I will not dwell upon this aspect of _Gulliver_, which is obvious to every one. There is another question which we are forced to ask, and which is not very easy to answer. What does _Gulliver_ mean? It is clearly a satire--but who and what are its objects? Swift states his own view very unequivocally. "I heartily hate and detest that animal called man," he says,[75] "although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth." He declares that man is not an _animal rationale_, but only _rationis capax_: and he then adds, "Upon this great foundation of misanthropy ... the whole building of my travels is erected." "If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it," he says in the same letter, "I would burn my travels." He indulges in a similar reflection to Sheridan.[76] "Expect no more from man," he says, "than such an animal is capable of, and you will every day find my description of Yahoos more resembling. You should think and deal with every man as a villain, without calling him so, or flying from him or valuing him less. This is an old true lesson." In spite of these avowals, of a kind which, in Swift, must not be taken too literally, we find it rather hard to admit that the essence of _Gulliver_ can be an expression of this doctrine. The tone becomes morose and sombre, and even ferocious; but it has been disputed whether in any case it can be regarded simply as an utterance of misanthropy.
_Gulliver's Travels_ belongs to a literary genus full of grotesque and anomalous forms. Its form is derived from some of the imaginary travels of which Lucian's _True History_--itself a burlesque of some early travellers' tales--is the first example. But it has an affinity also to such books as Bacon's _Atlantis_, and More's _Utopia_; and, again, to later philosophical romances like _Candide_ and _Rasselas_; and not least, perhaps, to the ancient fables, such as _Reynard the Fox_, to which Swift refers in the _Tale of a Tub_. It may be compared, again, to the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and the whole family of allegories. The full-blown allegory resembles the game of chess said to have been played by some ancient monarch, in which the pieces were replaced by real human beings. The movements of the actors were not determined by the passions proper to their character, but by the external set of rules imposed upon them by the game. The allegory is a kind of picture-writing, popular, like picture-writing at a certain stage of development, but wearisome at more cultivated periods, when we prefer to have abstract theories conveyed in abstract language, and limit the artist to the intrinsic meanings of the images in which he deals. The whole class of more or less allegorical writing has thus the peculiarity that something more is meant than meets the ear. Part of its meaning depends upon a tacit convention in virtue of which a beautiful woman, for example, is not simply a beautiful woman, but also a representative of Justice and Charity. And as any such convention is more or less arbitrary, we are often in perplexity to interpret the author's meaning, and also to judge of the propriety of the symbols. The allegorical intention, again, may be more or less present: and such a book as Gulliver must be regarded as lying somewhere between the allegory and the direct revelation of truth, which is more or less implied in the work of every genuine artist. Its true purpose has thus rather puzzled critics. Hazlitt[77] urges, for example, with his usual brilliancy, that Swift's purpose was to "strip empty pride and grandeur of the imposing air which external circumstances throw around them." Swift accordingly varies the scale, so as to show the insignificance or the grossness of our self-love. He does this with "mathematical precision;" he tries an experiment upon human nature; and with the result that "nothing solid, nothing valuable is left in his system but wisdom and virtue." So Gulliver's carrying off the fleet of Blefuscu is "a mortifying stroke, aimed at national glory." "After that, we have only to consider which of the contending parties was in the right."