{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_44867/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_44867","id":"gutenberg_44867","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44867","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Civilization -- Philosophy","Forecasting","History -- Philosophy","Time"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See\n      https://archive.org/details/discoveryoffutur00welliala\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE\n\nby\n\nH. G. WELLS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNew York\nB. W. Huebsch\n1913\n\nCopyright, 1913,\nBy B. W. Huebsch\n\nPrinted in U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE[1]\n\nBY H. G. WELLS\n\n  [1] A discourse delivered at the Royal Institution.\n\n\nIt will lead into my subject most conveniently to contrast and separate\ntwo divergent types of mind, types which are to be distinguished chiefly\nby their attitude toward time, and more particularly by the relative\nimportance they attach and the relative amount of thought they give to\nthe future.\n\nThe first of these two types of mind, and it is, I think, the\npredominant type, the type of the majority of living people, is that\nwhich seems scarcely to think of the future at all, which regards it as\na sort of blank non-existence upon which the advancing present will\npresently write events. The second type, which is, I think, a more\nmodern and much less abundant type of mind, thinks constantly and by\npreference of things to come, and of present things mainly in relation\nto the results that must arise from them. The former type of mind, when\none gets it in its purity, is retrospective in habit, and it interprets\nthe things of the present, and gives value to this and denies it to\nthat, entirely with relation to the past. The latter type of mind is\nconstructive in habit, it interprets the things of the present and\ngives value to this or that, entirely in relation to things designed or\nforeseen.\n\nWhile from that former point of view our life is simply to reap the\nconsequences of the past, from this our life is to prepare the future.\nThe former type one might speak of as the legal or submissive type of\nmind, because the business, the practice, and the training of a lawyer\ndispose him toward it; he of all men must constantly refer to the law\nmade, the right established, the precedent set, and consistently ignore\nor condemn the thing that is only seeking to establish itself. The\nlatter type of mind I might for contrast call the legislative, creative,\norganizing, or masterful type, because it is perpetually attacking and\naltering the established order of things, perpetually falling away from\nrespect for what the past has given us. It sees the world as one great\nworkshop, and the present is no more than material for the future,\nfor the thing that is yet destined to be. It is in the active mood of\nthought, while the former is in the passive; it is the mind of youth, it\nis the mind more manifest among the western nations, while the former is\nthe mind of age, the mind of the oriental.\n\nThings have been, says the legal mind, and so we are here. The creative\nmind says we are here because things have yet to be.\n\nNow I do not wish to suggest that the great mass of people belong to\neither of these two types. Indeed, I speak of them as two distinct and\ndistinguishable types mainly for convenience and in order to accentuate\ntheir distinction. There are probably very few people who brood\nconstantly upon the past without any thought of the future at all, and\nthere are probably scarcely any who live and think consistently in\nrelation to the future. The great mass of people occupy an intermediate\nposition between these extremes, they pass daily and hourly from the\npassive mood to the active, they see this thing in relation to its\nassociations and that thing in relation to its consequences, and they\ndo not even suspect that they are using two distinct methods in their\nminds.\n\nBut for all that they are distinct methods, the method of reference to\nthe past and the method of reference to the future, and their mingling\nin many of our minds no more abolishes their difference than the\nexistence of piebald horses proves that white is black.\n\nI believe that it is not sufficiently recognized just how different\nin their consequences these two methods are, and just where their\ndifference and where the failure to appreciate their difference takes\none. This present time is a period of quite extraordinary uncertainty\nand indecision upon endless questions--moral questions, \u00e6sthetic\nquestions, religious and political questions--upon which we should all\nof us be happier to feel assured and settled; and a very large amount of\nthis floating uncertainty about these important matters is due to the\nfact that with most of us these two insufficiently distinguished ways of\nlooking at things are not only present together, but in actual conflict\nin our minds, in unsuspected conflict; we pass from one to the other\nheedlessly without any clear recognition of the fundamental difference\nin conclusions that exists between the two, and we do this with\ndisastrous results to our confidence and to our consistency in dealing\nwith all sorts of things.\n\nBut before pointing out how divergent these two types or habits of\nmind really are, it is necessary to meet a possible objection to what\nhas been said. I may put that objection in this form: Is not this\ndistinction between a type of mind that thinks of the past and a type\nof mind that thinks of the future a sort of hair-splitting, almost like\ndistinguishing between people who have left hands and people who have\nright? Everybody believes that the present is entirely determined by\nthe past, you say; but then everybody believes also that the present\ndetermines the future. Are we simply separating and contrasting two\nsides of everybody's opinion? To which one replies that we are not\ndiscussing what we know and believe about the relations of past,\npresent, and future, or of the relation of cause and effect to each\nother in time. We all know the present depends for its causes on the\npast, and the future depends for its causes upon the present. But this\ndiscussion concerns the way in which we approach things upon this\ncommon ground of knowledge and belief. We may all know there is an\neast and a west, but if some of us always approach and look at things\nfrom the west, if some of us always approach and look at things from\nthe east, and if others again wander about with a pretty disregard of\ndirection, looking at things as chance determines, some of us will get\nto a westward conclusion of this journey, and some of us will get to an\neastward conclusion, and some of us will get to no definite conclusion\nat all about all sorts of important matters. And yet those who are\ntravelling east, and those who are travelling west, and those who are\nwandering haphazard, may be all upon the same ground of belief and\nstatement and amid the same assembly of proven facts. Precisely the same\nthing, divergence of result, will happen if you always approach things\nfrom the point of view of their causes, or if you approach them always\nwith a view to their probable effects. And in several very important\ngroups of human affairs it is possible to show quite clearly just how\nwidely apart the two methods, pursued each in its purity, take those who\nfollow them.\n\nI suppose that three hundred years ago all people who thought at all\nabout moral questions, about questions of Right and Wrong, deduced their\nrules of conduct absolutely and unreservedly from the past, from some\ndogmatic injunction, some finally settled decree. The great mass of\npeople do so to-day. It is written, they say. \"Thou shalt not steal,\"\nfor example--that is the sole, complete, sufficient reason why you\nshould not steal, and even to-day there is a strong aversion to admit\nthat there is any relation between the actual consequences of acts and\nthe imperatives of right and wrong. Our lives are to reap the fruits\nof determinate things, and it is still a fundamental presumption of the\nestablished morality that one must do right though the heavens fall.\nBut there are people coming into this world who would refuse to call it\nRight if it brought the heavens about our heads, however authoritative\nits sources and sanctions, and this new disposition is, I believe,\na growing one. I suppose in all ages people in a timid, hesitating,\nguilty way have tempered the austerity of a dogmatic moral code by\nsmall infractions to secure obviously kindly ends, but it was, I am\ntold, the Jesuits who first deliberately sought to qualify the moral\ninterpretation of acts by a consideration of their results. To-day there\nare few people who have not more or less clearly discovered the future\nas a more or less important factor in moral considerations. To-day there\nis a certain small proportion of people who frankly regard morality\nas a means to an end, as an overriding of immediate and personal\nconsiderations out of regard to something to be attained in the future,\nand who break away altogether from the idea of a code dogmatically\nestablished forever.\n\nMost of us are not so definite as that, but most of us are deeply\ntinged with the spirit of compromise between the past and the future;\nwe profess an unbounded allegiance to the prescriptions of the past,\nand we practise a general observance of its injunctions, but we qualify\nto a vague, variable extent with considerations of expediency. We hold,\nfor example, that we must respect our promises. But suppose we find\nunexpectedly that for one of us to keep a promise, which has been sealed\nand sworn in the most sacred fashion, must lead to the great suffering\nof some other human being, must lead, in fact, to practical evil? Would\na man do right or wrong if he broke such a promise? The practical\ndecision most modern people would make would be to break the promise.\nMost would say that they did evil to avoid a greater evil. But suppose\nit was not such very great suffering we were going to inflict, but only\nsome suffering? And suppose it was a rather important promise? With most\nof us it would then come to be a matter of weighing the promise, the\nthing of the past, against this unexpected bad consequence, the thing of\nthe future. And the smaller the overplus of evil consequences the more\nmost of us would vacillate. But neither of the two types of mind we are\ncontrasting would vacillate at all. The legal type of mind would obey\nthe past unhesitatingly, the creative would unhesitatingly sacrifice it\nto the future. The legal mind would say, \"they who break the law at any\npoint break it altogether,\" while the creative mind would say, \"let the\ndead past bury its dead.\"\n\nIt is convenient to take my illustration from the sphere of promises,\nbut it is in the realm of sexual morality that the two methods are most\nacutely in conflict.\n\nAnd I would like to suggest that until you have definitely determined\neither to obey the real or imaginary imperatives of the past, or to set\nyourself toward the demands of some ideal of the future, until you have\nmade up your mind to adhere to one or other of these two types of mental\naction in these matters, you are not even within hope of a sustained\nconsistency in the thought that underlies your acts, that in every issue\nof principle that comes upon you, you will be entirely at the mercy of\nthe intellectual mood that happens to be ascendent at that particular\nmoment in your mind.\n\nIn the sphere of public affairs also these two ways of looking at things\nwork out into equally divergent and incompatible consequences. The legal\nmind insists upon treaties, constitutions, legitimacies, and charters;\nthe legislative incessantly assails these. Whenever some period of\nstress sets in, some great conflict between institutions and the forces\nin things, there comes a sorting out of these two types of mind. The\nlegal mind becomes glorified and transfigured in the form of hopeless\nloyalty, the creative mind inspires revolutions and reconstructions.\nAnd particularly is this difference of attitude accentuated in the\ndisputes that arise out of wars. In most modern wars there is no doubt\nquite traceable on one side or the other a distinct creative idea, a\ndistinct regard for some future consequence; but the main dispute even\nin most modern wars and the sole dispute in most medi\u00e6val wars will\nbe found to be a reference, not to the future, but to the past; to\nturn upon a question of fact and right. The wars of Plantagenet and\nLancastrian England with France, for example, were based entirely upon\na dummy claim, supported by obscure legal arguments, upon the crown of\nFrance. And the arguments that centered about the late war in South\nAfrica ignored any ideal of a great united South African state almost\nentirely, and quibbled this way and that about who began the fighting\nand what was or was not written in some obscure revision of a treaty a\nscore of years ago. Yet beneath the legal issues the broad creative idea\nhas been apparent in the public mind during this war. It will be found\nmore or less definitely formulated beneath almost all the great wars of\nthe past century, and a comparison of the wars of the nineteenth century\nwith the wars of the middle ages will show, I think, that in this field\nalso there has been a discovery of the future, an increasing disposition\nto shift the reference and values from things accomplished to things to\ncome.\n\nYet though foresight creeps into our politics and a reference to\nconsequence into our morality, it is still the past that dominates our\nlives. But why? Why are we so bound to it? It is into the future we go,\nto-morrow is the eventful thing for us. There lies all that remains to\nbe felt by us and our children and all those that are dear to us. Yet we\nmarshal and order men into classes entirely with regard to the past; we\ndraw shame and honor out of the past; against the rights of property,\nthe vested interests, the agreements and establishments of the past\nthe future has no rights. Literature is for the most part history or\nhistory at one remove, and what is culture but a mold of interpretation\ninto which new things are thrust, a collection of standards, a sort\nof bed of King Og, to which all new expressions must be lopped or\nstretched? Our conveniences, like our thoughts, are all retrospective.\nWe travel on roads so narrow that they suffocate our traffic; we live\nin uncomfortable, inconvenient, life-wasting houses out of a love of\nfamiliar shapes and familiar customs and a dread of strangeness; all our\npublic affairs are cramped by local boundaries impossibly restricted\nand small. Our clothing, our habits of speech, our spelling, our weights\nand measures, our coinage, our religious and political theories, all\nwitness to the binding power of the past upon our minds. Yet we do\nnot serve the past as the Chinese have done. There are degrees. We do\nnot worship our ancestors or prescribe a rigid local costume; we dare\nto enlarge our stock of knowledge, and we qualify the classics with\noccasional adventures into original thought. Compared with the Chinese\nwe are distinctly aware of the future. But compared with what we might\nbe, the past is all our world.\n\nThe reason why the retrospective habit, the legal habit, is so dominant,\nand always has been so predominant, is of course a perfectly obvious\none. We follow a fundamental human principle and take what we can get.\nAll people believe the past is certain, defined, and knowable, and only\na few people believe that it is possible to know anything about the\nfuture. Man has acquired the habit of going to the past because it was\nthe line of least resistance for his mind. While a certain variable\nportion of the past is serviceable matter for knowledge in the case of\neveryone, the future is, to a mind without an imagination trained in\nscientific habits of thought, non-existent. All our minds are made of\nmemories. In our memories each of us has something that without any\nspecial training whatever will go back into the past and grip firmly and\nconvincingly all sorts of workable facts, sometimes more convincingly\nthan firmly. But the imagination, unless it is strengthened by a very\nsound training in the laws of causation, wanders like a lost child in\nthe blankness of things to come and returns empty.\n\nMany people believe, therefore, that there can be no sort of certainty\nabout the future. You can know no more about the future, I was\nrecently assured by a friend, than you can know which way a kitten will\njump next. And to all who hold that view, who regard the future as a\nperpetual source of convulsive surprises, as an impenetrable, incurable,\nperpetual blankness, it is right and reasonable to derive such values as\nit is necessary to attach to things from the events that have certainly\nhappened with regard to them. It is our ignorance of the future and our\npersuasion that that ignorance is absolutely incurable that alone gives\nthe past its enormous predominance in our thoughts. But through the\nages, the long unbroken succession of fortune-tellers--and they flourish\nstill--witnesses to the perpetually smoldering feeling that after all\nthere may be a better sort of knowledge--a more serviceable sort of\nknowledge than that we now possess.\n\nOn the whole there is something sympathetic for the dupe of the\nfortune-teller in the spirit of modern science; it is one of the\npersuasions that come into one's mind, as one assimilates the broad\nconception of science, that the adequacy of causation is universal; that\nin absolute fact--if not in that little bubble of relative fact which\nconstitutes the individual life--in absolute fact the future is just as\nfixed and determinate, just as settled and inevitable, just as possible\na matter of knowledge as the past. Our personal memory gives us an\nimpression of the superior reality and trustworthiness of things in the\npast, as of things that have finally committed themselves and said their\nsay, but the more clearly we master the leading conceptions of science\nthe better we understand that this impression is one of the results of\nthe peculiar conditions of our lives, and not an absolute truth. The man\nof science comes to believe at last that the events of the year A.D.\n4000 are as fixed, settled, and unchangeable as the events of the year\n1600. Only about the latter he has some material for belief and about\nthe former practically none.\n\nAnd the question arises how far this absolute ignorance of the future\nis a fixed and necessary condition of human life, and how far some\napplication of intellectual methods may not attenuate even if it does\nnot absolutely set aside the veil between ourselves and things to come.\nAnd I am venturing to suggest to you that along certain lines and with\ncertain qualifications and limitations a working knowledge of things in\nthe future is a possible and practicable thing. And in order to support\nthis suggestion I would call your attention to certain facts about our\nknowledge of the past, and more particularly I would insist upon this,\nthat about the past our range of absolute certainty is very limited\nindeed. About the past I would suggest we are inclined to overestimate\nour certainty, just as I think we are inclined to underestimate the\ncertainties of the future. And such a knowledge of the past as we have\nis not all of the same sort or derived from the same sources.\n\nLet us consider just what an educated man of to-day knows of the past.\nFirst of all he has the realest of all knowledge--the knowledge of his\nown personal experiences, his memory. Uneducated people believe their\nmemories absolutely, and most educated people believe them with a few\nreservations. Some of us take up a critical attitude even toward our own\nmemories; we know that they not only sometimes drop things out, but that\nsometimes a sort of dreaming or a strong suggestion will put things in.\nBut for all that, memory remains vivid and real as no other knowledge\ncan be, and to have seen and heard and felt is to be nearest to absolute\nconviction. Yet our memory of direct impressions is only the smallest\npart of what we know. Outside that bright area comes knowledge of a\ndifferent order--the knowledge brought to us by other people. Outside\nour immediate personal memory there comes this wider area of facts or\nquasi facts told us by more or less trustworthy people, told us by word\nof mouth or by the written word of living and of dead writers. This is\nthe past of report, rumor, tradition, and history--the second sort of\nknowledge of the past. The nearer knowledge of this sort is abundant\nand clear and detailed, remoter it becomes vaguer, still more remotely\nin time and space it dies down to brief, imperfect inscriptions and\nenigmatical traditions, and at last dies away, so far as the records and\ntraditions of humanity go, into a doubt and darkness as blank, just as\nblank, as futurity.\n\nAnd now let me remind you that this second zone of knowledge outside\nthe bright area of what we have felt and witnessed and handled for\nourselves--this zone of hearsay and history and tradition--completed the\nwhole knowledge of the past that was accessible to Shakespeare, for\nexample. To these limits man's knowledge of the past was absolutely\nconfined, save for some inklings and guesses, save for some small,\nalmost negligible beginnings, until the nineteenth century began.\nBesides the correct knowledge in this scheme of hearsay and history\na man had a certain amount of legend and error that rounded off the\npicture in a very satisfactory and misleading way, according to Bishop\nUssher, just exactly 4004 years B.C. And that was man's universal\nhistory--that was his all--until the scientific epoch began. And beyond\nthose limits--? Well, I suppose the educated man of the sixteenth\ncentury was as certain of the non-existence of anything before the\ncreation of the world as he was, and as most of us are still, of\nthe practical non-existence of the future, or at any rate he was as\nsatisfied of the impossibility of knowledge in the one direction as in\nthe other.\n\nBut modern science, that is to say the relentless systematic criticism\nof phenomena, has in the past hundred years absolutely destroyed the\nconception of a finitely distant beginning of things; has abolished such\nlimits to the past as a dated creation set, and added an enormous vista\nto that limited sixteenth century outlook. And what I would insist upon\nis that this further knowledge is a new kind of knowledge, obtained in\na new kind of way. We know to-day, quite as confidently and in many\nrespects more intimately than we know Sargon or Zenobia or Caractacus,\nthe form and the habits of creatures that no living being has ever met,\nthat no human eye has ever regarded, and the character of scenery that\nno man has ever seen or can ever possibly see; we picture to ourselves\nthe labyrinthodon raising its clumsy head above the water of the\ncarboniferous swamps in which he lived, and we figure the pterodactyls,\nthose great bird lizards, flapping their way athwart the forests of\nthe Mesozoic age with exactly the same certainty as that with which we\npicture the rhinoceros or the vulture. I doubt no more about the facts\nin this farther picture than I do about those in the nearest. I believe\nin the megatherium which I have never seen as confidently as I believe\nin the hippopotamus that has engulfed buns from my hand. A vast amount\nof detail in that farther picture is now fixed and finite for all time.\nAnd a countless number of investigators are persistently and confidently\nenlarging, amplifying, correcting, and pushing farther and farther\nback the boundaries of this greater past--this prehuman past--that the\nscientific criticism of existing phenomena has discovered and restored\nand brought for the first time into the world of human thought. We have\nbecome possessed of a new and once unsuspected history of the world--of\nwhich all the history that was known, for example, to Dr. Johnson is\nonly the brief concluding chapter; and even that concluding chapter\nhas been greatly enlarged and corrected by the exploring arch\u00e6ologists\nworking strictly upon the lines of the new method--that is to say, the\ncomparison and criticism of suggestive facts.\n\nI want particularly to insist upon this, that all this outer past--this\nnon-historical past--is the product of a new and keener habit of\ninquiry, and no sort of revelation. It is simply due to a new and more\ncritical way of looking at things. Our knowledge of the geological past,\nclear and definite as it has become, is of a different and lower order\nthan the knowledge of our memory, and yet of a quite practicable and\ntrustworthy order--a knowledge good enough to go upon; and if one were\nto speak of the private memory as the personal past, of the next wider\narea of knowledge as the traditional or historical past, then one might\ncall all that great and inspiring background of remoter geological time\nthe inductive past.\n\nAnd this great discovery of the inductive past was got by the discussion\nand rediscussion and effective criticism of a number of existing\nfacts, odd-shaped lumps of stone, streaks and bandings in quarries\nand cliffs, anatomical and developmental detail that had always been\nabout in the world, that had been lying at the feet of mankind so long\nas mankind had existed, but that no one had ever dreamed before could\nsupply any information at all, much more reveal such astounding and\nenlightening vistas. Looked at in a new way they became sources of\ndazzling and penetrating light. The remoter past lit up and became a\npicture. Considered as effects, compared and criticised, they yielded a\nclairvoyant vision of the history of interminable years.\n\nAnd now, if it has been possible for men by picking out a number of\nsuggestive and significant looking things in the present, by comparing\nthem, criticising them, and discussing them, with a perpetual insistence\nupon \"Why?\" without any guiding tradition, and indeed in the teeth of\nestablished beliefs, to construct this amazing searchlight of inference\ninto the remoter past, is it really, after all, such an extravagant and\nhopeless thing to suggest that, by seeking for operating causes instead\nof for fossils, and by criticising them as persistently and thoroughly\nas the geological record has been criticised, it may be possible to\nthrow a searchlight of inference forward instead of backward, and\nto attain to a knowledge of coming things as clear, as universally\nconvincing, and infinitely more important to mankind than the clear\nvision of the past that geology has opened to us during the nineteenth\ncentury?\n\nLet us grant that anything to correspond with the memory, anything\nhaving the same relation to the future that memory has to the past,\nis out of the question. We cannot imagine, of course, that we can\never know any personal future to correspond with our personal past, or\nany traditional future to correspond with our traditional past; but\nthe possibility of an inductive future to correspond with that great\ninductive past of geology and arch\u00e6ology is an altogether different\nthing.\n\nI must confess that I believe quite firmly that an inductive knowledge\nof a great number of things in the future is becoming a human\npossibility. I believe that the time is drawing near when it will be\npossible to suggest a systematic exploration of the future. And you must\nnot judge the practicability of this enterprise by the failures of the\npast. So far nothing has been attempted, so far no first-class mind has\never focused itself upon these issues; but suppose the laws of social\nand political development, for example, were given as many brains, were\ngiven as much attention, criticism, and discussion as we have given to\nthe laws of chemical combination during the last fifty years, what\nmight we not expect?\n\nTo the popular mind of to-day there is something very difficult in such\na suggestion, soberly made. But here, in this institution (the Royal\nInstitution of London) which has watched for a whole century over the\nsplendid adolescence of science, and where the spirit of science is\nsurely understood, you will know that as a matter of fact prophecy has\nalways been inseparably associated with the idea of scientific research.\n\nThe popular idea of scientific investigation is a vehement, aimless\ncollection of little facts, collected as a bower bird collects shells\nand pebbles, in methodical little rows, and out of this process, in\nsome manner unknown to the popular mind, certain conjuring tricks--the\ncelebrated \"wonders of science\"--in a sort of accidental way emerge.\nThe popular conception of all discovery is accident. But you will know\nthat the essential thing in the scientific process is not the collection\nof facts, but the analysis of facts. Facts are the raw material and not\nthe substance of science. It is analysis that has given us all ordered\nknowledge, and you know that the aim and the test and the justification\nof the scientific process is not a marketable conjuring trick, but\nprophecy. Until a scientific theory yields confident forecasts you\nknow it is unsound and tentative; it is mere theorizing, as evanescent\nas art talk or the phantoms politicians talk about. The splendid body\nof gravitational astronomy, for example, establishes itself upon\nthe certain forecast of stellar movements, and you would absolutely\nrefuse to believe its amazing assertions if it were not for these same\nunerring forecasts. The whole body of medical science aims, and claims\nthe ability, to diagnose. Meteorology constantly and persistently aims\nat prophecy, and it will never stand in a place of honor until it can\ncertainly foretell. The chemist forecasts elements before he meets\nthem--it is very properly his boast--and the splendid manner in which\nthe mind of Clerk Maxwell reached in front of all experiments and\nforetold those things that Marconi has materialized is familiar to us\nall.\n\nAll applied mathematics resolves into computation to foretell things\nwhich otherwise can only be determined by trial. Even in so unscientific\na science as economics there have been forecasts. And if I am right in\nsaying that science aims at prophecy, and if the specialist in each\nscience is in fact doing his best now to prophesy within the limits of\nhis field, what is there to stand in the way of our building up this\ngrowing body of forecast into an ordered picture of the future that\nwill be just as certain, just as strictly science, and perhaps just as\ndetailed as the picture that has been built up within the last hundred\nyears of the geological past? Well, so far and until we bring the\nprophecy down to the affairs of man and his children, it is just as\npossible to carry induction forward as back; it is just as simple and\nsure to work out the changing orbit of the earth in the future until\nthe tidal drag hauls one unchanging face at last toward the sun as it\nis to work back to its blazing and molten past. Until man comes in,\nthe inductive future is as real and convincing as the inductive past.\nBut inorganic forces are the smaller part and the minor interest in\nthis concern. Directly man becomes a factor the nature of the problem\nchanges, and our whole present interest centers on the question whether\nman is, indeed, individually and collectively incalculable, a new\nelement which entirely alters the nature of our inquiry and stamps it at\nonce as vain and hopeless, or whether his presence complicates, but does\nnot alter, the essential nature of the induction. How far may we hope\nto get trustworthy inductions about the future of man?\n\nWell, I think, on the whole, we are inclined to underrate our chance\nof certainties in the future, just as I think we are inclined to be\ntoo credulous about the historical past. The vividness of our personal\nmemories, which are the very essence of reality to us, throws a glamor\nof conviction over tradition and past inductions. But the personal\nfuture must in the very nature of things be hidden from us so long as\ntime endures, and this black ignorance at our very feet--this black\nshadow that corresponds to the brightness of our memories behind\nus--throws a glamor of uncertainty and unreality over all the future. We\nare continually surprising ourselves by our own will or want of will;\nthe individualities about us are continually producing the unexpected,\nand it is very natural to reason that as we can never be precisely sure\nbefore the time comes what we are going to do and feel, and if we can\nnever count with absolute certainty upon the acts and happenings even\nof our most intimate friends, how much the more impossible is it to\nanticipate the behavior in any direction of states and communities.\n\nIn reply to which I would advance the suggestion that an increase in\nthe number of human beings considered may positively simplify the\ncase instead of complicating it; that as the individuals increase in\nnumber they begin to average out. Let me illustrate this point by a\ncomparison. Angular pit-sand has grains of the most varied shapes.\nExamined microscopically, you will find all sorts of angles and outlines\nand variations. Before you look you can say of no particular grain what\nits outline will be. And if you shoot a load of such sand from a cart\nyou cannot foretell with any certainty where any particular grain will\nbe in the heap that you make; but you can tell--you can tell pretty\ndefinitely--the form of the heap as a whole. And further, if you pass\nthat sand through a series of shoots and finally drop it some distance\nto the ground, you will be able to foretell that grains of a certain\nsort of form and size will for the most part be found in one part of\nthe heap and grains of another sort of form and size will be found in\nanother part of the heap. In such a case, you see, the thing as a whole\nmay be simpler than its component parts, and this I submit is also\nthe case in many human affairs. So that because the individual future\neludes us completely that is no reason why we should not aspire to, and\ndiscover and use, safe and serviceable, generalizations upon countless\nimportant issues in the human destiny.\n\nBut there is a very grave and important-looking difference between a\nload of sand and a multitude of human beings, and this I must face\nand examine. Our thoughts and wills and emotions are contagious. An\nexceptional sort of sand grain, a sand grain that was exceptionally\nbig and heavy, for example, exerts no influence worth considering upon\nany other of the sand grains in the load. They will fall and roll and\nheap themselves just the same whether that exceptional grain is with\nthem or not; but an exceptional man comes into the world, a C\u00e6sar or a\nNapoleon or a Peter the Hermit, and he appears to persuade and convince\nand compel and take entire possession of the sand heap--I mean the\ncommunity--and to twist and alter its destinies to an almost unlimited\nextent. And if this is indeed the case, it reduces our project of an\ninductive knowledge of the future to very small limits. To hope to\nforetell the birth and coming of men of exceptional force and genius is\nto hope incredibly, and if, indeed, such exceptional men do as much as\nthey seem to do in warping the path of humanity, our utmost prophetic\nlimit in human affairs is a conditional sort of prophecy. If people do\nso and so, we can say, then such and such results will follow, and we\nmust admit that that is our limit.\n\nBut everybody does not believe in the importance of the leading man.\nThere are those who will say that the whole world is different by reason\nof Napoleon. There are those who will say that the world of to-day\nwould be very much as it is now if Napoleon had never been born. Other\nmen would have arisen to make Napoleon's conquests and codify the law,\nredistribute the worn-out boundaries of Europe and achieve all those\nchanges which we so readily ascribe to Napoleon's will alone. There are\nthose who believe entirely in the individual man and those who believe\nentirely in the forces behind the individual man, and for my own part\nI must confess myself a rather extreme case of the latter kind. I must\nconfess I believe that if by some juggling with space and time Julius\nC\u00e6sar, Napoleon, Edward IV., William the Conqueror, Lord Rosebery, and\nRobert Burns had all been changed at birth it would not have produced\nany serious dislocation of the course of destiny. I believe that these\ngreat men of ours are no more than images and symbols and instruments\ntaken, as it were, haphazard by the incessant and consistent forces\nbehind them; they are the pen-nibs Fate has used for her writing, the\ndiamonds upon the drill that pierces through the rock. And the more\none inclines to this trust in forces the more one will believe in the\npossibility of a reasoned inductive view of the future that will serve\nus in politics, in morals, in social contrivances, and in a thousand\nspacious ways. And even those who take the most extreme and personal\nand melodramatic view of the ways of human destiny, who see life as a\ntissue of fairy godmother births and accidental meetings and promises\nand jealousies, will, I suppose, admit there comes a limit to these\nthings--that at last personality dies away and the greater forces come\nto their own. The great man, however great he be, cannot set back the\nwhole scheme of things; what he does in right and reason will remain,\nand what he does against the greater creative forces will perish. We\ncannot foresee him; let us grant that. His personal difference, the\nsplendor of his effect, his dramatic arrangement of events will be his\nown--in other words, we cannot estimate for accidents and accelerations\nand delays; but if only we throw our web of generalization wide enough,\nif only we spin our rope of induction strong enough, the final result of\nthe great man, his ultimate surviving consequences, will come within our\nnet.\n\nSuch, then, is the sort of knowledge of the future that I believe is\nattainable and worth attaining. I believe that the deliberate direction\nof historical study and of economic and social study toward the future\nand an increasing reference, a deliberate and courageous reference,\nto the future in moral and religious discussion, would be enormously\nstimulating and enormously profitable to our intellectual life. I have\ndone my best to suggest to you that such an enterprise is now a serious\nand practicable undertaking. But at the risk of repetition I would call\nyour attention to the essential difference that must always hold between\nour attainable knowledge of the future and our existing knowledge of the\npast. The portion of the past that is brightest and most real to each\nof us is the individual past--the personal memory. The portion of the\nfuture that must remain darkest and least accessible is the individual\nfuture. Scientific prophecy will not be fortune-telling, whatever else\nit may be. Those excellent people who cast horoscopes, those illegal\nfashionable palm-reading ladies who abound so much to-day, in whom\nnobody is so foolish as to believe, and to whom everybody is foolish\nenough to go, need fear no competition from the scientific prophets.\nThe knowledge of the future we may hope to gain will be general and not\nindividual; it will be no sort of knowledge that will either hamper\nus in the exercise of our individual free will or relieve us of our\npersonal responsibility.\n\nAnd now, how far is it possible at the present time to speculate on the\nparticular outline the future will assume when it is investigated in\nthis way?\n\nIt is interesting, before we answer that question, to take into account\nthe speculations of a certain sect and culture of people who already,\nbefore the middle of last century, had set their faces toward the\nfuture as the justifying explanation of the present. These were the\npositivists, whose position is still most eloquently maintained and\ndisplayed by Mr. Frederic Harrison, in spite of the great expansion of\nthe human outlook that has occurred since Comte.\n\nIf you read Mr. Harrison, and if you are also, as I presume your\npresence here indicates, saturated with that new wine of more spacious\nknowledge that has been given the world during the last fifty years,\nyou will have been greatly impressed by the peculiar limitations of\nthe positivist conception of the future. So far as I can gather, Comte\nwas, for all practical purposes, totally ignorant of that remoter\npast outside the past that is known to us by history, or if he was\nnot totally ignorant of its existence, he was, and conscientiously\nremained, ignorant of its relevancy to the history of humanity. In the\nnarrow and limited past he recognized men had always been like the\nmen of to-day; in the future he could not imagine that they would be\nanything more than men like the men of to-day. He perceived, as we all\nperceive, that the old social order was breaking up, and after a richly\nsuggestive and incomplete analysis of the forces that were breaking\nit up he set himself to plan a new static social order to replace it.\nIf you will read Comte, or, what is much easier and pleasanter, if\nyou will read Mr. Frederic Harrison, you will find this conception\nconstantly apparent--that there was once a stable condition of society\nwith humanity, so to speak, sitting down in an orderly and respectable\nmanner; that humanity has been stirred up and is on the move, and\nthat finally it will sit down again on a higher plane, and for good\nand all, cultured and happy, in the reorganized positivist state. And\nsince he could see nothing beyond man in the future, there, in that\nmillennial fashion, Comte had to end. Since he could imagine nothing\nhigher than man, he had to assert that humanity, and particularly the\nfuture of humanity, was the highest of all conceivable things. All that\nwas perfectly comprehensible in a thinker of the first half of the\nnineteenth century. But we of the early twentieth, and particularly\nthat growing majority of us who have been born since the Origin of\nSpecies was written, have no excuse for any such limited vision. Our\nimaginations have been trained upon a past in which the past that\nComte knew is scarcely more than the concluding moment. We perceive\nthat man, and all the world of men, is no more than the present phase\nof a development so great and splendid that beside this vision epics\njingle like nursery rhymes, and all the exploits of humanity shrivel to\nthe proportion of castles in the sand. We look back through countless\nmillions of years and see the will to live struggling out of the\nintertidal slime, struggling from shape to shape and from power to\npower, crawling and then walking confidently upon the land, struggling\ngeneration after generation to master the air, creeping down into the\ndarkness of the deep; we see it turn upon itself in rage and hunger\nand reshape itself anew; we watch it draw nearer and more akin to us,\nexpanding, elaborating itself, pursuing its relentless, inconceivable\npurpose, until at last it reaches us and its being beats through our\nbrains and arteries, throbs and thunders in our battleships, roars\nthrough our cities, sings in our music, and flowers in our art. And\nwhen, from that retrospect, we turn again toward the future, surely any\nthought of finality, any millennial settlement of cultured persons, has\nvanished from our minds.\n\nThis fact that man is not final is the great unmanageable, disturbing\nfact that arises upon us in the scientific discovery of the future, and\nto my mind, at any rate, the question what is to come after man is the\nmost persistently fascinating and the most insoluble question in the\nwhole world.\n\nOf course we have no answer. Such imaginations as we have refuse to\nrise to the task.\n\nBut for the nearer future, while man is still man, there are a few\ngeneral statements that seem to grow more certain. It seems to be pretty\ngenerally believed to-day that our dense populations are in the opening\nphase of a process of diffusion and aeration. It seems pretty inevitable\nalso that at least the mass of white population in the world will be\nforced some way up the scale of education and personal efficiency in\nthe next two or three decades. It is not difficult to collect reasons\nfor supposing--and such reasons have been collected--that in the near\nfuture, in a couple of hundred years, as one rash optimist has written,\nor in a thousand or so, humanity will be definitely and conscientiously\norganizing itself as a great world state--a great world state that will\npurge from itself much that is mean, much that is bestial, and much that\nmakes for individual dullness and dreariness, grayness and wretchedness\nin the world of to-day; and although we know that there is nothing\nfinal in that world state, although we see it only as something to be\nreached and passed, although we are sure there will be no such sitting\ndown to restore and perfect a culture as the positivists foretell, yet\nfew people can persuade themselves to see anything beyond that except\nin the vaguest and most general terms. That world state of more vivid,\nbeautiful, and eventful people is, so to speak, on the brow of the hill,\nand we cannot see over, though some of us can imagine great uplands\nbeyond and something, something that glitters elusively, taking first\none form and then another, through the haze. We can see no detail,\nwe can see nothing definable, and it is simply, I know, the sanguine\nnecessity of our minds that makes us believe those uplands of the\nfuture are still more gracious and splendid than we can either hope or\nimagine. But of things that can be demonstrated we have none.\n\nYet I suppose most of us entertain certain necessary persuasions,\nwithout which a moral life in this world is neither a reasonable nor a\npossible thing. All this paper is built finally upon certain negative\nbeliefs that are incapable of scientific establishment. Our lives and\npowers are limited, our scope in space and time is limited, and it is\nnot unreasonable that for fundamental beliefs we must go outside the\nsphere of reason and set our feet upon faith. Implicit in all such\nspeculations as this is a very definite and quite arbitrary belief, and\nthat belief is that neither humanity nor in truth any individual human\nbeing is living its life in vain. And it is entirely by an act of faith\nthat we must rule out of our forecasts certain possibilities, certain\nthings that one may consider improbable and against the chances, but\nthat no one upon scientific grounds can call impossible.\n\nOne must admit that it is impossible to show why certain things should\nnot utterly destroy and end the entire human race and story, why night\nshould not presently come down and make all our dreams and efforts vain.\nIt is conceivable, for example, that some great unexpected mass of\nmatter should presently rush upon us out of space, whirl sun and planets\naside like dead leaves before the breeze, and collide with and utterly\ndestroy every spark of life upon this earth. So far as positive human\nknowledge goes, this is a conceivably possible thing. There is nothing\nin science to show why such a thing should not be. It is conceivable,\ntoo, that some pestilence may presently appear, some new disease, that\nwill destroy, not 10 or 15 or 20 per cent. of the earth's inhabitants\nas pestilences have done in the past, but 100 per cent.; and so end\nour race. No one, speaking from scientific grounds alone, can say,\n\"That cannot be.\" And no one can dispute that some great disease of the\natmosphere, some trailing cometary poison, some great emanation of vapor\nfrom the interior of the earth, such as Mr. Shiel has made a brilliant\nuse of in his \"Purple Cloud,\" is consistent with every demonstrated\nfact in the world. There may arise new animals to prey upon us by land\nand sea, and there may come some drug or a wrecking madness into the\nminds of men. And finally, there is the reasonable certainty that this\nsun of ours must radiate itself toward extinction; that, at least, must\nhappen; it will grow cooler and cooler, and its planets will rotate ever\nmore sluggishly until some day this earth of ours, tideless and slow\nmoving, will be dead and frozen, and all that has lived upon it will be\nfrozen out and done with. There surely man must end. That of all such\nnightmares is the most insistently convincing.\n\nAnd yet one doesn't believe it.\n\nAt least I do not. And I do not believe in these things because I have\ncome to believe in certain other things--in the coherency and purpose in\nthe world and in the greatness of human destiny. Worlds may freeze and\nsuns may perish, but there stirs something within us now that can never\ndie again.\n\nDo not misunderstand me when I speak of the greatness of human destiny.\n\nIf I may speak quite openly to you, I will confess that, considered as\na final product, I do not think very much of myself or (saving your\npresence) my fellow-creatures. I do not think I could possibly join in\nthe worship of humanity with any gravity or sincerity. Think of it!\nThink of the positive facts. There are surely moods for all of us when\none can feel Swift's amazement that such a being should deal in pride.\nThere are moods when one can join in the laughter of Democritus; and\nthey would come oftener were not the spectacle of human littleness so\nabundantly shot with pain. But it is not only with pain that the world\nis shot--it is shot with promise. Small as our vanity and carnality make\nus, there has been a day of still smaller things. It is the long ascent\nof the past that gives the lie to our despair. We know now that all the\nblood and passion of our life were represented in the Carboniferous time\nby something--something, perhaps, cold-blooded and with a clammy skin,\nthat lurked between air and water, and fled before the giant amphibia of\nthose days.\n\nFor all the folly, blindness, and pain of our lives, we have come some\nway from that. And the distance we have travelled gives us some earnest\nof the way we have yet to go.\n\nWhy should things cease at man? Why should not this rising curve rise\nyet more steeply and swiftly? There are many things to suggest that\nwe are now in a phase of rapid and unprecedented development. The\nconditions under which men live are changing with an ever-increasing\nrapidity, and, so far as our knowledge goes, no sort of creatures have\never lived under changing conditions without undergoing the profoundest\nchanges themselves. In the past century there was more change in\nthe conditions of human life than there had been in the previous\nthousand years. A hundred years ago inventors and investigators were\nrare scattered men, and now invention and inquiry are the work of an\nunorganized army. This century will see changes that will dwarf those of\nthe nineteenth century, as those of the nineteenth dwarf those of the\neighteenth. One can see no sign anywhere that this rush of change will\nbe over presently, that the positivist dream of a social reconstruction\nand of a new static culture phase will ever be realized. Human society\nnever has been quite static, and it will presently cease to attempt\nto be static. Everything seems pointing to the belief that we are\nentering upon a progress that will go on, with an ever-widening and ever\nmore confident stride, forever. The reorganization of society that is\ngoing on now beneath the traditional appearance of things is a kinetic\nreorganization. We are getting into marching order. We have struck our\ncamp forever and we are out upon the roads.\n\nWe are in the beginning of the greatest change that humanity has ever\nundergone. There is no shock, no epoch-making incident--but then\nthere is no shock at a cloudy daybreak. At no point can we say, \"Here\nit commences, now; last minute was night and this is morning.\" But\ninsensibly we are in the day. If we care to look, we can foresee growing\nknowledge, growing order, and presently a deliberate improvement of the\nblood and character of the race. And what we can see and imagine gives\nus a measure and gives us faith for what surpasses the imagination.\n\nIt is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a\nbeginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the\ndawn. It is possible to believe that all that the human mind has ever\naccomplished is but the dream before the awakening. We cannot see, there\nis no need for us to see, what this world will be like when the day has\nfully come. We are creatures of the twilight. But it is out of our race\nand lineage that minds will spring, that will reach back to us in our\nlittleness to know us better than we know ourselves, and that will reach\nforward fearlessly to comprehend this future that defeats our eyes.\n\nAll this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day\nwill come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings,\nbeings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins,\nshall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall\nlaugh and reach out their hands amid the stars.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ART _of_ LIFE SERIES\n\nEDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS, Editor\n\n\n\"The aim of this series of brief books is to illuminate the\nnever-to-be-finished art of living. There is no thought of solving the\nproblems or giving dogmatic theories of conduct. Rather the purpose is\nto bring together in brief form the thoughts of some wise minds and the\ninsight and appreciation of some deep characters, trained in the actual\nworld of experience but attaining a vision of life in clear and wide\nperspective. Such books should act as a challenge to the reader's own\nmind, bringing him to a clearer recognition of the problems of his life\nand the laws governing them, deepening his insight into the wonder and\nmeaning of life and developing an attitude of appreciation that may make\npossible the wise and earnest facing of the deeps, dark or beautiful, in\nthe life of the personal spirit.--_From the Editor's Introduction to the\nSeries, printed in full in \"The Use of the Margin.\"_\n\n_Volumes ready:_\n\nWHERE KNOWLEDGE FAILS\n\n  By Earl Barnes\n\nTHE SIXTH SENSE. Its cultivation and use.\n\n  By Charles H. Brent\n\nTHE BURDEN OF POVERTY. What to do.\n\n  By Charles F. Dole\n\nHUMAN EQUIPMENT. Its use and abuse.\n\n  By Edward Howard Griggs\n\nTHE USE OF THE MARGIN\n\n  By Edward Howard Griggs\n\nTHINGS WORTH WHILE\n\n  By Thomas Wentworth Higginson\n\nSELF-MEASUREMENT. A scale of human values with directions for personal\napplication.\n\n  By William DeWitt Hyde\n\nTHE SUPER RACE. An American problem.\n\n  By Scott Nearing\n\nPRODUCT AND CLIMAX\n\n  By Simon Nelson Patten\n\nLATTER DAY SINNERS AND SAINTS\n\n  By Edward Alsworth Ross\n\nEach 50 cents net; by mail, 55 cents\n\n_To be had of all booksellers or the publisher_\n\n\nB. W. HUEBSCH\n\n  225 Fifth Avenue    New York\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\n\nThis text has been preserved as in the original, including archaic and\ninconsistent spelling, punctuation and grammar, except that obvious\nprinter's errors have been corrected.","title":"The Discovery of the Future","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":9513}