Relplum scalcath
Relplum scalcath, a Latin phrase meaning "lusus naturae" or "freak of nature," is the official classification assigned to Lemuel Gulliver by the learned scholars of Brobdingnag, encapsulating their inability to account for his diminutive size within their natural order and serving as a satirical emblem of intellectual complacency and the limits of human understanding. The term, which translates literally as "a sport or freak of nature," is the conclusion reached by three great scholars summoned by the King of Brobdingnag to examine Gulliver after his arrival at court. Their verdict, delivered after much debate, is that Gulliver is only relplum scalcath, a determination that the narrator notes is "exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe," whose professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult causes, have invented this "wonderful solution of all difficulties" to the "unspeakable advancement of human knowledge." The irony is sharp: the label explains nothing, yet it satisfies the scholars' need for a definitive category, revealing their intellectual vanity rather than genuine understanding.
The Scholars' Deliberation and the Limits of Reason
The three scholars, who were in their weekly waiting at court, examined Gulliver's shape "with much nicety" but arrived at differing opinions before settling on their unanimous verdict. They agreed that Gulliver could not be produced according to the regular laws of nature because he was not framed with a capacity for preserving his life—lacking swiftness, the ability to climb trees, or the means to dig holes in the earth. Observing his teeth, they concluded he was a carnivorous animal, yet they could not imagine how he could support himself, as most quadrupeds would overmatch him and field-mice were too nimble. They offered learned arguments to prove he could not possibly feed upon snails and other insects. They also refused to allow him to be a dwarf, because the queen's favorite dwarf, the smallest ever known in that kingdom, was nearly thirty feet high. Their final conclusion—that he was a lusus naturae—thus represents a failure of their systematic knowledge, a retreat into a tautological category that names the mystery without solving it.
Gulliver's Rebuttal and the King's Investigation
Gulliver, upon hearing this decisive conclusion, entreated to be heard and applied himself to the king, assuring his majesty that he came from a country abounding with several millions of both sexes of his own stature, where animals, trees, and houses were all in proportion, and where he could defend himself and find sustenance as well as any of his majesty's subjects. The scholars replied only with "a smile of contempt," saying that the farmer had instructed him very well in his lesson. The king, however, who had "a much better understanding," dismissed his learned men and sent for the farmer, who had not yet left town. After examining the farmer privately and then confronting him with Gulliver and Glumdalclitch, the king began to think that what they had told him "might possibly be true." This sequence underscores the contrast between the rigid, theory-bound reasoning of the scholars and the practical, evidence-based inquiry of the king, who ultimately trusts the testimony of witnesses over the pronouncements of philosophy.
Thematic Significance: Satire of Intellectual Complacency
The classification of Gulliver as relplum scalcath is a pointed satire of the intellectual pretensions of Swift's own era. The scholars' willingness to label a phenomenon they cannot explain rather than revise their fundamental assumptions mirrors the "modern philosophy" of Europe, which Swift saw as often substituting jargon for genuine insight. The term itself becomes a kind of intellectual dead end, a label that forecloses further inquiry. This moment also participates in the broader theme of relativism that runs through Gulliver's Travels: what is a prodigy in one context is the norm in another. The scholars' inability to conceive of a world where Gulliver's size is ordinary reveals the provincialism of their worldview, a limitation that the king himself partially overcomes through practical investigation. The relplum scalcath verdict thus stands as a cautionary emblem of how systems of knowledge can become obstacles to understanding, a theme that resonates throughout Gulliver's subsequent reflections on the relativity of size and perspective.
