When Gulliver arrives in the Laputan lands, he finds a people who are both scientifically-advanced and yet deeply fearful: “These People are under continual Disquietudes, never enjoying a Minute's Peace of Mind; and their Disturbances proceed from Causes which very little affect the rest of Mortals.” It turns out the Laputans’ dread comes from their knowledge of science and astronomy. What if the earth should approach too near the sun and be burnt up? What if the sun should be encrusted with its own “Effluvia, and give no more Light to the World”? While one would assume that scientific knowledge would make mankind supremely confident, the effect is exactly the opposite—a phenomenon which might resonate in the 21st century due to the popularity of global warming theories.

In the Royal Society-esque “Academy” located in Balnibarbi, Gulliver finds the heart and brain of Laputan society. Here he finds fanatical scientists pursuing incredible experiments. One has spent his life trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. Another desires to reduce human excrement to its constituent parts, “making the Odour exhale, and scumming off the Saliva.” The atmosphere at the Academy alludes to several prior satires, including works of Rabelais and Cervantes. Perhaps most notable is the allusion to Aristophanes’ (c. 448-380 B.C.) parody of Socrates’ “Thinkery,” in which the great philosopher and his disciples are pictured deep in thought about matters such as whether a gnat expels gas from its front or its rear.

For all the scientific experiments conducted in the Laputan lands, there is very little to show for it in the way of quality of life. The lands are fertile, and yet Gulliver writes, “I could not discover one Ear of Corn or Blade of Grass.” Gulliver’s host has a much more productive farm, and yet he is “ridiculed and despised” by his countrymen for not devoting himself more to scientific pursuits.

Ironically, the one way in which science has been successfully and practically implemented is in the art of warfare. The land of Laputa, a floating island, hovers above its earth-bound territories—such as Balnibarbi—by means of magnetic power, which allows the king to “bring under his Obedience whatever Country lay within the Attraction of that Magnet.” When any land rebels against the island-power the Laputans can reposition their island over the rebels and pelt them with rocks from above.

The moral character produced in such a scientific people is not something to be desired. For Swift, the whitewashed exterior of the Baconian project is merely a cover for the stench of a dystopian mangle of bones buried beneath.

The Old-Fogey

In the latter section of the third part of Gulliver’s Travels, the intrepid protagonist makes his way to the land of Glubbdubdrib, where ghosts from past and present can be summoned for bits of evening conversation. His most direct interaction with modernism comes when Gulliver calls up philosophers Rene Descartes and Pierre Gassendi simultaneously with Aristotle and asks the Enlightenment figures to explain to the ancient just how much things had changed. But Aristotle is unimpressed:

This great Philosopher freely acknowledged his own Mistakes in Natural Philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon Conjecture, as all Men must do; and he found, that Gassendi, who had made the Doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and the Vortices of Descartes were equally exploded. He predicted the same Fate to Attraction, whereof the present Learned are such zealous Asserters. He said, that new Systems of Nature were but new Fashions, which would vary in every Age; and even those who pretend to demonstrate them from Mathematical Principles, would flourish but a short Period of Time, and be out of Vogue when that was determined.

In essence, Swift’s Aristotle believes that science is unwieldy—who knows where it will be in later decades or centuries? Swift alludes to Newton’s theory of gravity and makes the audacious claim that it is but a “new Fashion,” soon to be out-of-vogue. It took almost two hundred years before Einstein’s theory of relativity gave credence to Swift’s dismissive attitude toward Newtonian science. But the satirist cannot expect to find validation in his own time.

It might be possible to interpret Swift’s resistance to modern science as mere traditionalism. And certainly, Swift was a conservative. It is a natural part of being a satirist. However, it would be unfair to merely assume that Swift’s conservatism was generic and merely resulted from a curmudgeonly personality. Swift’s rejection of modernism and the Baconian project has a more specific target in mind. Gravity, in other words, is not Swift’s enemy. Swift’s foe is the Enlightenment and its view of authority.

Francis Bacon in his Great Instauration wrote that "It is hardly possible at once to admire an author and to go beyond him." The Baconian and Enlightenment projects do not believe it is possible to be progressive and still respect or learn from the preceding centuries—certainly not from the previous millennium of Scholastics and churchmen. The works of the seminal Enlightenment thinkers contain very little reference to earlier scholars because admitting to such a dependence would not be a sign of authority , but a sign of backwardness. Admiration for the ancients will prevent the West from achieving the Atlantean utopia.

For Swift, however, the ancients are “Heroes and Demy-Gods” when compared to the modern assortment of "Pedlars, Pickpockets, High-way-men, and Bullies.” The moderns fall short of the standard because they have disconnected themselves from the streams of authority and tradition which had informed the West for so many centuries. For Swift, it is no gain for the moderns to lose sight of the ancients. As Knowles aptly points out,

For Swift, modernism exhibited the sin of pride, an arrogance that took the form of spiritual and intellectual autonomy divorced from any dependency on religious or humanistic tradition…. For conservatives like Swift, the truths of human experiences were mediated by history embodied in the authority of hierarchic institutions of Church and Society. They did not derive from aberrant subjectivity or self-sufficient individualism.

The target of Swift’s satire is therefore any modern who raises himself up while ignoring the fact that he is only a midget of Lilliputian dimensions standing on the shoulders of giants—if even that. Swift does not stridently oppose every contemporary scientist or Enlightenment philosopher. Francis Bacon himself is largely exempted from Swift’s direct satiric attacks (although his system of thought cannot quite escape). In his satire, A Tale of a Tub, Swift presents an epic Homeric battle between Aristotle and Bacon. Aristotle shoots an arrow at Bacon but it “misted the valiant Modern, and went hizzing over his Head; but Des-Cartes it hit…. The Torture of the Pain, whirled the valiant Bow-man round, till Death like a Star of superior Influence drew him into his own Vortex.”

Descartes’ painful death turned out to be only wishful thinking on Swift’s part. The Enlightenment won the day, while Swift’s life wound down amid mounting suspicions directed at his mental stability. The disrespected Church of Ireland priest wrote about the Enlightenment as he saw it: a movement of little men with ambitions too big to allow for historical or ecclesiastical authority.

Europe moved on without Swift, who stayed behind on the street-corner, laughing to himself about the absurdity of the emperor’s naked procession. But in the end, the joke was only meant to be shared by a few, anyway. Swift, the priest-satirist, could watch Bacon and Descartes parade down the way knowing that eventually they would come to a dead end. Yahoos always do.