ferred
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
di