est against impractical scientific experimentation, Swift also seems to protest the rapidly expanding scientific method that was being used in his day. Specifically, Swift seems to be calling into question the usefulness of scientific experimentation and research that has no logical conclusion. When working with pure theory, there are no logical beginning and ending points, as there are when practical application is being studied. Instead, these investigations are infinite and cyclical, with one question leading to others in a never-ending spiral. Swift criticizes the uselessness of these types of scientific attempts through Lemuel Gullivers descriptions of the incompleteness of the projects: none of these Projects are yet brought to Perfection; and in the mean time, the whole Country lies miserably waste, the Houses in Ruins, and People without Food or Cloaths (151).Another element of science without context that Swift criticizes is touched upon further during Gullivers journey to the town of Balnibarbi. Observing the filth and misery of the townspeople, who are continuously developing new ways of life, Gulliver notes that the townspeople have abandoned their reverence for the received knowledge that comprises the foundation for tradition, ritual and heritage.By dismissing their tradition, the people of Balnibarbi have failed to put their new learning into proper historical context. They have failed to critically analyze the potential value of their new ideas, as opposed to the ways they have always lived in the past. As a result of this failure of critical analysis, the townspeople cannot distinguish the potential value of new versus old. Instead, they automatically accepted new as synonymous with superior value. In this way, Swift shows his own concern with the possibility that people will become so caught up with the overreaching promise of the new Baconian empiricism that all of the old traditions of European culture will be aban...
