tical use lead to more fighting and theft. In more contemporary or "civilized" societies, those "shiny stones" can be paralleled to material possessions such as jewelry. Knowles observes that like humans, Yahoos suck the juice from a particular root that produces the same affect as alcohol. Similar to many humans, the Yahoos consumed the juices without temperance. Ehrenpreis thinks that Swift uses the Yahoos to as an example of Locke's suggestion that humans are more easily identified by vice than virtue.The Houyhnhnms seem to be reasonable, rational characters. They also seem to embody good virtues that humans strive to achieve. Ehrenpreis and Knowles both find inconsistencies in the depiction of Houyhnhnms. Ehrenpreis believes that the paradoxes in the writing are supposed to reflect paradoxes of human thought. When Gulliver first meets the inhabitants of Houyhnhnm Land, they are curious about the covering on his body. The Houyhnhnms are surprised when they first see him take off his hat; It is a reasonable and natural reaction since the Houyhnhnms do not wear clothing. Ehrenpreis argues that repeated occurrences show that Houyhnhnm thought revolves around being a horse. He thinks that is reflective of the anthropocentricity of humans. An example of the anthropocentricity of humans is the attempt to communicate with babies. A newborn does not know any human languages, but adults often assume that the baby is trying to "talk" to them when they make meaningless noises. Knowles thinks that the Houyhnhnms are not ideal characters, but reflections of humans. If the whinny, neighing like sounds are eliminated from "Houyhnhnm", the word "Hounum" is a jumbled pronunciation of "human". According to Knowles, the Houyhnhnm society implies that their beliefs ore founded on self-deception. "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." The Houyhnhnm language did not have negative words like "war", "deceit", and "evil". ...
