however, by way of unconscious vengeance, proves in a twinkling the defects of parliamentary government, touches the sore spots of English history and administration, and concludes that the majority of Gulliver's fellow-citizens form "the most pernicious race of little odious vermin, that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."
Nothing is spared in the implacable review of our miseries: neither our legislation nor our philosophy nor our desire to make war and to conquer. In Laputa and in the academy of Lagado our metaphysicians and our scientists, our schemers and our dreamers, are mocked and laughed to scorn. In Glubbdubdrib the lies of our historians and the weaknesses of our ancestors stand revealed. And in the land of horses the whole human race is pilloried and unspeakably humbled in the image of the Yahoos—wild, vicious, foul, malignant creatures who yet possess a terrible resemblance (if the veils and paints and powders of civilization be disregarded) to the beings that enjoy the full benefits of civilization.
Swift's book does not mount toward redemption. It makes no concessions to optimism. His pitiless hatred for humanity increases from chapter to chapter, even to the final insult. Along the way everything has been denied, everything has been stripped of glamor: politics, religion,
