Human nature is the same in all professions. The midwife had just before been put over Dr Slop's head ;--he had not digested it.-No, replied Dr Slop, 'twould be full as proper, if the midwife came down to me. I like subordination, quoth my uncle Toby,-and but for it, after the reduction of Lisle, I know not what might have become of the garrison of Ghent, in the mutiny for bread, in the year Ten.-Nor, replied Dr Slop, (parodying my uncle Toby's hobby-horsical reflection; though full as hobby-horsical himself)-do I know, Captain Shandy, what might have become of the garrison above stairs, in the mutiny and confusion I find all things are in at present, but for the subordination of fingers and thumbs to ******:-the application of which, sir, under this accident of mine, comes in so à propos, that without it, the cut upon my thumb might have been felt by the Shandy family as long as the Shandy family had a name. CHAP. XIV. LET us go back to the ******-in the last chapter. It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so when eloquence flourished at Athens and Rome; and would be so now, did orators wear mantles) not to mention the name of a thing, when you had the thing about you in petto, ready to produce, pop, in the place you want it. A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink'd doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle-pot;but, above all, a tender infant royally accoutred. -Though if it was too young, and the oration as long as Tully's second Philippic,—it must certainly have beshit the orator's mantle.-And then, again, if too old,-it must have been unwieldy and incommodious to his action,—so as to make him lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by it.-Otherwise, when a state-orator has hit the precise age to a minute, -hid his BAMBINO in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could smell it, and produced it so critically, that no soul could say it came in by head and shoulders,—Oh, sirs! it has done wonders!-it has opened the sluices, and turned the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the politics, of half a nation! These feats, however, are not to be done, except in those states and times, I say, where orators wore mantles, and pretty large ones too, my brethren, with some twenty or five-andtwenty yards of good purple, superfine, marketable cloth in them, with large flowing folds and doubles, and in a great style of design. All which plainly shews, may it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little good service it does at present, both with in and without doors, is owing to nothing else in the world but short coats and the disuse of trunk-hose.- -We can conceal nothing under ours,`madam, worth shewing. CHAP. XV. DR SLOP was within an ace of being an exception to all this argumentation: for happening to have his green baize-bag upon his knees when he began to parody my uncle Toby,-'twas as good as the best mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the sentence would end in his new-invented forceps, he thrust his hand into the bag, in order to have them ready to clap in, when your reverences took so much notice of the ******, which, had he managed, my uncle Toby had certainly been overthrown: the sentence and the argument in that case jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the salient angle of a ravelin.-Dr Slop would never have given them up; and my uncle Toby would as soon have thought of flying, as taking them by force; but Dr Slop fumbled so vilely in pulling them out, it took off the whole effect, and, what was ten times worse evil (for they seldom come alone in this life) in pulling out his forceps, his forceps unfortunately drew out the squirt along with it. When a proposition can be taken in two senses, 'tis a law in disputation, that the respondent may reply to which of the two he pleases, or finds most convenient for him.-This threw the advantage of the argument quite on my uncle Toby's side." Good God!" cried my uncle Toby, "are children brought into the world with a squirt!" CHAP. XVI. —UPON my honour, sir, you have tore every bit of skin quite off the back of both my hands with your forceps, cried my uncle Toby--and you have crush'd all my knuckles into the bargain with them to a jelly.'Tis your own fault, said Dr Slop ;-you should have clench'd your two fists together into the form of a child's head, as I told you, and sat firm.I did so, answered my uncle Toby.Then the points of my forceps have not been sufficiently armed, or the ri vet wants closing,-or else the cut on my thumb has made me a little awkward, or possibly 'Tis well, quoth my father, interrupting the detail of possibilities-that the experiment was not first made upon my child's head-piece.It would not have been a cherry-stone the worse, answered Dr Slop.I maintain it, said my uncle Toby, it would have broke the cerebellum (unless indeed the skull had been as hard as a granado) and turned it all into a perfect posset. -Psha! replied Dr Slop, a child's head is naturally as soft as the pap of an apple; the sutures give way;-and besides, I could have extracted by the feet after.Not you, said she.I rather wish you would begin that way, quoth my father. Pray do, added my uncle Toby. CHAP. XVII. AND pray, good woman, after all, will you take upon you to say, it may not be the child's hip, as well as the child's head?-('Tis most certainly the head, replied the midwife.) Because, continued Dr Slop (turning to my father) as positive as these old ladies generally are, 'tis a point very difficult to know, and yet of the greatest consequence to be known ;because, sir, if the hip is mistaken for the head, -there is a possibility (if it be a boy) that the forceps -What the possibility was, Dr Slop whispered very low to my father, and then to my uncle Toby.There is no such danger, continued he, with the head.- -No, in truth, quoth my father;-but when your possibility has taken place at the hip,-you may as well take off the head too. * * * * * -It is morally impossible that the reader should understand this 'tis enough Dr Slop understood it; so taking the green baize-bag in his hand, with the help of Obadiah's pumps, he tripped pretty nimbly, for a man of his size, across the room to the door;-and from the door was shewn the way, by the good old midwife, to my mother's apartments. CHAP. XVIII. IT is two hours and ten minutes, and no more, cried my father, looking at his watch, since Dr Slop and Obadiah arrived ;-and I know not how it happens, brother Toby,-but, to my imagination, it seems almost an age. Here-pray, sir, take hold of my cap:nay, take the bell along with it, and my pantoufles too. Now, sir, they are all at your service; and I freely make you a present of 'em, on condition you give me all your attention to this chapter. Though my father said, " he knew not how it happened,"yet he knew very well how it happened; and at the instant he spoke it, was predetermined in his mind to give my uncle Toby a clear account of the matter, by a metaphysical dissertation upon the subject of duration, and its simple modes, in order to shew my uncle Toby by what mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid succession -It is owing entirely, quoth my uncle Toby, to the succession of our ideas. My father, who had an itch, in common with all philosophers, of reasoning upon every thing which happened, and accounting for it too,proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of ideas; and had not the least apprehension of having it snatched out of his hands by my uncle Toby, who (honest man!) generally took every thing as it happened;-and who, of all things in the world, troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking;-the ideas of time and space, or how we came by those ideas,-or of what stuff they were made, -or whether they were born with us, or we picked them up afterwards as we went along,or whether we did it in frocks-or not till we had got into breeches ;-with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about INFINITY, PRESCIENCE, LIBERTY, NECESSITY, and so forth, upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories, so many fine heads have been turned and cracked,-never did my uncle Toby's the least injury at all; my father knew it, and was no less surprised than he was disappointed with my uncle's fortuitous solution. Do you understand the theory of that affair? replied my father. Not I, quoth my uncle. -But you have some ideas, said my father, of what you talk about? No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby. Gracious Heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands together,there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby;-'twere almost a pity to exchange it for knowledge.-But I'll tell thee.— To understand what Time is aright, without which we never can comprehend Infinity, insomuch as one is a portion of the other, we ought seriously to sit down and consider what idea it is we have of duration, so as to give a satisfactory account how we came by it.What is that to any body? quoth my uncle Toby.*. "For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon your mind," continued my father, " and observe attentively, you will perceive, brother, that whilst you and I are talking together, and thinking, and smoking our pipes, or whilst we receive successively ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist; and so we estimate the existence, or the continuation of the existence of ourselves, or any thing else, commensurate to the succes Vide Locke. sion of any ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing co-existing with our thinking;-and so, according to that pre-conceived". -You puzzle me to death, cried my uncle Toby. Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of time we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months-and of clocks (I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out their several portions to us, and to those who belong to us,-that 'twill be well if, in time to come, the succession of our ideas be of any use or service to us at all. gan to commune with himself, and philosophize As for my uncle Toby, his smoke-jack had Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man's head there is a regular succession of ideas, of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just likea train of artillery? said my uncle Toby-A train of a fiddlestick!-quoth my father-which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the in--and I'll make use of it, and write my preface. side of a lantern turned round by the heat of a candle. I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are more like a smoke-jack.- -Then, brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon the subject, said my father. CHAP. XIX. WHAT a conjuncture was here lost!My father in one of his best explanatory moods, -in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point, into the very regions where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about ;my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world :-his head like a smoke-jack; -the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!- -By the tomb-stone of Lucian,-if it is in being;if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes!my father and my uncle Toby's discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY, was a discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father's humour, in putting a stop to it as he did, was a robbery of the Ontologic Treasury of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men is ever likely to restore to it again. CHAP. XX. THOUGH my father persisted in not going on with the discourse,-yet he could not get my uncle Toby's smoke-jack out of his head, piqued as he was at first with it; there was something in the comparison at the bottom which hit his fancy; for which purpose, resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his hand,but looking first steadfastly in the fire, he be THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. No, I'll not say a word about it ;-here it is, -In publishing it,-I have appealed to the world, and to the world I leave it ;-it must speak for itself. All I know of the matter is, when I sat down, my intent was to write a good book; and as far as the tenuity of my understanding would hold out, a wise, aye, and a discreet; taking care only, as I went along, to put into it all the wit and judgment (be it more or less) which the great Author and Bestower of them had thought fit originally to give me ;-so that, as your worships see, 'tis just as God pleases. -for Now, Agalastes (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some wit in it, for aught he knows,-but no judgment at all. And Triptolemus and Phutatorius agreeing thereto, ask, How is it possible there should?that wit and judgment in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations, differing from each other as wide as east from west. So says Locke :-so are farting and hickuping, say I.- -But, in answer to this, Didius the great church-lawyer, in his code, De fartandi et illustrandi fallaciis, both maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no argument, nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean, to be a syllogism ;but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for it ;-so that the main good these things do, is only to clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in order to free it from any little motes or specks of opacular matter, which, if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception, and spoil all. Now, my dear Anti-Shandeans, and thrice able critics and fellow-labourers, (for to you I of my write this Preface) and to you, most subtle statesmen and discreet doctors (do,-pull off your beards) renowned for gravity and wisdom;-Monopolos, my politician;-Didius, my counsel;-Kysarchius, my friend ;-Phutatorius, my guide ;-Gastripheres, the preserver life-Somnalontius, the balm and repose of it;-not forgetting all others, as well sleeping as waking, ecclesiastical as civil, whom, for brevity, but out of no resentment to you, I lump all together-Believe me, right worthy My most zealous wish and fervent prayer in your behalf, and in my own too, in case the thing is not done already for us,-is, that the great gifts and endowments, both of wit and judgment, with every thing which usually goes along with them, such as memory, fancy, genius, eloquence, quick parts, and what not, may this precious moment, without stint or measure, let or hinderance, be poured down, warm as each of us could bear it,-scum and sediment and all, (for I would not have a drop lost) into the several receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains,in such sort, that they might continue to be injected and tunn'd into, according to the true intent and meaning of my wish, until every vessel of them, both great and small, be so replenished, saturated, and filled up there with, that no more, would it save a man's life, could possibly be got either in or out. Bless us!-what noble work we should make! how should I tickle it off!--and what spirits should I find myself in, to be writing away for such readers!—and you,-just Heaven!-with what raptures would you sit and read!-but ohtis too much I am sick,-I faint away deliciously at the thoughts of it!-'tis more than nature can bear!lay hold of me,-I am giddy, I am stone blind,-I am dying,-I am gone-Help! help! help!-But hold,-I grow something better again, for I am beginning to foresee, when this is over, that as we shall all of us continue to be great wits, we should never agree amongst ourselves one day to an end: there would be so much satire and sarcasm, scoffing and flouting, with rallying and reparteeing of it,thrusting and parrying in one corner or another, there would be nothing but mischief among us-Chaste stars! what biting and scratching, and what a racket and a clatter we should make! what with breaking of heads, rapping of knuckles, and hitting of sore places, there would be no such thing as living for us. But then again, as we should all of us be men of great judgment, we should make up matters as fast as ever they went wrong; and though we should abominate each other ten times worse than so many devils or devilesses, we should nevertheless, my dear creatures, be all courtesy and kindness, milk and honey, VOL. V. 'twould be a second land of promise,—a paradise upon earth, if there was such a thing to be had;-so that, upon the whole, we should have done well enough. All I fret and fume at, and what most distresses my invention at present, is how to bring the point itself to bear; for as your worships well know, that of these heavenly emanations of wit and judgment, which I have so bountifully wished both for your worships and myself,-there is but a certain quantum stored up for us all, for the use and behoof of the whole race of mankind; and such small modicums of 'em are only sent forth into this wide world, circulating here and there in one bye-corner or another, and in such narrow streams, and at such prodigious intervals from each other, that one would wonder how it holds out, or could be sufficient for the wants and emergencies of so many great states and populous empires. Indeed, there is one thing to be considered: That in Nova Zembla, North Lapland, and in all those cold and dreary tracks of the globe which lie more directly under the artic and antartic circles,-where the whole province of a man's concernments lies, for near nine months together, within the narrow compass of his cave, where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing,-and where the passions of a man, with every thing which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone itself; there, the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business; and of wit,-there is a total and an absolute saving;-for, as not one spark is wanted,—so not one spark is given.Angels and ministers of grace defend us!What a dismal thing would it have been to have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial chapter there, with so plentiful a lack of wit and judgment about us! For mercy's sake, let us think no more about it, but travel on, as fast as we can, southwards into Norway, crossing over Swedeland, if you please, through the small triangular province of Angermania, to the lake of Bothnia, coasting along it through East and West Bothnia, down to Carelia, and so on, through all those states and provinces which border upon the far side of the Gulf of Finland, and the north-east of the Baltic, up to Petersburg, and just stepping into Ingria;-then stretching over, directly from thence, through the north parts of the Russian empire, leaving Siberia a little upon the left hand, till we get into the very heart of Russia and Asiatic Tartary. Now, through this long tour which I have led you, you observe the good people are better off by far, than in the polar countries which we have just left:- -for if you hold your hand over your eyes, and look very attentively, you may perceive some small glimmerings (as it were) of wit, with a comfortable provision of E good plain household judgment, which, taking the quality and quantity of it together, they make a very good shift with:-and had they more of either the one or the other, it would destroy the proper balance betwixt them; and I am satisfied, moreover, they would want occasions to put them to use. Now, sir, if I conduct you home again into this warmer and more luxuriant island, where you perceive the spring-tide of our blood and humours runs high;-where we have more ambition, and pride, and envy, and lechery, and other whoreson passions upon our hands to govern and subject to reason, the height of our wit, and the depth of our judgment, you see, are exactly proportioned to the length and breadth of our necessities; and accordingly we have them sent down amongst us in such a flowing kind of decent and creditable plenty, that no one thinks he has any cause to complain. It must, however, be confessed on this head, that, as our air blows hot and cold,-wet and dry, ten times in a day, we have them in no regular and settled way;-so that sometimes for near half a century together, there shall be very little wit or judgment either to be seen or heard of amongst us:-the small channels of them shall seem quite dried up ;-then all of a sudden the sluices shall break out, and take a fit of running again like fury,-you would think they would never stop:- -and then it is that, in writing, and fighting, and twenty other gallant things, we drive all the world before us. It is by these observations, and a wary reasoning by analogy in that kind of argumentative process, which Suidas calls dialectic induction, that I draw and set up this position as most true and veritable : That of these two luminaries, so much of their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us, as he, whose infinite wisdom which dispenses every thing in exact weight and measure, knows will just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so that your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating How d'ye of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress, into silence. For, alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it,-I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives, running their heads against posts, and knocking out their brains, without ever getting to their journey's end;-some falling with their noses perpendicular into sinks; others horizontally with their tails into kennels: Here one half of a learned profession tilting full butt against the other half of it; and then tum bling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs;-Here the brethren of another profession, who should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary, like a flock of wild geese, all in a row, the same way.What confusion !-what mistakes! fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears-admirable!-trusting to the passions excited,-in an air sung, or a story painted to the heart,-instead of measuring them by a quadrant! f In the fore-ground of this picture, a statesman turning the political wheel, like a brute, the wrong way round-against the stream of corruption,-by Heaven!-instead of with it! In this corner, a son of the divine Esculapius, writing a book against predestination; perhaps worse, feeling his patient's pulse, instead of his apothecary's:-a brother of the Faculty in the back-ground upon his knees, in tears ;-drawing the curtains of a mangled victim, to beg his forgiveness;-offering a fee, instead of taking one. In that spacious HALL, a coalition of the gown, from all the bars of it, driving a damn'd dirty, vexatious cause before them, with all their might and main, the wrong way!-kicking it out of the great doors, instead of in! and with such fury in their looks, and such a degree of inveteracy in their manner of kicking it, as if the laws had been originally made for the peace and preservation of mankind;-perhaps a more enormous mistake committed by them still,-a litigated point fairly hung up;-for instance, Whether John o' Nokes his nose could stand in Tom o'Stiles his face, without a trespass, or not?-rashly determined by them in five-and-twenty minutes, which, with the cautious pro's and con's required in so intricate a proceeding, might have taken up as many months,-and, if carried on upon a military plan, as your honours know an ACTION should be, with all the stratagems practicable therein, such as feints,-forced marches, surprises, ambuscades,-mask-batteries,— and a thousand other strokes of generalship, which consist in catching at all advantages on both sides, might reasonably have lasted them as many years, finding food and raiment all that terin for a centumvirate of the profession. As for the Clergy-No;-if I say a word against them, I'll be shot.--I have no desire; and besides, if I had,—I durst not for my soul touch upon the subject. With such weak nerves and spirits, and in the condition I am in at present, 'twould be as much as my life was worth, to deject and contrist myself with so bad and melancholy an account;-and therefore it is safer to draw a curtain across, and hasten from it, as fast as I can, to the main and principal point I have undertaken to clear up :-and that is, How it comes to pass, that your men of least wit are reported to be men of most judgment? -But mark—I say, reported to be; for it is no more, my dear sirs, than a report, and which, like twenty others taken up every day upon trust, |