my eyes and enlarged my
understanding, that I began to view the actions and passions of
man in a very different light, and to think the honour of my own
kind not worth managing; which, besides, it was impossible for me
to do, before a person of so acute a judgment as my master, who
daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had
not the least perception before, and which, with us, would never
be numbered even among human infirmities. I had likewise
learned, from his example, an utter detestation of all falsehood
or disguise; and truth appeared so amiable to me, that I
determined upon sacrificing every thing to it.

Let me deal so candidly with the reader as to confess that there
was yet a much stronger motive for the freedom I took in my
representation of things. I had not yet been a year in this
country before I contracted such a love and veneration for the
inhabitants, that I entered on a firm resolution never to return
to humankind, but to pass the rest of my life among these
admirable HOUYHNHNMS, in the contemplation and practice of every
virtue, where I could have no example or incitement to vice. But
it was decreed by fortune, my perpetual enemy, that so great a
felicity should not fall to my share. However, it is now some
comfort to reflect, that in what I said of my countrymen, I
extenuated their faults as much as I durst before so strict an
examiner; and upon every article gave as favourable a turn as the
matter would bear. For, indeed, who is there alive that will not
be swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth?

I have related the substance of several conversations I had with
my master during the greatest part of the time I had the honour
to be in his service; but have, indeed, for brevity sake, omitted
much more than is here set down.

When I had answered all his questions, and his curiosity seemed
to be fully satisfied, he sent for me one morning early, and
commanded me to sit down at some distance (an honour which he had
never before conferred upon me). He said, "he had been very
seriously considering my whole story, as far as it related both
to myself and my country; that he looked upon us as a sort of
animals, to whose share, by what accident he could not
conjecture, some small pittance of reason had fallen, whereof we
made no other use, than by its assistance, to aggravate our
natural corruptions, and to acquire 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 the reason usually
assigned was, the odiousness of their own shapes, which all could
see in the rest, but not in themselves. He had therefore begun
to think it not unwise in us to cover our bodies, and by that
invention conceal many of our deformities from each other, which
would else be hardly supportable. But he now found he had been
mistaken, and that the dissensions of those brutes in his country
were owing to the same cause with ours, as I had described them.
For if," said he, "you throw among five YAHOOS as much food as
would be sufficient for fifty, they will, instead of eating
peaceably, fall together by the ears, each single one impatient
to have all to itself; and therefore a servant was usually
employed to stand by while they were feeding abroad, and those
kept at home were tied at a distance from each other: that if a
cow died of age or accident, before a HOUYHNHNM could secure it
for his own YAHOOS, those in the neighbourhood would come in
herds to seize it, and then would ensue such a battle as I had
described, with terrible wounds made by their claws on both
sides, although they seldom were able to kill one another, for
want of such convenient instruments of death as we had invented.
At other times, the like battles have been fought between the
YAHOOS of several neighbourhoods, without any visible cause;
those of one district watching all opportunities to surprise the
next, before they are prepared. But if they find their project
has miscarried, they return home, and, for want of enemies,
engage in what I call a civil war among themselves.

"That in some fields of his country there are certain shining
stones of several colours, whereof the YAHOOS are violently fond:
and when part of these stones is fixed in the earth, as it
sometimes happens, they will dig with their claws for whole days
to get them out; then carry them away, and hide them by heaps in
their kennels; but still looking round with great caution, for
fear their comrades should find out their treasure." My master
said, "he could never discover the reason of this unnatural
appetite, or how these stones could be of any use to a YAHOO; but
now he believed it might proceed from the same principle of
avarice which I had ascribed to mankind. That he had once, by
way of experiment, privately removed a heap of these stones from
the place where one of his YAHOOS had buried it; whereupon the
sordid animal, missing his treasure, by his loud lamenting
brought the whole herd to the place, there miserably howled, then
fell to biting and tearing the rest, began to pine away, would
neither eat, nor sleep, nor work, till he ordered a servant
privately to convey the stones into the same hole, and hide them
as before; which, when his YAHOO had found, he presently
recovered his spirits and good humour, but took good care to
remove them to a better hiding place, and has ever since been a
very serviceable brute."

My master further assured me, which I also observed myself, "that
in the fields where the shining stones abound, the fiercest and
most frequent battles are fought, occasioned by perpetual inroads
of the neighbouring YAHOOS."

He said, "it was common, when two YAHOOS discovered such a stone
in a field, and were contending which of them should be the
proprietor, a third would take the advantage, and carry it away
from them both;" which my master would needs contend to have some
kind of resemblance with our suits at law; wherein I thought it
for our credit not to undeceive him; since the decision he
mentioned was much more equitable than many decrees among us;
because the plaintiff and defendant there lost nothing beside the
stone they contended for: whereas our courts of equity would
never have dismissed the cause, while either of them had any
thing left.

My master, continuing his discourse, said, "there was nothing
that rendered the YAHOOS more odious, than their undistinguishing
appetite to devour every thing that came in their way, whether
herbs, roots, berries, the corrupted flesh of animals, or all
mingled together: and it was peculiar in their temper, that they
were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth, at a
greater distance, than much better food provided for them at
home. If their prey held out, they would eat till they were ready
to burst; after which, nature had pointed out to them a certain
root that gave them a general evacuation.

"There was also another kind of root, very juicy, but somewhat
rare and difficult to be found, which the YAHOOS sought for with
much eagerness, and would suck it with great delight; it produced
in them the same effects that wine has upon us. It would make
them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another; they would
howl, and grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall
asleep in the mud."

I did indeed observe that the YAHOOS were the only animals in
this country subject to any diseases; which, however, were much
fewer than horses have among us, and contracted, not by any
ill-treatment they meet with, but by the nastiness and greediness
of that sordid brute. Neither has their language any more than a
general appellation for those maladies, which is borrowed from
the name of the beast, and called HNEA-YAHOO, or YAHOO'S EVIL;
and the cure prescribed is a mixture of their own dung and urine,
forcibly put down the YAHOO'S throat. This I have since often
known to have been taken with success, and do here freely
recommend it to my countrymen for the public good, as an
admirable specific against all diseases produced by repletion.

"As to learning, government, arts, manufactures, and the like,"
my master confessed, "he could find little or no resemblance
between the YAHOOS of that country and those in ours; for he only
meant to observe what parity there was in our natures. He had
heard, indeed, some curious HOUYHNHNMS observe, that in most
herds there was a sort of ruling YAHOO (as among us there is
generally some leading or principal stag in a park), who was
always more deformed in body, and mischievous in disposition,
than any of the rest; that this leader had usually a favourite as
like himself as he could get, whose employment was to lick his
master's feet and posteriors, and drive the female YAHOOS to his
kennel; for which he was now and then rewarded with a piece of
ass's flesh. This favourite is hated by the whole herd, and
therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near the person of
his leader. He usually continues in office till a worse can be
found; but the very moment he is discarded, his successor, at the
head of all the YAHOOS in that district, young and old, male and
female, come in a body, and discharge their excrements upon him
from head to foot. But how far this might be applicable to our
courts, and favourites, and ministers of state, my master said I
could best determine."

I durst make no return to this malicious insinuation, which
debased human understanding below the sagacity of a common hound,
who has judgment enough to distinguish and follow the cry of the
ablest dog in the pack, without being ever mistaken.

My master told me, "there were some qualities remarkable in the
YAHOOS, which he had not observed me to mention, or at least very
slightly, in the accounts I had given of humankind." He said,
"those animals, like other brutes, had their females in common;
but in this they differed, that the she YAHOO would admit the
males while she was pregnant; and that the hes would quarrel and
fight with the females, as fiercely as with each other; both
which practices were such degrees of infamous brutality, as no
other sensitive creature ever arrived at.

"Another thing he wondered at in the YAHOOS, was their strange
disposition to nastiness and dirt; whereas there appears to be a
natural love of cleanliness in all other animals." As to the two
former accusations, I was glad to let them pass without any
reply, because I had not a word to offer upon them in defence of
my species, which otherwise I certainly had done from my own
inclinations. But I could have easily vindicated humankind from
the imputation of singularity upon the last article, if there had
been any swine in that country (as unluckily for me there were
not), which, although it may be a sweeter quadruped than a YAHOO,
cannot, I humbly conceive, in justice, pretend to more
cleanliness; and so his honour himself must have owned, if he had
seen their filthy way of feeding, and their custom of wallowing
and sleeping in the mud.

My master likewise mentioned another quality which his servants
had discovered in several Yahoos, and to him was wholly
unaccountable. He said, "a fancy would sometimes take a YAHOO to
retire into a corner, to lie down, and howl, and groan, and spurn
away all that came near him, although he were young and fat,
wanted neither food nor water, nor did the servant imagine what
could possibly ail him. And the only remedy they found was, to
set him to hard work, after which he would infallibly come to
himself." To this I was silent out of partiality to my own kind;
yet here I could plainly discover the true seeds of spleen, which
only seizes on the lazy, the luxurious, and the rich; who, if
they were forced to undergo the same regimen, I would undertake
for the cure.

His honour had further observed, "that a female YAHOO would often
stand behind a bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males passing
by, and then appear, and hide, using many antic gestures and
grimaces, at which time it was observed that she had a most
offensive smell; and when any of the males advanced, would slowly
retire, looking often back, and with a counterfeit show of fear,
run off into some convenient place, where she knew the male would
follow her.

"At other times, if a female stranger came among them, three or
four of her own sex would get about her, and stare, and chatter,
and grin, and smell her all over; and then turn off with
gestures, that seemed to express contempt and disdain."

Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations,
which he had drawn from what he observed himself, or had been
told him by others; however, I could not reflect without some
amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness,
coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in
womankind.

I expected every moment that my master would accuse the YAHOOS of
those unnatural appetites in both sexes, so common among us. But
nature, it seems, has not been so expert a school-mistress; and
these politer pleasures are entirely the productions of art and
reason on our side of the globe.

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