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Title: Quo Vadimus?
Some Glimpses of the Future
Author: E. E. Fournier d'Albe
Release date: May 1, 2024 [eBook #73514]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1925
Credits: Produced by Tim Lindell, Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUO VADIMUS? ***
QUO VADIMUS?
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW SERIES
_DÆDALUS, or Science and the Future_
By J. B. S. Haldane
_ICARUS, or The Future of Science_
By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.
_THE MONGOL IN OUR MIDST_
By F. G. Crookshank, M.D. _Fully Illustrated_
_WIRELESS POSSIBILITIES_
By Prof. A. M. Low. _With four Diagrams_
_NARCISSUS, or An Anatomy of Clothes_
By Gerald Heard. _Illustrated_
_TANTALUS, or The Future of Man_
By Dr. F. C. S. Schiller
_THE PASSING OF THE PHANTOMS_
By Prof. C. J. Patten, M.A., M.D., Sc.D., F.R.A.I.
_CALLINICUS, A Defence of Chemical Warfare_
By J. B. S. Haldane
_QUO VADIMUS? Some Glimpses of the Future_
By E. E. Fournier d’Albe, D.Sc., F.Inst.P.
_THE CONQUEST OF CANCER_
By H. W. S. Wright, M.S., F.R.C.S.
_HYPATIA, or Woman and Knowledge_
By Dora Russell (Hon. Mrs. Bertrand Russell)
_LYSISTRATA, or Woman’s Future and Future Woman_
By A. M. Ludovici
_WHAT I BELIEVE_
By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.
_In Preparation_
_PERSEUS, of Dragons_
By H. F. Scott Stokes, M.A.
_THE FUTURE OF SEX_
By Rebecca West
_THE EVOCATION OF GENIUS_
By Alan Porter
_AESCULAPIUS, or Disease and The Man_
By F. G. Crookshank, M.D.
_Other Volumes in Preparation_
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
QUO VADIMUS?
SOME GLIMPSES OF THE
FUTURE
BY
E. E. FOURNIER d’ALBE
D.Sc., F.Inst.P.
_Author of The Life of Sir William Crookes, The
Electron Theory, The Moon-Element, etc._
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright 1925
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
_Printed in the United
States of America_
QUO VADIMUS?
Sitting at my desk by a cosy and up-to-date gas fire on a foggy day,
with tufts of mist steadily rolling up from the swollen waters of the
wise old Thames, I try to realize that I am travelling through space at
a rate of over a thousand miles a minute, on board a minor planet in
forced revolution round a vast white-hot globe nearly a hundred million
miles away.
Somebody has called astronomy the Futile Science, and I am not at all
sure that the epithet is wholly undeserved. What do the stars matter to
us? There was a time when they were believed to have an influence on
human affairs, particularly those of kings and emperors. To-day they
are insignificant specks at an immense distance from us, a distance
so great that if they all were utterly annihilated neither we nor our
remotest descendants should experience the smallest material effect.
The only assignable value of the stars to us, beyond the general
enlargement of our mental horizon, is that they serve as an accurate
measure of time. But even that use is now almost superfluous, since
other absolute standards of time have become available, such as the
rates of disintegration of the radio-active elements.
How, then, can I account for the fact that there is a perpetual
fascination about “the heavens,” that books are constantly being
written about them, societies founded to study them, and vast
observatories built to watch them?
It cannot be simply the thirst for knowledge. Knowledge in the abstract
has but few devotees. For every one person who wants the Truth at all
costs there are a thousand who want an Illusion at all costs, even
at the cost of mental balance. Let a man go about proclaiming truths
ascertained by research and experiment, and he will be considered a
bore by all except a few specialists. But let him boldly assert an
absurdity or a paradox, and he will obtain millions of adherents, all
animated by the Will to Believe. And the more absurd his assertions,
the more self-assured and fanatical will be his followers.
No, the popular interest in astronomy is not due to a thirst for
accurate information. It is due to a vestige of the old astrological
belief in the significance of the constellations. We still try to “read
our fate in the stars.” They are of interest to us for what they can
tell us of the future, proximate or remote. We search the heavens for
an answer to the question “Whither?”――_Quo vadimus?_
In trying to predict the fate of the human race we must begin by
gauging the chances of permanence possessed by our habitable globe.
Its probable age has been put at a hundred million years. Predictions
as to when it will cease to be habitable vary enormously, but the
latest figures go into many millions of years, and the discovery of
radio-activity has had the effect of greatly postponing the general
freezing up of our planet.
Our earthly habitation, then, seems assured for many millions of years.
But millions of years are, after all, but relative, and they vanish
before the vast age of the stellar universe[1] and the enormous vistas
of time yet to come.
[1] Dr. Jeans, on very modern data, puts this age at seven million
million years.
How far can our gaze penetrate the fog which obscures our future?
Can we build for eternity? Must we prepare for a catastrophe or an
inevitable decay? Can we assure to our descendants an indefinitely
prolonged future of perpetual progress and ever-increasing happiness?
The answer to these questions is ultimately based upon psychological
factors. Human life requires certain physical conditions for its
maintenance. It also requires the passive assistance of many forms
of animal life and plant life. But Man is, without exception, the
most adaptable inhabitant of this globe, and there is little fear of
any physical or biological factors bringing about his extinction,
provided they change sufficiently gradually. If life is adaptation to
surroundings, then Man has more chance of surviving changing conditions
than any other form of terrestrial life. What other species can thrive
equally in the Arctic and under the Equator? The dog is man’s only
rival in that respect, and is but second best.
We need, therefore, not be anxious lest a change in general physical
environment bring our race to an end. The end of the human race, if
ever it comes, will be due to the human race itself. If the race dies,
it will die by suicide. And suicide is a matter of psychology.
Let us examine the possibility of a voluntary euthanasia of the human
race. It seems the only sort of suicide that is at all conceivable. Can
we imagine a state of things arising in which the leaders will say: “We
have lived long enough. Our race has had a glorious history, let it
have a glorious end. We cannot and will not bow to the new conditions
imposed by Nature. We would rather die and end it all. Let us all
perish together.”
Such an attitude would indeed be a new phenomenon. People have died
rather than surrender, but it was with the thought of the approval
of their fellows and the perpetual honour of their names. In the
case contemplated there would be no such inducement to heroism. The
surrender would be unchronicled and unsung.
A refusal to adapt itself to new conditions is not unknown among savage
races, nor among classes of civilized society. Tribes have perished off
the face of the earth, owing to a voluntary refusal or to inability to
adapt themselves to new conditions of life. But, so far as we know,
this has always taken place in the presence of races of superior
adaptability.
Civilizations have perished. We do not know, of course, how many
civilizations have disappeared without leaving a trace. But we do know
that races have existed, even in our own islands, who were capable of
transporting and building up great pieces of rock, and of arranging
them in an astronomically significant manner. Did these races perish
under the attacks of an enemy? Or did they die off owing to the
exhaustion of their own vitality? We may suppose that it was the former
rather than the latter alternative. For in view of the great and
increasing power of the human race we hardly need fear any enemies from
without. Our destruction, if ever it comes, will come from within. It
will come if and when we develop a Will to Die.
Such a Will to Die has been observed on a small scale in the wave
of suicide sweeping over Central Europe after the Great War. But it
was only a symptom of readjustment. It was partial, and practically
confined to the class bound up with social and governmental stability,
and incapable of adaptation to radically changed conditions.
A more ominous phenomenon is the fall in the birth-rate of most of the
insular tribes of the Pacific, which in some cases has led to their
total extinction. The causes of this fall have never been fully cleared
up. If it is due to the introduction of diseases by Indo-European germ
carriers, or the adoption of modern clothing, or the destruction of
native standards of morality by the introduction of Asiatic religions,
there is no cause for alarm concerning the future of the human race as
a whole. But if the mere discouragement of the tribe when faced with
new conditions can act directly upon the instinct of procreation, and
affect, so to speak, the _élan vital_ of the germ-plasm, then we are
faced with the gravest danger to which the human race can be exposed.
For such an effect would be too insidious to be dealt with by public
measures. It would be a psychological disease of the most fatal and
virulent kind. It might affect the whole human race during some crisis
in its fortunes, and might bring about its destruction by the failure
of the sex instinct.
Although such a failure must always be a menacing possibility, it is
a remote one, and at no time has it threatened the human race as a
whole. Hunger and Love have kept our race going up to now, and, barring
unforeseen developments, they will do so _in sœcula sœculorum_.
But there are other dangers. A new germ might be evolved which, like
the gonococcus, might attack the germ plasm, and produce general
sterility. This is one of the dangers that _can_ be fought by hygienic
and sanitary measures, and the wiles and intricacies of bacteriological
novelties may be safely left to the ever-increasing resources of
bacteriology itself.
Again, there is the danger of new “rays.” It is now a well-known fact
that X-rays produce sterility when penetrating the human body in
considerable strength or for any length of time. The effect can be
guarded against by an armour of lead screens. X-rays are cut off by a
thin sheet of lead. There are other rays, known as gamma-rays, which
can penetrate several inches of lead. And higher up in the atmosphere,
about seven miles up, another kind of radiation is found from which
even a plate of lead five feet thick would be no protection. If the
sun, entering an unknown part of space filled with denser matter, were
to develop a form of radiation leading to a considerable increase in
the penetrating atmospheric rays, the persistent action of these rays
upon the human germ plasm might bring about the total destruction of
the human race by reducing its birth-rate to zero. The effect might
not even be discovered until it was too late to remedy it. And even
if it were discovered in time, the action of the rays upon all life
on the earth’s surface might have produced havoc enough to stop all
food-supplies and produce universal starvation.
It is difficult to see how even the greatest resources of science could
meet such an emergency as that. But, short of such a new danger, there
is little doubt that the resources of humanity will be able to meet all
conceivable situations which may threaten it with destruction.
In order to ensure the indefinite continuance of the human race on
earth, it is necessary
(1) to maintain adequate food supplies and (2) to conserve the
procreative impulse.
The latter condition might, indeed, be put first on the list.
These are the conditions of bare existence. Progress and happiness are,
as they always have been, secondary considerations. Many minds have
regarded one or both of them as unessential. Thus, it is not at all
necessary to contemplate an _increasing_ population of the globe. The
leadership of the human race can much more effectively be maintained
by educating individuals than by increasing their numbers. And as
regards happiness, that can safely be left to take care of itself. All
progress is progress towards greater happiness. Even mere existence
can be a source of supreme happiness, as when a great danger has been
successfully averted.
* * * * *
Once we are sure that the human race has a reasonable chance of
indefinite survival, we can proceed to contemplate the changes, if any,
which are likely to take place as the centuries and millennia roll on.
Anthropologists put the age of the human race roughly at half a
million years. In that comparatively long period――long as compared
with history, but short as reckoned by geology――man has evolved from
an ape-like, tree-dwelling nut-eater into a plodding, illiterate,
monosyllabic tiller of the soil, (I take the majority of mankind as
representative of its state of progress rather than the _élite_).
The 500 millennia of human evolution have had but little effect
on the human form and the average human character. The brain is
somewhat larger generally and the mouth rather less protruding. The
mental equipment of the representative man――the man representing the
majority――is in many ways inferior to that of the dog or the ant. He is
full of greeds and lusts and superstitions which place him on a level
with the higher animal life, or even below it.
It is in his possibilities rather than in his actual state of
development that man is a superior being. Those possibilities have
to some extent been realized in the educated few. When we speak of
civilization, of modern life and scientific advance, we fix our
attention exclusively on the educated _élite_. In asserting, for
instance, that nowadays nobody doubts that the earth is round, we are
referring to a very small minority of the human race, composed of
perhaps half the adults of Europe and America and Australia, with a
small sprinkling of Africans and Asiatics, in all perhaps 10 per cent.
of the total population. If a vote were taken of every man, woman, and
child in the world to decide whether the earth is flat or round, there
would be a majority of perhaps 9 to 1 in favour of a flat earth.
Again, “everybody” is supposed to know that a whale is not a fish,
that it does not spawn or lay eggs, but that it suckles its young like
any other mammalian. What proportion of the human race actually _does_
know that simple fact? How many human beings even know that the sun is
larger than the moon? A great many, no doubt, but how many out of the
whole race?
Scientific knowledge is the birthright of every human child. But on
that very account, perhaps, it is neither prized nor cherished. In the
markets where thoughts are bought and sold, an ounce of illusion is
worth a ton of fact.
The enormous disproportion between the amount of knowledge accumulated
by the human intelligentsia and the general level of knowledge is
productive of many evils and anomalies. It necessarily breeds an
attitude of contemptuous superiority towards the uninformed masses,
and supplies a temptation to profit by that superiority in order to
dominate and oppress the majority. Many wars, strikes, revolutions, and
other social crises are the outcome of this anomalous condition. On
the other hand, the very existence of empires requires the presence of
a great substratum of the half-educated or uncultivated to follow the
lead and obey the behests of the Imperial few.
The British Empire derives its strength from the numerical strength
of its _élite_. The Russian Empire and its direct heir, the present
Oligarchy, have had a small _élite_ raised above an enormous mass of
what is probably the least-educated population in the world, outside
Africa. The French African Empire disguises the hegemony of Paris
under the liberal concession of a nominal French citizenship to its
subject tribes. The French _élite_ is broader than the British, as
wealth in France is more evenly distributed. In Germany, on the other
hand, and in certain smaller countries, like Denmark and Finland, it
is education rather than wealth which is more or less impartially
distributed. This also tends to broaden the _élite_ and make the nation
(as distinguished from the empire) more intrinsically powerful.
We thus get an _élite_ among nations as well as individuals. This
_élite_ is, however, based upon force rather than intellectual
leadership, owing to the fact that a nation regarded as an organism
is in a much more primitive stage of evolution than is a civilized
individual. Nations have no morality, no curbs upon their greed, their
hatred, their jealousy and vindictiveness.
The rivalry among nations makes for progress, but its most active
manifestations may produce a serious set-back of long duration,
involving irreparable loss.
So long as peace and goodwill do not prevail among individual men it
is absurd to expect them to prevail among a collection of beasts of
prey such as we have in the nations of the world. Yet it is obviously
desirable that the human population of the globe should advance as one
man. There is one thing, and one thing only, which can unite humanity
into one closely-knit organism, and that is _an external enemy_.
If Mr. H. G. Wells’s _War of the Worlds_ were to come true, and an
expeditionary force of Martians were to land on the earth with a view
to its annexation, then the human race might instantly unite to repel
the invader. It would be an inspiring sight to see Japanese and Turks,
Abyssinians and Zulus, Eskimos and Swiss, Brazilians and Mexicans
and Doughboys, Tahitians and Britishers and Russians, Irish and
Egyptians, Persians and Chinese, all vying with each other in devotion
and bravery, fighting for their native planet against a ruthless and
merciless invader.
Without such a danger from without, the close federation of the nations
of the world is almost unthinkable. Take the case of Ireland. There
we have two nationalities in one island, as opposed to each other as
any two nations in the same continent. In the North, a hardy, stern,
rough and unbending type of Scottish origin, who despises the “natives”
of Ireland as an inferior race, and makes good by converting a large
slice of the “distressful country” into a garden of prosperity. In
the South, a graceful and indolent peasant race, with all the mingled
diffidence and bravado of a conquered people largely pervaded by the
blood of its conquerors, and imbued with the idea of martyrdom for the
twin ideas of religion and nationality (in this case, as it happens,
quite incompatible). How can anyone expect peace under such conditions?
The situation is the very stuff that ruthless wars are made of. The
Ulsterman will not “go under” a Dublin parliament run by what he
considers to be ignorant cornerboys. The Munsterman looks upon the
“blaack Praatestant” of the North as dirt, which Ireland must disgorge
before she can rise to the height of her destiny. England, with her
good-natured religious and ethnical tolerance, is despised by both
parties, though the Ulsterman clings passionately to the empire, which
he provides with the largest ships afloat.
That sort of thing makes international tribunals and Leagues of Nations
look ridiculous. Here are two populations in a small island, ready to
rend each other limb from limb on the slightest excuse because the
country is not large enough to hold both.
On the other hand, it is an undoubted fact that international trade,
finance, and intercourse has increased enormously with improved means
of transport. The Postal Union is a fine achievement towards the
unification of the whole human family. Its successful working shows
that enterprises covering the entire civilized population of the globe
can now be undertaken and carried through. It so happens that the two
greatest States of the world, the British Empire and the United States
of America, are also the States whose home countries are freest from
national intolerance and race prejudice, both consisting of a mixture
of many nationalities. It is to them, as well as France, that we must
look for the greatest advances towards the ideal of a world federation.
Germany before the War cherished dreams of World Supremacy, but lacked
the schooling which might have led to success.
The two great Empires――British and Japanese――and the two great
Republics――France and U.S.A.――will, if they can agree, form a good
nucleus for a federation of the world. The world, in its present state,
requires leadership, and if the leaders are a representative and
benevolent oligarchy, it is about the best we can hope for.
* * * * *
Given a reasonable degree of stability, guaranteed by a combination of
the best instruments of government yet devised, we may expect a very
rapid progress. What direction will this progress take, and what will
be the fruits of it?
Do not listen to those futile people who say there is no progress, and
that there is “nothing new under the sun”! So far from maintaining that
what is has been and ever shall be I should assert that nothing that
is has ever been before, that there are new things evolved every day,
and that every child born is a unique personality, unprecedented in the
annals of creation.
And not only are things new, but the new things are, on the general
average, a bit more advanced than the last. Advanced towards what?
Towards perfection, towards greater happiness, a fuller and more
enduring life.
Who will dare deny that life in England――to take the nearest example――is
happier now than it was even fifty years ago? Some people will sigh for
the good old times of the Victorian reign, when money and employment
were plentiful, when there was ample leisure for the rich, with pleasant
ways of spending it, when masters were masters indeed and servants were
loyal, respectful, and dutiful. But in recent times, apart from the
tragedy of the Great War, there has been an immense improvement in the
life of the average Englishman and his dependents. The general level of
education has risen, infectious diseases have been successfully fought,
schooling has become brighter and more effective, clothing has become
more rational. There is more fresh air and less drudgery. The workman
draws a larger share of the product of his effort, and often drives his
motor car while his employer goes by train. The workman draws his
bloated wage under the protection of his trade union, while the employer
lies awake at night wondering how best to keep the works running and
find new markets for old. That is nearly all to the good, since there
are many more workmen than employers, and the general level of
contentment is raised.
Even the aged, instead of being thrown on the scrap heap, are guarded
from destitution by pensions honourably drawn from a wise government.
It will, I hope, be put to my credit that I have not carolled the
blessings of the cinema theatre or even of wireless broadcasting. The
optimist who emphasizes these is usually met with the reply that these
do more harm than good, and spoil young people for ordinary life.
Whatever may be said concerning the dull hotch-potch turned out “in
bulk” by the American film industry, nobody can deny that an element
of romance has been brought into the lives of countless poor people by
Edison’s and Berliner’s great invention.
As regards wireless broadcasting, it is too early to speak of its
permanent effects. It has come upon us like an avalanche. For the first
time, it has enlisted youth in the highest electrical problems. It has
paved the way for the general diffusion of scientific knowledge while
ostensibly popularizing the art of music. In any case, it is a complete
answer to Ben Akiba and his saying about there being nothing new.
Mr. J. B. S. Haldane[2] believes that the centre of scientific interest
now lies in biology, and that physiology will eventually invade and
destroy mathematical physics. It is quite possible that the advance
of what physicists sometimes playfully call the “inexact” sciences
may cast those of physics and chemistry entirely in the shade, but
although biology has made some difference to human life in the last
generation, its effects cannot remotely compare with those of physical
and chemical discoveries. The mere increase of speed in transport,
due to the internal-combustion engine, has caused a speeding-up of
the whole nervous system and a brightening of the intelligence of all
but an insignificant fraction of the population. When the choice lies
between the Quick and the Dead, even the most sluggish temperament will
put on a spurt, and this continued sprinting across the motor traffic
has produced a more agile generation. If such a profound difference can
be made in twenty years, what will be the effect of even 200 years of
continually accelerated progress?
[2] _Dædalus_, pp. 10 and 16.
The continual acceleration of the rate of progress must not be lost
sight of in forecasting the future. It happens to coincide with a
similar increase in the consumption of accumulated fuels, like coal
and oil, and might be expected to slow down when those supplies of
preserved sunlight come to an end. But by that time other accumulations
will no doubt have been discovered and utilized.
Unless the Russian blight extends over Europe and America, we may
confidently look forward to a long era of steadily accelerated
progress. What form that progress will take is notoriously difficult
to forecast. The main difficulty arises from the fact that the most
promising discoveries sometimes turn out to be impracticable, or at
least of quite secondary importance. Nobody prophesied the great
development of the motor car, nor of that gigantic child of the old
Zoetrope or “Wheel of Life” which we call the Picture Theatre. A genius
like H. G. Wells could indeed write a marvellously accurate forecast
of flying achievements, but in one of his books he makes a great deal
of the Brennan mono-rail, which, after a sensational beginning, failed
to reach maturity, probably owing to the temporary failure of that
much-maligned but quite essential fertilizer of inventions, capital.
Other inventions, such as the speaking film, bear within themselves
certain weaknesses which may prevent them from attaining great
popularity.
But previous failures to peep into the future effectively shall not
deter the author from another attempt to pierce the veil hiding our
fate. He will proceed by “extrapolating” the curves representing
progress made hitherto, but will always allow for unexpected new
departures in what are already known to be possible directions.
* * * * *
_Transport and Communications._――The most conspicuous changes in our
mode of life have been brought about by improved means of transport.
Railways and steamships have become essential to Great Britain, largely
owing to the fact that food-supplies have to be purchased in exchange
for exported manufactures. But even in non-industrial countries the
railway has entered very largely into the life of the people. It is
part of the essential attribute of life which seeks diversity and a
fuller activity of the senses. Life is, in effect, prolonged when it
is made to contain more and more detail. The social life of a person
is roughly measured by the number of people with whom he converses in
the course of a day. Improved transport means facilities for extending
this number. It also means an enlargement of a person’s sphere of
influence, of his “area of effective occupation.” In business, it gives
an opportunity of increasing turnover, and thus reducing costs. It also
facilitates competition, both in buying and selling, and thus tends to
enforce the law of supply and demand and other enactments of what used
to be called the “dismal science,” but now ranks as the most “actual”
of all the sciences.
Postal and telegraphic facilities have the same general effect of
diversifying and extending life. The telephone has produced an
entirely new form of social intercourse, and a new privileged class.
By acquiring a telephone number, we obtain entrance into a hall where
rapid and varied communication becomes an abundant source of activity,
information, and amusement.
Increased facilities of this kind also tend to cement a nation of one
language into a closely organized whole, so that its cohesion and its
influence abroad are strengthened. The “temperature” of the national
life is raised, and it increases in proportion. An increased energy
also accelerates the rate of progress, so that it tends to spread like
a fire. What this acceleration will mean we can as yet only dimly
surmise. A time will come, no doubt, when we may crowd into an hour a
variety of experiences which our ancestors would have extended over
a lifetime. We need not necessarily do so, but the mere fact that
it is possible will add a zest and a richness to life such as we,
with all our advantages, can as yet hardly conceive. But the general
effect will be to reduce more and more the limitations now imposed
upon us by space. It will no doubt be eventually possible to get into
communication with anybody on earth at a moment’s notice, provided that
person is willing.
_Privacy._――The last proviso is important. Civilization not only makes
us more accessible to those we appreciate, but also makes us less
accessible to those of whom we disapprove. An increase in our area
of choice would be of little value if everybody else could choose
to intrude upon us at any time or place. A limitation of social
intercourse to a chosen few, or its total cessation for the time
required for rest and recuperation in a strenuous life is one of the
greatest boons one can desire. The rank and file is more gregarious
than the _élite_ and, as one of the ideals of progress is to raise the
masses towards the level occupied by the _élite_, the extension of
facilities for seclusion is of the essence of progress. Hence commons
and open spaces are provided in and around well-planned cities. Houses
are provided with sound-proof walls, and gardens are protected as much
as possible from “overlooking.” A very modern problem of the same kind
is the protection of wireless listeners from oscillations produced in
neighbouring receiving sets.
_Clothing._――The present generation of civilized humanity justly
prides itself on its sensible style of clothing. Although masculine
clothing contains a number of “vestigial” elements which are absurd
survivals of former necessities, the practice, observed more especially
in Great Britain, of wearing a variety of apparel suited to special
occasions and occupations adds a certain elasticity to fashions which
otherwise are almost comically rigid. If a man wore a wreath of flowers
round his head instead of a hat he would not walk fifty yards in any
London street without being arrested for “insulting behaviour” or
“conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace.” Yet a woman could do
so with impunity if she did it with the necessary air of assurance.
The future of clothing is largely affected by social problems.
Masculine clothing ceased to be demonstrative in Europe shortly after
the French Revolution. While aristocracy flourished, it paraded itself
aggressively in velvet and ruffles and powdered wigs. In modern times
it is bad form to strut and swagger, except on very special occasions.
Good clothing is not aggressively ornate or expensive. Its quality is a
matter of lines and cut and finish. Its preciousness is disguised from
the uninitiated. It is like the sober and almost dingy town houses of
the nobility, whose splendour is only shown to favoured friends and
trusted servants. In 1794 the dress of the “aristo” was a passport to
the guillotine. In later and wiser days it is a disguise to deceive the
tax-collector and the demagogue, and to lull their prying rapacity into
inactivity.
Feminine attire follows the same principles, modified by the essential
differences between the sexes. The ideal of a well-dressed woman varies
widely with her surroundings. In bad weather out of doors, or in an
unsympathetic crowd, her garments will be a defensive armour designed
to reveal as little of her personality as is compatible with her
purpose. Under more favourable conditions, they will become a setting
made as suitable as possible to the peculiar qualities and attractions
of the jewel they are supposed to contain. Not every woman can, under
present conditions, be beautiful, but she can suggest beauty at every
turn, remind us of beautiful things, and give us that feeling of holy
calm which we experience in the presence of beauty, if she will but
dress appropriately to the occasion and to her own personality.
These considerations must affect our view of the appropriate styles
of A.D. 2025. Dress appropriate to the occasion! Dress is, after all,
a sort of extension of the physical personality. The body of a naked
child at play is the most perfect thing in beauty that can be seen. All
its muscles adapt themselves instantly to its activities. Everything is
appropriate and harmonious. A thin and clinging covering would detract
but little from its grace of movement and expression, and might,
indeed, add something of force and swiftness that cannot be perceived
in the mere play of muscles. Thus the plumes of a Red Indian add to the
sense of speed and purpose conveyed by his movements.
I do not agree with Mr. H. G. Wells that the final ideal of clothing
is its total abolition. Clothing has the effect of enlarging man’s
sphere of activity until it covers the entire globe from the poles to
the equator. Another advantage is that it emphasizes mental qualities
rather than physical qualities. If mere physical beauty were the one
essential to human well-being, mankind would have long ago insisted
on its being freely displayed――and judged――without the disguise of
clothing.
Instead, a common agreement among civilized peoples insists that on
everyday occasions little but the face is to be visible, because its
features and expression give a clue to the mentality behind them.
On special occasions, such as balls and dinner parties, more may be
revealed by the gentler sex, but even then the area revealed must be
confined to what is least likely to show defects and is of least
physiological interest and importance, so that the attention may still
be directed towards mental rather than emotional or physical qualities.
The evolution of clothing will, therefore, be in the direction of
adaptability to climate and occupation. New fabrics will no doubt be
invented, combining the warmth of fur with the softness and flexibility
of silk and the strength of linen. Dress will be light, so that half a
dozen changes of costume can be carried in a handbag, and will be so
designed that each change will involve no more inconvenience than does
the removal of a raincoat. And so we shall eventually combine the Greek
ideal of expressive drapery with the exacting conditions of a strenuous
modern life.
_Housing._――Man is an animal with a cubical shell. If the earth were
reduced to the size of a football and its surface were examined with a
powerful microscope, we should see it studded with incrustations like
dried salt, especially about the river mouths. These incrustations
would be the cities, consisting of thousands of rectangular or
cube-shaped blocks. With a greater magnification we might see minute
specks swarming about these shell-like houses, elongated specks with
their longer axis vertical, and with a marked tendency to enter the
houses at nightfall and emerge again after daybreak.
If a giant had been watching the development of these incrustations
for several thousand years, he would have seen them spreading from the
Mediterranean and some parts of Asia till they studded the Atlantic
regions. Thence, after a time, they would spread to the other side
of the Atlantic, and become particularly numerous along its western
shores. Watching them again for several thousand years, he might see
these incrustations gradually dissolved, and the disease――he would
probably call it a disease――become “generalized” all over the planet,
the local incrustations giving way before a universal but only slightly
crusted condition of the earth’s entire land surface.
This is the most probable solution of the general housing problem.
Ordinary and wireless telephony, soon to be supplemented by
“television,” will gradually reduce the isolation brought about by mere
space, while underground and overground transport of goods will render
the distribution of supplies less and less laborious. Houses will,
therefore, be built more widely apart than they are in cities, and each
will have its own private grounds. The structures will be of a material
impervious to heat and cold, but transparent or translucent to light,
though there will be means of darkening the whole house if desired.
Artificial lighting will not be by lamps, but by a close imitation
of diffused daylight, which is coolest and most restful to the eyes.
There will be no domestic servants. All the “work” of the house will
be done by machinery requiring but the turning of a switch and the
aiming of implements resembling magic wands. Cooking will be a pleasant
domestic art, most of the preparations being made by the purveyors of
food stuffs. As it is unlikely that the anatomical structure and the
physiological functioning of the human frame will be materially changed
for thousands of years to come, food will not be very different from
what it is now, but there will be a nicer discrimination of what foods,
and what quantity of them, are best calculated to maintain perfect
health.
_Children._――Most prophets concerning the future of the human race
postulate many and radical changes in the birth and rearing of
children. Some say that advancing civilization will make the present
process impossible on account of the steadily increasing size of the
human skull, which will eventually make normal birth impossible.
Professor Haldane forecasts “ectogenesis” or the artificial ripening of
the embryo outside the human body. Whatever may happen to the physical
act of birth――it will no doubt be alleviated in many ways――one hopes
that the tender joys of watching over the development of a child’s body
and mind will not be taken away from us.
Much more enlightened care will, no doubt, be bestowed upon the welfare
of the infant than is done at present. How many crimes are unwittingly
committed against a child’s mentality by ignorant parents and nurses!
Lies and prevarications and evasions are always reprehensible, but with
children they are of fatal and life-long effect. We owe the truth to
a child more than to any adult. Our promises to a child should be as
binding as an oath. Tell them fairy tales by all means, but tell them
with a voice and expression which inevitably stamps them as such, and
makes belief optional.
I cannot see any effective substitute for family life so long as
there are children to bring up. Children feed on love as they do on
food and fresh air, and no vicarious love can take the place of the
natural affection between children and their parents. The institution
of marriage may undergo many and far-reaching changes[3], but nothing
is likely to change the paramount necessity of parental care of, and
responsibility for, children. Children are rooted in their parents.
They are, in a sense, survivals of their parents’ personality, and
constitute their chance of physical immortality. It is, therefore,
absurd to suppose that the human race will at any time in its history
consent to the “nationalization” of its children. On the other hand,
the supervision of ill-disposed or incompetent parents by the State
will, no doubt, become more and more strict.
[3] Its early history shows it to be a contrivance for the
safe-guarding of infants in their earliest years by allocating
a large proportion of responsibility to the father. Among Semitic
and other Asiatic tribes, this allocation of responsibility was
fortified by the somewhat crude precaution of secluding women.
Marriage as a means of allocating responsibility will become
superfluous as soon as parentage can be infallibly traced with the
aid of the microscope, as some biologists confidently foretell.
The chief _raison d’etre_ of marriage will then be gone, but it
will no doubt continue for a considerable time as a picturesque
survival of an ancient custom.
_Education._――In spite of the prodigious advance in educational methods
in the last two generations, education is still in a state of primitive
barbarity. We may, therefore, expect some very profound changes in
the centuries to come. There is still too much of the methods of the
pump about our education. The idea seems to be that the teacher draws
from the well of knowledge and administers copious draughts to his
pupils, and when they have swallowed these they are educated! There is
no better illustration of this curious view than the modern method of
imparting “higher” education. The University lecture is, of all methods
of imparting knowledge, about the least effective. The student sits
in a stiff attitude and maintains a pose of strained attention. He
endeavours to keep his mind concentrated on the words and meaning of
the professor. Every now and then he succeeds, but then his thoughts
persist in following their own train of associations and the thread
is broken. He jots down disconnected notes, hoping to piece them
together afterwards. This piecing together is often the only process
which really advances his knowledge. It brings his own will-power
and faculties into action. The lecture only requires will-power for
concentration on somebody else’s thought, and this effort is negative
and sterile.
If lectures must be, then they should be interrupted after every
ten minutes or so. The lecturer should then sit down and invite and
encourage his students to ask pertinent questions or advance sound
criticism.
In a class-room it is easier to keep the interest of the pupils alive.
Every effort should be made to let the information come from the pupils
rather than the teacher. In teaching history, for instance, I should
not have set lessons at all, but ask the pupils to collect facts within
a certain period, and reward them in accordance with their success in
presenting the facts and linking them up with others.
The education of the future will be like the medicine of the future.
Both will aim at eliciting and enlisting the powers of the pupil (or
patient) rather than dosing them. For the real learning and the real
cure must come from them.
Every normal child is anxious to learn, and can be easily brought to
feel and appreciate the intellectual joy of comprehension. But in most
children this joy is marred in early infancy by insufficient attention
to their struggles to understand the great world about them. It is the
years of infancy――the pre-school years――which are most important in
forming habits of thought. The closest watch should be kept for early
efforts at trains of reasoning. These efforts begin at the age of
three or thereabouts. They are often absurd and ludicrous, but they
should be treated with an indulgent and helpful respect, and wrong
conclusions should be modified, not by contradiction, but by conviction
of the contrary by example. If that is done, the child will learn to
trust his own powers of reasoning. If it is neglected, the child’s mind
will become shallow and unenterprising.
No child that can talk is too young to be asked for his opinion.
He will enjoy stating it, and will, as a rule, receive protests or
contrary opinions with interest and amusement.
All this may be a “counsel of perfection” to parents who are too busy
to look after their infants themselves and are content to entrust
their tender minds to more or less incompetent nurses. But the future
will realize more and more the great importance of the growing minds
of infants. In the United States this is to a large extent the case
already, and, as a consequence, their infants are the brightest and
most delightful creatures imaginable.
_Labour._――In one of his earliest works, “The Time Machine,” Mr. H. G.
Wells forecasts a development of the labour situation very different
from that of the ordinary socialist Utopia. He figures an arrangement
by which all labour is done underground, and is done by creatures (one
can hardly call them “people”) whose bodies and minds are thoroughly
adapted to their task. The picture seems to be a skit on the Victorian
idea of the “family” upstairs and the servants in the basement, but
a grim and novel touch is added by the information that the workers
actually live on those that dwell in the light, coming up at night to
take them away in their sleep.
Such a solution, though it may draw some justification from the
bee-hive or the ant-heap, is not at all likely to be adopted by the
human race of the future. The essential service of Christianity, the
kernel which will remain after the mythological and dogmatic accretions
have been shed, is to provide mankind with an imagination capable of
conceiving and realizing the sufferings of other people and creatures,
and the will to remedy or obviate them as far as possible. Through
centuries of abuse, neglect and misinterpretation that gift has
gradually worked into the mass of civilized humanity. The humanitarian
ideal is explicit and articulate in France, while in England it is
disguised under such expressions as “decency” and “playing the game,”
or “live and let live.”
That it has not yet remade the world is due mainly to two causes: the
arrogance of those to whom money or social position gives an advantage
over smaller people, and the hatred and mistrust engendered by this
arrogance among the masses.
A workman in a physically fit condition does not object to working. He
sometimes feels the drudgery, boredom, or discomfort of it, but if he
is a skilled craftsman, his pride in his work gives him an interest
and satisfaction which helps him over many hours of toil. What he does
object to is to be driven and bullied by an unsympathetic and perhaps
unjust overseer, who turns out the master on every occasion and lets
him feel his power. He wants and sometimes admires a leader, but he
does not want a slave-driver.
In war, there is the same difference between the “come on” officer and
the “go-on” officer, and the same effect on discipline.
I believe that the co-operation of larger organized masses of men will
not only be required in the future as in the past, but that its scale
will eventually exceed anything yet seen in our history.
The key to the smooth working of such organizations is the spirit in
which the enterprise is undertaken. Let us give two examples, one from
the present day and one from, say, the year 2,000.
(1) A.D. 1925:
(a) Navvies required. Apply Eastern Counties Railway Co.’s Depot....
(b) Eastern Counties Railway Co., Ltd. The 250,000 5% Cumulative
Participating Preference Shares are now offered for public
subscription, payable as follows....
(2) A.D. 2000:
Norfolk Water Supply Undertaking. A public meeting will be held
on ... at the Norwich Auditorium, to announce and explain the
purpose and plan of this Undertaking. Workers and Contributors
will be enlisted on terms to be announced at this meeting.
Qualification papers may be sent to the undersigned....
It is obvious that the “contributor” who places his savings at the
disposal of the Undertaking must not only not lose them thereby, but
must be compensated according to the risk he runs. In effect, he
provides the manual worker with the food he requires to exert his
strength, and he does so without any immediate benefit to himself. If,
after the Undertaking had got to work, his “contribution” were simply
refunded, he would receive no reward for his public service, a service
which implied a reduction in his own resources. This would be unjust
and would make his treatment worse than that of the wage-earner.
To this simple plea a Communist would rejoin that nobody should be
allowed to have savings or accumulated resources or private property of
any kind. The absurdity of this contention is very easily demonstrated,
but let us add a few hard cases to the usual arguments:――
(1) A tribe of shepherds requires water. There is one man who knows the
location of a well. His knowledge is his private property, which he
offers to sell for a number of cows. What should be done, if the man is
(a) accessible and undefended; (b) inaccessible.
(2) A girl has a beautiful head of hair, which could be sold abroad for
a considerable sum. Whose property is it?
(3) In a small and isolated town, 20 per cent. of the inhabitants have
good sets of false teeth. Another 20 per cent. require false teeth, but
have no means of getting them. What will be the action taken by the
Communist municipality?
* * * * *
The workman going to his work has quite a respectable capital to
accompany him on his way. He has clothes to keep him warm, boots
to save his feet from wearing out, a set of tools, perhaps, and
accumulated stores of food in every muscle of his body. Even if his
stomach is empty, he is still capable of work, although it will
probably be of inferior quality. There was a craze towards the end of
last century for living without food, the idea being that the body was
not nourished by food but by “vibrations” of some mysterious kind. The
craze, for obvious reasons, did not last long, but some prodigies of
fasting were performed while it lasted, and the leaders of the movement
prided themselves on doing their daily work and business as usual. The
truth was that, like the badger, they were living on their own fat and
consuming their own tissues. In the end they were thinner and sadder,
but little the worse otherwise.
Everybody in a physically fit condition is necessarily a capitalist.
That arch-capitalist among the animals, the squirrel, jumps on the
shoulders of the amiable Communists strolling in Regent’s Park and then
goes to “rattle in his hoard of acorns.”
There will be no discouragement of the acquisition of private property
in the centuries to come, but care will be taken that the happiness
accruing to the owner is not set off by misery inflicted on others.
Misery due to mere envy or jealousy will not be considered, but, as
a matter of fact, there is much less of that than there is commonly
supposed. The spectators of the Lord Mayor’s Show do not envy the Lord
Mayor his pomp and magnificence, but they are there to delight their
eyes with an unusual display. The crowds collecting at the church door
to see the blushing bride do not come to turn green with envy, but to
feast their eyes on something exquisite and heartening to behold.
And the work of the future, the labour of thousands on a great
enterprise, will be accomplished in the spirit of adventure and
comradeship, like an Arctic expedition, let us say, and the distribution
of rewards will be conducted in the same spirit as the prize-giving at a
sports meeting.
The spirit of adventure is a most valuable incentive to work, an
incentive that is much neglected at present. It is part of the
workman’s grievance against capital that the capitalist has the
adventurous part of the undertaking.
The need for adventure in everyday life is proved by the enormous
prevalence of betting on horses, which is about the most stupid way
of adventuring money that one can conceive. The prodigies performed
under some piece-work agreements show that it is not the quantity of
work that is felt as a burden, but the consciousness of being driven
by a will other than one’s own. Many schemes of profit-sharing also
introduce an element of chance which is most welcome to the worker,
though logically it should be under a proviso of loss-sharing in the
same proportion.
A profit-and-loss-sharing understanding between employers and workers
would make every worker a capitalist. Indeed, as soon as the workers
(or the State, it matters not which) are sufficiently organized to
guard workers from undeserved destitution, it may be quite feasible
to organize public undertakings without wages of any kind. Each
worker would contribute “capital” in the form of a certain amount of
work. In case of a total loss on the undertaking, he would receive no
reward or wages whatever, any more than the capitalist who engages
in a profitless scheme. If the undertaking succeeded, he would have
a permanent interest in the revenue from it, in proportion to the
work contributed. Since it is easier to assess the value of manual
piece-work than mental work, it might well happen that, though no wages
were paid, salaries would be paid to organizers, architects, overseers,
and the like, who would thus be the only “proletarians” in the concern!
_Government._――“The first duty of a Government is to govern.” This
platitude sounds as if there were some hidden pearl of meaning behind
it. But on etymological analysis we find that the duty of Government
is to work the rudder of the ship of State. It is to give a general
direction to the activities of its citizens. The same or a similar
word is used in all countries based upon Roman law and citizenship.
The German equivalent, _Regierung_, is different. It means reigning
or doing the business of royalty, but as the origin of the word “Rex”
is the same as that of the main syllable of the words “Rector” and
“Director,” it comes to the same thing, a “directing” action.
Will this directing or controlling action ever become superfluous?
Its chief function is at present to determine the policy of a large
aggregate of human beings. In democratic countries this determination
is settled by a majority vote, from which there is no legal appeal,
though passive resistance or the threat of rebellion are weapons which
a minority can sometimes use with effect. A majority vote would be
practically certain to be wrong on most questions of the day, but
fortunately such a vote has no effect unless it is put into action by
a body of expert politicians comprising the Ministry, and these again
are largely guided by experts in the particular matter with which the
vote in question is concerned. Laws are not made by Parliament. They
are born in Government offices under expert advice. The Cabinet, on
the advice of its experts, decides to bring in a Bill which is likely
to be of some benefit, will probably be passed by Parliament, and
will encounter no serious resistance in the country. Our Government
is thus really a Government by Experts, but is cleverly disguised in
such a manner as to appear “broadbased upon the People’s Will.” A
similar camouflage might very properly be adopted in the management of
factories and industrial enterprises. But the State is older than the
Factory, and has learnt more wisdom.
The other primary function of government is the maintenance of public
order――in other words, the enforcement of the laws it has enacted.
Among the Medes and Persians, whose laws were never altered, this
was the main function of government. And in a non-progressive world
the task of keeping everyone “in his place” and preventing him from
encroaching on his neighbours might well fill the whole sphere of
government. The Anarchist ideal of the abolition of all government
is only possible if we can abolish the natural tendency of all
living things to expand and extend their sphere of action; or if
we can endow its neighbours with sufficient reserves of energy to
be able to oppose any undue expansion. If a motorist knocks down a
pedestrian, we discourage that undue extension of his sphere by a
fine or imprisonment. If we could endow every pedestrian with the
physical power of stopping a car, say, by raising his hand; or if,
alternatively, we could make him invulnerable, indestructible, and
untraversable, there would be no need for prosecutions, and Anarchism
would, in that particular case, become a possible system.
The idea of a government being something superior to ordinary humanity
is somewhat ludicrous. In actual practice, government is the servant
of the public, and not its master. There are countless cases of the
process of law being used for private ends. The rule of conduct among
some powerful individuals and corporations is to “go on until you are
stopped,” in other words, to do what you like until somebody objects,
or until you are stopped by the law. The law is thus used as a sort of
indicator or “automatic cut-out” much as an electrical engineer would
use a safety-fuse. The main difference is that the “blowing” of some
particular fuses leads to explosions and permanent damage, as when a
crime is committed.
The business of government is hard and sometimes very exacting work.
One can imagine some misdemeanant of the future being condemned to
carry on the government, or some important function of it, for so many
months, as the most exacting form of hard labour.
This elementary fact has of late been recognized by most modern
parliaments in the payment of their members. Government should be
recognized as a profession and rewarded as such. The late Mr. W.
T. Stead’s alternative to Democracy was an “Autocracy tempered by
Assassination.” There is another alternative, viz., Bureaucracy
tempered by Emigration. It is the system practised in such institutions
as Proprietary clubs. Members are not worried to elect committees and
honorary officers. If they are satisfied with the management they
remain in the club. If they are not, they join some other club. The
same process on a larger scale led to the foundation of the American
colonies and the United States. It is largely at work at the present
day, but is complicated by all sorts of restrictions and difficulties,
the divergence of languages being one of the most serious obstacles. As
intercommunication increases, the natural tendency to go where one can
be happiest――_ubi bene, ibi patria_――will no doubt come increasingly
into action, and will be a wholesome check upon the extravagances of
cranky legislatures.
But I doubt whether there is any tendency at all of governments to
become less effective. Almost every advance of science and invention
makes the maintenance of public order and security easier. The tracing
of criminals by wireless telegraphy and broadcasting is a striking
illustration of the aid science can give to the police. Almost
everywhere science and invention are on the side of the established
order. Although every researcher and inventor is, in a sense, a
revolutionary, in that his work is likely to produce immense changes in
human activity, his general outlook tends towards aristocracy, since
he is imbued with the sense of the immense differences in the personal
equipment of individuals, which no equalitarian sentimentality will
ever wipe out.
_The Farther Outlook._――So far, we have looked but little ahead, a
century at most. The prophet’s task becomes more arduous as the time is
extended. Historical guidance fails us. Familiar landmarks get blurred
and disappear. We are in danger of getting lost in a bog of unreal
speculation. Yet the task has often been essayed, and it is necessary
and desirable that it be essayed now and again. Let me make my own
humble attempt, in the light of what knowledge I have acquired and what
great thoughts I have encountered in many lands and languages, and in
discussions with many thinkers.
We must extend our time scale from centuries to millennia, and from
millennia to geological eras. Above all, we must take into account
not only the rapid advance of science and invention, but the constant
_acceleration_ of that advance.
The consequence of that constant acceleration is that new developments
and achievements succeed each other with bewildering rapidity. Hardly
have we got accustomed to the idea of telegraphy without wires when
radio-telephony becomes an accomplished fact, and within a few years
there is a rich crop of listeners with their wireless receiving sets
counting by the million. An entirely new form of publicity comes into
being, and a speaker on Savoy Hill is able to speak to an audience of
millions and sway them by his voice more effectively than he can do by
cold print in the newspapers.
And this is only a beginning. Communication will become closer and
more general. Already the earth is a network of lines and cables,
linking continent to continent. Soon a speaker will have the earth
for his sounding board and his hall of audience, and the privilege of
addressing the human race will be prized above a coronation. Human
sight and hearing will extend its range enormously, not only in space,
but in time also. For the cinema film and improvements in the recording
of sound will make it possible to make minute and comprehensive records
of past sights and sounds for future reproduction, so that nothing of
any value may be lost.
Other progress will go hand in hand with the rapid development of
“signalling” communications, such as telegraphs and the like. The
transport of goods and passengers will rapidly gain in speed, comfort,
and safety, until the whole earth becomes accessible to all. It will
not only become accessible, but also habitable. The tropics, the
original cradle of the human race, will once more be reclaimed from
our most formidable enemies of the insect-world and the ever-present
bacterium. The higher organism will assert its much-contested supremacy
over those minute organisms which owe their influence to mere numerical
superiority. Our descendants will pay an afternoon’s visit to Timbuctoo
or Mount Ararat, much as we should visit the British Museum or the
Lake District. Everybody will be a globe-trotter, but the “globe”
will not be confined to the ordinary tourist resorts. It will include
every part of the world, even the Poles. And wherever they go they
will find friendly voices, long familiar in the home through the
service of radio-telephony. There will, of course, be an international
auxiliary language, understood everywhere, a language artificial in
its structure――every literary language is largely artificial――but
utilizing those roots which have already become part and parcel of all
cultured languages. This will not mean the displacement or loss of
native languages which have proved their title to survival by their
literature.
War will not cease for perhaps a century or more. But it will
finally cease when the truth has sunk in that war is a loss to every
belligerent and to the whole world. Human rivalry and competition
will take other forms. There are many ways of killing men, women and
children, besides suffocating them with chlorine. If a tribe is to
be exterminated, nobody will be killed, but all its members will be
painlessly sterilized by X-rays or some such modern means, so that the
next generation will know them no more. It will be more humane than the
Biblical expedient of “dashing their children against a stone.”
The mass of interconnections between human nations and individuals will
be like a closely-woven fabric. Even now, the digging up of a city road
reveals a tangled network of water pipes, electric mains, gas pipes,
and drain pipes suggestive of the dissection of an animal body. It is
but a faint foreshadowing of what is to come. The substratum of life
will become more and more complete as conscious life becomes simpler.
Nobody is conscious of the appalling complexity of his anatomical
organization when using his body as a well-poised instrument of
thought and intercourse. “The simple life” is not the old-fashioned
country life of England or the primitive life of savage humanity. Real
simplicity is constituted by the life in which most things are done
by pressing a button, and a man can travel across a continent in such
comfort that on arrival at his destination all memories of his journey
are dimmed or lost, and he can hardly recall having travelled at all.
We may, therefore, expect that, as facilities for intercourse become
more detailed and widespread, the effect will be, not to increase the
tax on our nerve force until it becomes unbearable, but to increase our
area of selection. There will thus be more consistency in our actual
interests and activities and more real harmony and leisure.
The unification of the planet which is being accomplished before our
eyes will have some astounding consequences. Mankind will assume a
definite mastery of his home in the solar system. Attila could boast
that when he plunged his spear into the ground, the whole earth
trembled. The earth trembles even now to the electric signals of our
powerful wireless stations. What will it be in a hundred or a thousand
years? In a hundred years the unification of the human race will be
complete. The earth and the fulness thereof will be under the full
mastery of man. All animal, vegetable and bacterial life will be kept
within strict bounds in the interests of humanity. The earth will be
under one government, and one language will be written and understood,
or even spoken, all over the globe. There will still be different races
and perhaps allied nations, but travel and commerce will be free and
unfettered, and calamities will be alleviated and dangers met by the
united forces of all mankind.
And all the world will be _young_. The advances of medicine and surgery
will have been such that most of the ailments and limitations of old
age will have been eliminated. Life will be prolonged at its maximum of
efficiency until death comes like sunset, and is met without pain and
without reluctance. There will be no death from disease, and almost any
sort of injury will be curable.
And in a thousand years? What will become of our globe and its dominant
race, if no great catastrophe occurs to stop its exponential curve
of progress. But for that exponential curve and its tendency towards
constant acceleration, a thousand years would be no great period to
foretell. Life has become world-wide in the last thousand years.
The intellectual outlook has increased with the area of travel and
communication. Dogmas and shibboleths have lost their force. Art and
science have been emancipated from their ecclesiastical fetters. But
the immense leap made since coal came into its own as a world-force
belongs to our own age. The exhaustion of the coal-fields might slow
down progress for a time, but so long as mankind keeps its continuity,
its past achievements and its rate of achievement will act as a
stimulus and encouragement to further efforts, and new sources of
energy will be discovered and utilized.
And so we may feel justified in expecting continual progress for
at least a thousand years. Can we imagine the result? A globe laid
out like a huge garden, with a climate under perfect control; the
internal heat of the earth brought to the surface and utilized as a
source of never-failing energy. Portions of the interior of the earth
reclaimed and made habitable; all machinery and sources of power wisely
distributed and made instantly available for all legitimate purposes.
The earth’s surface and the rippling ether in which it swims made
into a vast playground of human thought and emotion, and all mankind
throbbing in unison to every great thought.
_The Earth will have become a sentient being._――It will be as closely
unified and organized as the human individual himself. Mankind will be
the “grey matter” of its brain. It may not resemble a sentient being
high up in the scale of life, but it will be at least on the level
of _protococcus_ or some other such humble plant-cell, which also
consists of a minute proportion of material truly “alive” together with
a greater bulk of stored foodstuff and waste products.
Man will be conscious of his closer attachment to the earth. He will
feel towards it a sort of personal patriotism, or the sort of loyalty
that a veteran feels towards the Old Regiment. Specially exalted or
sensitive people may even indulge in a kind of Geolatry animated by an
old-world religious fervour.
Can we focus our mental telescope into yet farther depths of time? A
million years or so?
It seems rather risky to extrapolate our curves so far. But a million
years are but a span in the life of the earth. Its records speak to us
of many millions. The chalk cliffs of Dover took several million years
to deposit on a former sea-bottom, and many more to rise to their
present eminence.
If there is a still farther advance in the life of the earth, what
sort of direction can it take? Will a new race have arisen, as much
above humanity as man is above the arboreal ape? Or will the further
differentiation of man have come to a definite end, and progress be
confined to an ever-increasing richness of intellectual, artistic,
and emotional life? If there is any progress at all, it must be by
_effort_, and the question could be answered with fair probability,
if we could find an incentive to effort after the earth is entirely
subdued. Such an incentive towards effort will lie in the ever-present
danger of a celestial catastrophe, such as a collision with one of the
smaller wandering planets or other denizens of outer space. It may
be that the earth will by that time be alive to its own peril, and
will take precautions! Its “grey matter”――our own descendants――will be
confabulating and organizing in some great scheme of defence. The earth
will have to adopt a Foreign Policy, if it is to be the master of its
fate for all time.
Here our dreams are checked by the realization that among the older
planets of our solar system we can trace no activity attributable to
a “foreign policy” of their own. But we must remember that ours is a
small planet, which has very little influence upon its neighbours in
space, and is certainly not a danger to them. If Mars, millions of
years older than ourselves, has arrived at such a stage of advancement
that it can think of transcending its own boundaries, it may make some
attempt at communication, but the attempt might take the form which
to us would be quite unrecognizable. Some observers thought that the
persistent thunderstorms and magnetic disturbances experienced during
the last opposition over wide areas were signs of such an attempt, but
the coincidence may have been quite accidental.
In any case, we cannot find any sign of the Martians having succeeded
in exercising any powers beyond the surface of their own planet,
though, if the “canals” really exist, their engineering feats must be
truly stupendous.
It may be that the earth, owing to its position between torrid Mercury
and ice-bound Neptune, enjoys conditions specially favourable to mental
and physical advancement. And so it may happen that it will for
immense ages of time be the only planet to burst into consciousness.
Thus it may at some epoch find itself the undisputed master of the
solar system, and may be able to influence the other planets and make
them subservient in some way to its own needs.
Let nobody think I am unduly optimistic about the future of this earth
of ours. The difficulty lies rather in visualizing what recent and
current progress, and _accelerated_ progress, must inevitably bring
about when continued for a long time. The only doubtful element appears
to be whether the magnificent _élan vital_ of our race, which has
enabled it to conquer the world, will last through the vast ages to
come.
But, fortunately, there is no sign of its exhaustion. Love is still
the ruling passion and inspiration of humanity, which enables men and
maidens to brave all the trials and dangers of life in unconscious
devotion to a future as yet unimagined and unborn.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
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