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Section VIII - A Tale Of A Tub
The learned AEolists maintain the original cause of all things to be
wind, from which principle this whole universe was at first
produced, and into which it must at last be resolved, that the same
breath which had kindled and blew up the flame of Nature should one
day blow it out.
"Quod procul a nobis flectat Fortuna gubernans."
This is what the Adepti understand by their anima mundi, that is to
say, the spirit, or breath, or wind of the world; or examine the
whole system by the particulars of Nature, and you will find it not
to be disputed. For whether you please to call the forma informans
of man by the name of spiritus, animus, afflatus, or anima, what are
all these but several appellations for wind, which is the ruling
element in every compound, and into which they all resolve upon
their corruption. Further, what is life itself but, as it is
commonly called, the breath of our nostrils, whence it is very
justly observed by naturalists that wind still continues of great
emolument in certain mysteries not to be named, giving occasion for
those happy epithets of turgidus and inflatus, applied either to the
emittent or recipient organs.
By what I have gathered out of ancient records, I find the compass
of their doctrine took in two-and-thirty points, wherein it would be
tedious to be very particular. However, a few of their most
important precepts deducible from it are by no means to be omitted;
among which, the following maxim was of much weight: That since
wind had the master share as well as operation in every compound, by
consequence those beings must be of chief excellence wherein that
primordium appears most prominently to abound, and therefore man is
in highest perfection of all created things, as having, by the great
bounty of philosophers, been endued with three distinct animas or
winds, to which the sage AEolists, with much liberality, have added
a fourth, of equal necessity as well as ornament with the other
three, by this quartum principium taking in the four corners of the
world. Which gave occasion to that renowned cabalist Bombastus
{119a} of placing the body of man in due position to the four
cardinal points.
In consequence of this, their next principle was that man brings
with him into the world a peculiar portion or grain of wind, which
may be called a quinta essentia extracted from the other four. This
quintessence is of catholic use upon all emergencies of life, is
improveable into all arts and sciences, and may be wonderfully
refined as well as enlarged by certain methods in education. This,
when blown up to its perfection, ought not to be covetously boarded
up, stifled, or hid under a bushel, but freely communicated to
mankind. Upon these reasons, and others of equal weight, the wise
AEolists affirm the gift of belching to be the noblest act of a
rational creature. To cultivate which art, and render it more
serviceable to mankind, they made use of several methods. At
certain seasons of the year you might behold the priests amongst
them in vast numbers with their mouths gaping wide against a storm.
At other times were to be seen several hundreds linked together in a
circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his
neighbour, by which they blew up each other to the shape and size of
a tun; and for that reason with great propriety of speech did
usually call their bodies their vessels {119b}. When, by these and
the like performances, they were grown sufficiently replete, they
would immediately depart, and disembogue for the public good a
plentiful share of their acquirements into their disciples' chaps.
For we must here observe that all learning was esteemed among them
to be compounded from the same principle. Because, first, it is
generally affirmed or confessed that learning puffeth men up; and,
secondly, they proved it by the following syllogism: "Words are but
wind, and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing
but wind." For this reason the philosophers among them did in their
schools deliver to their pupils all their doctrines and opinions by
eructation, wherein they had acquired a wonderful eloquence, and of
incredible variety. But the great characteristic by which their
chief sages were best distinguished was a certain position of
countenance, which gave undoubted intelligence to what degree or
proportion the spirit agitated the inward mass. For after certain
gripings, the wind and vapours issuing forth, having first by their
turbulence and convulsions within caused an earthquake in man's
little world, distorted the mouth, bloated the cheeks, and gave the
eyes a terrible kind of relievo. At which junctures all their
belches were received for sacred, the sourer the better, and
swallowed with infinite consolation by their meagre devotees. And
to render these yet more complete, because the breath of man's life
is in his nostrils, therefore the choicest, most edifying, and most
enlivening belches were very wisely conveyed through that vehicle to
give them a tincture as they passed.
Their gods were the four winds, whom they worshipped as the spirits
that pervade and enliven the universe, and as those from whom alone
all inspiration can properly be said to proceed. However, the chief
of these, to whom they performed the adoration of Latria, was the
Almighty North, an ancient deity, whom the inhabitants of
Megalopolis in Greece had likewise in highest reverence. "Omnium
deorum Boream maxime celebrant." {120} This god, though endued with
ubiquity, was yet supposed by the profounder AEolists to possess one
peculiar habitation, or (to speak in form) a caelum empyraeum,
wherein he was more intimately present. This was situated in a
certain region well known to the ancient Greeks, by them called
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced], the Land of Darkness. And
although many controversies have arisen upon that matter, yet so
much is undisputed, that from a region of the like denomination the
most refined AEolists have borrowed their original, from whence in
every age the zealous among their priesthood have brought over their
choicest inspiration, fetching it with their own hands from the
fountain-head in certain bladders, and disploding it among the
sectaries in all nations, who did, and do, and ever will, daily gasp
and pant after it.
Now their mysteries and rites were performed in this manner. It is
well known among the learned that the virtuosos of former ages had a
contrivance for carrying and preserving winds in casks or barrels,
which was of great assistance upon long sea-voyages, and the loss of
so useful an art at present is very much to be lamented, though, I
know not how, with great negligence omitted by Pancirollus. It was
an invention ascribed to AEolus himself, from whom this sect is
denominated, and who, in honour of their founder's memory, have to
this day preserved great numbers of those barrels, whereof they fix
one in each of their temples, first beating out the top. Into this
barrel upon solemn days the priest enters, where, having before duly
prepared himself by the methods already described, a secret funnel
is also conveyed to the bottom of the barrel, which admits new
supplies of inspiration from a northern chink or cranny. Whereupon
you behold him swell immediately to the shape and size of his
vessel. In this posture he disembogues whole tempests upon his
auditory, as the spirit from beneath gives him utterance, which
issuing ex adytis and penetralibus, is not performed without much
pain and griping. And the wind in breaking forth deals with his
face as it does with that of the sea, first blackening, then
wrinkling, and at last bursting it into a foam. It is in this guise
the sacred AEolist delivers his oracular belches to his panting
disciples, of whom some are greedily gaping after the sanctified
breath, others are all the while hymning out the praises of the
winds, and gently wafted to and fro by their own humming, do thus
represent the soft breezes of their deities appeased.
It is from this custom of the priests that some authors maintain
these AEolists to have been very ancient in the world, because the
delivery of their mysteries, which I have just now mentioned,
appears exactly the same with that of other ancient oracles, whose
inspirations were owing to certain subterraneous effluviums of wind
delivered with the same pain to the priest, and much about the same
influence on the people. It is true indeed that these were
frequently managed and directed by female officers, whose organs
were understood to be better disposed for the admission of those
oracular gusts, as entering and passing up through a receptacle of
greater capacity, and causing also a pruriency by the way, such as
with due management has been refined from carnal into a spiritual
ecstasy. And to strengthen this profound conjecture, it is further
insisted that this custom of female priests is kept up still in
certain refined colleges of our modern AEolists {122}, who are
agreed to receive their inspiration, derived through the receptacle
aforesaid, like their ancestors the Sybils.
And whereas the mind of man, when he gives the spur and bridle to
his thoughts, does never stop, but naturally sallies out into both
extremes of high and low, of good and evil, his first flight of
fancy commonly transports him to ideas of what is most perfect,
finished, and exalted, till, having soared out of his own reach and
sight, not well perceiving how near the frontiers of height and
depth border upon each other, with the same course and wing he falls
down plump into the lowest bottom of things, like one who travels
the east into the west, or like a straight line drawn by its own
length into a circle. Whether a tincture of malice in our natures
makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or
whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the
sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the
other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whether fancy,
flying up to the imagination of what is highest and best, becomes
over-short, and spent, and weary, and suddenly falls, like a dead
bird of paradise, to the ground; or whether, after all these
metaphysical conjectures, I have not entirely missed the true
reason; the proposition, however, which has stood me in so much
circumstance is altogether true, that as the most uncivilised parts
of mankind have some way or other climbed up into the conception of
a God or Supreme Power, so they have seldom forgot to provide their
fears with certain ghastly notions, which, instead of better, have
served them pretty tolerably for a devil. And this proceeding seems
to be natural enough, for it is with men whose imaginations are
lifted up very high after the same rate as with those whose bodies
are so, that as they are delighted with the advantage of a nearer
contemplation upwards, so they are equally terrified with the dismal
prospect of the precipice below. Thus in the choice of a devil it
has been the usual method of mankind to single out some being,
either in act or in vision, which was in most antipathy to the god
they had framed. Thus also the sect of the AEolists possessed
themselves with a dread and horror and hatred of two malignant
natures, betwixt whom and the deities they adored perpetual enmity
was established. The first of these was the chameleon, sworn foe to
inspiration, who in scorn devoured large influences of their god,
without refunding the smallest blast by eructation. The other was a
huge terrible monster called Moulinavent, who with four strong arms
waged eternal battle with all their divinities, dexterously turning
to avoid their blows and repay them with interest. {123}
Thus furnished, and set out with gods as well as devils, was the
renowned sect of AEolists, which makes at this day so illustrious a
figure in the world, and whereof that polite nation of Laplanders
are beyond all doubt a most authentic branch, of whom I therefore
cannot without injustice here omit to make honourable mention, since
they appear to be so closely allied in point of interest as well as
inclinations with their brother AEolists among us, as not only to
buy their winds by wholesale from the same merchants, but also to
retail them after the same rate and method, and to customers much
alike.
Now whether the system here delivered was wholly compiled by Jack,
or, as some writers believe, rather copied from the original at
Delphos, with certain additions and emendations suited to times and
circumstances, I shall not absolutely determine. This I may affirm,
that Jack gave it at least a new turn, and formed it into the same
dress and model as it lies deduced by me.
I have long sought after this opportunity of doing justice to a
society of men for whom I have a peculiar honour, and whose opinions
as well as practices have been extremely misrepresented and traduced
by the malice or ignorance of their adversaries. For I think it one
of the greatest and best of human actions to remove prejudices and
place things in their truest and fairest light, which I therefore
boldly undertake, without any regards of my own beside the
conscience, the honour, and the thanks.
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