on the fame individual, which cannot fubfift without the notion of a fpiritual fubitance; we reply, that this is no greater difficulty to conceive, than that a corporation, which is likewise a flux body, may be punished for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their predeceffors.

We proceed now to explain, by the ftructure of the brain, the several modes of thinking. It is well known to anatomifts, that the brain is a congeries of glands, that separate the finer parts of the blood called animal fpirits; that a gland is nothing but a canal of a great length, varioufly intorted and wound up together. From the arieta

tion and motion of the fpirit in thofe canals, proceed all the different forts of thoughts. Simple ideas are produced by the motion of the spirits in one fimple canal; when two of thefe canals difembogue themselves into one, they make what we call a propofition: and when two of these propofitional channels empty themselves into a third, they form a fyllogifin, or a ratiocination. Memory is performed in a diftinct apartment of the brain, made up of veffels fimilar, and like fituated to the ideal, propofitional, and fyllogiftical veffels, in the primary parts of the brain. After the fame manner it is eafy to explain the other modes of thinking; as alfo why fome people think fo wrong and perverfely, which proceeds from the bad configuration of thofe glands. Some, for example, are born without the propofitional or fyllogiftical canals; in others, that reafon ill, they are of unequal capacities; in dull fellows of too great a length, whereby the motion of the fpirits is retarded; in trifling geniuses, weak and fmall; in the over-refining fpi

rits,

rits, too much intorted and winding; and fo of the reft.

We are so much perfuaded of the truth of this our hypothefis, that we have employed one of our members, a great virtuofo at Nuremberg, to make a fort of an hydraulic engine, in which a chemical liquor, refembling blood, is driven through elastic channels, refembling arteries and veins, by the force of an embolus like the heart, and wrought by a pneumatic machine, of the nature of the lungs, with ropes and pullies, like the nerves, tendons, and muscles: and we are perfuaded that this our artificial man will not only walk, and fpeak, and perform moft of the outward actions of the animal life, but (being wound up once a-week) will perhaps reafon as well as most of your country-parfons.

We wait with the utmost impatience for the honour of having you a member of your society, and beg leave to affure you that we are,

c.

What return Martin made to this obliging letter we must defer to another occafion: Let it fuffice at prefent to tell, that Crambe was in a great rage at them, for ftealing (as he thought) a hint from his theory of fyllogifms, without doing him the honour fo much as to mention him. He advi fed his master by no means to enter into their fociety, unless they would give him fufficient fecurity, to bear him harmlefs from any thing that might happen after this prefent life.

CHAP.

CHA P. XIII.

Of the feceffion of Martinus, and fome hints of his

travels.

T was in the year 1699 that Martin set out on

rious to know what they were. It is not yet time to inform thee. But what hints I am at liberty to give, I will.

Thou shalt know then, that in his first voyage he was carried, by a profperous ftorm, to a discovery of the remains of the ancient Pygmæan empire.

That in his fecond he was as happily fhipwreck. ed on the land of the giants, now the most humane people in the world.

That, in his third voyage, he discovered a whole kingdom of philofophers, who govern by the mathematics; with whofe admirable fchemes and projects he returned to benefit his own dear country; but had a misfortune to find them rejected by the envious minifters of Queen Anne, and himself fent treacherously away.

And hence it is, that, in his fourth voyage, he discovers a vein of melancholy proceeding almost to a difguft of his fpecies; but, above all, a mortal deteftation to the whole flagitious race of mis nifters, and a final refolution not to give in any memorial to the fecretary of fate, in order to fubject the lands he difcovered to the crown of Great Britain.

Now if, by these hints, the reader can help himfelf to a farther discovery of the nature and con

tents

tents of these travels, he is welcome to as much light as they afford him; I am obliged, by all the ties of honour, not to speak more openly.

But if any man fhall ever fee fuch very extra, ordinary voyages, into fuch very extraordinary nations, which manifeft the most diftinguishing marks of a philofopher, a politician, and a ligiflator; and can imagine them to belong to a furgeon of a fhip, or a captain of a merchantman, let him remain in his ignorance.

And whoever he be, that fhall farther obferve, in every page of fuch a book, that cordial love of mankind, that inviolable regard to truth, that paffon for his dear country, and that particular attachment to the excellent princefs, Queen Anne, furely that man deferves to be pitied, if by all thofe vifible figns and characters, he cannot diftinguish and acknowledge the great Scriblerus*.

CHAP. XIV.

Of the difcoveries and works of the great Scriblerus, made and to be made, written and to be written, known and unknown.

HER

ERE therefore, at this great period, we end firit book, And here, O reader, we entreat thee utterly to forget all thou haft hitherto read, and to caft thy eyes only forward, to that boundless field the next fhall open unto thee; the fruits of which (if thine or our fins do not prevent)

* Gulliver's Travels were first intended as a part of Scrib. erus' Memoirs,

are

are to spread and multiply over this our work, and over all the face of the earth.

In the mean time, know what thou oweft, and what thou yet may'ft owe, to this excellent perfon, this prodigy of our age; who may well be called, The philofopher of ultimate caufes, fince, by a fagacity peculiar to himself, he hath difcovered effects in their very caufe; and without the trivial helps of experiments, or observations, hath been the inventor of most of the modern fyftems and hypotheses.

He hath enriched mathematics with many precife and geometrical quadratures of the circle. He firft discovered the caufe of gravity, and the intefine motion of fluids.

To him we owe all the obfervations on the parallax of the pole-star, and all the new theories of the deluge.

He it was, that first taught the right use fometimes of the fuga vacui, and fometimes of the materia fubtilis, in refolving the grand phænomena of

nature.

He it was that first found out the palpability of colours; and, by the delicacy of his touch, could diftinguish the different vibrations of the heterogeneous rays of light.

His were the projects of perpetuum mobiles, fly ing engines, and pacing faddles; the method of difcovering the longitude by bomb-veels, and of increafing the trade-wind by vast plantations of reeds and fedges.

I fhall mention only a few of his philosophical and mathematical works.

1. A