Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 3/Chapter 6
from the Collection âGulliver's Travels. Part 3â
The divisions in this summary are editorial.
Remedies for political disease
Continuing his visit to the Academy, Gulliver entered the school devoted to political schemes. He found the professorsâ proposals to choose capable officials, reward merit and make rulers serve the public good so unrealistic that he judged their authors mad.
One doctor, however, impressed him with remedies for corrupt government. Taking literally the comparison between a state and a human body, the doctor proposed that physicians examine senators after three days of debate and prescribe medicines according to each memberâs symptoms.
Gulliver thought the treatment would make legislative business more efficient. The doctor also proposed that anyone with business before a minister should hurt him on leaving and repeat the treatment until the request was granted or refused, so that he would not forget it. Senators, meanwhile, should vote against the opinions they had just defended, thereby supposedly serving the public.
To reconcile hostile parties, the doctor proposed pairing their leaders and exchanging half of each pairâs brains. He assured his listeners that the opposing halves would reach an understanding within each skull. As for differences in the brains of faction leaders, he dismissed them:
the doctor assured us from his own knowledge, that it was a perfect trifle.
Taxes and rewards for loyalty
Gulliver heard two professors debate how to raise money without burdening the public. One wanted neighbours to assess a tax on each personâs vices and folly. The other preferred taxing qualities people prized in themselves, with each person declaring the amount owed.
Under the second plan, men would pay for their success with women, wit, courage and politeness; women would assess their own beauty and skill in dressing. Qualities such as justice and wisdom would go untaxed because, the professor claimed, men neither credited their neighbours with them nor valued them in themselves. Certain womenâs virtues were likewise excluded because collecting the tax would cost too much.
Another proposal sought to keep senators loyal to the crown: they would swear to vote for the government and then raffle for public offices. Those who lost could try again when another office became vacant, blaming fortune rather than ministers for their disappointment.
A method for detecting plots
A professor showed Gulliver instructions for discovering conspiracies. He advised ministers to study suspectsâ habits and examine their excrement for evidence of their thoughts. He claimed to have tested the method on himself: thoughts of killing the king produced a different result from thoughts of rebellion or burning the capital.
Gulliver offered additions, and the professor welcomed them. Gulliver described Tribnia, called Langden by its inhabitants, where he said ministers and their agents manufactured plots to strengthen a failing government, suppress discontent, seize property or manipulate public credit.
According to Gulliver, the authorities first selected suspects, seized their papers and imprisoned them. Specialists then assigned sinister political meanings to ordinary words; if that failed, they interpreted initials or rearranged letters to uncover supposed secret messages. Gulliver gave an example of what the specialists called an anagram:
Our brother Tom has just got the piles
A skilled interpreter, he said, could rearrange the letters into words announcing a plot. The professor thanked Gulliver and promised to mention him honourably in his treatise. Having seen nothing else in the country that tempted him to stay, Gulliver began considering a return home to England.