so many other
works of that period, _A Voyage to Cacklogallinia_ has sometimes been
attributed to Swift; its similarities to the fourth book of _Gulliver's
Travels_ are unmistakable. Again, the work has sometimes been attributed
to Defoe. There is, however, no good reason to believe that either Defoe
or Swift was concerned in its authorship, except in so far as both gave
impetus to lesser writers in this form of composition.

Fortunately the authorship of the work is of little importance. It
lives, not because of anything remarkable in the style or anything
original in its author's point of view, but because of its satiric
reflection of the background of its age. It is republished both because
of its historical value and because of its peculiarly contemporary
appeal today. Its satire needs no learned paraphernalia of footnotes; it
can be readily understood and appreciated by readers in an age dominated
on the one hand by economics and on the other, by science. Its satire--
not too subtle--is as pertinent in our own period as it was two
hundred years ago. Its irony is concerned with stock exchanges and
feverish speculation. It is a tale of incredible inflation and abrupt
and devastating depression. Its "voyage to the moon" has not lost its
appeal to men and women who can still remember a period when human
flights seemed incredible and who have lived to see "flying chariots"
spanning oceans and continents and ascending into the stratosphere.

The first and most obvious interest of the tale is in its reflection
of economic conditions in the early eighteenth century. The period
following the Revolution of 1688 saw tremendous changes in attitudes
toward credit and speculation. A new and powerful economic instrument
was put into the hands of men who had not yet discovered its dangers.
With the natural confusion which ensued between "credit" and "wealth,"
with a new emphasis upon the possible values inherent in "expectations
of wealth" rather than immediate control over money, an unheard-of
speculative emphasis appeared in business. The rapid increase in new
trades and new industrial systems afforded possibilities of immediate
rise to affluence. The outside public engaged in speculation to a degree
not before known. Exaggerated gains, violent fluctuations in prices,
meteoric rises and collapses--these gave rein to a gambling spirit
perennial in man. The word "Projects" enters into literature as a
recurrent motif, strangely fa