ed to transform the prestigious study of science into the laughable pursuit of inconsequential facts with one vulgar description. Swift continued his ridicule of scientist with another tale involving Gulliver's excrement. Using modern math, Gulliver calculated the quantity of water he would need to consume to extinguish a fire. With a sense of pride and satisfaction, he managed to extinguish the fire in three minutes. Swift is turning the scientific world and its exploits into a comedy that should be performed on stage. Urinating contests are for junior high boys expressing their testosterone levels during bathroom breaks, not for mature intellectuals. In a vulgar and witty way, Swift is again calling into question the relevance of scientific study. This incident can also be viewed on a symbolic level of what Swift believes the modern world is doing to society, particularly feeling and emotion. The waste of the modern mind, which Swift would label as science and math, is extinguishes the fires of passion, emotion, and imagination. These were the fires that raged in the ancient world and Swift believes they should have raged during his time. Gulliver and the scientist, however, were of a different mindset and continually see their excrement as progress not destruction. Swift also uses perverse images in Gulliver's Travels to express the lack of lust, feeling, and emotion in the modern world. "The handsomest among these Maids of Honor, a pleasant frolicsome girl of sixteen, would sometimes set me astride upon one of her nipples, with manyother tricks wherein the reader will excuse me for not being over particular. but I was so much displeased that I entreated Glumdalclitch to contrive someexcuse for not seeing that young lady any more." Through Gulliver, Swift is mocking the modern world's lack of lust for pleasure and the exotic. He is not necessarily condoning widespread eroticism, but he is noting the lack of ...
