III. Swift and Science

Abstract

While Swift's contribution to most fields of thought has generally been well received, his science is normally considered along with the third book of Gulliver's Travels; and the usual practice is to condemn both. At first it was thought that Swift's criticism of Newtonian science in the third book of Gulliver's Travels was written at short notice, in which case it would be peripheral to the work as a whole. In this event, science would be of little concern to Swift. The important achievement of Professors M. Nicolson and N. M. Mohler was to demonstrate diat Swift's assault on Newton's science was not only premeditated, but carefully executed as well: ‘The sources for nearly all the theories of the Laputans and the Balnibarians (sic) are to be found in the work of Swift's contemporary scientists and particularly in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.’