Gulliver's Travels (Swift)/Part 4/Chapter 7
from the Collection âGulliver's Travels. Part 4â
The division of this summary into sections is editorial.
Gulliver chooses truth over loyalty to his species
Living among the rational, horse-like Houyhnhnms, Gulliver explained why he had spoken so freely to his master about human faults, despite the inhabitantsâ low opinion of humans, whom they associated with the Yahoos.
His masterâs virtues and sharp judgment had made Gulliver see faults in himself that people at home would scarcely have noticed. Following his example, Gulliver had come to hate falsehood.
Before a year had passed, Gulliver had resolved to spend the rest of his life among the Houyhnhnms. Looking back, he regretted that fortune had prevented this. He maintained that, despite his candour, attachment to his birthplace had led him to present his countrymen as favourably as he dared.
The master finds human reason wanting
After their long conversations about England, the master summoned Gulliver one morning and, as an unprecedented honour, allowed him to sit at a distance. He had concluded that humans possessed a little reason but used it to worsen their natural corruptions and create new wants. Gulliver lacked the speed and strength of a Yahoo, while his cut nails and shaved chin deprived him of natural protection.
The master argued that laws and governments arose from humanityâs lack of reason and virtue: a truly rational creature would need neither. He also suspected Gulliver of concealing facts and sometimes saying what was not true to favour his people. Comparing their minds as well as their bodies, the master found humans much like the Yahoos.
He described how Yahoos fought over abundant food, raided neighbouring groups and, when an attack failed, fought among themselves. Humans, he observed, had invented more effective weapons with which to kill.
Shining stones expose greed and conflict
The master compared human avarice to the Yahoosâ passion for apparently useless shining stones. They dug them out, hid them and fought especially fiercely where they were plentiful. As an experiment, he had secretly removed one Yahooâs hoard. The animal howled, attacked its companions and would neither eat, sleep nor work until the stones were returned. It then hid them more securely and became useful again.
The master also said that when two Yahoos quarrelled over a stone, a third sometimes carried it off. He thought this resembled a lawsuit. Gulliver did not correct him: in English courts, he reflected, the parties could lose far more than the object in dispute.
our courts of equity would never have dismissed the cause while either of them had any thing left.
Food, sickness and political favourites
The master described Yahoos eating indiscriminately, preferring stolen food to better provisions at home, and consuming a rare root that made them behave as if drunk. Gulliver observed that their greed and filth caused diseases. Their treatment was a forced mixture of dung and urine, which he claimed to have seen work and recommended to his countrymen for illnesses caused by overeating.
The master acknowledged that local Yahoos had nothing comparable to human learning or manufactures; his comparison concerned their natures. He had heard, however, that a herdâs unusually deformed and mischievous leader kept a favourite who served him and was hated by the rest. When dismissed, the favourite was attacked with excrement by the herd. The master left Gulliver to judge the resemblance to court favourites and ministers.
Gulliver made no reply to the suggestion. The master went on to describe sexual behaviour and fighting between male and female Yahoos that Gulliver could not defend among humans. Gulliver thought he could have challenged the claim that Yahoos alone loved dirt, had there been pigs in the country for comparison.
Gulliver recognises further human failings
The master reported that some well-fed Yahoos withdrew, groaned and rejected company until hard work restored them. Gulliver silently recognised what he called spleen, or persistent low spirits, among the idle and wealthy, and thought the same remedy would cure them.
The master also described female Yahoos displaying themselves to males and treating female strangers with apparent contempt. Gulliver allowed that his master might have read too much into these observations, but sorrowfully saw in them the beginnings of coquetry and scandal, which he associated with women.
Finally, Gulliver expected his master to accuse Yahoos of what he called unnatural appetites common among humans. Finding no such accusation, he concluded that these desires were a product of human art and reason rather than nature.