{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48674/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48674","id":"gutenberg_48674","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48674","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Forecasting","Twentieth century -- Forecasts"],"text":"A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE\n                    The Expectations of an Optimist\n\n\n                                   By\n                            T. BARON RUSSELL\n                               Author of\n             \"A Guardian of the Poor,\" \"The Mandate,\" etc.\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                            T. Fisher Unwin\n                           Paternoster Square\n                                  1905\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                There is a history in all men's lives,\n                Figuring the nature of the times deceased;\n                The which observed, a man may prophesy,\n                With a near aim, of the main chance of things\n                As yet not come to life; which in their seeds\n                And weak beginnings lie intreasured.\n\n                                       Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., III. i.\n\n\n\n                They pass through whirl-pools, and deep woes do shun,\n                Who the event weigh, 'ere the action's done.\n\n                                       Webster, Duchess of Malfi, II. 4.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe following was at first intended to be no more than an attempt to\nforesee the probable trend of mechanical invention and scientific\ndiscovery during the present century. But as the work took shape\nit was seen to involve a certain amount of what may be called\nmoral conjecture, since the material progress of the new age could\nnot very well be imagined without taking into account its mental\ncharacteristics. In these expectations of an optimist, a great\nethical improvement of the civilised human race has been anticipated,\nand a rate of progress foreseen which perhaps no previous writers\nhave looked for. Both in regard to moral development and material\nprogress, it has been the aim of the author to predict nothing that\nthe tendencies of existing movement do not justify us in expecting.\n\nAn attempt of this kind is exposed to facile criticism. It will be easy\nfor objectors to signalise this or that expected invention as beyond\nscientific possibility, that or the other moral reform as fit only for\nUtopia. But those who will consent to perpend the enormous and utterly\nunforeseen advance of the nineteenth century will recognise the danger\nof limiting their anticipations concerning the possibilities of the\ntwenty-first. A fanciful description in (I think) Addison's Spectator\nof an invention by which the movements of an indicator on a lettered\ndial were imagined to be reproduced on a similar dial at a distance,\nand employed as a means of communication, must have seemed wholly\nchimerical to its readers; and even as recently as fifty years ago,\nanyone who predicted the telephone would have been laughed at. When\nthe principle of the accumulator was already discovered a very\ncompetent practical electrician told the writer that he need not\nworry himself much about the idea: there was not the least likelihood\nthat electricity could ever be \"bottled up in cisterns\"! On the whole\nthere is more likelihood of error in timidity than in boldness when\nwe attempt to foresee what will be attained after the increasingly\nrapid movement of scientific progress during this twentieth century\nshall have gathered full force.\n\nFor the rest, criticism of this sort is disarmed, because the reader\nhas been in any case invited to enter a realm of more or less pure\nimagination. No one can exactly know with what births, monstrous or\nbeautiful, the future may teem. Admitting a certain point of view--that\nof almost unrestrained optimism--the predictions here offered will,\nit is believed, be found to be along the line of existing progress.\n\n\n    Beaufort House,\n\n    Brentford.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    CHAP.                                                  PAGE\n\n       I.   The Rate of Progress                              1\n      II.   Housing, Travel and Population. Questions        13\n     III.   The Man of Business                              38\n      IV.   The Cult of Pleasure                             54\n       V.   The Newspaper of the Future and the Future of\n            the Newspaper                                    68\n      VI.   Utilising the Sea                                95\n     VII.   The March of Science                            106\n    VIII.   Education a Hundred Years Hence                 134\n      IX.   Religion: the Fine Arts, Literature             175\n       X.   The Age of Economies                            205\n      XI.   The Law a Hundred Years Hence                   233\n     XII.   Conclusions                                     286\n            INDEX                                           309\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA HUNDRED YEARS HENCE\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE RATE OF PROGRESS\n\n\nTo anyone who has considered at all attentively the enormous material\nadvances of the nineteenth century, a much more remarkable thing than\nany invention or improvement which that century brought forth must\nbe the speed of human progression during the hundred years between\n1800 and 1900, and the extraordinary acceleration of that speed\nwhich began to establish itself about the year 1880. But indeed,\nduring the whole century, our forward movement was steadily gaining\nimpetus. The difference between the state of the world in 1700 and\nits state in 1800 is insignificant compared with the differences\nestablished between the latter date and the opening of the twentieth\ncentury. But it is hardly less insignificant than the progress of the\ndecade 1800-1810 compared with that of the decade 1890-1900. We are,\nin fact, picking up speed at an enormous rate. The beginning of the\ntwenty-first century will exhibit differences, when compared with\nour own day, which even the boldest imagination can hardly need to be\nrestrained in conjecturing. The latter part of the nineteenth century\nwas the age of electricity, just as the middle part was the age of\nsteam. The first part of the twentieth century is evidently going\nto be the age of wave manipulation, of which wireless telegraphy,\nas we know it, is but the first infantile stirring.\n\nWhat the developments promised (and they are already quite easily\npresageable) by wireless telegraphy will give us, and what they\nwill be superseded by, can only be very dimly imagined; what their\neffects will be upon the human race in itself no one has yet ventured\neven to hint at. Few things are more remarkable in the numerous\nand highly-varied experiments of vaticinatory fiction and more\nserious efforts of prognostication than the utter absence of any\nadequate attempt to forecast the future of the race itself. Social\nand political changes, the enormous differences which are certain\nto be effected in the manner of human life, have been from time to\ntime more or less boldly imagined, and a couple of volumes of very\nable forecasts of the future have recently been published by a writer\nof singular vision and highly-trained scientific imagination. But it\ndoes not hitherto appear to have been at all fully perceived that the\nmoral constitution of man himself is quite certain to be profoundly\nmodified, not alone by the influence of a material environment\nwhich will have been changed as the environment of man has never\nbeen changed since the first inhabitation of this planet, but also\nby the steady development of inward changes which have already begun\nto manifest themselves. Since the year 1800 ideas which, so far as\nwe have any means of knowing, had been regarded as irrefragable ever\nsince man first began to think and to set his thoughts upon record,\nhave been utterly shattered. One has only to compare the opinions of\neven average thinkers of our own day on such subjects as marriage,\nthe status of woman, and the education of children, with the opinions,\npractically current without material change since the dawn of history,\nin 1800, to perceive the truth of this statement; and the change of\nattitude on the part of civilised people, outside the Roman Catholic\nChurch (and, to some extent, even within it), towards religion is not\nless remarkable. An enlightened man of the present day is so radically\ndifferent in all his ideas from a similar individual of the early\nnineteenth century, that it is hardly possible for a modern student\nto write with any intelligence on the deeper significance of events\nand life prior to 1800. Grotesquely inadequate as most historical\nnovels of our own day are, they are perhaps hardly less inadequate\nthan our own understanding of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Scott\ncould probably write of crusaders and the age of chivalry without\ncommitting serious blunders of sentiment. What the world thought\nin the age of Saladin the world practically thought in the age of\nNapoleon. But the irresistible infection of modern ideas has made it\nhardly possible for us to enter with any fulness into the sentiments\nof Scott; and the sentiments put into the mouth, and the thoughts\ninto the mind, of the hero of any historical novel of our own day\nwould be utterly incomprehensible to that hero, could he by some\nmiracle be resuscitated, and could we translate them literally to\nhim. We unconsciously endow the personages of our historical fiction\nwith ideas for which they had not even the names.\n\nAnd the development of the human mind proceeds apace. It will be\neven more difficult for the ordinary cultured man of a hundred years\nhence to form any full conception of our ideas than it is for us to\nappraise the mental attitude of the men of the eighteenth century. To\ntake a single example: the humanest warrior of the Napoleonic wars\nappears a monster of cruelty if compared with the sternest of modern\ngenerals. Napoleon devastated provinces without a word of censure\nfrom competent critics of the art of war. A howl of execration went\nup, not from continental Europe alone, at the measures--seriously\nembarrassing to our military operations, and enormously helpful to\nour enemy--which the British generals took in order to diminish the\nsufferings of the non-combatant population of the Transvaal; camps\nof refuge, it appears, did not sufficiently excel in comfort the\nhospitals of our own wounded! And there is a section of the Press in\nthis country which still occasionally remembers, to complain of it,\nthe fact that our generals found it necessary, for military reasons,\nto burn farm-houses. I should not like to attempt the conjecture,\nwhat Wellington would have said in answer to such a complaint, or\nwhat he would have done to a self-appointed emissary who visited\nhis camps for the purpose of criticising his action! It would have\nbeen no more impossible for him to foresee the day of such things,\nhowever, than it is for us to predict the moral sense of the year\n2000. The fact is that we have greatly deteriorated in war, although,\nor rather because, we have even more greatly improved in morals and\nfeeling. William Morris conceived of man in the coming time as a\nsort of recreated medi\u00e6val. Mr Wells conceives him as practically a\nnineteenth-century man, with his ideas merely adjusted to new material\nconditions. Bellamy described him in terms of a being inconceivable\nby any sort of reason. No one appears to have seen that his moral\nnature will have been not merely revolutionised, but recreated, just\nas our own morality has been recreated during the last hundred years,\nnot so much by the influence of material environment or the march of\ninvention, as by the regeneration of human conscience.\n\nIn no way will the acceleration of the speed of progress be more\napparent than in the thoughts and emotions of men. But to say this\nis not to belittle the progress which science and invention have in\nstore for the new age. In applying a sort of imaginative telescope\nto the mental eye it will be necessary to keep constantly in view\nthe utter inconceivableness of modern achievement by the civilised\nworld of the past. When electricity was no more than a sort of\nscientific plaything--when notions of its possible uses were (as in\nDavy's time) far less substantially imagined than, for instance, the\npossible uses of radium are to-day, even scientific thinkers, endowed\nwith what Huxley so luminously applauded as scientific imagination,\nhad no rudiment of the materials for conceiving such inventions as\nthe electric telegraph--far less the possibilities of transmitted\nand picked-up wave energy. And here, at the beginning of wireless\ntelegraphy, we are no less in the dark as to what will develop from\nit and what will supersede it. The nineteenth century progressed,\nalmost from first to last, on the strength of the discovery of how\nto utilise the stored energy of coal, whether directly in the steam\nengine or indirectly in the dynamo-electric machine and the electric\nmotor. With the end of the coal age already well in view, we can only\nconjecture what the sources of mechanical power will be a hundred\nyears hence. Before we have quite exhausted our coal measures and\nbegun to draw more liberally on our stores of petroleum, we shall\nno doubt have abandoned altogether so wasteful a contrivance as the\nsteam engine. There is a clumsiness almost barbarous in the roundabout\nemployment of coal to produce heat, the steam engine to utilise only\na miserable fraction of the potential energy even of the part of\nthe coal which we do not fatuously allow to escape as smoke; of the\ndynamo to use up a part of the motion yielded by the steam engine\nin producing electricity (while a small but recognisable portion of\nthat motion is converted wastefully back again into heat), and of the\nelectro-motor to re-convert the electricity into motion, heat, light\nand chemical energy, according to our requirements. It cannot be many\nyears before we learn to use coal far more economically than we do\nnowadays, abolishing the furnace and the steam engine, and obtaining\nelectricity directly from coal itself by some sort of electro-chemical\ndecomposition. But even so, our coal will not last much longer. The\nspeed of our progress will exhaust it much sooner than most people\nimagine, and probably in another twenty-five years the end of our\npetroleum will also begin to be looked forward to with apprehension.\n\nAbout this period, or perhaps immediately after, progress will have\nbeen accelerated to an enormous degree by the invention of some new\nmethod of decomposing water. The economical analysis of water into its\ntwo component gases, whose chemical affinity and antipodal electrical\nattractions are already utilised to some extent in such appliances\nas the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe and electrical storage batteries, is\na secret capable of extraordinary beneficences to the new age. By\nburning hydrogen in oxygen we can already produce the greatest heat\npractically needed in the arts; the electric furnace only superseding\nthis process because it happens to be more manageable. But when we\nwant oxygen and hydrogen, we do not, in practice, now obtain them from\nwater: we only combine them as water in the act of utilisation. The\nrational line of progress is obviously to seek means of directly\ndecomposing water. When we can do this compendiously and economically\nwe shall have an inexhaustible supply of energy--for water thus\nused is not destroyed as water, as coal is destroyed, qu\u00e2 coal,\nwhen we utilise its stored energy. The very act of utilising the\ngases recombines them: and we can use them thus for the production\nof almost every kind of energy that man at present needs. We can use\nthem for heat by burning them together. We can use them for light by\nburning them in the presence of any substance capable of being made\nincandescent. We shall be able to use them to generate electricity\nby some sort of contrivance akin to the accumulator of the present\nday (a highly rudimentary invention); and it would be even now a\nvery simple matter to utilise their explosive recombination for the\ndirect production of power as motion. Utilised apart, the constituent\ngases of water have many other uses and possible uses. Hydrogen,\nunder suitable treatment, yields the greatest obtainable cold,\nas oxygen and hydrogen together yield the greatest heat. If our\nflying-machines need a sort of ballast to reinforce their mechanical\nlifting apparatus, hydrogen is the best possible assistant. And the\nprobable uses of oxygen are yet more numerous. So long as we still\nburn anything at all except a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen--and\nultimately we shall have nothing else left to burn--oxygen is capable\nof multiplying the efficiency of all combustion. One of the greatest\nproblems of our own day is the disposal of waste products of all\nsorts--the sources of inconvenience, disease and dirt. Oxygen,\nif readily and copiously obtainable, is capable of destroying them\nall. Indeed, it seems likely that medicine, the least progressive of\nthe sciences to-day, will find in oxygen the great propulsive force of\nits forward movement. In considerably less than a hundred years hence\nsuch makeshifts as drugging, and the fighting of one disease by the\ninstalment in the organism of another, will certainly have gone by\nthe board. Antisepsis and Asepsis (the latter almost infinitely the\ngreatest invention in the history of therapeutics) will have pushed\ntheir way from surgery into medicine. There are numerous diseases\nwhich can be not merely cured, but ultimately abolished when we have\nonce discovered how to use oxygen adequately. The readjustment of\nthe conditions of life determined by the removal from the civilised\nworld of the greater number of diseases, and perhaps of all diseases\nexcept those arising out of wilful misconduct (as improper diet) and\neven by the elimination of most of the evils of hurry and overwork\n(for what are medically and chemically known as fatigue products can\nalmost certainly be eliminated from the system by the proper use,\nyet to be discovered, of oxygen) must inevitably have an enormous\ninfluence not merely upon the physical life of man, but also, and\neven more, upon his mental constitution. The rate of progress will\nthus in yet another way be vastly accelerated.\n\nMost likely the universal source of power, then, before the middle\nof the century, will be the recomposition of water--in other words,\nwe shall get all the power we want by splitting up water into oxygen\nand hydrogen, and then allowing those gases to recombine, thereby\nreturning to us the energy we have employed in the analysis. How\nwe shall employ this power is largely for the future to decide, and\ncertainly in the earlier future we shall employ it in the generation\nof etheric waves of various kinds. The world of science is visibly\non the threshold of new and revolutionary discoveries on the nature\nand composition of matter, and whither these discoveries will lead us\nit is not usefully possible to conjecture. But certainly, after the\nusual incubation period of a scientific discovery--when it is merely\na sort of wonderful toy, as argon and radium are at present--there\nwill come the practical men, suckled at the large and noble breasts of\ndisinterested, unremunerative truth, and ready to turn that nutriment\ninto world-moving material usefulness: so, again, the rate of progress\nwill receive a vast and valuable acceleration. Electricity, whose gift\nto the world has been so great, will probably not, until after several\ndecades, approach the limits of its realm, and so long as electricity\nremains a considerable element in the utilisation of those stores\nof dissipating energy by which the planet lives, it is possible to\nforesee something of what will become of man during the next age.\n\nWe have here the limits of such an inquiry as the present. Placing\nthe end of the age of electricity at provisionally about a hundred\nyears hence (but it is quite conceivable that the rate of progress may\novertake it earlier and shut the door on conjecture) it is possible to\nforecast, not indeed with certainty, but with a measure of imaginative\nprobability, what will happen as the resources of electricity are\ndeveloped and the other material amenities of the world are worked\nalong the line of natural progress. So far as the light of analogy\ncan point the way the reader is invited on a sort of conjectural\njourney. Of the developments of the moral ideas of man likely to\nbe determined, not so much by the coming change in his material\nenvironment, as by the evolution of inner forces already at work,\nI propose to say something at the end of the book. In the meantime,\nthe probable material changes in the next hundred years (or less,\naccording to the rate of our progress) in various departments of life\nwill be the subject of some intermediate conjectures.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHOUSING, TRAVEL AND POPULATION QUESTIONS\n\n\nWhen every allowance has been made for the material changes which the\nprogress of this century threatens, it is easy to see that certain\npresent-day problems will continue to trouble our successors. Some\nthings which perplex ourselves will, I think, work out their own\nremedy. Others will remain the subject of solutions not difficult to\nbe imagined in advance.\n\nOne chief difficulty which will infallibly confront the immediate\nfuture, and even the future that is more remote, arises out of the\nsimple fact that the race of man tends to increase numerically at\na speed greater than our devices for its accommodation can quite\nconveniently cope with. The population of the world not only increases,\nbut increases at compound interest. Nor is this all. Improved\nsanitation, better habits of life, and the progress of medicine,\nprolong lives that in the conditions of last century would have been\nshortened, and the rate of increase is thus further accelerated,\nas individuals who in different conditions would have died, live\non, perhaps reproducing their species, and thus intensifying the\npopulation problem. Against these influences may be set the effect\nof the restrictions imposed by some civilised peoples on the birth\nrate, which Mr Roosevelt calls \"race suicide.\" These practices,\njust now increasingly prevalent, retard the rate of increase, but\ndo not at present stop our increase: they alleviate, but do not cure\nthe difficulty of over-population. Artificial physiological checks on\npopulation, if I am right in certain other conjectures to be presently\ndeveloped, will not form part of the permanent morality of the new age,\npartly because, with more enlightenment, they will be voluntarily\nabandoned or superseded, and partly because the necessity for them\nwill have disappeared, having worked out its own cure.\n\nBut with all this it would be folly to anticipate that the population\nof the civilised world will not have greatly increased before the end\nof the period contemplated by the present inquiry: and this brings\nus face to face with two very important questions--those of housing\nand transport. Where shall we live, and how shall we move from place\nto place--above all, how shall we proceed from home to the scene of\nwork and thence home again every day, in the future? Shall we indeed\nthus move back and forth at all?\n\nThe answer to the last question bifurcates somewhat. In the\nearlier future of (say) twenty or thirty years hence, probably the\ngreatest tendencies will be towards concentration on the one hand and\nexceedingly rapid transport on the other. What the ultimate practice\nwill be, it should not be difficult to guess when we see how these\ntendencies are likely to work themselves out.\n\nDuring the last twenty-five or thirty years of the nineteenth century\nthe tendency of workers in great cities was more and more towards\nsuburban life, men travelling to and from the cities in increasing\nnumbers, to increasing distances, and at increasing speeds. Even\nmechanics, even labourers and the other humbler wage-earners (to say\nnothing of clerks not earning much more, but spending their money in\na different manner) nowadays travel considerable distances to their\nwork. But in spite of what is complacently regarded (by railway and\ntramway directors) as rapid conveyance, there is lately manifest an\nincreasing impatience against the time subtracted from men's leisure\nby the two daily journeys, an impatience very naturally increased in\nthe case of manual workers of both sexes by the utter inadequacy of\nthe legislative control imposed upon railway and tramway companies.\n\nCrowded trams and trains, with desperate men and weak women fighting\na daily battle for conveyance before all the cheap trips have\nbeen made, inflict a shameful degradation upon the class for which\nParliament makes illusory provision in railway and tramway Acts. As\na consequence of this difficulty, and also because of the early hour\nat which the companies are allowed to cease carrying working-folk at\nthe workmen's fare, many men and women are compelled to waste some\nhours of their scanty leisure every day between the arrival of their\ntrains and the opening of their workshops, a cruelty for which the\nblame may be pretty equally apportioned to Parliament and the company\ndirectors. The result of it is that many of the poor prefer the evil\nof overcrowding in cities before the greater evil of wasted time\nand degrading travel. As time goes on, no doubt the monopolists of\ntransportation will be compelled, as their own necessities increase\nand so bring them under the hand of the legislature, to serve more\nadequately the necessities of the majority. But even so, and as\nlong as the effective speed of conveyance is limited by the lack\nof permanent-way space and the necessity for frequent stations,\nthe impatience even now manifested, and manifested chiefly by the\nclass which suffers least from loss of time in travel, will lead to\nconcentration. Taking London as an example, it may be said that the\nVictorian age was the age of the suburbs. But few people now live in\nthe suburbs of London who can afford to live anywhere else. Either\nthey move right out into the country, seeking a spot on some main\nline where the greater distance and less-frequent train service is\nmade up for by speedy and uninterrupted journeys; or they come into\nLondon and occupy houses or flats within easy reach of their working\nhead-quarters. The suburbs are given over to those who cannot afford\neither of these expedients, or who, having been brought up there,\nare retained by a sort of inertia. Ultimately, as the demand for\ntown space becomes intensified, two things will happen. First of all,\nthe restrictions which many cities, ignoring the freedom of New York\nand Chicago, impose upon the erection of excessively high buildings,\nwill go by the board. The shutting out of sunlight and fresh air\nwill be the subject of compensations to be presently explained, and\nthirty, forty, fifty or a hundred-storey houses, and houses which\nperhaps burrow to some distance underground, will, by virtue of the\nsame compensations, house a vast, concentrated population impatient\nof daily travel. As the demand for homes increases, and even the\nhigh buildings cannot cope with it, the cities will push their way\noutwards, repopulating the rebuilt suburbs. This kind of thing will\nhave a tendency to correct itself. Rents will be high in proportion to\nposition near the centre. But a limit of toleration will be reached,\nand as certain improvements will have been effected in transport,\nthere will ultimately be a reaction, and people will again go right\nout to the country, as long as there is any country left.\n\nBefore discussing these improvements, however, it will be convenient\nto examine the conveniences, social and sanitary, of the homes of\nthe new age. The greatest convenience of all, no doubt, will be the\nmodification and partial elimination of the domestic servant. There\nis every reason to believe that the great difficulties of the servant\nquestion as at present experienced will solve themselves, forming in\npart an instance of the moral changes, accompanying material invention\nbut only partly resulting from it, which the new age is certain\nto experience. It is usual to lay the blame of the unsatisfactory\ncharacter and atrocious inefficiency of the domestic servants of\nour own day on the institution of free education. They are much more\ndue to the absence of any education worthy of the name, and to the\nimperfect civilisation of modern houses. Thirty-five years or so are\nbut an instant in the life of an institution so overwhelmingly more\nimportant in its possibilities than any other subject of legislation\nas State-compelled education of the people. No one appears to have\nrecognised that character-making, which Herbert Spencer called the most\nimportant object which can engage the attention of the legislator,\nis the only true object of education, free or otherwise. When\npoliticians have talked of the necessity of national education,\nthe argument they have used was that Germans are better chemists\nthan we are. When they praised the usefulness of modern languages\nit was in terms of commercial utility. \"Modern languages, in fact\"\n(a recent critic remarked), \"make a good bagman.\" It is inept to\ndespair of free education because free education has produced no\nvery satisfactory results while conceived of as a process of shoving\nundesired knowledge into the children of the poor. Looking, as everyone\nnot hidebound by pessimism must look, for a great enlightenment of the\nlaw-giving class when the system of party politics, already beginning\nto show signs of decay, has ceased to hold all legislation in its\nblighting hand, we have every reason to expect that the true uses of\neducation will be perceived and attained long before the end of the\nperiod contemplated when we speak of the new age. And then, one very\ngreat factor in the servant question will have been satisfactorily\nsolved, even if other conditions have not conducted us nearly all\nthe way to the solution beforehand.\n\nFor, while making every allowance for the evil effects of education,\nwrongly conceived and improperly administered, on the character\nof women destined to become servants, it must be allowed that\nmuch of what we call the servant difficulty could be cured now,\nand will unquestionably be cured before long, by inventions capable\nof abolishing the grievances which lead to it. These grievances are\nreal and remediable. I do not refer to the confinement, restraint and\ngross lack of consideration on the part of employers which lead young\nwomen of the class from which servants are drawn to prefer labour in\nfactories and elsewhere, in conditions far less comfortable, before\ndomestic service; but to our utter lack of ingenuity in removing the\nirksomeness and degradation of much domestic labour. Some coming\ninventions calculated to improve the lot of Mary Jane will now be\ndescribed.\n\nIn the first place (as Mr H. G. Wells has pointed out, without\napparently being aware that buildings already exist in which some of\nhis ideas have been anticipated), modern rooms, equally with those of\nall time, seem to have been constructed so as to make it as difficult\nas possible to keep them clean. Square corners and rectangular\njunctions of wall and floor, wall and ceiling, will certainly before\nlong be replaced everywhere by curves. But the work of house cleaning\nwill be rendered easy and unlaborious by another invention, already\nindeed in existence on a large scale, but eventually capable of being\nrendered portable. I mean a contrivance for applying a vacuum to any\ndesired spot. There is a very ingenious but rather noisy engine already\nin use for pumping the dust out of carpets, curtains and furniture. In\nthe houses of the future handy contrivances of various shapes, all\nindependent of any engine, will be found, furnished with elastic\nnozzles on the outside and with some sort of appliance capable of\ninstantly exhausting the air within. Such a utensil wheeled over the\nfloor will remove instantly every particle of dust from the surface\nand below the surface of the carpet, at the same time picking up\nany such d\u00e9bris as scraps of paper, pins, and other decidua of the\nprevious day. A similar instrument, differently shaped, will clean the\ncurtains, supposing curtains to be still in use at the time, and will\ndust the chairs and tables--though there will not be anything like\nso much dust as there is now, nearly all kinds of combustion being\nabolished. The kitchen fire will of course be an electric furnace:\n\"o' my word we'll not carry coals.\" Lighting will all be electric,\nand no doubt wireless. The abolition of horse traffic in cities, and\nthe use of the vacuum apparatus which will be continuously at work\nin all streets, keeping them dry and free from mud, will practically\nremove the necessity for boot brushing, even supposing that we shall\nstill wear boots: every man and woman in dressing will pass a vacuum\ninstrument over his and her clothes and get rid of even the little dust\nexisting--for we shall be more and more intolerant of dirt in any form,\nhaving by that time fully realised how dangerous dirt is. The new age\nwill be a clean age. A lady of the year 2000 who could be miraculously\ntransported back to London at the present moment would probably faint\n(they will not have ceased fainting) at the intolerable disgustingness\nof what is, I suppose, now one of the cleanest cities in the world,\neven if the cruelty of employing horses for traction, and the frightful\nrecklessness of allowing them to soil the streets in which people walk,\ndid not overpower her susceptibilities in another way.\n\nCooking will perhaps not be done at all on any large scale at\nhome, in flat-homes at all events; and in any case, for reasons\nwhich will hereafter become apparent, cooking will be a much less\ndisgusting process than it is to-day. In no case will the domestic\nservant of a hundred years hence be called upon to stand over a\nroaring fire, laid by herself, and to be cleaned up by herself\nwhen done with, in order to cook the family dinner. Every measure\nof heat--controllable in gradations of ten degrees or so--will be\nfurnished in electrically-fitted receptacles, with or without water\njackets or steam jackets: and unquestionably all cooking will be done\nin hermetically-closed vessels. We shall not much longer do most of our\ncooking by such a wasteful and unwholesome method as boiling, whereby\nthe important soluble salts of nearly all food are callously thrown\naway. As, for reasons to be developed hereafter, it is quite certain\nthat animal food will have been wholly abandoned before the end of this\ncentury, the d\u00e9bris of the kitchen will be much more manageable than\nat present, and the kitchen sink will cease to be, during a great\npart of the day, a place of unapproachable loathsomeness. On the\nother hand, its conveniences will have been greatly increased. It is\ndifficult to understand how the old-world fashion of (for instance)\n\"washing up\" plates and dishes can have endured so long. Of course,\nin the new age, these utensils will be simply dropped one by one into\nan automatic receptacle; swilled clean by water delivered with force\nand charged with nascent oxygen; dried by electric heat; and polished\nby electric force; being finally oxygen-bathed as a superfluous act\nof sanitary cleanliness before being sent to table again. And all\nthat has come off the plates will drop through the scullery floor\ninto the destructor beneath to be oxygenated and made away with.\n\nHere we have most of the distasteful elements of domestic service got\nrid of. Naturally lifts of various kinds, driven by the same force\n(whatever it is) which lights and warms the house, will be everywhere\nin evidence. The plan of attaining the upper part of a small house by\nclimbing, on every occasion, a sort of wooden hill, covered with carpet\nof questionable cleanliness, will of course have been abandoned: it\nis doubtful whether staircases will be built at all after the next two\nor three decades. And it is likely that the more refined sentiment of\nthe new age will recoil before the spectacle of menial service at the\ntable. Not because they will despise, but because they will respect,\ntheir domestic assistants, hostesses will dislike to have their guests\nwaited upon in a servile manner during meals by plush-breeched flunkeys\nof the male, or neat-handed Phyllises of the female, sex. Well-arranged\nhouses will have the kitchen on a level with the dining-room, and\nthe dividing wall will be so contrived that a table, ready laid at\neach course, can be made to slide through it into the presence of the\nseated guests. An immense amount of running to and fro between kitchen\nand dining-room, and of lifting food and table-ware into and out of\nelevators, will thus be obviated, to the vast gastronomic improvement\nof the meal and the salvation of servants' time.\n\nNaturally the bedrooms of the new age will have many amenities lacking\nto our own. It is not too much to anticipate that we shall have learned\nenough of plumbing to be able to connect baths, wash-basins and other\nnecessary fittings with the drains without poisoning ourselves, and\nthe inconvenient modern \"wash-stand\" with its unreticent adjuncts will\ndecently disappear. It cannot be very long--probably it will only be\na few years--before some kind of reasonable control is exercised over\nthe technical education of plumbers. [1]\n\nThus the bedroom of the new age will be a much more convenient\nand satisfactory apartment than the one we slept in last night,\nand another irksome and unelevating part of the domestic work of our\nservants will be eliminated. But the sleeping-apartments, and indeed\nall apartments in city homes, will contain yet another very valuable\nand necessary article of furniture--the oxygenator. Nearly all the\nunhealthiness and the pinched, weary greyness of town-dwellers to-day\ncould be cured by fresh air. Everyone is familiar with the improvement\nwhich can be effected in the health and appearance of a city family\nby even a short visit to the seaside or the country--an improvement\nwhich it happens to be fashionable just now to attribute, in the\nformer case, to the presence of ozone in the sea air. The fact that\nholiday-makers are able to endure the smell of slowly-decaying seaweed\nwith a dash of putrescent fish about it, which is called \"sea-air,\"\nwithout injury, and even to pick up health in the presence of it,\nis more due to the absence of carbon dioxide and other deleterious\ngases of the towns than to anything else. The beneficent effects of\ncountry air are practically all due to the power possessed by green\nvegetation of superoxygenating the surrounding air. The atmosphere\nof cities, or at all events of city homes, will presently be freed\nfrom the products of combustion and respiration, and endowed with\na slightly-increased proportion of oxygen, by artificial means. And\nespecially in bedrooms, rendered to-day stuffy and unhealthy by the\nidiotic fear of night air which an effete tradition has handed down\nto us, will this reform be in evidence. Prudent people to-day insist\non large bedroom windows--preferably of the French-door pattern--and\nkeep them wide open all night. But this is attended by inconveniences\nin cold and wet weather; and while our grandchildren will still keep\ntheir windows open all night in all weathers, they will not be content\nwith this alone. There will be a chemical apparatus hidden away in some\ncorner, or built into the wall, which will absorb carbon dioxide and at\nthe same time slowly give off a certain amount of oxygen--just enough\nto raise the oxygenation of the air to the standard of the best country\nplaces. And similar appliances will be at work in the streets of our\ncities, so that town air will be just as wholesome, just as tonic and\ninvigorating, as country air. If the theory that the presence of ozone\n(that is, allotropic oxygen) in the sea air is beneficent stand the\ntest of time, no doubt ozonators will form part of these appliances:\nbut in any case, as the high buildings of the new age will keep out the\nsunlight, electric light, carrying all the ray-activity of sunlight,\nand just as capable of fostering life and vegetation, will serve the\nstreets. Thus, so far as hygiene goes, town life will be on a par with\ncountry life: but many people will prefer the country, and means will\nhave to be provided to render homes in the country compatible with\nwork in the cities. This brings us to the question of transport.\n\nI do not think that people will, within the next hundred years at all\nevents, travel to and from work in flying-machines. But no doubt the\nsystem of railway transport will be revolutionised. What makes suburban\ntravel so slow is, not so much lack of speed on the part of the trains,\nas the necessity for frequent stoppage. You cannot satisfactorily run a\ntrain at sixty miles an hour and stop it every minute or so: otherwise\nsixty miles an hour would be quite fast enough, for some decades at\nleast, to satisfy all requirements of suburban traffic, though it\nwould be, and indeed is, ridiculously inadequate for long-distance\ntravelling. The expense of increased permanent-way hampers railway\nmanagement, and as there is no possibility of getting more land to\nincrease the number of available tracks, some method will have to\nbe devised for running one train over the top of another--perhaps\nto the height of several storeys, not necessarily provided with\nsupporting rails: for we may very conceivably have discovered means\nby which vehicles can be propelled above the ground in some kind of\nguide-ways, doing away with the great loss of power caused by wheel\nfriction; that is to say, the guides will direct, but not support,\nthe carriages. The clumsy device of locomotive engines will have\nbeen dispensed with. Whatever power is employed to drive the trains\nof the next century will certainly be conveyed to them from central\npower-houses.\n\nBut, as the reader has been already reminded, it is the stoppages\nwhich are so wasteful of time on a suburban railway: and they are\nalso wasteful of force. Now in all respects the new age will be\neconomical. One thing that will have to be perfected is the art of\ngetting up speed. Look, as you go home to-night, at the way your train\ngathers speed on leaving a station. Observe what a long time it is\nbefore it can attain its full velocity. A large part of the total\ntime you require in order to reach the suburbs is consumed in this\nmanner. A hundred years hence trains will almost jump to full speed,\nsomewhat as a motor-car jumps to-day. In collecting passengers at\nsuburban stations, the train, a hundred years hence, will perhaps not\nstop at all. It will only slacken speed a little; but the platform\nwill begin to move as the train approaches, and will run along beside\nit, at the same speed as the train itself, so that passengers can get\nin and out as if the train were standing still. When all are aboard,\nthe doors will be closed all together by the guard, and the platform\nwill reverse its motion, and return to its original position ready\nfor the next train.\n\nWith trains travelling at quite 200 miles an hour--and certainly\nnothing less will satisfy the remoter suburbanites of next\ncentury--frightful accidents would occur if precautions were not\ntaken. The moment two trains are in the same section of line they will\nbe automatically cut off from the source of power, and their brakes\nwill at the same time bring them to a standstill. A passenger who put\nhis head out of the window of a train travelling at this speed would be\nblinded and suffocated; so the windows will be glazed, the oxygenators\nand carbon-dioxide absorbers in each carriage keeping the air sweet,\nand other suitable appliances adjusting its temperature. There will be\nno such thing as level crossings; wherever the road crosses the line\nthere will be bridges, provided with an endless moving track (like\nthe automatic staircase at the Crystal Palace), to carry passengers\nand vehicles across. Of course horses will long since have vanished\nfrom the land, except as instruments of the pleasure of a few cranks\nwho affect the manners of that effete period, the year 1900.\n\nAnd the omnipresence of high-speed vehicles will in itself have\neliminated much danger of accident. It is not to be supposed that\nthe unresting march of mechanical improvement will have failed to\nhave its effect on the people. Man himself will have progressed. He\nwill be cleverer in avoiding accidents. Cities will be provided\nwith moving street-ways, always in action at two or more speeds;\nand we shall have learned to hop on and off the lowest speed from the\nstationary pavement, and from the lower speeds to the higher, without\ndanger. When streets cross, one rolling roadway will rise in a curve\nover the other. There will be no vehicular traffic at all in cities\nof any size; all the transportation will be done by the roads' own\nmotion. In smaller towns, and for getting from one town to another,\nautomatic motor-cars will exist, coin-worked. A man who wishes to\ntravel will step into a motor-car, drop into a slot-machine the coin\nwhich represents the hire of the car for the distance he wants to\ntravel, and assume control. Here again the progress of man will come\ninto play. Everyone will know how to drive a motor-car safely. If\nyou doubt it, consider for a moment the position of a man of 1800\nsuddenly transported into a street of modern London. He would never\nbe able to cross it; the rush of omnibuses, motors and bicycles\nwould confuse and frighten him. Imagine the same man trying to use\nthe underground railways of to-day, or to get up to town from a busy\nsuburb in the morning. He would either be killed out of hand or left\nbehind altogether from sheer inability to enter the train.\n\nWe may safely suppose that the ocean ships of a hundred years hence\nwill be driven by energy of some kind transmitted from the shores on\neither side. It is absolutely unquestionable that no marine engine in\nthe least resembling what we know to-day can meet the requirements\nof the new age. The expense of driving a steamship increases in\nsuch a ratio to its size and speed that the economic limits of steam\npropulsion are foreseen. Probably the ships of A.D. 2000 will differ\nentirely in appearance from those we know. Just as road friction\nis the bugbear of the railway engineer, so water-resistance is the\nbugbear of the marine engineer. The ships of a hundred years hence\nwill not lie in the water. They will tower above the surface, merely\nskimming it with their keels, and the only engines they will carry\nwill be those which receive and utilise the energy transmitted to\nthem from the power-houses ashore--perhaps worked by the force of\nthe very tides of the conquered ocean itself.\n\nThe housing problem is so intimately and visibly connected in our\nminds with the growth of population that the more vital entanglement\nof the latter with the food question is hardly perceptible except\nto economic experts. The ordinary newspaper reader is not in a\nposition to trace the intimate significance of prices; indeed, he\noften regards it as rather a good thing that wheat should fetch a\ngood price per quarter, forgetting that low prices for commodities\nmean increased purchasing power for money, and a better standard of\nlife for the people. When such elementary implications as this are\noverlooked, it is hardly remarkable that the more obscure connection\nof population with prices is never thought of. Yet it is obvious that\nunless the sources of supply increase more rapidly than the consuming\npopulation, prices must rise--in other words, the purchasing power of\nmoney must diminish. Wages, to some extent, will no doubt rise also,\nbut as competition seriously affects the markets for manufactured goods\nand machinery, and the increase of population not only tends to raise\nprices of commodities, but also restricts the rise of wages, relief\nwill have to be found in economies of various sorts. The standard\nof comfort in working families must improve considerably; partly\nbecause the demand for improvement, taking the shape of industrial\ncombination and trade-unionism developed to a high degree, will\nbe more and more clamorous; partly because of public feeling. What\nis currently called the growth of sentimentalism in modern life is\nreally the development of modern conscience. No doubt the abolition\nof judicial torture was at one time regarded as a mark of absurd\nsentimentality; and the opinion has already been expressed that a\nvast amelioration of public morality is in store for the new age. A\ngreat element in the conflict between comfort on the one hand and\ncompetition on the other will be economy of means. That is why the\nnew age will, among other things, be an age of economy.\n\nIn the matter of food, chiefly, a great saving can be effected. Nothing\nis more painfully ludicrous--I use the incongruous collocution\nadvisedly--than the spectacle every winter of money being laboriously\naccumulated for the provision of free meals for the poor, and spent,\nto a great extent, so wastefully as on meat soups and white bread. The\ncrass ignorance of the poor, who will not touch wholemeal bread,\nand indeed regard the offer of it as something in the nature of\nan insult; and who cannot be induced to believe that meat is one\nof the least satisfactory and most expensive forms of nourishment,\nis of course responsible in great part for this error. If we would\nget our nitrogen from pulses, nuts, and use vegetable fats derived\nfrom nuts, and bread made from entire wheat-kernels finely ground\n(instead of being only half ground as in most \"brown breads\") [2]\nour \"free dinner\" charities would be able to feed at least twice\nor three times as many people for every pound collected as they do\nat present. But the proposal would probably excite an outcry and we\nshould hear that the poor were being treated as animals and that we\nfain would fill their bellies with the husks that the swine do eat. But\nall kinds of influences will tend to eliminate flesh from the dietary\nof the new age. \"Growing sentimentalism,\" already in arms against\nthe use of animals for highly necessary scientific investigations,\nwill, as it develops, be revolted by the idea of killing for food;\nand the refinement of the future will come to regard the eating of dead\nbodies as very little better than cannibalism. Moreover, the constantly\nincreasing demand of the new age upon bodily and nervous energies will\ncall for nourishment suited to their supply. This, and the wastefulness\nof second-hand food, will banish all flesh from the bill of fare. Fish\nwill be eaten longer than meat. But more than anything else, the need\nfor economy will reform our dinner-tables, and eventually all food\nwill have to be obtained directly from the soil, if we are to have\nfood enough to nourish our overgrown population at all. We shall not\nbe able to afford to waste the ground on pasturage. We must use it\nto produce cereals, nuts and fruits, which are not only a much more\nremunerative crop, but will also use up in their assimilation far\nless nervous and peptic energy--energy which we shall need to make\nthe most of. The cereal foods--products of wheat, barley, maize, and\nperhaps still (to a certain extent) oats--which will form the staple\nof our diet, will be partially cooked at the granaries by dry heat;\nthey will need very little treatment at home. Vegetables, cooked,\nnot in the wasteful manner now in vogue, but by conservative methods\nwhich will preserve their valuable saline constituents, will have to\nbe prepared in our own kitchens; but pulse in various forms (as pease,\nlentil flour, etc.) will be supplied to us almost wholly cooked. A\ncheap, nourishing and delicious dietary will thus be made available.\n\nFinally, the reader will not be unprepared for the opinion that\nalcohol, as a beverage, must inevitably disappear. Not only because the\nprice of intoxicants is an unproductive expenditure (and we shall have\nto be more and more thrifty as time goes on) but because the nerves of\nthe new age would never stand them, must all alcoholic beverages be\nregarded as destined to obsolescence: and the legislative aspect of\nthis question must presently be touched upon. Already a considerable\npart of the people, in no way influenced by the illogical idea that\nthe abuse of a commodity by one class calls for the abstention from\nit of another, refrains from alcohol simply because its use inflicts\ntoo great a strain on the system. A good many people even now find it\nnecessary to abstain from tea or from coffee for precisely similar\nreasons; while the highly-organised nervous systems of others find\nin the latter a stimulant capable of all the advantages of alcohol\n(and they are many) and not without some of its penalties. I think\nit quite likely that when alcohol is gone, the nerves of the future\nmay find it necessary to place the sale of tea and of coffee under\nrestrictions similar to those at present inflicted upon the trade\nin alcohol: and it is quite certain that morphia, cocaine, chloral,\nperhaps ether, and similar products, will have to be very jealously\nsafeguarded within the next few years.\n\nDiffering from many writers, I do not regard this development of\nthe nervous system as a mark of degeneration. On the contrary, it\nis a part of the great and rapid adaptation which is bound to take\nplace in the constitution of man himself [3] to the rapidly-changing\nconditions of his environment, his life, and the duties he will\nhave to fulfil. To overlook the certainty of such adaptations is to\nbe blind to all history, and especially to all recent history. The\nmen and women of the new age will differ from ourselves in much the\nsame sort of way as we differ from our great-grandfathers. They will\ndiffer more only because the progress of the century which we have\nlately begun will be so much more rapid and various than those of the\ncentury before--itself the period of enormously the greatest changes\nsince the world began to be civilised.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE MAN OF BUSINESS\n\n\nWhatever changes may take place in the organisation of society during\nthe present century, we may regard it as certain that the folk who\n\n\n    \"Rise up to buy and sell again\"\n\n\nwill be always with us. The man of business will possess many\nconveniences denied to the city man of to-day. It is, for instance,\nto be supposed that the inordinate defects of even the best\ntelephone systems will be eliminated. When wireless communication\nof ideas has been perfected, of course the telephone exchange\nwill disappear. Differential \"tuning\"--the process by which any\nwireless telephone will be able to be brought, as transmitter, into\ncorrespondence with any other wireless telephone, as receiver--will\nenable every merchant to \"call up\" every other merchant. Instead of,\nas at present, looking up his associate's number in the directory,\nand getting connected by the clumsy junction of wires at an exchange\noffice, the merchant will look up the tuning-formula, adjust his\nown telephone to it, and ring a bell, or otherwise employ means\nfor attracting the attention of the man he wants to speak to. As\na great proportion of all the business transacted will be done\nby telephones the frequent occurrence of disputes as to what has\nor has not been said in a given conversation will have rendered\nsafeguards necessary. Consequently, every telephone will be attached\nto an instrument, developed from the phonograph, which will record\nwhatever is said at both ends of the line. Precautions will have to\nbe devised against eavesdropping. After communication is established,\nprobably both parties to a conversation will retune their instruments\nto a fresh pitch, which, in cases requiring special secrecy, could\nbe privately agreed upon beforehand.\n\nThe form which the records above suggested will ultimately assume\nmust be a matter of conjecture. It is quite possible that the written\nword may in all departments of life lose some of its present vital\nimportance. We may imagine, if we choose, that instead of creating\nrecords which can be read, we may find it advisable to create records\nthat can be listened to: and some of the apparent inconveniences of\nthis substitution may easily be supposed to be dispensed with. The\nhandiness of a written memorandum is largely a matter of habit. A\npractised eye can \"skim\" a long document, and either through the\nuse of black-type headlines, or by pure skill, alight upon exactly\nthe passage required; and if it were necessary, in order to find\na given passage, to listen to the whole document being read over\nby the recording phonograph, no doubt much time would be lost. We\nshall not be so extremely intolerant of loss of time, perhaps, in\nthe new age, as some people imagine: but in any case, if the speed\nof the phonograph be imagined as adjustable, it will be perceived\nthat we could then make it gabble parrotwise over the inessential,\nand let it linger with more deliberation over what we wanted to\nassure ourselves of. We could even \"skip\" useless portions--one can\ndo this with phonographs already in use. Probably such aural records\nmay be made capable of acceptance in courts of law, and the maxim\nverbum auditum manet will take the place of a well-known proverb\nof our day. Very likely business letters may some day take the form\nof conveniently-shaped tablets, made of some plastic material, and\ncapable of being utilised by means of a talking machine.\n\nOr if these changes seem too chimerical, we may essay the more\ndifficult task of conceiving a means by which the spoken word may be\ndirectly translatable into print or typewriting. The waste of time and\nenergy entailed by the present plan of dictating what we want to say\nto a stenographer or into a phonograph, for subsequent transcription,\nrenders some sort of improvement urgently needful; nor are these wastes\nthe only grievance, as the introduction of a second personality into\nthe operation of recording speech introduces a simultaneous possibility\nof error, and an outrageous waste of time is caused by the necessity\nof reading over what one has dictated laboriously to a stenographer or\ninto a phonograph, to make sure that it is correctly transcribed. It\nis obviously a much more difficult matter to translate speech directly\ninto printed words than to translate it into something which may again\nproduce the sounds of speech. The first step would be the invention of\nsomething which would print a phonetic representation of speech--as,\nfor instance, shorthand of the kind invented by Sir Isaac Pitman. Even\nthis requires us to imagine machinery of a kind whose very rudiments do\nnot at present exist. Indeed, we can only conceive such an instrument\nby the use of the supposition that some entirely new manipulation\nof sound-waves will be discovered; and if we conceive that, there\nis no particular reason why we should hesitate before the notion of\nspeech directly translated into print such as we use in everyday\nlife. If we are going to limit the possibilities of the future by\nthe actual achievements of the present, we shall certainly fall short\nof any adequate notion of what a hundred years' accelerated progress\nmay be capable of: and I do not see wherein the direct reproduction\nsuggested is any more inconceivable than, for example, telephony, or\neven photography, must have been to a man of a hundred years ago. The\ngreatest danger attending our attempt to preconceive the amenities\nof the next century is that we may limit our expectations too narrowly.\n\nOn this ground, perhaps, I may be thought too cautious in assuming\nthat the present form of alphabetical writing and printing will\nsurvive at all. But there are two things which seem likely to give\nit permanence. The first, of course, is literature. If we adopt an\nentirely new form of writing and printing for general use, we must\neither set to work to translate all our literature into it, thereby\nprobably losing some formal beauties which the culture of the world\nwill not consent to sacrifice; or we must make up our minds to use\n(as the Japanese do at present) two kinds of writing concurrently;\nand the difficulty of overcoming the vast inertia of the human mind\n(which alone still suffices to exclude from English commerce so\nobviously convenient an innovation as decimal coinage) will probably\nnegative this. This inertia is the second consideration likely to\ngive permanence to our present form of English alphabetical writing.\n\nHowever this may be, the convenience of direct wireless telephony\nwill certainly, when supplemented by records of whatever kind, greatly\nfacilitate commerce. The tedious process of writing a letter, posting\nit, and awaiting the reply, at present persisted in chiefly because it\nis so necessary to have some sort of documentary evidence of what has\npassed, will be largely dispensed with when we can secure an automatic\nrecord of what we say. Nearly everything will be done by word of mouth.\n\nThe great inconvenience, apart from the absence of record, which\nattaches to transactions or negotiations by telephone at the present\nday, is that a telephonic conversation is not nearly so satisfactory\nas a personal interview face to face. Gesture, attitude, the language\nof face and eyes, all do so much to elucidate communication in the\nlatter way, that we lose a great deal when we meet an associate at\nthe other end of a telephone wire. Well, the telephone of the new\nage will remove this drawback, or rather it will be supplemented by\nsomething which will do so. This invention, not at all difficult\nto imagine, I will call provisionally the teleautoscope. It will\nno doubt have some name equally barbarous. The teleautoscope can be\nexplained in a single sentence. It will be an instrument for seeing by\nelectricity. Whatever is before the transmitting teleautoscope will be\nvisible before the receiving teleautoscope wirelessly en rapport with\nthe former. Thus by telephone, by phonograph, and by teleautoscope,\na wireless conversation will combine all the advantages of a personal\ninterview and a written correspondence.\n\nNo doubt the post-office system of this country, despite occasional\nlapses, is as nearly perfect as any human institution, in the present\nstate of society, can be reasonably expected to be. But it is equally\ncertain that in so far as postal communication is required at all in\nthe new age it will have to be vastly improved both as to speed and\nprecision, compared with what we now, sometimes rather thanklessly,\nenjoy. For instance, that impatient age will certainly not tolerate the\ninconvenience of having to send out to post its letters and parcels,\nor the tardiness of having these articles sorted and passed on for\ndelivery only at intervals of half an hour or so. We may take it for\ngranted that every well-equipped business office will be in direct\ncommunication, by means of large-calibred pneumatic tubes, with the\nnearest post-office. And however rapidly and however frequently the\ntrains or airships of the period may travel, the process of making\nup van loads of mail matter for despatch to remote centres, and\nredistribution there, is far too clumsy for what commerce will demand\na hundred years hence. No doubt the soil of every civilised country\nwill be permeated by vast networks of pneumatic tubes: and all letters\nand parcels will be thus distributed at a speed hardly credible to-day.\n\nAlready every bank of any importance probably uses calculating\nmachines. It is not likely that the fatiguing and uncertain process of\nhaving arithmetical calculations of any sort performed in the brains\nof clerks will survive the improvements of which these machines\nare capable. Account books, invoices, and all similar documents\nwill doubtless be written by a convenient and compendious form of\ncombined calculating machine and typewriter, which we may suppose to be\ncalled the numeroscriptor. It will, of course, be capable of writing\nanywhere--on a book or on a loose sheet, on a flat surface or on an\nirregular one. It will make any kind of calculation required. Even such\noperations as the weighing and measurement of goods will all be done by\nautomatic machinery, [4] capable of recording without any possibility\nof error the quantity and values of goods submitted to its operation.\n\nNaturally transport will be the subject of something like\na renascence. So far as inland communication goes, the chief\ndifficulties to be overcome already call loudly for amendment. We\ncannot for more than a decade or so make do with the present railway\ntracks, and either (as already hinted) by means of some invention\nto enable trains to run one above another, or by some entirely new\ncarrying device such as I will now try to suggest, the new age will\ncertainly supersede or supplement the transport of to-day.\n\nThe device most likely to be adopted, in the near future at all\nevents, is something in the nature of elevated trottoirs roulants\nfor goods. If we can conceive all the cities of a country to be\nlinked-up by a system of great overways, we have at all events a\nfeasible solution of the difficulty. There could be a double row of\ntall, massive pillars, between which could run a wide track, always in\nmotion at considerable speed. It need not be a lightning speed. Most\nof the tardiness of railway transportation does not, in this country\nat all events, arise from slowness of trains, but from congestion at\ngoods stations, and this in turn is due, partly to insufficiency of\nrolling stock, but much more to insufficiency of permanent way. The\nlatter evil is very difficult to cope with. But the system of moving\nways, providing a rolling stock equal in length to the line itself,\nwill be a great saving. Returning upon itself the endless track will\ncontinuously transport merchandise in both directions. Elevators,\nsuitably placed, will give access to it wherever needed. Probably the\nmotive power will be electrical: and we may confidently anticipate\nentirely new sources of electricity. It is obviously clumsy to\ncreate power in the first instance, convert power into electricity\n(I use popular language), and then convert electricity back again into\npower. Much more hopeful than any idea of developing that method would\nbe the conception of new ways of creating and applying motive-power\ndirectly. But, almost certainly, electricity, obtained in some new\nway, will do the work of the world for many generations yet--until,\nin fact, we devise or discover something more convenient.\n\nIt will have been perceived that nearly every improvement and\ninnovation above sketched out involves, and will be indeed designed\nto effect, great saving of labour. With such economies, and an\nincreased population, there is evidently going to be a difficulty\nabout employment.\n\nMoreover, the great facilities enjoyed by commerce will tend to make\ncommerce extremely powerful. Already great organisers of business begin\nto evade competition by combining in vast \"trusts,\" whose tendency\nis to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. There is a further\ncause for the aggrandisement of the large trader and manufacturer at\nthe expense of the petty retail dealer. More and more every year the\nunprogressive methods of small shopkeepers foster the success of large\nmultiple retailers. But it is likely that retail businesses, whether\ngreat or small, will ultimately tend to be eliminated. Manufacturers\nand trust companies will supply the public directly. What, then, will\nbe the solution of the great social difficulties about to be created?\n\nThe answer is, that these difficulties, and especially the developments\nabove confidently predicted for a future comparatively near, are\nprobably transient in their nature. It is not yet the time to discuss\npolitical questions: but the problem here directly raised demands a\nfew words of reassurance from the professed optimist.\n\nThere can be no doubt of the great social and political dangers\ninvolved in so enormous an aggrandisement of the commercial and\nmanufacturing class as we shall most of us live to witness. What is\ncalled the problem of the unemployed grows every year more difficult\nand less obviously hopeful. Moreover, the concentration of great\nwealth in a few hands is in itself a political danger, even apart\nfrom the fact that it implies widespread impoverishment. There are\ndangers of corrupt legislation, for instance, and other dangers too.\n\nBut there will be another great force at work in which may be foreseen\nthe solution of many difficulties beside this. When public education\nbecomes rationalised; when it is employed chiefly as a means of\ncharacter-making; when the universal education of mankind has the\neffect of turning out men and women capable of thinking, and not\nmerely of remembering, the teeming population of the working class will\nbegin to exercise an intelligent influence on the legislature--which\nat present it certainly cannot be said to do. And one thing which\nthe intelligently-elected Parliaments of the new age will assuredly\ndiscover is this principle: that it is not good for the State that\nany one man, or any one associated body of men, should possess an\ninordinate amount of wealth. [5]\n\nOnce this principle is discovered and acted upon; once it is illegal\nfor any person or corporation to be seised of more than a certain fixed\ncapital; the dangers of inconvenient aggrandisement will vanish. Nor\nis this principle in any way unprogressive or injurious to the\ncommonwealth. It is, in fact, not even injurious to the individuals\naffected. No reasonably-enlightened being can pretend that a sensible\nhardship would be inflicted on millionaires by being forbidden to\npile Pelion upon Ossa in their present insane manner. A very rich man,\ncompelled to desist from the accumulation of wealth, and consequently\ndriven to the task of finding out how to enjoy it intelligently, would\nbe almost infinitely better off for this constraint. The effect of the\nordinance for the limitation of wealth will be to remove all temptation\nto concentrate manufactures in a few hands. It will open the doors\nshut by trust companies on competition. It will multiply factories of\nmoderate and convenient size: and one other effect of it will be to\nimprove many manufacturing processes in themselves. There are a great\nmany things which can be cheaply turned out in uniform batches, every\narticle exactly the counterpart of every other, hideous in economical\nuniformity, because they all emanate from one or two great factories,\nwhich, if the manufacture of them were distributed over a number of\nsmall factories, would, from this circumstance alone, and from the\nstress of wholesome competition, be greatly improved. Probably many\nindustries, desirable in themselves, but driven out of successful\nbeing by our present system of concentrated manufacturing, would\nrevive. Crafts of what we call regretfully the good old kinds would\nspring up, rejuvenated: cheap uniformity would cease to be the\nprincipal ideal of manufacture. The people would be able to afford\nagreeable furniture, utensils, decorations, and household goods of\nall kinds, where they now have to put up with horrible but cheap\nmakeshifts. For one great advantage of the ordinance just predicted\nmust not be lost sight of. When you restrain the rich from becoming\ninordinately richer, you concurrently save the poor from being made\nproportionately poorer. This ideal, it should be remarked, is in no\nsense socialistic. It is, on the contrary, the natural development\nof individualism.\n\nHardly less certain is it that before the beginning of the twenty-first\ncentury all manufactures and all commerce will be co-operative, the\nworkers in every industry being paid, not by fixed wages, but by a\nshare in the produce of their labour. Instead of the profit of all\ntrade and manufacture being secured to the managers and owners of\nlands, machinery, transport and other commercial utilities; while\nlabour, the equally necessary and indeed the preponderant element\nof production, is reckoned as a mere element of cost, in the form\nof wages; the profit will be shared all round. The more prosperous\nthe enterprise, the more money the workers will receive. No man\nwill be able to grow rich by sweating his workmen. Neither will\nthe present degrading temptation for every workman to perform his\ntask as perfunctorily and as lazily as he can, so long as he does\nnot get dismissed from work altogether, survive this reform. On the\ncontrary, it will be directly worth every man's while to do his work\nas well as he possibly can. The dignity of labour--a phrase now justly\nmocked--will become an elevating and delightful practicality. A great\nmany articles of everyday use will be better made than it is possible\nto get them made to-day. The spectacle of the producers of wealth\nherding in squalid cabins, clothed in the rags of cast-off clothing,\neating garbage, enjoying nothing but intoxication, will give way to\na more wholesome and natural state of affairs. Nor will the owners of\nmachinery, of factories and the like long oppose this development. What\nare called labour-troubles will cease to exist when the interest of\nemployer and employed is identical. The problem of the unemployed will\nsolve itself. Leisure, and an opportunity to employ leisure wisely,\nwill have been bestowed upon the poor as well as we have seen that\nit will be bestowed upon the rich. A man will have no need to spend\npractically all the unfatigued hours of every day at the bench, the\nloom, or the lathe. He will want recreation. While one batch of men\nis seeking this there will be an opportunity for other batches to\nwork. And work itself, once it is work for an intelligent objective,\nonce it is work that there is a comprehensible reason for trying to\nexecute as well as it can possibly be executed, will lose much of\nits irksomeness--to the vast improvement alike of the product and\nthe producer.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE CULT OF PLEASURE\n\n\nCertain predictions in the foregoing chapter will have suggested to\nall who accept them that the cultivation of pleasure must occupy a\nlarge part of the energy of the new age. From the moment when men,\nsufficiently astute and purposeful to accumulate enormous fortunes\nif they were permitted to do so, are required by law to desist from\nuseless and injurious money-getting, a vast amount of ingenuity will\nbe diverted to the development of the useless. The skill expended upon\nmoney-making--and let it be admitted frankly that, however unscrupulous\none may be, it is not easy to become a millionaire--will be turned to\nthe task, almost equally difficult, of spending it satisfactorily. We\nmay consider it as practically certain that the pleasures of the\nnew age will be largely intellectual in their nature. The stupidity\nof merely sensual pleasures will revolt the intelligence of the\nfuture. Athletic sports of some kind, facilitated by certain inventions\nwhich can easily be foreseen, will no doubt be a source of much\nenjoyment, though the growing gentleness of mankind will abolish, as\nbarbarous, games which take the form of modified assault, as football,\nboxing, wrestling, fencing and the like. We shall certainly acquire a\ngreat distaste for fighting in any form when growing humanitarianism\nshall have put an end to war--a development which may confidently be\npredicted for the present century. Similarly--\"Am I God, to kill and\nto make alive?\"--we shall cease to take life for our amusement; as,\nfor sentimental and other reasons, it has been shown that we shall\ncease to kill for food.\n\nWhat then will be our games? One of the most likely instruments\nof sport will no doubt be the small flying-machine. It is not in\nthe least probable, so far as can at present be foreseen, that\npurely a\u00ebrial and self-directed vehicles for purposes of travel\nor transportation will be a feature of the new civilisation. The\ndangers and inconvenience of large a\u00ebrostats are less accidents of\nimperfect invention than inherent difficulties of the subject. It is\nvery probable that some means of propelling self-supported vehicles\nbetween guideways may be discovered. But, as it is not at all likely\nthat any means of suspending the effect of air-resistance can ever be\ndevised, a flying-machine must always be slow and cumbersome. Travel\nand transportation, to be attractive in the new age, must be rapid in\nthe extreme. Ships no doubt will skim the surface of the sea instead\nof resting upon it. But air-ships are not very likely to be anything\nbut a sort of vast toy, within, at all events, the next hundred years.\n\nBut, as a means of amusement, the idea of a\u00ebrial travel has great\npromise. Small one-man flying-machines, or the a\u00ebrial counterpart\nof tandem bicycles, will no doubt be common enough. We shall fly for\npleasure; and just as thousands of working men and women now take a\nSaturday-afternoon spin on a bicycle, so they will go for a sky-trip,\nand visit interesting mountain-tops for (non-alcoholic) picnics. The\nbicycle or the motor-cycle will perhaps be the point of development. It\nis quite certain that within the next ten or fifteen years some means\nwill have been discovered by which we can ride on a single wheel. The\nsaving of weight thus effected will go a long way towards surmounting\nthe flight problem. Then, when motor-unicycles are presently propelled\nby force transmitted (in the same way as Marconi's telegrams) from a\nfixed power-house, the difficulty of flight will be within sight of\nan easy solution. Any competent mechanician of the present day could\ndesign a flying-machine if the mere weight of the motive appliance\ncould be overcome. When the motor is fixed on terra firma, and the\nvehicle only needs to carry a device for utilising the \u00e6theric waves\nwhich the source of power wirelessly transmits, flight will be at\nleast as simple a matter as wireless telegraphy is to-day.\n\nWhen it is possible to cross the Atlantic in a day by means of\nsurface-riding ships, propelled, like the flying-machines, by\n\u00e6theric force, the field of amusement will be vastly increased,\nand although (as I shall show) it will no longer be necessary to\ntravel in order to \"see the sights\" of any part of the world, the\npleasure of being present at the actual events of life in different\ncountries will probably never pall. So long as any parts of the world\nremain comparatively unfamiliar, young men and maidens will love\ntravel. When it is possible, wrapped in warm woollens and provided\nwith portable heating-appliances, to pay a short visit to the Arctic\ncircle and enjoy the matchless spectacle of the Aurora Borealis amid\nthe awe-compelling obscurities of the Polar night: when, with even\nless inconvenience, we can take a trip to the tropics and witness,\nhere the unchangeable processes of Nature's luxuriance, there the\nperhaps immutable conservatism of the East, the new leisure of the\ncoming time will have great stores of recreation for those happy\nenough to live in the dawning twenty-first century.\n\nThe more distinctively intellectual pleasures of the new age will\nbe much subserved by one class of invention, of which the rudiments\nalready exist. By means of the phonograph we are able, not very\nperfectly, to reproduce as often as we desire sounds created in\nfavourable circumstances. By various kinds of kinetoscope we can\nreproduce a rudimentary sort of picture of an event which has taken\nplace in a good light. But when the phonograph has been developed, when\nmoving pictures have been perfected, what a vast implement of amusement\nmay be foreseen! Each of these inventions is comparatively new. If\nwe imagine the discovery of means, developed from the phonograph,\nby which any sounds which have once existed in the presence of a\nrecording machine can be reproduced at will, not in a makeshift sort\nof way, but without any loss of timbre and quality, with perfect\narticulation where articulation is necessary, with exactly correct\ntime-regulation automatically determined by the first enunciation, and\nall this cheaply and compendiously, what vast resources of cultured\nenjoyment are offered to the lover of music! How many people, denied\nthe pleasure of learning to understand good music by the difficulties\nand exertion attendant upon our infrequent and expensive concerts,\nwill become true lovers and appreciators of it! For music is only to\nbe really enjoyed by the average man when it is repeatedly heard,\nrepeatedly considered. Certainly the people of the new age will be\nepicures of the emotions which comprehended music is so nobly capable\nof stirring.\n\nNo doubt the new age will have solved, in a far more satisfactory\nway than we have been able to solve as yet, the problem of chromatic\nphotography. When colour influences photographic plates or some\ncontrivance substituted for them, not indirectly by a mechanical\nsorting-out of tints, but by affecting directly the optical\nproperties of the plates or whatever may succeed plates, we shall\nhave marvellously accurate pictures. [6]\n\nNor is this all. The kinetoscope, as at present exhibited under\nvarious unpleasing names, is imperfect in two ways: first because\nit is powerless to reproduce colour, and secondly because it gives\nat best a mere magic-lantern picture violently out of focus, and by\nits pulsatory motion horribly distressing to the eyes. Chromatic\nphotography will overcome the former difficulty. When we find out\nhow to increase greatly the receptive rapidity of photographic\nemulsion without spoiling what photographers call the \"grain\" of\nit; or when we have improved, as we every year are improving, the\noptical qualities of lenses, we shall be able to have our pictures\nin focus. The distressing flicker of moving pictures is an objection\npurely mechanical in its cause. But when, as they will be in a few\nyears, all these objections except the first have been removed, and\neven when we have colour-photography in a true sense of the word,\nthere will still remain one field to conquer. We must have, instead of\nmoving pictures, something which represents all objects as solid. The\ndifference is the difference between an ordinary photograph and a\nhighly-improved stereoscopic picture magnified to life-size. When\nthese advantages are attained it will be possible to represent,\nexactly as it happened, any event which has been suitably photographed.\n\nThe utility of this as a means of intelligent amusement will be at once\nperceived. Imagine the theatre of the future. Probably it will not be\nbeyond the means of the rich, even when restrained from over-possession\nas it is evident that they must be, to have theatre-rooms in their own\nhouses. But the masses will no doubt go to the theatre much as they do\nnow. Only instead of seeing a company of actors and actresses, more or\nless mediocre, engaged in the degrading task of repeating time after\ntime the same words, the same gestures, the same actions, they will\nsee the performance of a complete \"star\" company, as once enacted at\nits very best, reproduced as often as it may be wanted, the perfected\nkinetoscope exhibiting the spectacle of the stage, the talking machine\nand the phonograph (doubtless differentiated) rendering perfectly the\nvoices of the actors and the music of the orchestra. There will be\nno need for the employment of inferior actors in the small parts. As\nthe production of any play will only demand that it be worked up to\nthe point of perfection and then performed once, there will be no\ndifficulty in securing the most perfect rendering that it is capable\nof. The actor's art will be immensely elevated, not only by his\nrelief from the drudgery of repeated performance and by the leisure\nthus afforded him for study and reflection, but also by the removal\nof what is keenly felt by all players of sensibility and ambition as\none of the greatest drawbacks of the stage. We are accustomed to the\nactor's complaint that whereas the author, the sculptor, the painter,\nthe composer of music, makes for himself a fame imperishable as the\nproducts of his art, the actor frets his hour and disappears from\nthe stage, to be promptly forgotten by an ungrateful public. Well,\nthe actor's art, like the art of the executant musician, will have the\nendowment of permanency. And there will be a magnificent opportunity\nfor the actor as artist, in that he will be able to compare himself\nand his fellows with the actors who are dead and can act no more. It\nis probably true that Irving is the greatest actor since Garrick,\nbut who can prove it? The actor's art is transient to-day: it will\nbe permanent, it will be classical, in the next century. By this fact\nnot only will the pleasures of the theatre be made cheap, convenient\nand varied, but the art of the theatre will be vastly improved.\n\nJust as the actor will be spared the drudgery of mechanical, parrotlike\nrepetition, so the indifferent maidens of the new age will have no\nneed to waste their time in learning to play upon musical instruments\nmore or less imperfectly. No doubt some who are not professional\nmusicians will do so for their own pleasure. But the professional\nexecutant himself will cease, like the actor, to rank as a sort of\nsuperior harlequin or performing animal, exhibiting his powers for\nthe diversion of an assembled public. What he has once played can,\nif he choose, be constantly repeated. The executant will be paid by\na royalty on each reproduction, when he is wise. Less prudent artists\nwill sell their records for a lump sum, just as the unthrifty author\nsells his copyrights. But let it be noted that, on the assumption\nthat the reproduction is perfect, the evolution above predicted\nis a highly artistic one. Instead of the executant or singer being\njudged by his performance on an occasion when fatigue, illness or\nunfavourable circumstances may militate against his perfect success,\nwhen the nerve-shattering conditions of the platform probably in any\ncase offend his susceptibilities and detract from the perfection of\nhis performance, he will be able to found his reputation upon the\nvery best performance he is capable of. He will be able to try and\ntry again in the privacy of his study. When he has satisfied himself,\nand then alone, will he publish his artistic effort to the world. He\ncan destroy as many unsatisfactory records as he pleases, just as\nthe sculptor can break up his clay when he has not succeeded, just\nas the painter can paint out his picture when it has not pleased him,\nand be judged only by his best.\n\nIt would be ignoring the most obvious characteristics of mankind to\nsuppose that the pleasures of the new age will be limited to a mere\nmechanical development of those which we enjoy at present. There\ncan be no doubt that new delights will be invented. With a general\nimprovement in intelligence and in the standard of comfort; with a\nmoneyed class compelled, by the enactments which we have imagined, to\nenjoy a considerable accession of leisure; with conditions which will,\nas we have hoped, reduce materially the necessary hours of labour\nfor the worker; with some of the most engrossing amusements of the\npresent age abolished for sentimental reasons; we may take it for\ngranted that a great demand for new recreations will develop. Some\nof these considerations might easily give us pause. We might perhaps\nfear that vice--either the extension of existing vices or (if that\nindeed be possible) the invention of new ones--might be a terrifying\nproblem of the next century, if we had not foreseen, concurrently\nwith the other developments anticipated, a marked moral improvement\nin human nature. There is in the calculations of the pessimist and\nthe reactionary no fallacy more mischievous than the oft-recited\naphorism that human nature is the same in all places and at all\ntimes. That is precisely what human nature is not. Spectacles which\ndelighted ancient Rome would revolt modern civilisation. Spectacles\nwhich are still keenly enjoyed in Spain would revolt England or the\nUnited States, and probably awaken the activity of the police. Human\nmorality has demonstrably advanced in historic time: it has very\nperceptibly advanced, as I showed in an earlier chapter, [7] during\nthe nineteenth century. But the improvement in this respect which the\nnext hundred years will show must, in all human probability, greatly\nexcel that of the past time. And thus, though a sane and reasonable\nanticipation will not exclude the possibility of regrettable accidents\nin the future moral history of mankind, it will also regard them as\nprobably transient. The vices regarded as incident to complicated\ncivilisations have perhaps been too hastily considered by despairing\nmoralists. Vice is essentially stupid. It is only in occasional, in\nsporadic instances that we are presented with the terrible spectacle\nof great intelligences depraved by gross immorality and animalism:\nand even then, this combination is only possible where a high degree\nof culture is in contact with a widespread unintelligence. Most likely\nit will be found, when the abstract laws of vice come to be mapped out\nwith more exactness than, so far as I am aware, they have yet been,\nthat the degeneracies and immoralities of greatly-civilised ages are\nin reality only the product of luxury seated upon degradation. The\nFrench moralists of the eighteenth century had a glimmering of this\nin their idyllic pictures of reformed society, when the old morality\nof the simple life was to return with the abolition of oligarchic\nsplendour and popular misery.\n\nIn one direction we may see means by which intelligent\nrecreation may be supposed capable of vast developments. Already\nthe study of the psychical side of man has been the means of\nextraordinary discoveries. Our knowledge of hypnotism, suggestion,\nthought-transference and similar psychological wonders, obscured though\nit has unhappily been by charlatanism and the importation into the\nsubject of irrelevant follies, has great promise for the future man,\nwhose psychical faculties will unquestionably develop at the expense of\nhis animal instincts. It is hardly possible to limit our conception of\nthe means by which thought will be communicated in the next century,\nbut we may see just where the change will probably come. A printed\nessay, such as this, is obviously a successive translation of thought\ninto words (in the brain), then of the words into letters, and then of\nletters into type, which is picked up by the eye, retranslated into\nwords by one part of the brain, and finally transmuted into thought\nagain in another part. If some method can be discovered of abolishing\none or more of these processes, thought can be conveyed from brain to\nbrain at an enormously increased pace, and with a delicacy of which we\nhave no present conception. This development is not so inconceivable\nas it at first appears. We know as yet almost nothing of the processes\nby which (for instance) vibration, accepted by the ear as sound, is,\nin the brain-cells behind the ear, converted into thought. Speech\nand writing are purely conventional devices. If, instead of using\nthese conventions, we can learn to transmit ideas immediately from\nbrain to brain, the next step may be an extraordinary development of\nintellectual pleasures, in the case of those individuals whose tastes\nare capable of thus being ministered to. But to say this is not to\nimply that the ordinary means of human intercommunication will be\ndispensed with. For most occasions, and for all but the subtlest and\nmost refined necessities of thought, no doubt books, newspapers and\nletters will remain a feature of everyday life--though of course with\nsuch modifications as the progress of the century will have called\nforth. The future of the newspaper in particular is a subject of such\ngreat importance that it requires to be discussed in detail.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE NEWSPAPER OF THE FUTURE, AND THE FUTURE OF THE NEWSPAPER\n\n\nSuspending, as hardly within the bounds of manageable conjecture, any\nattempt to follow up the suggestion with which the previous chapter\nconcluded, we can very easily imagine the lines on which newspapers\nsuch as we know are likely to develop mechanically. A number of\nprocesses already existing in embryo can be shown to be capable of\nvery great extension; and several discoveries which an intelligent\nanticipation is capable of predicting could, and doubtless will,\nbe applied to journalism.\n\nTo foresee the future of the newspaper on what may be called the\neditorial side is a much more difficult task, because we have here to\ntake into account the influence of the developed and rationalised\neducation of the people, which is certain to demand very great\nchanges. Daily newspapers of the present moment are in a more or less\ntransitional state. It can hardly, I think, be denied that the papers\nwhich enjoy the greatest popularity exhibit retrogression in many\nrespects when compared with the best newspapers of twenty-five years\nago. But they are much more widely and popularly read. The collective\ninfluence of their largely-extended circulations is no doubt very\ngreat, though the influence of the newspaper on the individual is\nless, and is attained in a different way. The old newspapers aimed,\nand the survivors of their class still aim, at an influence based on\nargument. They used to report events, speeches and movements of their\nage more or less colourlessly, and to comment upon these things more\nor less one-sidedly, according to their respective political bias. They\nwere ponderous, cultured, dignified, and a trifle dull. When an adverse\nstatesman made a speech which they did not like, they reported it\nfaithfully, and tore it to pieces in the formidable middle pages. The\nleading article was their most important weapon: they sought their\nchief effect by its means. But the day of the leading article is nearly\nended. The newspaper of the early--perhaps the immediate--future will\nalmost certainly dispense with leading articles altogether, and be\nmuch more a news-carrier than an educator. It will attack adverse\nopinion by simply not reporting it. It will sometimes, no doubt,\nminimise facts unfavourable to its political side by garbling them. But\nleading articles had a useful function not yet mentioned--that of\nexplaining the news-columns. Things which the ordinary (but fairly\nintelligent) newspaper-reader was likely to have forgotten, or to be\nignorant of, were (and still are, where leading articles worthy of the\nname exist) explained and amplified. In the newspaper of the future,\nlittle paragraphs having the same purpose will no doubt be, as they\nalready begin to be, tacked on to the ends of news-items: and so far\nas comment continues to be given at all, on such matters as political\nspeeches from the enemy, it will be given in this form. Speeches\nfrom the newspaper's own side will not require comment. Newspaper\nspace will have too many demands upon it to permit of a statesman's\narguments being first printed semi-verbatim (actual verbatim reporting\nhardly exists even now) and then marshalled forth all over again in\neditorials. Whatever attempt is made to influence opinion through\npolitical reporting will be made by selective processes. The arguments\nof the adversary will be simply suppressed.\n\nAlthough the old newspaper was really a much more intelligent affair\nthan the popular dailies of the present decade--and it is chiefly\nof daily papers that I am now speaking--it is not very likely that a\nreversion will take place. It is a curious feature of all progress,\nthat however much an existing institution may be perceived to be\nretrograde in comparison with older institutions, reversion hardly ever\noccurs. We adapt and modify what we have. We do not revive what we have\nlost. And the regeneration of the newspaper will be forced upon the\nnewspaper-office by the development of public intelligence. Comment\nwill probably during the next few decades be eliminated from daily\njournalism altogether, and confined to serious weekly publications,\nsomewhat on the lines of our monthly reviews, and to other publications\nsummarising the latter, like the present Review of Reviews, perhaps\nthe most useful periodical now being issued, with the single exception\nof The Times. Thus the daily newspaper will be entirely a vehicle\nfor the propagation of news, correctly so called: and very likely\nit will become almost entirely colourless, politically, because a\nwell-informed public will resent obvious garbling or clearly unfair\nselection. The newspaper reader will no longer (as now) want only to\nhear what is said on a side more or less emotionally and hardly at\nall reflectively embraced. He will want to know what is said on all\nsides, and will make up his own mind, instead of swallowing whole the\nprinted opinions, real or momentarily assumed, of other people. Thus,\nthough the frantic popular paper of to-day will no doubt increase\nand multiply, and replenish its circulation books, as long as the\npresent system of blind half-education survives, the newspaper which\nsatisfies the new age will be a very different affair. It will no\ndoubt discard many of the trivialities now reported as news, when a\nblack woman of Timbuctoo could hardly bring forth four piccaninnies\nat a birth without the fact getting into the halfpenny London papers;\nbut it will record the really important news in ways far more graphic,\nand with a far more complete appeal to the imagination, than we have\nas yet any but the vaguest notion of.\n\nThe news considered most important a hundred years hence will probably\nbe news as to developments of public opinion. It is hardly conceivable\nthat exactly the methods of Government which exist at present will\nsatisfy the developed consciousness of the new time: and most likely\nthe methods then adopted for the ascertainment of public opinion,\nand the machinery devised for giving it administrative effect,\nwill create subject-matter for a type of journalism of which the\nvery perceptible rudiments, though still nothing but the rudiments,\nalready exist. If I am right in expecting great results to flow from\nnew ideas and practice in our educational system, it is certain that\nthe notion of political freedom will greatly extend its effect:\nand the unavoidable corollary is that movements of public thought\nwill become a matter of the very keenest journalistic interest and of\nthe very highest journalistic importance. The most probable means to\nbe adopted for giving effect, in the middle-distance of the future,\nto developed public feeling must be left for discussion in a later\nchapter: but when we perceive that the political duty of executing\nthe will of the people must constitute the paramount work of the\nconstitution-builder in the latter half of the present century,\nwe cannot fail to deduce a vast effect on newspapers.\n\nBroadly speaking, what will occur will be the result of clearer\nthinking. We shall very likely amend our political institutions after\nthe characteristic English manner, which is perhaps really the safest,\nthough it rather suggest the methods of a cobbler who repairs a boot\nby, from time to time, successively replacing sole, vamp, golosh and\nupper, until there remains a boot which is not a new boot, though it\ncontains none of the original boot's material. Our constitution has\nbeen built (to employ a better similitude) by a series of architects\nwho reconstruct and repair the old building, with a constant adhesion\nto as much of the old style as they can retain, and who will in the\nend present the people with a house entirely reconstructed, but bearing\nmarks all over it of the original design. We already begin to perceive\nthat what is regarded as political freedom at the present day has\ndeveloped from the entire tyranny of absolute monarchy, through the\nmodified tyranny of limited monarchies, still not wholly powerless,\nto the nearly absolute tyranny of parliaments. The last now begin to\ndelegate powers to local councils having administrative functions, and\nmust presently delegate them to local parliaments having legislative\nfunctions on some \"home-rule-all-round\" principle, not because\ndecentralisation is liked, but because the intolerable inconveniences\nof centralisation will make decentralisation inevitable. The more\nenergetic propagandists of various systems of constitutional reform\nnearly all agree in one respect: they all desire to set up some new\nkind of tyranny. Few--except the philosophical anarchists, who suffer\nfrom the opprobrium brought upon the name of anarchists by quite a\ndifferent set of thinkers--perceive that to endow with power any sort\nof machinery resting on the shifting will of a majority tends very\nlittle towards freedom and not at all towards stability--the latter\neven more important in some respects than the former. In proportion\nto the development of education (in nature even more than in extent),\nit is likely that the present blind faith of the public in the ability\nof the State to do almost anything, and the still blinder tendency\nof the public to require the State to do all sorts of things which\ncould be better accomplished otherwise, will diminish, and we shall\nperceive the enormous educational disadvantage of allowing the citizen\nto lean too heavily on the State. A public properly and sufficiently\neducated will, with enormous difficulty (because there is nothing\nso hard to get rid of as a bad habit of dependency), gradually\nundertake the task of doing for itself by free combination what at\npresent we try to get done for us by governmental machinery. One\nsees how this sort of thing is gradually evolving, in spite of the\nviolent efforts of politicians to shove the world backwards and\nkeep us walking on crutches instead of strengthening us to walk\nalone. Statutes determining the wages of labourers and the price\nof commodities are laughed at as examples of medi\u00e6val foolishness,\nthough (what is exactly the same thing in principle) Government still\ninterferes with the freights charged by railway companies, and indeed\nis obliged thus to interfere because it has already gone out of the\nright way by the powers it has granted to railway companies. The new\neducation--the education which builds character instead of merely\ndiffusing information (generally useless)--will teach us the far\ngreater advantages attaching to results attained by free combination,\nand the State will be relieved of many functions at present regarded\nas essential to it, and often sought to be increased.\n\nNow the working of free combination for the attainment of these\nresults would be almost impossible without the constant interchange\nof views which newspapers subserve, and without careful newsgathering\nas to the progress in detail of various schemes and of public opinion\nconcerning them.\n\nTo say that this kind of thing will constitute the most important class\nof news is not to imply that the public will develop an unintelligent\nindifference to news of other kind, though it is allowable to hope that\nit will develop an intelligent indifference to the trivialities at\npresent solemnly chronicled by the popular papers. It may be doubted\nwhether, even now, the public is quite so passionately interested in\nthe minuti\u00e6 of murder trials as editors imagine: but with invention\nsteadily moving on, and its consequences habitually developing in\nunexpected ways, there will be plenty of \"news\" to chronicle.\n\nOf course the one class of news which is at once the most expensive\nand the most helpful to a daily paper--I mean its individual\n\"exclusive\" war correspondence--will be done with by the end of this\ncentury. Remembering the rate of progress foreseen in the early part\nof this work [8] and the moral nature of that progress, we may take\nit as quite certain that war as an institution will be as obsolete\nas gladiators in the year 2000. Even if the increasing amenity of the\nhuman race did not abolish war, two other things would be certain to\ndo so. One is the enormous development, already clearly in sight,\nof the means of destruction: the other the revolt of the peoples\nagainst the stupendous cost, not merely or chiefly in time of war,\nbut also in time of peace, of modern armaments. The rising tide of\neducated democracy must inevitably banish war. We have lately, in\nour own South African experience, seen how crushingly expensive, how\nintolerably impoverishing, a tiny war can be: and all this is a mere\ntrifle compared with what it had cost us to be even very ill-prepared\nfor even such an insignificant combat. This kind of thing cannot go\non for very long and the peace of Dives [9] must soon be upon us.\n\nBut even while war still continues to recur it is likely that the\nnewspapers will have to sacrifice many of the advantages which they\nat present derive from the intense popular appetite for the details of\norganised death. The war-correspondent, when he can use the telegraph,\nis a great nuisance to commanders in the field, and the increasing\ndifficulties and importance of modern combat will have the effect,\neventually, of causing generals to forbid telegraphic communication\nfrom the field or its neighbourhood altogether, on account of the\ninformation, useful to an alert enemy, liable to find its way through\nthe wires. Consequently [10] war correspondence will be all under\nstrict censorship, and will take the form chiefly of written and\nphotographic descriptions, in a documentary form, probably conveyed\nby the organisation controlled by the fighting army itself. These may\nperhaps be telegraphed to the newspaper office from some intermediate\nport when the theatre of war is distant--for unquestionably we\nshall, before very long, be able to telegraph pictures quite as\neasily as words. And this brings us face to face with one of the\nmost interesting and important developments to be looked for in the\nvending of news. Beyond doubt, newspaper illustration will, in even the\nnear future, be the subject of great and, in fact, of revolutionary\nimprovement. Every daily paper will be copiously illustrated, and\nillustrated in colour. It is easy to foresee that before many years\nwe shall be able to photograph any object or scene in its natural\ncolours at one operation. We can already do so in three, and by the\nsame number of machinings we can reproduce such pictures in print,\nprovided we can afford to print slowly enough and on a sufficiently\nsmooth paper. The process is in its earliest infancy as yet. We shall\nultimately make it far more practicable. But even so, printing presses\nof the present sort are far too slow for newspaper use. A hundred\nyears hence magazines and weekly periodicals may perhaps still be\nprinted on greatly improved presses; but daily papers will be produced\nby photography alone. Already the R\u00f6ntgen rays will print a dozen or\nmore images at a time on superimposed sensitive papers. In the next\ncentury all that will be necessary in order to multiply type-matter\nand illustrations in any number of colours will be to place the\noriginal on a pile of paper and expose it to the rays of some source\nof energy, when the whole matter will be impressed upon every sheet,\nand this not by any mere contact of type and process-blocks with paper\n(which involves serious difficulties, owing to the interference of the\npaper-surface with the grain of the etched \"screen\") but by direct\naction of light, or of some influence taking the place of light,\nso that perfectly clear pictures will be produced. And news of all\nsorts will be the subject of this kind of illustration.\n\nWhat will happen will in detail be this. The teleautoscope [11] (the\ninstrument by which sight will be wirelessly telegraphed) will exhibit\nthe actual facts in every newspaper office from colour-photographs\ntaken on the spot. What it shows will be rephotographed and reproduced\nin colours.\n\nThe amount of verbal description needed will thus be much\ndiminished. Where an event can be long anticipated--when it is an\nevent like the Delhi Durbar or the christening of the Czarewitch,\nfor instance--elaborate preparations will be made, and very perfect\nresults published. And difficulties of merely photographic detail,\nwhich at present restrict rapid photography to events in full sunlight,\nhaving been overcome, and instantaneous photography by artificial\nlight having been made possible, such an event as an important\ntheatrical production in London will be pictorially reported in the\nNew York and San Francisco papers next morning. Where an event is of\nan unexpected character--such as a great fire, a riot, or some sudden\ncataclysm of Nature--the teleautoscope will still be employed with\ngreat advantage. Take, for instance, the case of some large public\nbuilding or some theatre destroyed by fire--though fires will not be\nso frequent in the new age as they are to-day. The local newspaper\nartists will select from their portfolios photographs of the building\nkept on hand for such occasions and get to work on them with paint-box\nand colours, depicting the progress of what they will perhaps still\ncling sufficiently to tradition to call the \"conflagration\"; and\nthey will transmit these efforts when it is not possible to transmit\nactual photographs of the event. And of course, when all is over, the\nruins will be photographed in colours from every desirable standpoint,\nand the descriptive photographer will, in a great measure, supplant\nthe penny-a-liner. Many pieces of news will doubtless be photographed\nfrom the small one-man air-carriages, the employment of which, as a\nmeans of recreation, we have already foreseen. [12]\n\nThe real \"news\" of the world will therefore be served up with far more\nvividness than even the most feverish present-day journalism dreams\nof, and the newspaper will be far more quickly \"read,\" because long\ndescriptive articles will have gone out of fashion, and a series of\npictures, occupying much more space, but apprehended by the mind with\nfar greater rapidity, will supply their place. Even in what remains\nof the printed word I think that great compression is probable. It\nmust be remembered that even in the best-educated parts of England\nwe are hardly through the first generation which universally knows\nhow to read, and already newspaper-English is taking on a character\nof its own, very different from the \"journalese\" of the old-fashioned\nreporters. By degrees a sort of slang, distinguished chiefly by brevity\nand conciseness, will evolve itself in the newspapers, especially\nthose published in large towns--though indeed it is quite evident that\nin a few years daily newspapers will be published nowhere else. This\nterse, quick language will, after a period of reprobation, be adopted\neven by the less progressive newspapers, at first shocked to tears\nof indignant printer's ink by the defilement of the mother tongue,\nand it will accelerate vastly the task of \"running through the paper,\"\na task which must, even in the less hurried manners which I foresee for\nthe future, be made as speedy as possible by the newspaper that would\nthrive and increase its circulation. Thus literature, already restive\nin an uncongenial wedlock, will finally obtain divorce from daily\njournalism. This does not mean that literature will perish. On the\ncontrary, it will develop. And the periodicals other than newspapers\nwill excel our own in merit of every sort. They will be permanent,\ndignified and, above all, literary. For with the education of the\npeople really carried to perfection, and with universal leisure,\nthe result of improved social arrangements even more than of improved\nmechanical processes, we shall have a demand for a really intelligent\nperiodical literature, for really artistic illustrations, which will\nmake it commercially possible to publish matter that only artificial\nendowment could support nowadays.\n\nAnd shall we be content with it? Certainly not; for the new age will\nstill be an age of progress, and the very perfection of the periodical\nPress will be the greatest of all stimulants to further effort.\n\nAlthough, in some of their characteristics, they will be greatly\nameliorated, advertisements may very likely still constitute\none ground of discontent with the newspaper of the future. They\nsometimes are, in the newspaper of to-day, the subject of complaint\nnot altogether reasonable, because if there were no advertisements\nthere could be no newspapers. At all events, without this powerful\nsource of revenue our newspapers could be neither so cheap nor so\nliberally conducted as they are; and all the economies of the new\nage will probably be insufficient to enable newspaper proprietors\nto dispense with them. The better and the more generously-conducted\nnewspapers are, the more money they spend in the careful collection,\nediting, printing and illustrating of public information, the more\ndependent they will become on the revenue from advertising, which\nis the sinew of journalism; and the more widely and attentively\nnewspapers are read, the greater will be the revenue they are able to\ncommand from this source. Moreover, they would be incomplete without\nthis feature. The unreflecting newspaper-reader, who anathematises\nhis favourite journal because its weight and bulk are increased by\nthe presence of advertisements which he does not want, seldom takes\ninto account the fact that there are plenty of his fellow-readers\nwho do want them, or some of them, and that he himself is often in\nthe same predicament. Thousands of copies of newspapers are bought\nevery day in order to consult advertisements which they are known\nto contain. A man who purposes to take his family to a concert often\nbuys The Daily Telegraph because he knows that The Daily Telegraph has\nmore concert announcements in it than any other paper, and that it is\nin fact a practically complete directory to all the current musical\nopportunities of the Metropolis. Another man, who wants a secretary,\nor a steward for his estate, probably orders The Times because he\nknows that the best class of secretaries and stewards advertise in\nThe Times for employment. One hardly goes to the theatre or buys a\nsupply of coals without looking at the daily paper for information;\nand assuredly this information is not inserted without being paid\nfor; in other words, it forms part of the advertisements. Deprived of\nnewspaper advertisements as a way of announcing its need of clerks,\nwarehousemen, labourers and assistants of all kinds, commerce, even\nif it could manage without advertisements of the sort more commonly\nthought of when the nuisance of them is being condemned, could hardly\nkeep up its organisation at all. Thus, so far from this feature of our\nnewspapers being a grievance, it is both directly and indirectly a boon\nto all who read them. And when we remember in addition that the cost\nof the paper and printing alone in a copy of most newspapers exceeds\nthe price at which each copy is sold by the proprietor, so that the\nwhole cost of newsgathering, the whole cost of editing, the fees of\ncontributors and artists, and the cost of pictures and engraving, as\nwell as the profit which induces persons to embark upon an enterprise\nso troublesome and precarious as newspaper-publishing, must be obtained\nfrom the cost of advertisements and from this alone, we cannot doubt\nthat the enormously developed newspaper of a hundred years hence will\n\"give us bold advertisement,\" even as now, and that our descendants\nwill have the intelligence to be very glad that it does so.\n\nThis being unquestionable, we can hardly think that we have made a\ncomplete forecast of the newspaper of the future unless we consider\nwhat sort of advertisements it will contain, and in order to do this\nwe must consider just what advertising is likely to be needed in the\nnew age.\n\nAs every condition of commerce must necessarily be affected by the\nmechanical and economic developments of another century, evidently\nadvertising will have to undergo vast changes in order to adapt itself\nto new requirements. Already competition and the urgent demand of the\npublic for all possible utilities and luxuries to be supplied with\nthe greatest economy of money and trouble have produced changes in\nthe machinery of supply and demand which must develop at an increasing\nspeed as time goes on. One tendency of these things is current talk;\nwe speak of \"eliminating the middleman.\" Well, the middleman will\ncertainly be eliminated by the end of the century, and one of the\nforces which will help to eliminate him is the very force with which,\nat present, he endeavours, with a high degree of transient success, to\ndefend himself--the very force we have to discuss here; advertisement.\n\nSo long as a population is scattered into groups in small towns,\nand hampered by difficulty and expense in transportation, there is\nan evident advantage in the retail-shop system. But we can hardly\nwith convenience remain a nation of shopkeepers in the present and\nfuture state of concentration and with cheapened transport. It is\nonly necessary to observe the different ways in which we supply\nourselves with commodities, according to where we live, in order to\nunderstand the tendencies at work. In a village remote from any large\ntown there are generally one or two general shops, at which a highly\nmiscellaneous collection of merchandise is handled. The smaller the\nvillage the more miscellaneous the stock kept at a single trading\nestablishment. In a small town the shops differentiate themselves\nmore: but they still cross the boundary lines of trade, and one\ngets tobacco at the chemist's and goes to the draper's for writing\nmaterials and books. When we come to towns somewhat larger, trades\nkeep more to themselves, and it is often possible to find a place\nwhere there are no miscellaneous shops at all, except those owned by\nthe industrial co-operative societies now so common and so useful to\nthe thriftier artisans. It is only when we enter the largest towns\nand cities of all that we find large shops divided into departments\nand again selling almost everything under one roof.\n\nThe conditions in these large towns are an index to what is likely to\noccur a hundred years hence: because (as has already been seen) towns\nwill certainly grow, and the population will become more concentrated,\nwhile, even where improved facilities for travel enable men to live at\na great distance from their work, the same facilities will enable their\nwives to do their shopping in the centres of commerce. Consequently,\nexcept for a few highly perishable commodities, such as milk, butter\nand the like, small shopkeepers in residential neighbourhoods will\nbe driven out of business, as they are in fact already being driven\nout of it in the suburbs and dependencies of all large cities.\n\nIt is always possible for a large miscellaneous trader to sell at\na smaller percentage of profit than a trader in a single class of\nmerchandise: and by his bulkier purchases the former is also able\nto start with a lower cost price, and thus he is in every way better\nsituated to meet the demand for cheapness. He can also meet the demand\nfor convenience, because when he is getting almost the whole trade of a\nfamily, even at some little distance, he can afford to arrange for the\ntransportation of goods in ways convenient to the purchaser. Thus the\nsmall shopkeeper will lose custom in every way and the large shopkeeper\nwill gain custom. But there is still a middleman. We have not yet begun\nto see how he is to be eliminated, but only how he is to be limited\nin his numbers while being individually pampered with increased trade.\n\nNo one who observes the trend of things, however, can have failed to\nnote how, from both sides, the middleman, qu\u00e2 middleman, is liable\nto be squeezed out. These very large retailers tend more and more to\nbecome, little by little, manufacturers instead of merely agents for\nthe manufactures of other people. Very often they are actually forced\nto this by the difficulty of obtaining a regular supply of goods of\nsatisfactory quality from the existing factories. One of the largest\ncompanies doing a miscellaneous retailing business has an enormous\nestate in the neighbourhood of London covered with orchards where fruit\nis grown for sale and for jam-making; and it has factories of various\nkinds dotted all round the Metropolis, though a few years ago it was a\nsimple trading concern which manufactured nothing. On the other hand,\nlarge manufacturers in many trades (of which the boot trade is an\nexample which must have come under the notice of every reader) are\ntending to open retail shops of their own in favourable localities,\nso as to obtain the retailer's commission as well as the manufacturer's\nprofit. Evidently these large manufacturer-shopkeepers are more likely\nto be extensive advertisers than small one-shop retailers.\n\nAnother circumstance which will tend to the increase of advertising\nis already apparent in the growing tendency of the public to prefer\nbranded or packed commodities before bulk goods. Such groceries as tea,\noatmeal and the like are more and more purchased in packets bearing\na manufacturer's name or trade-mark, instead of being purchased from\nbulk and wrapped up by the grocer. The obvious reason is that by this\nmeans a housewife can secure a greater uniformity of quality. She\nfinds that she likes a certain manufacturer's oatmeal better than any\nother, and always buys it; whereas if she bought bulk-oatmeal she would\nhave the product now of one mill, now of another, and these products\nwould vary. The only way in which a manufacturer can call attention\nto his speciality is to advertise it. The immediate consequence of\nthis movement is the degradation of the retailer, who ceases to be the\ncustodian (so to speak) of his customers' interest and becomes a mere\nhander-out of packed specialities. It is not very likely that every\nmanufacturer of such specialities will become a retailer with shops\neverywhere; but it is practically certain that trusts will be formed\non a sort of co-operative principle by combinations of manufacturers,\nwho will divide among themselves the expense of organisation and obtain\nthe whole profit without having to share it with any middleman. And\nin many departments of commerce the elimination of the retailer will\nbe secured by the utilisation of improved transport, orders being\nreceived at the works by letter or telephone and executed direct\nfrom manufacturer to consumer. Such business can only be stimulated\nthrough advertisement, and the newspaper of the future constitutes\nthe most convenient medium for such advertisement.\n\nThe intrinsic nature of the vastly-extended advertising of the new\nage will be influenced by the new growth of public intelligence. Once\nalmost wholly, and now to a very great extent, addressed to the least\nintelligent faculties of the public--the faculties most liable to\nbe influenced by large type and ad captandum phrasing--advertising\nwill in the future world become gradually more and more intelligent in\ntone. It will seek to influence demand by argument instead of clamour,\na tendency already more apparent every year. Cheap attention-calling\ntricks and clap-trap will be wholly replaced, as they are already\nbeing greatly replaced, by serious exposition; and advertisements,\ninstead of being mere repetitions of stale catch-words, will be\nmade interesting and informative, so that they will be welcomed\ninstead of being shunned; and it will be just as suicidal for a\nmanufacturer to publish silly or fallacious claims to notoriety as\nfor a shopkeeper of the present day to seek custom by telling lies\nto his customers. Skilful writers will be employed upon the work, and\nskilful journalists will think it no derogation from their dignity to\nbe employed in the writing of commercial advertisements. No doubt the\nmethods of illustration employed in journalism proper will also be\npressed into the service of the advertiser, and in this, as in other\nrespects, our \"divine discontent\" will still look for improvements,\nand the newspaper of the future will be a vast improvement upon the\nnewspaper of to-day.\n\nAlthough the distinction between journalism and literature is likely to\ndefine itself more and more sharply--periodicals growing more literary,\nand newspapers less literary--it is here convenient to pause for a\nmoment on the question of the direction in which literature is likely\nto develop--meaning especially imaginative literature and poetry. The\npast of this development, widely considered, has been, of course, since\nthe close of the eighteenth century, from the classical, through the\nromantic, to the realistic school; and the last has been associated\nwith a greatly-increased and minute consideration of language as an\nimplement of exact and elegant expression. Literature has become,\nand will no doubt continue to be, increasingly self-conscious. Happy\neffects are deliberately sought for. Felicity of phrase is no longer\na matter of unconscious, almost accidental, accomplishment; it is\npurposefully and deliberately obtained. We no longer expect inspiration\nfrom the Muses, but climb Parnassus with arduous consciousness of our\nmeritorious pedestrianism. The methodical, scientific orderliness\nof modern thought has, in short, invaded even the field of art,\nand we have sometimes an air of trying to make of literature an exact\nprocess. Perhaps very great literature, and certainly, according to all\nprecedent, very great poetry, cannot be produced in that way. There\nis something of mystery about them, something of the instinctive, of\nthe elemental, or, to speak with a more critical exactness, of the\nspiritual. And the development and circumstances of very elaborate\ncivilisation do not wholly favour the spiritual. But to conclude\nfrom this that great poetry will never again be written would be to\noverlook one of the disturbing, the cataclysmal factors of human\nlife. This factor is one of the greatest pitfalls of the would-be\nprophet. By examining the past, one could predict almost unfailingly\nthe future, if there were not always, and in every department of life,\nthe strange, incalculable thing which, for want of a better name,\nwe call genius, to be reckoned with, to be almost alarmed by. We\nmay examine, we may reason, we may reckon up almost anything; but\nathwart all our conjectures, charm we never so wisely, comes genius,\nand revolutionises everything! It is the one thing which no formula can\nembrace. Not in the realms of literature and art alone will it break in\nand stultify our best prevision. In every department of life we must\ntread cautiously, aware that no one who would forecast the future can\nafford to neglect its disturbing possibilities. We must prayerfully\nand joyously expect that from time to time genius will suddenly arrive\nand pass across the stage, changing everything, bringing to naught\nour cunningest anticipations; and as it is peculiarly the quality of\nliterature to be thus perturbed and regenerated, we must not even\nattempt to predict what schools the literature of the future will\npass through. The only thing we can be certain of is that from time\nto time some epoch-making mind will express itself. Acquainted with\nall the devices of the schools it will brush them all aside, and half\nunconsciously, half a-dream, as if indeed it were literally \"inspired,\"\nit will establish new standards, engender new methods, and endow the\ntime with new delights. Criticism will dissect, examine and explain,\nuntil the creative mind is almost persuaded that it has all along\nunderstood itself; but the one thing by which criticism must ever\nbe eluded, the one thing which must ever elude prophecy, is genius\nitself. When all is said that man can say, and all is said in vain,\nthe best explanation of the unexplainable is perhaps the old one, that\ngenius brings in some way a message from outside the world. Perhaps,\nsince there is always a demand for something which man can worship,\nthis inspiration may be the subject of the conscious adoration of\nthe new age. Perhaps we have here the subject of the religion of\nthe future; for inspiration, as we may most conveniently name this\nmystery, has just that character of the unknowable half-seized,\nwhich is precisely what the soul of man is ever yearning for.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nUTILISING THE SEA\n\n\nExcept for a small tribute in the shape of fish food and certain\nsalts the ocean is to-day almost a dead loss to the world, and what\nis worse, the greatest of all obstacles to progress. It separates\nus from our kin, wrecks our ships, claims a yearly toll of dead, and\nis barren, fruitless, a mere receptacle for garbage. A hundred years\nhence we shall have awakened to these facts and found means to make\n\"the caverns vast of ocean old\" something better than a subject for\nthe poet and a resting-place for the dead whom it murders.\n\nNot every dream, however, can be realised--not even the\nengineer's. Some years ago certain ardent spirits in France announced\nthat the desert of Sahara lay below the level of the sea and could be\nflooded with the Atlantic or Mediterranean. The effect of this, it was\nconsidered, would not merely be to inconvenience certain Arabs, but to\nchange entirely the climate of the rest of equatorial Africa. Laved by\nthe beneficent waves of ocean, lands at present uninhabitable would, it\nwas declared, become fertile and salubrious. The project was dismissed\nor shelved as impracticable from engineering difficulties. Shall we,\na hundred years hence, have met these difficulties?\n\nProbably not. To work such changes in the distribution of land\nand water will be a thing not indeed beyond the power of the next\ncentury's engineers, but beyond their daring. The accomplishment\nof them might, if at all rapid, be attended by frightful disasters,\nsome of which can be readily estimated, but of which the worst would\nprobably remain unforeseen and unimagined until the irrevocable moment\nof fulfilment. To increase to this extent the area of the world's\noceans, without increasing (as of course we could not increase)\ntheir mass, would perceptibly lower the level of the sea everywhere,\nand in accordance with the well-known hydrostatic law things would\n\"right themselves\" on a cataclysmal scale. Every narrow strait in\nthe world, every oceanic canal would become, for the time being,\na roaring cataract. The Mediterranean would rush tumultuously out\nthrough the Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, and the overflow\nwould flood the adjacent lands. The Straits of Dover would roar like\nNiagara, and all Kent, and the low-lying north-east corner of France,\nwould be devastated. The isthmus of Panama might at the same time\nbe swept away, for the narrow banks of the completed Panama Canal\nwould certainly give way before the weight of the two oceans. All\nthe rivers of the world would rush down in spate until they ran\nnearly dry from the increased outfall. The sea would recede from\nall the coasts. Along with this fall in the level of the sea would\ncome tempests such as, since the appearance of man on the planet,\nthe world has never known. For the sea-supported atmosphere would\nsuck into its vacuum the whole weight of the over-lying air until\npressure was equalised. And the climate of all the world would be\nreconstituted in new and probably inconvenient ways.\n\nNo. We cannot venture thus to change the face of creation. What we can\nand shall do is to make the best of it. In a hundred years' time many\ncountries at present undeveloped will be rich and populous. Canada, for\none example, has an area greater than that of the United States, with a\npopulation smaller than the population of Greater London. And Canada,\nendowed as it is with almost every source of wealth, will before long\nbecome perhaps the richest country in the world. By this time next\ncentury it will also be one of the most populous. Siberia, again,\nwith many fertile and salubrious tracts, will certainly have been more\nintelligently utilised than by making a vast prison of it. But when\nall the regions available for human habitation are populated and made\nuse of, the centres of civilisation will probably lie very much where\nthey lie now; and here the congested populations will have found that\nthey can no longer tolerate the waste of a neglected ocean. As we push\noutward from the centre of the continents, the seaboard will have to\nbe utilised and extended. There is nothing to daunt the engineers of\na hundred years hence in the project of erecting on the sea a vast\nfloating city, fully as convenient as the present cities of terra\nfirma, and, while vastly more healthful, quite substantial enough to\nresist storm and every motion of the sea, except the tides on which\nthe city will rise and fall--tides which will no doubt furnish the\nmotive power of many conveniences in ocean cities.\n\nThere are great advantages in a city thus founded, as compared with\nthose we at present inhabit; and we certainly shall not be able to\nneglect them. There will be no particular reason for economy of space\nor for insalubrious overcrowding (since the sea has no landlord), and\nbreadth would make for stability as well as for convenience. Urban\ntraffic will employ an entirely new light vehicle, the skimmer. It\nhas been mentioned as a thing beyond doubt that the ships of a hundred\nyears hence will no longer float in the sea, but ride on its surface,\nthus evading both the instability and the resistance at present so\ntroublesome to marine engineers. As soon as the necessity arises\nfor providing street traffic in the ocean city--when \"the sea is in\nthe broad, the narrow streets, ebbing and flowing, and the salt weed\nclings to the marble of her palaces\"--invention will meet the demand,\nand light street waggons and carriages will everywhere glide about,\nperforming the daily needs of the inhabitants. Something in the nature\nof break-waters will provide against wave-play and form an unequalled\nexterior boulevard; and by means of an invention which will long\nsince have been called for by the requirements of other localities,\nthe air of dwelling-houses in the ocean city will be wholesomely\nfreed from damp.\n\nFor we shall certainly not have failed to act upon our knowledge of\nthe fact that irregularities in the proportion of atmospheric moisture\nare responsible for the unhealthiness of certain areas; and we shall\nhave learned, by means of the anhydrator, to provide any place with\nexactly the degree of damp or dryness necessary to health. The same\napparatus, by desiccating the air to the extreme point, will keep\nthe houses of an ocean city dry and thus do away with an objection\nwhich would make homes built on the water insufferable to-day.\n\nIf we have not wholly reformed throughout the world our system of\nland tenure, the conquered ocean will unquestionably relieve the\ntension which is created by it, and perhaps a radical change of this\ncharacter will only become possible when the enormous advantages of\nit have been practically exemplified.\n\nBut there is another way in which the conquest of ocean ought to prove\na great economic boon to the world. Except in the case of a few coal\nmines, with shafts sunk near the sea beach, we have hardly at all begun\nto investigate the contents of the ocean floor. There is, so far as I\nam aware, no particular reason to doubt that the constitution of the\nsubterranean world is in most respects very much the same under the\nsea as under the land. Probably vast riches, as yet undreamed of, lie\nbelow the surface of the ocean and beneath its floor. There can be no\nquestion that the needs of the world will make us eager to tap them,\nas we should already have begun to, if any way could be discovered of\novercoming the engineering difficulties involved. These difficulties,\nin the present state of our knowledge, may well appal the stoutest\nimagination. The problem presented by the immense and paralysing air\npressure in a mine at this great depth would have to be overcome. Even\nin some great terrestrial excavations already made the problem occurs:\nand where (as in river tunnels and elsewhere) men attempt to work\nin great air-pressures artificially induced, the phenomenon called\ncaisson-disease occasions practical difficulty. But the mere fact of\nan achievement being almost inconceivable in the light of present\nknowledge and invention must not be allowed to put a clog upon a\nforecast of what next century may attain. It is a hypothesis which\nthe reader has been invited to accept, not merely that discovery and\ninvention will go on, but that they will go at a constantly-increasing\npace. We must not, therefore, allow what may well seem, at the\npresent day, insuperable engineering difficulties to forbid the\nbelief that the undiscovered wealth of the earth below the sea will be\ntapped for the benefit of the new age. What minerals may lie there,\na rich heirloom for the coming time, we can but roughly imagine. But\nenterprise and the world's necessities will spur us on to search them\nout, until the new people, deriving like a fresh Ant\u00e6us constant\nstores of strength from Mother Earth, will enter into possessions\nwhich must vastly relieve their necessities. Individual enterprise\nwill solve the problems and reap its store of profits. But the ocean\nis no-man's land, and the people--perhaps a world-people, for this\npurpose at least not subdivided into antagonistic communities--will\nbeyond doubt take toll, for the relief of general taxation, from the\nearnings of the new mineralogy.\n\nIn other ways, too, the sea itself will be made use of. We shall get\nour salt from it, the process of separation being electrolytic. Fish\nwill probably be eaten later than any other form of animal food. But\nthe chief gift of the sea to the life of the future will be the two\ngases of which water is composed--oxygen and hydrogen: and the other\ngas, chlorine, which forms half the salt, as well as the metal sodium\nwhich forms the other half, will probably have many new uses found for\nthem. Liquefied oxygen will no doubt be our sole disinfectant. It will\nalso replace the poisonous, noisome and destructive bleaching agents\nused to-day. Hydrogen, the lightest of all gases, will be another\nstaple of commerce. It will (as we have elsewhere seen) probably be\nthe only fuel employed, for its combustion furnishes the greatest\nheat terrestrially known, and its flame is smokeless and yields no\npoisonous by-product. Moreover, the evaporation of liquid hydrogen,\nby a sort of curious revenge, produces the greatest available cold. If\nanything in the nature of balloons should survive the century hydrogen\nwill inflate them, and both our hydrogen and our oxygen will most\nlikely be got by preference from the sea. There are many reasons for\nthis preference. Probably there will be some advantage in the matter\nof expense, since the salts of ocean water would be a by-product\nof the operation, and it is conceivable that a use may be found for\nthe rarer among them, which could only be obtained in satisfactory\nquantities by reducing to dryness huge amounts of water. And potable or\nspring waters will perhaps be too precious a commodity to be consumed\nunnecessarily. Distilled water could no doubt be used for drinking\npurposes, and bacteriologically it is of course unexceptionable; but\nthere are certain objections to it, and though these may doubtless\nbe overcome, natural waters have a value which cannot be ignored.\n\nThus the oceans of the world, as yet mere watery deserts, useful\nto hardly a calculable percentage of the people (and then only at\nthe expense of the rest) will have become the world's inheritance,\nand its hoarded wealth will stave off the time--whose coming we must\nnot ignore--when our world-capital begins to be exhausted. For that\ntime must come. We are living upon the hoards which the womb of our\nmother the earth has borne to our father the sun. But our mother is,\nin respect at all events of mineral wealth, past the age of conception;\nand every century brings us more rapidly near to the time when we\nshall, like spendthrifts, have lived out our capital. Already the end\nof coal is in sight. When, at the end of a vista however long, we begin\nto be able to foresee the exhaustion of other minerals, we shall face\na problem appalling in its nature. Perhaps before our store of heat\ngives out and reduces earth to the state of a dead world like the moon,\nwe shall already have exhausted our stock. No economies in the use of\nscrap metal and the re-employment of the material of machines which\nhave been superseded can save us from ultimate metallic bankruptcy\nin a future calculated perhaps in thousands (but not many thousands)\nof years. Our only succour seems to lie in a conception for which\n(despite the efforts of some lively thinkers who have been obliged\nto ignore all but the least important difficulties of the subject) we\nhave no material--the conception of means by which the cold depths of\ninterplanetary space may be traversed. Even if we allow imagination,\nuntrammelled by the most evident necessities of the case, to suggest\na speed of transport computable only by astronomical analogies, we\nstill lag behind anything which could serve this purpose, unless we\nconcurrently believe that human life shall, by that time, be lengthened\ninto centuries. Otherwise, however recklessly we may conceive of speed\nin interplanetary travel, man would almost require to live for many\ncenturies in order to reach and return from any destination which\nwould not inevitably destroy him by fire or cold when he arrived at\nit. Most likely man is for ever destined to accept the bounds of his\nown planet, and to be limited by its resources. In order that these\nresources may be utilised to the uttermost of his needs, the contents\nof the ocean floor must undoubtedly be laid under contribution, and\nprobably we shall not antedate this achievement if we consider that\nit will have been at least entered upon a hundred years hence.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE MARCH OF SCIENCE\n\n\nIn a forecast like the present it is impossible to avoid a certain\namount of overlapping in different sections of the subject and\na certain blending of topics in a single chapter. The attempt to\ndifferentiate consistently between the progress of science as science,\nand the concurrent advance of practical invention by which scientific\ndiscovery is turned to use would only involve needless repetition. I\nhave already had occasion to suggest elements of material progress\nwhich presuppose the advance in pure science that would make them\npossible. Thus, in endeavouring to suggest what the methods of commerce\nand the condition of our cities are likely to be in the future it\nwas necessary to conceive certain advances in our knowledge of what\nis rather clumsily called \"wireless\" telegraphy, and to predict\nthe discovery of new and cheap methods of analysing water into its\ncomponent gases as a source of fuel and as means for the production\nof electricity: and in order to avoid useless repetition it was found\nconvenient to work out in a rough manner the various ways in which the\ncheap and inexhaustible supplies of hydrogen and oxygen which I have\nimagined discovery to have placed at the disposal of invention would\nbe employed in the arts. Similarly, when we interrogate imagination\non the subject of scientific discovery itself, we shall be forced to\nthink chiefly of the practical results likely to be achieved by it,\nand indeed there would otherwise be hardly any purpose to serve by\nthe effort. What imports the greatest amount of complexity into the\nsubject is the difficulty of conceiving the lines upon which science\nis likely to travel, unless we allow ourselves to be guided by the\npractical requirements of the future as far as we are able to foresee\nthem. Imagination has indeed superabundant room in which to run riot\nwhen it endeavours to give form to the probabilities of scientific\ndiscovery; and the only danger is that effort may be wasted in purely\nfanciful directions, if it be not pretty securely tied down by some\nsuch artificial restraint as the convention of keeping more or less\nstrictly to the anticipation of discoveries likely to have immediate\npractical application.\n\nFor instance, there is hardly any end to the developments we might\nallow ourselves to imagine as arising out of the new theories, still in\na probationary condition, as to the ultimate physical structure of the\nuniverse. Such conjectures might be followed indefinitely in several\ndirections, and the resulting conclusions would be more likely to\nerr by timidity than by extravagance: but as there is no knowledge at\npresent available which could serve as a guide to the probably-right,\nand as a warning against the probably-wrong, directions, it would be\nneither interesting nor useful to pursue them. Radium \"the revealer,\"\nas Dr Saleeby has called it in one of those brilliant papers which\nfine imagination and delicate fancy have adorned with many another\nnoble phrase and memorable image, opens the door to a whole world of\nnew possibilities. Our whole conception of cosmic processes may have\nto be remodelled, in the light of those tiny scintillations which the\nspinthariscope has popularised. Already our notions concerning the\nnature of matter have been revolutionised. We are told that atoms,\nregarded hitherto as the ultimate units of matter--so small that Lord\nKelvin has calculated that if a drop of water were magnified to the\nsize of the earth the atoms in it would be somewhere between the size\nof small shot and the size of cricket balls--are themselves made up\nof a stuff so almost infinitely more tenuous, that the particles of\nit within the atom are, relatively to their size, farther apart than\nthe planets of the solar system. Nor is this all. These particles,\ncommonly called electrons, if particles they can still be designated at\nall, were at first said to \"carry\" a charge of electricity. But it now\nseems that they are electricity itself. If this be true, we should seem\nto be on the point of bridging the void between what used to be called\nthe eternal antithetics--matter and force: and whither this will lead\nus can only with the greatest caution be pre-imagined. In any case the\nconsequences of this discovery, philosophical as well as scientific,\nare stupefying in the possibilities they open up to the thinker as\nwell as to the man of practical science. At last science begins to join\nhands with philosophy. What will be the philosophy of a hundred years\nhence, imagination pales before the effort of attempting to conceive.\n\nBut the working out of the revelations promised by radiology belongs\nrather to this end of the century than to the other. During the\ninterval there can be no doubt that electricity, already man's chief\nhandmaid, will have increased and perhaps completed her services\nto the race. When, as I ventured to suggest in a former chapter,\ninexhaustible and cheap \"current\" is yielded to us by some method\nof utilising the electrical reciprocity of the hydrogen and oxygen\ngases derived from water, doubtless all machinery will be electrically\ndriven, all transport electrically propelled. Perhaps this discovery\nlies so far in the foreground of the future as to be irrelevant to any\nanticipations of the world's condition a hundred years hence. The\nfull development of electrically-driven machinery lies in the\nmiddle distance, and the duration of the electrical age can hardly\nbe precalculated with any greater exactness than the suggestion that\nit will probably have reached, or at all events approached, its end\nin about a century's time.\n\nThe most important problem connected with this subject is to\nimagine, if we can, how electrical power will be applied. It is quite\nevident that the device of long conductors, either overhead or below\nground--the \"live wires\" of alarmed America--is too clumsy and too\ndangerous to be long tolerated. It is indeed a public scandal that\ncables carrying an electrical charge capable of killing or paralysing\nat a touch should be suspended over the heads of the citizens, exposed\nto momentary breakage by snowfall, high wind, or the inevitable\nwear which careless inspectors may overlook: and the mere fact that\na horse can occasionally set foot on a ground plate and fall dead\nfrom the contact shows that even the vaunted \"conduit system\" must\nnot be regarded as anything but a strictly-temporary device. Some of\nthe dangers of the underground electric wires arise out of the use\nof our present illuminating gas, when a pipe leaks into a manhole\nor inspection chamber, forming an explosive mixture of gas and air,\nwhich presently becomes ignited by an electric spark and blows up the\nwhole affair. No doubt coal gas is within easily measurable distance\nof its end as a convenience of civilisation. But it is extremely\nprobable that hydrogen and oxygen will be conveyed by mains to houses\nand public buildings during a long time: and it is hardly possible\nto believe that the mains will not sometimes leak and be capable of\nletting out mixtures far more dangerous on ignition than the mixture\nof coal gas and air, and still more dangerous because neither of the\ngases, nor the mixture of them, has any smell, unless indeed we should\ntake the precaution of giving them one artificially. Whatever we may\ndo, and we shall do much, to minimise the dangers of highly-evolved\ncivilisation, accidents will always occur, and their violence will\nprobably increase. We must pay our toll to the conveniences of life,\nand we shall of course compensate ourselves by a lower death-rate\nfrom diseases, many of which will no doubt in a hundred years' time\nhave disappeared from the planet.\n\nIf we need any motive power other than electricity, or if we need\nmotive power of some other kind to produce electricity, no doubt\nthe explosive recombination of oxygen and hydrogen, controlled by\ndevices developed from existing gas-engines and petrol-engines, will\nbe a starting-point: because coal will, probably before the complete\nexhaustion of the supply of it, have been found altogether too dirty\nand unhealthy a thing to use, at all events by way of combustion,\nthough rumours are heard from time to time of new methods by which\nthe stored energy of coal may be utilised directly, to the great\neconomy of the material. [13] In all sorts of ways the early years of\nthe century will be employing themselves in seeking out new sources\nof man's chief necessity--power: and a hundred years hence we shall\nhave entered upon the full inheritance of them.\n\nBut the obtaining of power is only one problem of the mechanician. Of\nalmost equal, if not quite equal, importance is that of applying power\nat the place where it is needed, and the careful reader will not have\noverlooked the fact that while we have been discussing the use of\nelectricity as a source of power we have already been anticipating,\nand perhaps anticipating a good deal. For, when we now speak of\nmachinery and locomotive engines being \"driven\" by electricity, we\nare really only employing a sort of convenient periphrasis. All our\nelectric machinery, all our electric railways, our \"tuppeny\" tubes\nand the horrible electric trams which make life almost intolerable in\nhouses along many of the main roads out of London, are really driven by\ncoal-burning steam engines. In a few places (especially in the Niagara\nvalley) waterfall power is used. But whatever the real source of power,\nelectricity is only a means, more or less convenient, of transmitting\nit. Even electric launches, and slow-going electric broughams driven\nby accumulators, only represent slightly more subtle examples of the\nelectrical transmission of power. The ultimate source of power is\nalways either a steam-engine or a waterfall. A few lecture-table toys\nand the like are the only existing examples of machinery in which the\nactual source of power is electricity. Even here, it may be objected,\nthe actual source of power is not electricity, but chemical action\nin the battery. But no contrivance of man is an ultimate source of\npower. Even a steam-engine is only a device for utilising the stored\nsolar energy of coal. Of course man can no more create power than\nhe can create matter: the stock of each in the universe is a fixed\nquantity. All that we are able to do is to harness to our use a part\nof the cosmic store. When I speak of electricity becoming hereafter\na \"source\" of power, I am merely distinguishing between its use as\na means of transmitting force already perceived as force in some\nother form (as where a dynamo-electric machine receives motion from\na steam-engine or waterfall and turns this motion into electricity,\nwhich is conveyed by wires or rails to an electric dynamic engine\nthat reconverts it into motion) and its use as a primary means of\nutilising the cosmic stores of force.\n\nBefore we arrive, therefore, at the point of using electricity as\na source of power in itself, our mechanicians will have plenty to\noccupy them in the task of devising safer and more convenient methods\nof transmitting force, and even at the end of the century, supposing\nthe use of electricity not to have been entirely superseded by the\ndiscovery of some entirely new force as yet not even conceivable,\ninvention will doubtless be still busy with further improvements in\nthe transmission as well as in the production of electricity. It has\nbeen hinted that \"wireless\" transmission of power will no doubt by\nthat time have become practicable, and Signor Marconi's achievement\nof wireless telegraphy was mentioned as a proof that such transmission\nis at least imaginable. In Marconi's invention an enormous electrical\nimpulse is launched into the \u00e6ther, and if the very smallest token\nof it can be \"picked up\" in any way at the receiving station, the\nwireless telegram is satisfactorily received. But the important fact\nfor our present purpose is that some product of the original impulse\ncan be picked up: and though the effort of imagination required to\nsee in this a starting-point for entirely new inventions, capable\nof gathering up a practicable modicum of the transmitted power in\na form capable of being converted into motion, is severe, we shall\nbring but a poor imaginative equipment to a task so colossal as that\nof guessing what the next century will be capable of if we refuse to\nbelieve that something in the nature of Hertzian waves, or something\npropagated as these are propagated, can be used to carry impulse to\nmachinery at a distance from the source of power. The imaginative\nfaculty which boggles at this effort will probably overlook the fact\nthat the mere transmission is only a part of the difficulty which\nis pretty sure to have been overcome by this time next century. It\nwill not be enough to launch waves capable of being used where they\nare intended to be used. We must also discover how to launch them\nso that they may be incapable of being used anywhere else. I read\nthe other day the report of a police-court case in which a man was\ncharged with \"stealing electricity\" (which seems a rather doubtful\nindictment from the point of view of the lawyer) by obtaining the\nuse of a public telephone station without paying the usual fee. The\nelectricians of a hundred years hence will certainly have to find\nout how to prevent the purloining of wireless force, and perhaps the\npolice will have to devise means of detecting this at present somewhat\nrecondite crime. This question of wireless transmission lies within\nthe province of discovery rather than that of invention. Before it can\nreceive actuality we have to do more than utilise existing knowledge:\nwe have to acquire new knowledge.\n\nIn the meantime, portable energy will no doubt be achieved in ways\nother than electrical. Some very interesting compressed-air tools are\nalready in limited use. Holes are drilled and rivets driven by little\ncontrivances which have a store of force within themselves furnished by\ncompressed air. One of the many uses of the cheap oxygen and hydrogen,\nand doubtless of cheaply liquefied gases of high-resisting power, [14]\nwill no doubt be to work various kinds of machinery. This use of liquid\nairs has been much derided, and indeed a good deal of nonsense has been\nwritten as to its possibilities, drawing from a recent and accomplished\nwriter the remark that \"The statements which have sometimes appeared\nin the daily papers, announcing impending revolutions in the methods of\nobtaining cheap power by the application of liquid air, have originated\nfrom an imperfect comprehension of the problems involved.\" [15]\n\nIn present conditions, and so far as we are able to see at present,\nliquefied gases are for a long time not likely to serve any greater\nmechanical purpose than that of furnishing a highly portable apparatus\nby which great power can be developed for a short time at any required\nplace. It is easy to believe that it could not be otherwise employed\nwith any economy, even when discovery has greatly simplified the now\ndifficult process of liquefaction. But in regard to this matter, and\nto almost every other mechanical and engineering improvement suggested\nin the present work, it is of the first importance to remember that\nthe conditions in which the work of the world a hundred years hence\nwill be done are certain to differ very greatly from anything we know\nto-day; and that procedures at present not merely out of proportion,\nbut in themselves actually chimerical, will become perfectly workable\nin the new circumstances of another century. No doubt the problems at\npresent involved make many of the developments herein suggested almost\nlaughable to those who examine the subject without imagination. But\nwhat could have been thought of a man who, when Oersted discovered the\ninfluence of a battery current on the compass needle, suggested that\nthe discovery might, in much less than a hundred years, be practically\ndeveloped in such unforeseen ways as to produce locomotive machines\ncapable of carrying vast weight at a speed of perhaps a hundred\nmiles an hour? He would have been told that such predictions \"could\nonly have originated from an imperfect comprehension of the problems\ninvolved.\" But we know that they would have been perfectly sound,\nthough it would have been difficult to withhold assent from the\nderision which instructed hearers would have poured upon them. The\neffect of any scientific discovery can only be measured when we are in\na position to judge of the conditions in which it may be applied, and\nthe further discoveries which may affect it--a consideration which will\nhelp us against the danger of undue caution in estimating the possible\ndevelopments of recent discovery when utilised in the conditions of the\nnext century and reinforced by inventions and discoveries yet to come.\n\nA like caution will, however, teach us to restrain our expectations\nfrom the new knowledge which radium appears to be gradually unfolding,\nnot because there is any doubt that radio-activity will ultimately\nbring priceless gifts to civilisation, but because in our present\nignorance of all but a few facts concerning it we can form no possible\nconjecture as to the lines these gifts will follow. Already we seem\nto have seen in some of the radium experiments one \"element\" turn into\nanother. If this should develop until we acquire the power which used\nto be dreamed of as transmutation, the social and economic upheavals\nwhich would result beggar imagination. [16]\n\nThe photographic effect of R\u00f6ntgen rays has already [17] been\nthe subject of a suggestion, and even the facts now remotest from\npractical use in connection with the rays of various sorts so much\ndiscussed in the scientific newspapers will no doubt be utilised in\na manner or in manners far removed from the limited employment in\ntherapeutics already found for them.\n\nAnd indeed medicine, not the most progressive of modern sciences,\nwill no doubt make vast strides during the period under discussion.\n\nIt would be altogether fallacious to forecast the position and\nprobable achievements of medical science in a century's time on the\nline of simple development from the practice of to-day. The changes\nwill be revolutionary rather than evolutionary. When it is remembered\nthat only fifty years ago limbs were hacked from the quivering flesh\nof the sentient patient, held down by muscular assistants lest the\nviolent struggles of his agony should embarrass the surgeon, and that\nwounds of all sorts festered and decayed until a hospital reeked\nwith their impurity--in other words, that discoveries so great as\nan\u00e6sthesia and antisepsis are well within living memory--we need not\nhesitate to predict for the present century changes in medical and\nsurgical science almost inconceivable by the light of our present\nattainment. An\u00e6sthetics--of which the local kinds, as cocaine and\neucaine, are of entirely recent use--represent an advance in one\ndirection. Antiseptic surgery, which is the prevention and correction\nof blood and wound-poisoning by chemical disinfectants, represented an\nadvance of a different kind. But antisepsis is already on the point\nof being superseded by the far more rational and scientific method\nof asepsis, or the exclusion from open wounds of all the germs which\ncan set up inflammation and festering. The change is typical.\n\nThe direction in which medicine is chiefly working at the present\ntime is that of introducing into the body one disease with the\nidea of excluding other diseases. It is conceived that cow-pox\nis antagonistic to small-pox, erysipelas possibly to cancer, and\nso on. All the talk in medical circles is of serum and attenuated\nvirus. And, apart from animal products administered by injection, we\ncure or attempt to cure all diseases by administering poisons--animal,\nvegetable or mineral. Just as by antiseptics we poison the germ which\ncauses festering and inflammation, so by drugs we attempt to poison\ndisease--for all drugs are practically poisons. The principle of their\nadministration is almost wholly empirical. If you ask a doctor why\nphenacetin reduces fever, it is impossible to get beyond a metaphysical\nexplanation. He will reply that phenacetin reduces fever by lowering\nthe blood pressure, or something of that kind. But this merely\nre-states the problem. Why does phenacetin lower blood pressure? We\ndo not know. The substitution of asepsis for antisepsis--that is,\nof cleanliness for disinfection--has hardly yet been perceived\nto be in a certain sense the greatest advance in therapeutics\nsince Hippocrates. It probably contains the germ of future medical\ntreatment. Hereafter we shall not try to cast out devils of disease\nby other disease-germs only less devilish. We shall learn enough of\nthe causes of disease to stop them at their source, and knowledge\ngrowing from more to more, which has taught us exactly how \"matter\nin the wrong place\"--of whatever sort--is the source of all disease,\nwill also show how matter may generally be kept in its right place.\n\nAlthough comparatively little progress has been made by the curative\nuse of rays, other discoveries, of which we have even now passed the\nbrink, will have an enormous effect on medicine and surgery. Already\ncertain kinds of light cure rodent ulcer, one of the most hideous and\nterrible diseases, not by the importation of fresh substances into the\nbody but by the modification of the tissues themselves. When radiation\nhas been fully studied it will almost certainly be found that the\nsun, which is the source of practically all terrestrial activity,\nhas been showering upon us, ever since the homogeneous vapour which\nwas the birth-stuff of the universe aggregated itself into worlds and\nsuns and planets, rays which are capable of correcting every sort of\ndisease-germination and, properly used, of preventing it. The absolute\ndeadliness of unmodified sunlight to many sorts of disease-germs is\nrecognised already. The value of sun-baths--the exposure of the whole\nbody, undraped or only lightly covered, to the sunlight--is already\ndiscussed in connection with an\u00e6mia, chlorosis and the early stages\nof consumption. When we know just where all disease originates,\nand why it develops, it seems likely that sunlight and oxygen its\nchild will prevent nearly all disease and cure whatever disease\naccidentally arises. In place of temporary and dangerous expedients\nlike antiseptics, serum and corrective poisons, we shall import nothing\ninto the human organism, but only exclude what ought to be kept out,\nand modify into innocuousness what has found its way in.\n\nA great part of the disease we call constitutional, as distinguished\nfrom infective, arises from food, either because the food itself is\nnot free from disease, or because, from excess in quantity or error\nin choice, the food we take sets up the production of poisons in the\ncourse of digestion, and by yielding, for instance, lactic or uric\nacid to the blood causes rheumatism or gout, or by introducing into\nthe stomach matter in a state of incipient decay, favours typhoid\nand other fevers.\n\nWhen, for reasons already indicated, animal food has been eliminated\nfrom the menu one great source of disease will have been got rid of.\n\nWhen we completely understand the nature of the infective and\ncontagious diseases it seems well within the bounds of possibility\nthat the systematic destruction of their germs may be carried far\nenough to remove them altogether from the planet. [18] We have now,\neven by the highly imperfect measure of quarantine and a period\nof muzzling (from which, on no evident ground except that it would\ninterfere with the amusements of the governing class to include them,\nsporting dogs were excluded), apparently banished hydrophobia from\nGreat Britain. If it prove to be the case that just as hydrophobia\ncannot arise spontaneously, but requires to be \"started\" by the entry\ninto the blood of an animal of an existing infection, other infective\ndiseases require pre-existing disease before they can arise, we may\nget rid of them altogether. The dream may appear a wild one. But\nit is not wilder than the dreams of a thinker who anticipated any\none of a hundred common facts of to-day must have appeared to our\ngreat-great-grandfathers.\n\nIt is, of course, not to be supposed that disease can altogether be\nbanished from a world so highly artificial as that of the next century\nwill be. Undoubtedly the growth of sanitary science and the knowledge\nof the larger facts of hygiene, which is only now beginning to dawn\nupon us, will have a great influence in correcting some of the evils\nwhich over-civilisation at present entails. But the very progress of\nthe art of healing will no doubt have the effect of perpetuating in a\nmanner the existence of illness. Every forward step in medicine serves\nto save alive some weakling that in a less advanced civilisation would\ndie; and these survivors, possibly propagating their species, will have\nweak descendants, on whom whatever possibility of disease continues\nto exist will certainly fasten. The discovery of means by which we\ncan make a weak \"constitution\" into a strong one is perhaps the least\nlikely of medical innovations. It would be altogether contrary to the\ngeneral spirit of the times anticipated to expect that we shall have\nsteeled our hearts to the destruction of feeble lives as dangerous\nto the race. We are much more likely to go on finding better means\nto perpetuate them: and this means that there will always be work for\nthe doctor, though the infective fevers will have been banished from\nthe earth. Medicine, therefore, will still aspire. But apart from\nwhat are called occupation-diseases, caused by certain manufacturing\nprocesses (of which the more deadly, as phosphorus match-making,\nlead-glazing of earthenware and the manufacture of enamelled iron\nwill before long certainly be abolished), the elaborate machinery\nand rapid travel of the new age must needs exact a certain toll\nof death and mutilation. The surgeon will have more to do than the\nphysician. Frightful accidents will occur from time to time. The maim,\nthe halt and the blind must pay the price of progress. And it is hardly\npossible that nervous diseases and insanity, incident to the pressure\nof civilisation, can be eliminated. But certainly the alleviations of\nall but the last, and even of that except in its extreme expression\nas total dementia, will have advanced to a high standard. We shall\nno doubt, for instance, have discovered means of so acting on the\nsensory system that we shall be able innocuously and temporarily to\nparalyse at any desired spot the nerves which transmit pain. Thus,\nduring convalescence, the injured will suffer no discomfort except\nthat of confinement, and our means of amusing the patient by talking\nmachines that will read and sing to him, and the theatroscopes that\nwill project before him moving and coloured pictures of life or the\nplay, will make the sick bed almost a paradise.\n\nAs we have seen that, apart from the sentimental reasons which have\nbeen suggested, [19] animal and flesh foods must, for economical\nreasons, have been abandoned long before the end of the century, the\ngrazing of cattle being far too expensive a method of utilising the\nsoil, we may be quite sure that the sciences connected with agriculture\nwill receive far greater attention than they now enjoy. It will grow\nmore important with every decade to obtain the greatest possible\ntribute from the portions of land, steadily decreasing in area,\nwhich can be spared from the growing needs of the builder. Every\ndiscovery of the chemist which can be laid under contribution by the\nagriculturist will eagerly be seized upon. Every means which can be\ndevised for replacing what we take from the soil will be utilised\nto the full: and of course the inevitable disappearance of the horse\nas a means of traction, and of the flocks and herds which now yield\nmanure, and perhaps the gradual exhaustion of the minerals (as rock\nphosphates) from which artificial soil enrichers are prepared, will\nmake it necessary to rearrange, on safe, economical and convenient\nlines, our present plans of sanitation. The insane wastefulness of\ndraining into the sea cannot long be tolerated. Every conceivable means\nof conserving our mundane capital will have to be made use of. In\nother ways science will come to the rescue. The farmer's sufferings\nfrom the depredations of vermin of various kinds will perhaps never\nbe much affected by invention, because all nature is so curiously\ninterdependent that the eradication of one pest has an awkward way\nof intensifying some greater evil: we destroy birds and are punished\nby a plague of caterpillars. The accidents of climate, too, can\nperhaps only be obviated in a very small measure, though the science\nof meteorology, constantly being helped by facilities for better\nobservation-reporting, will unquestionably help the agriculturist\nby giving him timely warnings. It seems hardly possible to doubt\nthat the eccentricities of climate and the unexpected shifting of the\nrainy season in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese war must have been\ncaused by the vast atmospheric disturbances created by days and weeks\nof cannonading: and of course it is an old theory that heavy gun-fire\n\"brings down the rain.\" Military historians say that the number of\nwet-day battles altogether exceeds any expectation which could have\nbeen formed without allowing for effects of this sort. When science\nhas pondered upon the subject, and instituted in an ordered manner\nexperiments of a kind hitherto never taken very seriously, it may\nvery well be that some means less violent than the detonation of\nexplosives may be discovered by the practical meteorologist for\ncreating disturbances in the atmosphere; and while it may not be\npossible to prevent excessive rainfall at inconvenient times, it\nseems easy to conceive that when there is moisture in the atmosphere\nwe may be able to bring it down as rain. Of course this is a very\ndifferent thing from breaking up droughts: and artificial rain-making\ncannot in itself be anything but a momentary expedient. The effects\nof deforestation have for some time been observed and the plan\nof improving waterless areas by the contrary process is already\ndiscussed. While it seems rather a \"large order\" to undertake to\nmeddle with the balance of atmospheric composition on a large scale,\nespecially as we know so little of the conditions that even success\nmight very possibly be attended by unforeseen and perhaps calamitous\nresults, there is nothing intrinsically absurd in the notion that we\nmight adopt means on a vast scale for increasing oceanic evaporation\nand, utilising the exact foreknowledge of winds and air currents\nwhich we shall certainly have achieved, bring moisture and rain to\narid tracts or countries suffering from drought. The operation would\nno doubt require to be stupendous, but the next century is not going\nto be afraid of stupendous operations; and anticipating vast and\nunforeseen progress in meteorology, it would be hazardous to believe\nthat no practical use will be made of such progress.\n\nWhile our knowledge and mastery of the planet we possess, and of its\nforces, are being steadily advanced by scientific discovery, and the\nresearches of the pure scientist are constantly yielding practical\nresults at first undreamed of, it is impossible to doubt that man's\nknowledge of himself will make equal progress. And it is not alone the\nphysical constitution of man that will be interrogated. Everything\nassists the belief that this century will be among other things the\ncentury of psychical advance. We appear to be on the verge of great\ndiscoveries concerning the human mind, and especially concerning\nthe relation of body to consciousness. Hypnotism has only during a\ncomparatively short time been the subject of systematic observation,\neven in France; but at any time during the last ten years results have\nbeen achieved which, if foreseen a century ago, would certainly have\nproduced a widespread recrudescence of belief in witchcraft. What\nthe developed science of a hundred years hence will be capable\nof would certainly be a great deal more surprising if we could\nforesee it to-day. It is reported from the Salpetri\u00e8re Hospital\nthat a woman, under hypnosis, has had the existence of a picture on\na blank sheet of paper suggested to her with such vividness that,\non the suggestion being revived at a subsequent period, even after\na considerable interval, she was able to detect that the \"picture\"\nwas upside down, the blank paper having been actually reversed. This\nphenomenon is attributed to a great accentuation of the sense of vision\nproduced by hypnotism, it being supposed that the paper, perfectly\nblank on ordinary observation, had really some local irregularity\nof colour or surface which the sharpened vision of the subject was\nable, unconsciously, to utilise. What secrets in the mechanism\nof the senses may not this fore-shadow? Without any recourse to\nhypnotism, as we at present understand hypnotism, impressions have,\nin a number of instances sufficient to exclude all possibility of\ncollusion or error, been conveyed from one mind to another without\nthe use of any of the ordinary means of communication: and it is\nshown in experiments seriously conducted by trained observers that\nthe faculties of thus communicating and receiving impressions can\nbe steadily cultivated. In other words, it would appear that human\nconsciousness possesses some sort of emanation, and although certain\n\"ray\" experiments possibly connected with the subject have not received\nuniversal acceptance, it is evident that the future is going to enlarge\nconsiderably our knowledge of the nature of mental process. At present\nwe know nothing--and it has been said with some rashness that we must\nalways remain in a like ignorance--of the interval between sense and\nconsciousness. We know how the ear receives air-vibrations, how it\ncollects and conducts them to the auditory nerves, carefully protecting\nitself, by the action of beautifully ordered springs and cushions,\nfrom the effects of vibrations violent enough to be dangerous to its\nown integrity. But even when we have followed vibrations as far as\nthe nerve, and recognised the subtle variation of its own substance\nby which the nerve conducts the impression of them to the brain, we\nhave no inkling of the means by which the phenomenon of consciousness\nwhich we call \"mind\" is produced. Well, now that by suggestion alone we\ncan with perfect precision, and without the use of any air vibration\nwhatever, cause a hypnotised person (or even a person who has at some\nearlier period been hypnotised but has recovered his normal state)\nto hear--in his mind alone--sounds which have no objective existence,\njust as vividly and clearly as any sounds we can physically produce,\ndoes it seem extravagant to believe that the whole mechanism of sense,\nnay, the dark mind-gulf beyond mechanism too, will receive full\nillumination from the science of the coming time? Such a discovery\nwould, of course, throw utterly into shadow anything we have yet\nlearned of the nature of man. It would bring us a step nearer to\nthe knowledge of the unknown soul of him. What secrets might it\nnot carry with it of those mysterious co-partners, mind and body,\nthought and brain? With this, the noblest subject that can be proposed\nto the intellect of man, the science of a hundred years hence will\nassuredly be busy, and imagination pales before the contemplation\nof a notion so vast. Limited as we are by the knowledge of our own\ntime, we cannot even conjecture whither such discoveries might lead\nus. All we can affirm is that the whole outlook of man, nay, the\nnature of man himself, might very conceivably be changed by them,\nand the greatest problems of the thinker may be resolved when we eat\nof the fruit tendered us by this tree of the knowledge of good and\nevil. Perhaps the soul of man may quail before the revelations in\nstore, fearing that in the day we eat thereof we shall surely die.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nEDUCATION A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE\n\n\nAllowing, as every competent thinker must allow, a full measure of\nvalidity to the contention that social developments are matters of slow\ngrowth and gradual attainment rather than of sudden and catastrophic\nchange; admitting that even in the sphere of scientific discovery and\nmechanical invention changes occur much more gradually than a cursory\nglance at individual achievements would suggest; recognising that many\nof the most remarkable changes whose arrival in the past is the only\npossible valid guide to anticipation of similar or kindred changes in\nthe future; it is still a condition of such anticipation that we should\ntake account of causes likely to be operative in altering the rate at\nwhich the world will move. To allow that social improvements generally\nhave the air of occurring almost automatically is not to conceive that\nthey are without cause. Neither can it be believed by anyone who has\nstudied the history of such movements in the past, or watched them in\ncurrent progress, that the rate of development is everywhere and at\nall periods the same. There have been eras of almost complete moral,\nand even of almost complete mechanical, stagnation in the history of\nthe world. There have been other eras of almost violent reformation\nand reconstruction. To reason as if these characteristics were\narbitrarily or miraculously imposed upon the physiognomy of society,\nto be content with laboriously unintelligent estimation of the facts\nwithout attempting to learn anything from them of their causes, is to\nneglect the only important lesson which either history or observation\nis capable of teaching. When, therefore, an enormous acceleration in\na rate of progress already unprecedented in the records of society\nhas been predicted for the next hundred years of human history, it is\nevident that this anticipation must have been based upon some estimate\nof forces calculated to be operative in producing acceleration.\n\nSo far as scientific or material progress is concerned, it is obvious\nenough that we shall move forward with increasing momentum, because\nevery discovery and every invention tends automatically to facilitate\nfresh attainment, and the very growth of population must act in\nthe same way, as must also the struggle for existence. As there are\nevery year more men and women working on scientific research and on\nmechanical invention, the results must be progressively greater every\nyear; and as the rewards of success are increased by the growing\ndemand resulting from a growing population, it is evident that the\nincentives to industry in this respect are proportionately liable\nto increase. But the ethical progress of the world is actuated by\nforces entirely different, and what makes for mechanical improvement\nmay very easily be conceived--in fact has actually been conceived by\none rather conspicuous prophet--to operate adversely upon the moral\nfuture of the race.\n\nNo secret, however, has been made of the present writer's belief\nthat our descendants a hundred years hence will have made moral\nprogress quite as remarkable as the mechanical progress of which the\nanticipation is likely to be contested by no reasonably imaginative\nobserver. This ethical improvement, gradual, and momentarily\nimperceptible as it may be, necessarily has causes which must now,\nhowever tentatively and however cursorily, be examined.\n\nThat these causes will be powerful, continuous in action and based\nupon the fundamentals of human character, is evident. That in their\noperation they will be opposed by other influences not less easy to\nforesee is equally manifest. What we have to precognise are the net\nresults likely to be achieved by the interaction of opposing forces,\nof which those tending to improvement are confidently believed the\nstronger.\n\nThe most powerful of all moral influences in the future will\nundoubtedly be the reform of education, not merely by the improvement\nof its methods in various departments, but also, and with much more\nimportance, in the general spirit with which its objects will be\nconceived. But in order to affirm that this reform will occur, we\nmust first demonstrate that the grounds upon which it is anticipated\nare adequate. We must, in the terms of the formula above proposed,\nbe satisfied that they are in harmony with the fundamentals of human\ncharacter.\n\nIf there be any human motive of which something approaching\nuniversality can be predicted--quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab\nomnibus--it is that of parental solicitude. No progenitor of children,\nhowever little amenable to high aspirations, is wholly free from\nthe wish that his offspring shall grow up to be wiser, stronger,\nbetter, more prosperous than himself. The innate hopefulness of the\nrace expressed in the arid comment that, in his own estimation, \"man\nnever is, but always to be blest,\" is often discouraged by the time\na man's children are beginning to grow up, especially in these days\nof late marriage and deferred parenthood. Realising, as most of us\nhave realised only too acutely by the time we are forty, that we have\nmore or less failed in the ambitions which seemed so easy of future\nattainment when we were twenty-five, aspiration begins to cast a golden\nlight upon the career of our children, and it is to the successes and\nthe fame of our first-born that we look for consolation in the failure\nwhich, for ourselves, we no longer hope to evade. Romance, celebrity,\neven perhaps worldly reward, we can no longer expect for ourselves;\nbut these dear hands that a little time ago we held while the first\ntottering steps of babyhood were being tried, shall return to us\nhereafter with the laurel in them that we have never plucked. Perhaps\nwe shall not live to see it on our child's brow, but what of that? Our\nconfident prevision of this glory is what we console ourselves withal:\nthis, though we hardly know it, is our True Romance:--\n\n\n   \"The comfortress of unsuccess,\n    To bid the dead good-night.\"\n\n\nNeither in the material and the intellectual spheres alone do we aspire\nmore nobly for our children than for ourselves. Not success and not\nfame limit our demand of Fate, that she repair in our children the\ninjustice of which we ourselves cease to complain. We want them to be\nbetter men and women than we have been. To put the thing on its lowest\nground (and nothing but the lowest motives ever seem to be accorded the\nsmallest validity by the more conspicuous among recent vaticinators of\nhuman action) it behoves us to make the best we can of our children's\nmorals, if we are presently in old age likely to be dependant upon\nthem. But for those who, like Malvolio, \"think nobly of the soul,\"\nit is sufficient to rely upon the manifested predilection of every\nparent in order to be convinced that the education of the future will\nbe moralised as well as rationalised through the natural emotions\nof man. Only the dullest and most turgid imagination will consent to\nbelieve that the horrible conditions of competitive struggle will be\npermitted to foster only the lower faculties, as greed, selfishness,\nunscrupulous cunning and subtle evasiveness, at the expense of\nall the finer characteristics of man. There is no cynic so base as\nwould deliberately seek the fortune of his sons in the inculcation\nof chicane. Struggle must sharpen all our intellects as life grows\nyearly more difficult, but one by-product of this attrition will be\nthe increased morality with which the education of each generation\nsuccessively arising will be conceived.\n\nPausing for a moment to remark, in regard to the methods in detail\nby which the improvement of education will most likely be sought,\nthat to foresee what is probable is not necessarily to endorse it as\nideal, and that the object of this book is not to formulate Utopia,\nbut to predict the consequences implied by existing forces after the\nlatter have been during a stated time in operation; and admitting\nthat no reform ever practised within the recorded history of man has\nbeen without drawbacks inherent in its own constitution, it may be\nsaid at once that the work of instruction is capable of mechanical\nand instrumental improvement not less considerable than any other\nlabour to be undertaken by ourselves and our successors. Even within a\nlifetime's limits all sorts of appliances for assisting the mind of the\nlearner to apprehend the facts sought to be learnt have been invented,\nand our children, as we all know, are much more easily taught than we\nwere ourselves. The laudator temporis acti is always pretty ready to\ndepreciate the value of these improvements, and perhaps it is natural\nenough in most of us to find it difficult to believe that any plan of\nteaching can be better for our children than the one which produced\nresults so pleasingly exemplified by ourselves. But at all events,\nit will be generally, if a little grudgingly, admitted that any form\nof apparatus capable of saving time and trouble in teaching is capable\nof being ranked as an improvement. Unquestionably appliances having\nthis object will be constantly invented and used during the present\ncentury. For instance, it is hardly conceivable that something less\nthan perfection in the teaching of a foreign pronunciation by the mouth\nof the best teacher who can be hired for the work will content us, when\nperfected talking-machines presently enable us to give examples of the\nstill better speech. Evidently a boy would learn to speak French with a\npurer accent by listening to a phonograph which, freed of the present\ntin-trumpet timbre and whirring, repeated the speech of the Com\u00e9die\nFran\u00e7aise, than by hearing an ordinary master read aloud. To say this\nis not to suggest that professors of languages will be dispensed with;\nbut their teaching can be thus supplemented. Similarly the use of\nmagic-lanterns and kinetoscopic pictures is capable of improving\ngreatly upon the blackboard and chalk still used. But the plan of\neducation in itself is so greatly more important to be foreseen than\nthe mechanism by which the details can be worked out, and the latter\ncan with so very little difficulty be imagined by anyone interested\nin them, that the reader shall not be troubled with any discussion of\nthis branch of the subject, but will rather be asked to concentrate\nhis attention upon the moral and intellectual aspects of it.\n\nConceiving, what I have all along endeavoured to show is reasonable\nto conceive, that all social institutions will be governed with\never-increasing intelligence and rationality as time goes on, and\nthat they could not possibly be tolerated otherwise, it is easy\nto see that education as hitherto and at present practised would\nnever do for our grandchildren, let alone for our more advanced\ndescendants a hundred years hence. To begin with, parents in that\nera would certainly consider it hopelessly and criminally unethical,\nif not actively immoral. Projects of reform, especially in morals,\nare often dismissed as visionary, because it is pointed out that no\nchanges can take place in the social order which do not appeal directly\nto the self-interest of the individual. In other words, there is no\nmainspring of social action except aggregated selfishness. Without\ndelaying to examine the validity of the belief, it may be said at\nonce that its full acceptance is no obstacle to the admission of\nthe whole case on which is founded the belief that education will be\nconducted chiefly with a view to its moral effect at the period I am\nattempting to describe. The very circumstances on which writers rely,\nwho predict the ethical deterioration of man, are those which make\nthe ethical reform of education inevitable. Precisely in proportion\nas competition tends to harden and debase, there will arise the\nunavoidable necessity for deliberate counter-action of this tendency,\nresulting, as the effect of the measures necessitated becomes felt,\nin the changes of commercial and political conditions already [20]\npredicted. If we consider at all thoughtfully the necessities of\na hundred years hence, it is not difficult to foresee the general\nlines upon which they are likely to be met--lines not necessary to\nbe accepted as representing a perfect or ideal state, but broadly\nindicating the methods which the effect of visible tendencies will\nby that time demand of a practical people.\n\nHere, as everywhere else, the only safe guidance as to the practice\nof the future must be sought in the tendencies of the present. The\ntendency most forcibly in evidence during recent times is that in\nfavour of softening the former acerbities of education. Whereas the\nschoolhouse of half a century ago was something like a penitentiary\nin the way it was conducted, the schoolhouse of to-day is managed\nas much like a place of recreation as it possibly can be. At all\nevents, recreation is at least as assiduously cultivated as study,\nand the candidate for an under-mastership who has a good cricket\nrecord will find employment a good deal more easily than one\nwith a double-first. If there be any complaint of public and other\nupper-class schools at the present time--and there is room for plenty\nof complaint--it is more often that games are too much insisted upon\nthan that brains are overtaxed. There is a visible reaction in regard\nto this; but it is not to be regarded as a reaction in favour of the\nold draconic methods. On the contrary, \"the growing sentimentality\nof the age\" steadily demands amenity of treatment for the fortunate\noffspring of the twentieth century. The late James Payn, sanest\nand kindliest of men, was never tired of denouncing what he called\nthe barbarous and indecent corporal punishments of Eton. He used to\nsay that if a picture of an Eton boy being birched were published\nin the Illustrated London News no boy would ever be birched again,\nand I believe that he tried to get either Mr Latey or Mr Shorter to\ninsert such a picture. Be this as it may, what he said was perfectly\ntrue. I shall have something to say presently on this same question of\nschool discipline: meantime it may with perfect safety be predicted\nof the master's cane a hundred years hence that it will be found\nonly in museums, and (whether rightly or wrongly) be regarded as\na relic of degrading barbarism. One reason why corporal punishment\nwill have to be abolished is that boys and girls will certainly be\neducated together instead of apart. As we could hardly cane girls\n(and it would be of very little use if we could) we shall assuredly\nhave to get on without caning their masculine schoolmates.\n\nI suppose that few will contest the statement that the religious\nteaching practised in schools at the present time not only has very\nlittle to do with the question of morality but tends distinctly, except\nin Roman Catholic seminaries and some few non-conforming colleges\nwhere a special kind of education is given, to have less and less\nconnection therewith. Whatever moral effect \"schooling\" has upon the\nadolescent is recognisably and recognisedly due to the \"tone\" of the\nschool itself, that is, to public opinion among the taught, and only\nindirectly to anything which emanates from the teachers. Assuredly a\nproficient knowledge of Biblical history has no ethical effect greater\nthan a proficient knowledge of Greek mythology (at least of so much\nof it as is properly selected for school use), and we have it on the\nauthority of Mr E. H. Cooper, a very entertaining if not particularly\nsound writer on children, that even \"Confirmation\" classes are by no\nmeans uniform in promoting a religious sentiment in boys. [21]\n\nThe moral advantages of education, therefore, tend to be found in\nthe effect of public opinion and the general \"tone\" of a school. It\nis discovered in practice that direct moral inculcation is not very\nsuccessful. It is to be assumed that the ingenuity of future p\u00e6dagogues\nwill be devoted to the discovery of the best ways in which indirect\nmoral influence can be cultivated. In view of the high importance\nwhich will evidently be attached to such influence, we may take it\nfor granted that it is not in connection with any single branch of\ntuition that it will be sought for, but that it will be root and\nbranch of the whole scheme of educational work. One very powerful\nassistance will be rendered to this by the system of co-education.\n\nIt is quite certain that boys and girls will always be educated\ntogether a hundred years hence. The tendency of the sexes to become\nless different intellectually is a known fact of sociology. [22]\nIt carries with it an inevitable tendency to dispense with the\nseparation of the sexes in education. Wherever co-education has\nbeen tried its effects have been excellent. The presence of female\nstudents in medical colleges has had a markedly reformative influence\non the manners and moral tone of medical student life, not long ago\nthe opprobrium of civilisation. The advantages to a parent of being\nable to send his sons and his daughters to one place of instruction,\nand to the children themselves of the companionship and maintenance\nof family relations thus afforded, are equally obvious. In one other\nrespect, which can only be touched upon lightly here, the system of\njoint education must be enormously beneficial, at all events to boys,\nand greatly beneficial to their sisters. Every competent schoolmaster\nis acquainted with special difficulties liable to arise about the\nage of puberty. The monastic seclusion of the schoolboy (like that\nof the single men in barracks who, according to Mr Kipling, \"don't\ngrow into plaster saints\"), and the glamorous mystery surrounding\nthe opposite sex, tend to accentuate these difficulties. The habit\nof constant association with girls who are not his sisters relieves a\nboy of the exaggerated sense of sexual isolation. A boy always brought\nup with girls is not liable to be constantly thinking about girlhood:\nand in practical experience many people are aware that boys who have\nhad the opportunity of frequent association with the girl friends of\ntheir sisters grow into purer-minded and more chivalrous men, than\nthose who have lacked this advantage; and the thoughtful future will\nassuredly cultivate the system which affords it. It is quite evident,\nin addition, that the fatuous and unreasonable mystery with which for\ncenturies the natural facts most liable to be important in adult life\nhave been made inevitable subjects of unholy curiosity, will be swept\naway, to the great enhancement of sane and clean thought in girls as\nwell as in boys, in young women even more than in young men: while\nthe tragedies which knowledge can avert, hidden horrors of our own\nday that we are too sentimental to envisage, but that everyone must\nnow and then have met with a hint of, will happily exist no more,\nor occur but rarely.\n\nAmong the indirect considerations which will assist us to the\nconclusion that co-education is the best, will be the endeavour,\neverywhere apparent, to make the work of teaching agreeable to the\ntaught. This is the keynote of the tendencies whose fruition we may\nlook for at the end of this century. It will have been recognised\nthat to conceive of education as a process of forcing knowledge\ninto unwilling memories is to place the greatest possible obstacle\nin the way of success. Even the child whose natural faculties are\njoyously receptive is bound to resist more or less unconsciously\nteaching that is conducted on the assumption that he won't learn if\nhe can possibly help it. The worst child in the class sets the tone\nof the rest. The boy who can most successfully evade real learning,\nand trick his instructors well enough to escape punishment, is the\nhero of the place. Nothing could be much worse for morality. Public\nopinion in schools, useful as it is in other respects, is everywhere\nharmful in this particular. The p\u00e6dagogue of the future will proceed\non a method far more rational.\n\nIn its essence it is quite easy to see what method the tendency\nof thought is likely to develop. Here, as in so many other places,\netymology can help us. If we could think, whenever we talk or make\nplans concerning the subject, of what education really means--a\ndrawing-out of the natural faculties of the instructed--we should\nalways conceive more rationally of the work. There is no animal whose\ngreatest pleasures are derived from anything else than the exercise of\nits faculties. Our dog, whether he jumps and tears about in glee as\nwe take him for a walk, or sits happily by our side, his head on our\nknees, his wistful eyes scrutinising our face, sympathetic with every\nemotion, illustrates this fact. In the one case he is exercising the\nnatural faculties of speed and vigorous agility; in the latter, the\nacquired and inherited faculties of mental comprehension. Shut him up\nin a room alone, or with an unfriendly person, and he is miserable or\ngoes to sleep, providently accumulating energy for the next opportunity\nof exercise. What I am not afraid to call his mental pleasures are\nnot less keen, if I know anything at all of dogs (who have loved\nmany of them) than his physical pleasures; and I never had a dog in\nmy life who would not cheerfully neglect his food to come indoors\nand sit with me in my library. Are children's brains less energetic,\nless capable of yielding pleasure to their small proprietors than the\nbrains of a dog? One of the mistakes that we are already beginning to\nfind out (and consequently one of those which we may expect to have\namended long before this time next century) is the tacit assumption\nthat games are richer in pleasure than study. It isn't the boys and\ngirls themselves that give this tincture to school-government. Plenty\nof them really prefer books before balls, until they go to school;\nwhere we at once proceed to show them that we regard cricket as a\nsort of alleviation of their hard lot, and with football console them\nfor their French lessons, and redress arithmetic by \"rounders.\" There\nis no reason why this should lead to any neglect of athletics. Only,\nathletics will be properly treated as only one of the joys of a school\nlife that will be fulfilled of other pleasures equally absorbing.\n\nThe method which will make education agreeable instead of repulsive is\npart and parcel of the system on which education will be conducted,\nand it is only incidentally that it will subserve the concurrent\nsentimental tenderness which finds expression to-day in unwise use\nof games in themselves highly beneficial, just as elsewhere it finds\nexpression by cultivating gluttony. [23]\n\nThe true object of instruction being to show children how to think,\nthe intellectual exercise of thinking will be always found, as it has\nalready long ago been found where this highly unusual method has been\nexperimented with, to give keen pleasure to the instructed. [24]\n\nA great deal that has been said both in regard to the excessive and\nin part exclusive training of memory, and in regard to the propriety\nof reversing the general order of tuition by proceeding from concrete\nfacts to generalised theories instead of beginning with generalisations\nand illustrating these by specific instances, is, for practical\nreasons, hardly likely to be acted upon by our descendants. To begin\nwith, the culture of memory is not in itself an abuse; on the contrary,\nit is a highly necessary feature of education. What is an abuse is the\nsubstitution of remembrance for ratiocination. Teachers in the future\nwill be more anxious to develop the mind from within than to graft\ninformation upon it from without. But they certainly will foster the\nfaculty called memory--or to speak more exactly, they will refrain\nfrom destroying that faculty in the way that present-day education\ndestroys it. For as a matter of fact, the memory of a young child who\nhas never been taught anything is invariably good, being both copious\nand retentive. One often hears it said that children quickly forget;\nbut it is also the case that they very quickly remember again. An\nAnglo-Indian friend told me a somewhat pleasing anecdote which (though\nof course it does not prove) illustrates a general fact of which\nanyone can find proofs for himself by a little observation. Having\ntaken home for a year's leave his children, reared, like all other\nEnglish children in India, amid native servants, and speaking quite\ncorrect Urdu instead of the barbarous dog-Hindustani which suffices\nfor their elders, he was under the impression, when the \"wicked day\nof destiny\" arrived, and the family had to return from refreshment\nin England to labour in India, that they had completely forgotten\nthe soft vernacular speech which formerly came much more easily from\nthem than English. And his belief was confirmed when, the children\nhaving been promptly carried off by the adoring servants, an aged\nbearer came to him almost in tears, complaining that \"Baba Sahib\"\ncould not understand him. But the next day all the little people were\nchattering Urdu as easily as ever. The fact is that a child's mind\nconcentrates itself intensely upon whatever subject interests at a\ngiven moment, and neglects everything else. By our present method of\neducation we do all that the most malignant ingenuity could devise\nto destroy both this invaluable gift of mental concentration and the\naccompanying faculty of memory. The new teaching will industriously\ncultivate both. There is no doubt that the premature and unskilful use\nof books as implements of instruction is extremely bad for the memory;\nand the employment of distasteful and inconsiderate methods of teaching\nis equally destructive of concentration. A hundred years hence,\nwhen it has been recognised that the easiest way to teach anything\nis to find out how a child can be made to want to learn about it,\nthere will be no difficulty in securing attention. Children's minds\ndo not, as most people suppose, tire very easily. On the contrary,\nthey are with great difficulty fatigued. Anyone who has been so\nimprudent as to embark on a course of tale-telling near bedtime or\nnear a meal hour, knows that the little people are almost incapable\nof being satiated. And the descendants of these little people will\nbe just as insatiable of being taught, because we shall have found\nout how to make them want to be taught.\n\nHerein is the whole keynote of the education of the future, moral as\nwell as intellectual. We shall no longer treat good behaviour as if\nit were an artificial and unnatural abstinence from the true desires\nof the child or of man. We shall arrange that people, young and old,\nmay wish to act rightly. The point of reform will be shifted. At\npresent, all kinds of morality are approached on the assumption that\nit is requisite to persuade to an unwilling abstinence from vice, and\nthat when the desires of the wicked have been curbed into a sort of\nascetic abstemiousness prompted by fear of punishment, whether overt\nor implicit, a moral feat has been performed. The new morality will\nonly be content when the subject of it would not sin if you asked him\nto. His moral sense will have been stoically cultivated. Obedience and\nthe law of Thou-shalt-not will be dethroned. This law represents in\nthe education of to-day the highest form of youthful virtue. Yet mere\nobedience, even where it has always been considered most valuable,\nnamely, where it takes the shape of military discipline, has proved\nan utter failure; the last two great wars proved the fact. If the\nlamentable doggerel which enshrines the applauded self-immolation of\nCasabianca have not fortunately been forgotten altogether a hundred\nyears hence, it will assuredly be quoted only as a monumental example\nof old-fashioned fat-headedness, even more offensive to the sense\nof reason than the verses themselves are to the sense of poetical\ntaste. The Casabiancas of the next century will have been allowed--I do\nnot say taught, because children don't need to be taught this--to think\nfor themselves. And no great exertion will have been required. On the\ncontrary, it is impossible to listen for many hours to what goes on in\na modern school without being impressed with the ingenious arrangements\nthat are required in order to prevent boys and girls from thinking\nfor themselves. The notion of their doing so seems as offensive to\nthe present race of schoolmasters as, to Mr W. S. Gilbert's sentinel,--\n\n\n        ... \"the prospect of a lot\n    Of dull M.P.s in close proximity\n    All thinking for themselves.\"\n\n\nHowever, the purpose of this dissertation is not so much to point\nout the errors of the present as to indicate the improvements\nof the future: and we may be sure that the prime virtues of the\nscholar a hundred years hence will be reasonableness and ingenuity,\nnot dull obedience. Thus right conduct will be inculcated, not as an\nexpression of obedience but as the only reasonable way of behaving,\nand the incentive to right action will be that it is also sensible\naction. The test of all conduct will be its results. Whatever does\nharm to self and others will be obviously wrong; what does good or\nis indifferent will be right. The standard of these things that has\nto be accepted all through life will be set up from the first, an\nenormous improvement upon the vicious system of exacting irrational\nobedience for the first eighteen or twenty-one years of life, and\nexpecting this to produce reasonable self-government thereafter,\nwhich is so fruitful in the wild-oats of early adulthood. The latter\ncould hardly be more ingeniously cultivated.\n\nIt would be extremely rash to conclude that books will not be employed\nas implements of instruction: but it is quite certain that they will\nnot be employed as they now are, chiefly for the purpose of saving a\nschoolmaster the trouble of making his pupils think for themselves:\nand incidentally the abolition of this mistake will react most\nusefully upon memory, itself, with the exception of reasoning power,\nthe most valuable of mental faculties. Oral teaching, accompanied in\nevery possible place by practical illustration, will store and build\nup memory (as it always does when we employ it now) far more rapidly\nthan anything else. The delight which this method of teaching confers\nupon the taught is enhanced by the avidity with which such subjects\nas chemistry, practical mechanics, and even geometry when taught\nwith apparatus instead of with figures, are received by children of\nevery growth.\n\nTo imagine that children can ever invariably be controlled without\nsome sort of punishments would, no doubt, be thought ridiculous\nUtopianism. But the greatest part of the necessity for correction\nwill have disappeared automatically when the greatest source of\nyouthful misbehaviour--restless superfluous activity--has been\ndeviated into channels which will utilise it. Children whisper,\nfidget, or make a noise in class, simply because they are bored by\nthe dulness of mechanical processes which we persistently use in\nseeking to cram information into their minds from without instead of\nexercising the reason that dwells within. As the education of future\ngenerations will assuredly have to be a great deal more copious than\nwhat we are content with now, it is fortunate that this reform will\nalso be a great economiser of time. Every schoolmaster knows that\nan interested class progresses far more rapidly than one that is\nbored and consequently inattentive; and the same boy who is alive\nto the subtlest implications of the highly complex law of cricket,\nwill often be found utterly incapable of applying the very simple\ndefinitions at the beginning of Euclid I., for the simple reason that\ncricket interests him, while Euclid doesn't. This is not because the\nlatter is \"harder\" than cricket, nor yet because cricket is an outdoor\npleasure, while Euclid is (or rather should be) an indoor one. It is\nbecause in cricket we get him into the habit of reasoning for himself,\nwhile in geometry we only too frequently fail to do what Euclid is\nsupposed to help us to do.\n\nNevertheless, after making every allowance for reduced temptations\nto misbehaviour resulting from the absorption of redundant mental\nactivity, it is still to be feared that disciplinary punishment\nwill sometimes be required. This will certainly not be corporal. The\nuncivilised and degrading expedient of purposely-inflicted pain is\nvisibly on its last legs. There are still reactionary people who\nwrite to the papers in order to explain that the use of scholastic\ntorture makes for manliness; they must be presumed to think that it\nwould be on the whole rather good for boys to be birched at intervals,\nlike Charles Lamb, not as a punishment, but to keep them humble. But\nthe next century will have outgrown such ideas. The commonest\nof present-day alternatives--\"lines\"--is equally obsolescent,\nthe evil effect of this upon handwriting and health being already\nrecognised. \"Keeping-in\" is probably the most injurious of all\nforms of correction, but it is only too consistent with our present\nplans of education to treat extra tuition as a punishment--the best\npossible way to make all teaching hated. It is much more likely that\nthe schoolmaster of a hundred years hence will punish refractory and\ninattentive pupils by keeping-out instead of keeping-in. The most\ndetested of all chastisements will be exclusion from the pleasant\nexercise of learning. During the Russo-Japanese War newspaper readers\nnoted with saturnine amusement that the artillery regiment which in\nSt Petersburg had the maladroitness to fire a salute with a shotted\ngun and very nearly kill the Czar thereby, was punished by being sent\nto the front; while at the beginning of hostilities the exemplary\nconduct of the enormous Japanese army crowded in Tokio for transport\nwas accounted for by the threat that any soldier who misbehaved himself\nwould be left at home. It is the Japanese and not the Russian ideal\nof discipline that will animate the schools of the future. We shall\nno doubt emulate the reserve of the Confessor in the Bab Ballads; old\nheads upon young shoulders we shall not expect to find; and we shall\npunish when punish we must. Future advantage, even for oneself, is\nseldom a very powerful motive with the young of any age. But present\ndeprivation is a chastisement easily and keenly comprehended: and\nthe loss of intellectual status involved in exclusion from a lesson\nwill no doubt supplement the immediate boredom very distasteful to an\nagile mind, which is the more immediate effect. I imagine that the\nnaughty child of the future will be punished by being shut up in a\nwell-ventilated and well-lighted but perfectly empty room, with pockets\nequally empty. At the same time, by treating deprivation of it as an\nevident chastisement, the desirable nature of instruction will be in\na very useful manner impressed upon the infant mind. Young persons\nmuch more easily believe what they find to be treated as a matter\nof course than what is laboriously impressed upon them by explicit\ninculcation. Thus the effect of rationalised education will not be,\nas one critic has rather rashly supposed, to make children little\nprigs. On the contrary, its effect will be to make them naturally\nand happily interested little learners--a very different thing. One\nof the very greatest improvements in the rationalised education will\nprecisely be that it cannot possibly foster the awful priggishness\nwhich is a very common result of our own methods.\n\nIt has been said already that the education of the happy future will\nhave to be much more copious than anything that is at all common\nnowadays. The nature of its extensions will next be discussed.\n\nOne of the most important and most moral objects of education is\nto impress upon the mind, as a principle not to be evaded by any\ncontrivance whatever, the fact that fixed causes (among which are\npersonal acts of any kind) produce fixed effects--that there is no\ncircumstance which, with sufficient knowledge, could not be traced back\nto pre-existing causative circumstance. No department of knowledge\ntends so intimately to give to the mind the impress of this fact in\nthe course of its acquisition as physical science. And as a proficient\nacquaintance with physical science will be necessary to a great many\noccupations, when work of all kinds is performed in the intelligent\nmanner in which we have seen reason to be convinced that it will be\nperformed a hundred years hence, there will be a greater practical\nneed for scientific instruction than there is now, though science is\ndisgracefully neglected even with regard to our present necessities. As\neducation is to be given with the object of fitting children for\nlife as well as developing their minds, the science of health will\ncertainly be taught; but all physical sciences will have their place\non the curriculum even at the early stages, because it will have been\nrecognised that the habit of mind which is formed by studies of this\nkind is not only very necessary to an efficient working life, but also\nvery helpful as a basis of practical culture. It may be conceived that\na thorough \"grounding\" in physical science will be thought as much an\nessential of all education in the future as a really good training in\nLatin and Greek used to be considered in the past, and as many of us\nwould like it to be considered now. Fifty years ago we believed that\nno true education could be given in preparation for ordinary life\nwithout as much Latin as was necessary in order to be able to write\na fair copy of elegiacs, and as much Greek as was necessary in order\nto read Homer with comfort. A hundred years hence we shall think it\nnecessary to be able to read a scientific thesis comprehendingly.\n\nAt a later period of school life, but still early in it, specialised\ninstruction will no doubt be begun; and subjects connected with\nthe evident tendency of a boy's or a girl's mind, and with the\nopportunities likely to be presented to either in forming a career,\nwill be developed to the exclusion of subjects less immediately\nsubservient to the object of making a useful citizen of him or\nher in some particular profession or branch of industry. Practical\ndemonstrations of science, instead of being reserved for the more\nadvanced stages of tuition, will, on the contrary, form the groundwork;\nand children will be required to work practically themselves\ninstead of merely sitting still to watch the performances (in this\ncase apt to be regarded with little more respect than scholastic\nconjuring tricks) of a teacher. They will be invited to deduce laws\nfor themselves from what occurs in practice, and where they deduce\nwrong ones they will not be arbitrarily corrected, but assisted to\nmake further experiments which will show where the mistake occurs,\nuntil at last the correct generalisation is reached. Only after a\nconsiderable course of practical work will they be entrusted with\nbooks in which great generalisations are to be found ready made,\nand these books will always be regarded as a sort of pis aller--a\ntime-saving contrivance to be employed as a regrettable alternative,\nbecause it would take too long to work everything out by the golden\nimplement of individual observation. The habit of mind thus cultivated,\nand the manual dexterity thus obtained, will be of priceless practical\nworth in after-life; and with what rapturous enjoyment will our\ndescendants acquire knowledge which at present we force upon our\nchildren with stripes!\n\nAlong with the physical sciences mathematics will have to be greatly\ncultivated. But mathematics, when perceived to be ancillary to\nthe more immediately delightful work of concrete and experimental\nscience, will lose much terror. Many mathematical operations can\nmoreover be demonstrated experimentally, and no opportunity of thus\ndemonstrating them will be lost. Rightly treated, mathematics need\nnever be dull. According to my own experience and all that I have\nbeen able to gather from the recollections of others, algebra (for\ninstance) is never abhorred when a proper care is taken to make use\nof its call upon the reasoning faculties; and the art of evoking this\nuse will have been carefully developed by the educational specialists\nwho alone will be permitted to direct so delicate and important a task\nas the training of the young. For school teachers will not be merely\nmore or less erudite people employed to dispense their learning: they\nwill be men and women who have undergone long and careful instruction\nin the art of p\u00e6dagogy studied as a specialised faculty in itself.\n\nAfter mathematics, no doubt languages occupy chief place in\nthe righteous abhorrence of present-day school-children. I say\nrighteous abhorrence with intention, because this department of\nuseful learning always has the air of being purposely planned in\norder to secure the maximum of execration accompanied by the minimum\nof advantage. What languages will be taught a hundred years hence,\nand in what manner will they be instilled into the children of our\ngreat-great-grand-children? Any opinions upon a controversy so recent\nas that which a few months ago raged about the question of compulsory\nGreek must be more or less untrustworthy. Every man will take the\nview of the future of the dead languages (so called, as someone [25]\nsanguinely remarked, because they can never die) determined by his\nown view as to whether proficiency in the tongues of Hellas and of\nRome ought to be maintained in his own day. But for a reason probably\nadmitting of very little controversy, it is at all events permissible\nto believe that the classical languages will at least not have to meet\nthe urgent competition of a variety of current languages as subjects of\nuseful learning. This reason is to be found in the evident tendency of\na paramount tongue to extrude other tongues from practical employment\nin commerce; and commerce, more than anything else, will of course\nalways determine the question of modern language study. Provided that\nthe race which becomes paramount in the markets of the world during the\ncourse of this century possesses a reasonably philosophical, copious,\nprecise language, and one fairly easy to acquire, it is likely that\nfor commercial purposes it will become (to use an incorrect, but not\nconveniently replaceable term) universal. To the facile remark that\nevery nation considers its own speech easy enough for foreigners to\nacquire, and much more satisfactory in the other respects named than\nany tongue which it is invited to give itself the trouble of learning,\nmay be opposed the reply that peoples do in fact recognise, where it\nexists, the unsatisfactory nature of their own speech. For example,\nnearly every Russian whom one meets in polite or commercial circles\nspeaks at least French, and often speaks it admirably; while in Norway,\nthough the Scandinavian languages are none of them anything like so\ndifficult to learn as Russian, practically everyone speaks English. The\ncase of Japan is even more illustrative; for apart from the fact that\nenough of some European language to enable one to travel with perfect\ncomfort is always to be found current in the Mikado's empire, it is the\ncase that even for domestic use the Japanese have a popular language,\nprinted in newspapers and in some books alongside of the more literary\nChinese id\u00e6ographs, and frequently used to elucidate the latter. [26]\n\nThus it is quite easy to believe that the paramount language of\ncommerce will impose itself upon at least the business population\nof the whole world. As the substitution of modern languages for\nthe dead languages is advocated solely on utilitarian grounds, which\npractically means that it is advocated because to know a couple or more\nforeign languages is useful in trade; and as no one has ever seriously\npretended that French, German or any other modern language can compare\nwith Greek and Latin as intellectual gymnastics and as training in\nthe precise expression of one's thoughts; it may be assumed that,\non the ground of competitive usefulness, the latter will not need to\nbe dispensed with. Whether the study of them will be abandoned on the\nground that the time they require can be better employed in some study\nother than that of languages is another and more difficult question,\nthe resolution of which depends upon the view we take of the literary\ntendencies probably existing after another century. If we believe\nthat our descendants will have effected so many improvements in the\nshape of labour-saving contrivances as to afford a large increase of\nleisure for everyone, as compared with what the present time enjoys,\nwe shall probably expect the languages which enshrine the greatest\nliterature of the world to remain a subject of study. If we believe in\nthe growing intellectuality of man, we shall be strengthened in the\nsame expectation. If, on the other hand, we think that the progress\nof our race will exhibit itself in the shape of greedy utilitarianism\nand of idiotic and self-destructive immorality, we shall naturally\nconclude that no one will be fool enough to trouble himself with Homer\nor the Oresteian trilogy, the laments of Sappho or the philosophy\nof Plato. Seeing what great men have taken this somewhat despondent\nview of the future, it would perhaps be immodest to express any other\nopinion on the subject.\n\nIn any event, we may safely believe that whatever languages are taught\nwill not be handled in the manner now current. Mr Andrew Lang has,\nin more than one place, described his own \"floundering\" into Homer--a\nplunge certainly attended with the happiest results. A method of\nteaching alien languages which founds itself upon an imitation of the\nnatural picking-up of the mother tongue by babies has been suggested,\nperhaps without sufficient consideration of the vast expenditure\nof time necessary to the process, and certainly without sufficient\nallowance for the fact that it would be impossible to afford the\nsame incessant practice which enables children to learn the language\nof their fathers and mothers so easily. But there is no reason why\nwe should perpetuate the discouraging preponderance of grammatical\nand etymological study which caused the late H. D. Traill to say of\ncertain professors that\n\n\n   \"They heard with a smile of the flowers of style\n    For they recognised nothing but roots!\"\n\n\nIn fact, here as elsewhere, the persistent demand that schooling be\nmade agreeable will have the best possible effect in facilitating\ninstruction. It is as literature that all languages--including the\nnative language of the scholars--will be taught; and they will\nbe taught far more easily than we have any example to assist us\nin imagining. Where a foreign language pronounced with a different\naccent and intonation from that of the learner is studied, no doubt (as\nalready mentioned) talking machines will be employed: and in addition,\npupils will be required to read and speak the language aloud on all\npossible occasions, in order to exercise the organs of speech in the\nalien manner. [27]\n\nIt is a trite saying, and one that need not be dwelt upon here,\nthat history ought not to be taught as if its sole purpose were\nto store the memory with the deeds and misdeeds of kings and the\nprogress of various wars. It will certainly be studied hereafter as\na vast lesson in sociology and politics, as an illustration of the\nscience of human dynamics. It is perhaps not superfluous to remark\nthat brilliant examples of the new historiography have shown that the\ndifference is not, in its result, so great as some critics imagine. But\nthe deductions from the facts of history are the important matter:\nand the way in which history will be used a hundred years hence will\nbe in instructing the future governors of the world how to use their\ncitizenship wisely. Among other things expected of the schoolmaster of\nthe future will be that he implant in his scholars an ardent desire\nto do their part in determining the polity of the state they live\nin, and the sacred duty of the ballot will certainly be taught with\nrelation to whatever methods of utilising the popular vote may by\nthat time have become current.\n\nMoreover, history, like languages, is capable of being taught as\nliterature; and the protest against the prevalent notion that high\ncivilisation involves the decadence of beauty in any form implies\nbelief in all the arts as subjects of cultivation in the schools\nof the future. It need not be supposed that the unreasonable waste\nof time entailed by the present method of teaching such a subject\nas drawing, and our curious neglect of sculpture and modelling,\nwill be perpetuated. As we can already see the dawn of new ideas on\nboth these subjects the tendency of the future in regard to them is\nnot difficult to conceive, nor need space be consumed in discussing\nthem in detail. Literature and poetry (the latter, I need hardly say,\nno longer made merely hateful as the subject of the fatuous torture\ncalled \"learning by heart\") with belles-lettres, drawing, painting,\nand sculpture, will no doubt be taught in an elementary way to all\nchildren, and the study of them developed further where a natural\nappetite demands it. In reply to the very natural question, \"How can\nan art be taught?\" it is only needful to say that minds exercised by\nbeing made to think about such subjects, are quite certain to exhibit\nspecial predilections in one place and special aversions in another,\nand that the ascertainment of these predilections and aversions will\neverywhere be made the subject of painstaking thought. While nobody\nseriously pretends nowadays that a taste for literature or the arts\ncan be inoculated upon a child's understanding, I imagine that few\nwill question the belief that a natural bent for any one of them can\nbe assisted in its development, and that taste, while it is incapable\nof being artificially implanted, certainly is susceptible of being\nguided and assisted. The defect of routine teaching in \u00e6sthetics at\npresent is the defect of all our systems of education. We try to do\na scholar's thinking for him. We laboriously show him how to use a\npencil and how to copy drawings and pictures; and sometimes (though\nthis kind of instruction is usually retailed by the ingenious writers\nwho endeavour to instruct the adult public through the Press) we even\ngo to the trouble of telling him the kind of pictures he ought to\nadmire (usually forgetting that in the house of Art there are many\nmansions, and that a disgust for the early Dutch masters does not\nnecessarily imply an incapacity for appreciating Velasquez); but,\nwhether in adolescence or maturity, we never seem to arrive at the\npoint of trying to get people to think critically for themselves. We\nshall reform altogether the processes of artistic education in the\ncourse of this century.\n\nThe training of eye and hand will certainly not be neglected. If only\nbecause learning any kind of handicraft gives the keenest enjoyment\nto children, we may be sure that manual instruction will be given,\nand that the effect of it will be of great value, not only recreative\nbut also practical. Our mechanics will not have to inaugurate the\nwage-earning period of their lives by the elementary acquisition of\nthe use of tools. Their future occupation will have been foreseen,\nand both by scientific understanding of the processes they are to\nsubserve, and by manual practice of the exact work they are to perform,\nthey will be prepared for intelligent craftsmanship; the glorious fact\nthat real anxiety to find out the best possible method of attaining\nthe best possible results makes every craft, however humble, not merely\ndelightful but also noble, being automatically grasped, so that work,\nlike learning, will be a thing of joy and a source, to the worker,\nof lifelong self-respect.\n\nThus in every department of education the result of the training\nadministered intelligently, and with almost infinite long-sightedness\nand subtlety during school-days, will be to form character, not by\nrepression of any natural predilection, but by cultivation of mental\nand moral impulses to good. We shall never be content with an obedient\nabstention from misconduct, but shall unrestingly contrive that the\ndesire to act rightly as well as wisely be implanted in the mind,\nuntil wisdom, righteousness and forethought have been stamped upon\nthe character with so indelible an imprint that it would do violence\nto the whole contour of the mind to act in defiance of them. A people\nthus trained will be capable of all the reforms predicted of society\na hundred years hence. Not by any of the unimaginable cataclysms by\nwhich dreamers have expected Utopia to be established, ready-made,\non a basis of unreformed obedience to the will of fantastic lawgivers,\nbut by the steady growth of national morality will progress,\n\n\n   \"Moving as beauteous order that controls\n    With growing sway the growing life of man,\"\n\n\nestablish, on the basis of a perfect harmony between the nature\nof the units and the institutions of society, the rationalised,\nmoralised, and still progressive state of the world looked for by all\nwho contemplate logically and with ordered faith the capabilities of\ntheir kind a hundred years hence.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nRELIGION: THE FINE ARTS: LITERATURE\n\n\nA good many people contemplate the future of the world with an\nalarmed feeling that vast material progress and enlarged knowledge\nof the visible and tangible universe are likely to be accompanied\nby intellectual developments dangerous to the religious spirit in\nmankind. But to consider thus is to overlook the manifest trend\nof human thought at the present time. Of the two influences named,\nmaterial progress and enlarged information about the universe, the\nformer is probably much more directly liable to affect religious\nfeeling adversely than the latter. Epochs of high civilisation and\ngreat luxury have often accompanied a general tendency to scepticism,\nand these conditions are also perhaps (and for the same reasons)\nnot highly favourable to the highest developments of poetry. There\nhave been periods of scientific discovery which have coincided with\nthe spread of irreligion. During the second half of the nineteenth\ncentury there was, for instance, no doubt a great increase of popular\nscepticism arising out of popular deductions (or supposed deductions)\nfrom science. Religion unquestionably lost ground in the sense that\ndogmatic irreligion became rather fashionable. When the people began\nto learn that geological research had entirely upset the Biblical\nchronology, and that biological research had proved the development of\nanimal life by evolutionary processes not compatible with a literal\nacceptance of the account of the creation in Genesis; when knowledge\nof the developments of language proved that the various tongues\nof mankind could not possibly have been the subject of a sudden,\ncataclysmal \"confusion\" at Babel or elsewhere, and when it became\ncommon knowledge that the sun and stars were not suddenly produced\nfor the convenience of man, but were, on the contrary, for the most\npart much older, as suns and stars, than the earth itself; it is not\nsurprising that minds untrained in philosophical deduction leaped\ntowards atheism, although, of course, none of these discoveries has\nany more to do with religion, as religion, than, say, chemistry has\nto do with music. Unless one takes a highly anthropomorphic view of\nthe subject they are not even inimical to revelation. Of course it is\nopen to anyone who chooses, to say that if the statements in the Bible,\nsaid to be inspired, are incorrect, the Creator (and Inspirer) either\ndid not know how He had done His work, or told untruths about it; and\nconsequently that scientific discovery has disproved revelation. But\nthat is what I have called a highly anthropomorphic argument, and\nit may safely be left to the apologists to demolish. Assuredly it\nis not a sort of argument likely to be met with in the cultured and\nlogical future. But it was an argument which commended itself very\nwidely to the uncultured and illogical past, and great efforts were\nmade to deal with it. These efforts were really inimical to religious\nfaith. Religion having been declared to rest upon the irrefragable\nrock of Holy Scripture, there appeared to many excellent people an\nurgent necessity that science should be set right, that the theory\nof Evolution (by which was meant, for these thinkers, Darwinism) must\nbe disproved: otherwise all faith must go by the board, and the world\nmust descend into pure materialism. The Biblical criticism produced in\nGermany, and apparently received in the very heart of the Christian\ncamp, seemed to plain men not merely to assail this irrefragable\nrock but to strike at the roots of religion itself. Atheism, having\nbecome unfashionable, was exchanged from an \"agnosticism\" of which\nthe popular conception was not a great deal more philosophical. The\nwhole question of religion was conceived to hang together. The Bible\nwas the Word of God: if the Bible could not stand, God must fall. And\nthe stability of the Bible was considered to rest upon scientific\naccuracy. A miscellaneous collection of writings, certainly of great,\nbut of variously computed antiquity, was to be absolutely right (which\nno other documents of anything like the same age have ever been) on\nscientific facts; otherwise it could not be retained as a text-book of\nthe churches. The latter (sometimes themselves claiming inspiration)\nhad declared the Bible to be directly inspired: and by some people\ninspiration was taken to imply literal and detailed truth, though\nliteral and detailed truth would certainly have made the collection\nutterly incomprehensible by the persons who have used it during all\nbut the last comparatively insignificant portion of its existence, and\nto most persons even then. Evidently such a conception of the Bible,\naccompanied by the opinion that religion could only exist on the basis\nof the Bible, was dangerous to popular religion in proportion as the\nopinions here summarised met with public support.\n\nHardly less dangerous was the endeavour of some apologists to assist\nthe difficulty of belief by attenuating the minimum required of\nit. The exposure of their rather circular arguments--basing Faith\non the inspired Bible, and the inspiration of the Bible on its\ninternal evidence--titillated in the untrained thinker who had\nrejected (as he was encouraged to reject) the claim of the Church\nto be the repository of inspired tradition, a sense of his own\nlogical acuteness. With a warm glow of self-approval he abandoned\nthe ancient shibboleths and left off going to church, being convinced\nthat no really well-informed intelligence could tolerate the mutual\ncontradiction of science and religion. With no more ability to\nunderstand the arguments which supported the one than the philosophy\nwhich lay at the root of the other, and quite unaware that religious\nbelief is capable of development and is as much a product of evolution\nas any material phenomenon, he considered according to temperament\nthat religion was either a mischievous invention calculated to clog\nthe progress of the world, or a pardonable aberration of amiable\nminds seeking consolation in superstition of one sort or another. The\nreligiously-minded thinker of the same calibre welcomed with enthusiasm\nthe antagonisms of scientific schools discovered for him by the less\nwary of his teachers, and decided that Darwin was wrong, that Huxley\nwas following false scents, and that science would have to revise\nall its later conclusions. In neither case (naturally) was\n\n\n                      ... \"divine philosophy,\n    Not harsh and crabb\u00e8d as dull fools suppose,\n    But musical as is Apollo's lute,\"\n\n\ncalled into the assize. \"Mistakes of Moses,\" to be either proved\nor justified, were popularly supposed to be the touchstone of\nreligion's fate. Meanwhile, though the combatants in the popular\narena were quite unaware of it, the true thinkers were realising\nvast depths which science had left still unexplored, and the very\ninvestigations undertaken to account for the beginnings of life on\nthis planet were proving the belief in the spontaneous generation\nof life a figment. Whatever effect science may have had upon myth,\nit was doing nothing to assail the ultimate mystery which is the\nbasic fact of religion.\n\nBy degrees, too, the philosophical untenableness of materialism began\nto be popularised, and although it is a great deal easier to accept\n(or decline) scientific discoveries without understanding the evidence\nfor or against them than to grasp such abstract considerations as the\nsubjectivity of phenomena, popular scepticism began to be directed\ninto new channels. If we could only know phenomena we really know\nnothing; and it was just as likely that the most absurd myths of\nthe hagiologist might be true as that they might be false--since\none could know nothing. Towards the end of the century there is no\ndoubt that among the masses of the people the incomprehensibleness of\nthings in general had the effect of popularising a certain tolerance\nof Christianity among the class which, a little earlier, had been\nrepudiating it altogether; and if church-going, Sabbath-keeping and\nother formal acts of religion continued to be mentioned by the clergy\nand their adherents as the subject of lamentable negligence, the habits\nthus deplored arose, less and less from conviction and more and more\nfrom taste. People stayed away from church not because they rejected\nChristianity but because church-going bored them. If the clergy saw\ntheir congregations dwindle they had themselves to thank for it. The\natrocious dulness of nearly all sermons drove away more churchmen\nthan were lured from their pews by militant irreligion. There is not\nthe smallest reason to believe that \"free thought\" propaganda had any\nreally important part in producing the indifference denounced by the\nchurches. The simple fact is that a growing appetite for amusements,\nathletic and other, and an intolerance of the boredom inflicted by\npreachers too indolent or too imperfectly educated to make their\ndiscourses tolerable by an active mind, robbed the churches of their\nvisitors. A good preacher never lacked a crowded congregation even\nin the middle of a week-day in the city of London; nor are such\ncongregations lacking now.\n\nNo doubt the form of education generally adopted in non-Catholic\ncountries has been a great cause of indifferentism. The fostering of\nparental indolence by States which profess to relieve it of the duty\nof religious as well as the expense of other teaching, cannot tend to\npromote religious education. To take our own country for an example,\nfathers, who would make it a duty to instil as well as they were able\nthe principles of their own faith into the minds of their children if\nthe board schools were not supposed to teach Christianity, doubtless\nneglect that task in the existing conditions, a fact which makes\nit quite easy to understand why congregations are so largely made\nup of elderly people, while boys and girls, not young enough to be\nhaled unwillingly to the parental pew, and young men and maidens,\nyoung wives and husbands \"educated\" on the prevailing system,\ntend more and more to amuse themselves, not in irreligion but in\nindifference. The squabbles of the sects have made it impossible to\ninvest Christianity in board schools, unless the law be flagrantly\nviolated, with any of the importance necessary to the foundation\nof a genuinely religious spirit; and the very children find that\nreligion is treated as a thing of much less importance than sums or\na good handwriting. No one struggles and wrangles about the right\nway to do long division. Long division, therefore, is a settled\nthing and important. But everybody quarrels and snarls as to who\nshall teach his particular kind of religion. Religion, therefore,\nis a doubtful sort of thing, about which even grown-up people do not\nagree. It cannot be of much importance. If you ask father about it,\nhe says it is the teacher's business to answer you. And in school, it\nhas to be attended to at a certain time so as not to interfere with\nthe real business of the day. Clearly it doesn't much matter; and\nthe child resolves, as soon as it is old enough, to escape from the\nweekly boredom of sitting still for two hours in a stuffy church or\nchapel, saying the same things over and over again, and listening to\na dull man in a sort of elevated and ornamented witness-box talking\nin a patronising tone about things not easy to understand, and not\nin the least practically useful when heard.\n\nOf course this is not the only sort of influence which has been at\nwork to produce a result likely to affect the attitude of the present\ncentury towards the question. If the facts are as I have stated them\n(which I do not think anyone will dispute) we see one very good reason\nwhy the younger generation is just now somewhat irreligious. I do\nnot believe it is nearly as irreligious as many good people (on both\nsides) think. But I do believe that we, at all events, have as a nation\nbeen doing every thing we can to make it so. There is no surer way of\npreventing a thing's being done than for the State to make a show of\ndoing it and then neglect it. If the school boards had not assumed the\nduty of teaching children Christianity, parents would have attended\nto the matter, and probably done it a great deal better than the\nboards could possibly have done it, even in the best conditions. And\nif anyone says that you can't teach Christianity, the reply is, that\nin the sort of conditions which exist in England at the present time,\nthe religious spirit is not favoured unless religion is taught. I said\nat the beginning that the sort of life we lead now, and that we are\nlikely to go on living during the next hundred years, is probably more\nunfavourable to the spirit than any directly irreligious influence of\nscience or discovery. People who are crowded into towns, where they\nare out of constant touch with Nature and the immensities of space,\nand lead a hurried, busy existence unfavourable to deep thought and\nmysticism, are much less liable to yearn for some explanation of the\nvast incomprehensible universe, the profound misgivings of the soul,\nthan people who have other opportunities, who know the massive face\nof solitude and have lain under the inscrutable stars. The very\nfrequency of terrible experience, when death stalks in the streets\nand a funeral procession is so common a sight that men hardly turn\ntheir unbared heads to look upon it, blunts the sense of awe; and\nin the cheap Press the alleged humorist finds it a choice subject\nfor joking. A hundred years hence, though I hope our humorous Press\nwon't be quite so ghastly, still more of us will have lived always\nin cities, and been rarely intimate with Nature. Unless, therefore,\nsome new influences supervene, it is likely that the new age will\nbe even less religiously inclined than the age we live in. Is it\nprobable that such an influence will arise? Or will the next century\nhave turned its face altogether from faith and given up in despair\nthe world-old riddle of the universe?\n\nAssuredly, with the increase, impossible to be denied, of conditions\nunfavourable to church-going, the influence which could arrest\nthe tendencies of thought at present supposed to exist must be a\npowerful one. But in computing the exact potency which it would\nrequire to possess we must take an accurate view of the tendencies\nthemselves. Now, although dogmatic religion has to a certain extent\nlost ground, and though formal observances are somewhat neglected,\nit would be a fallacy to consider that morality is in consequence\nretrograding. The steady growth of such things as teetotalism; the\nrevolt of the public conscience against tame stag hunting and against\nwhat was aptly called \"murderous millinery\"; the support afforded to\nthe societies for the Protection of Children and for the Prevention\nof Cruelty to Animals; the generous responses made to any appeal for\npublic subscriptions to meet any great disaster; the remarkable way in\nwhich the working people, out of their miserable poverty, help each\nother in time of strikes; the waves of public indignation which the\nexposure of any great injustice is able to arouse; all show that the\nworld is by no means retrograde in respect of morals. What is often\ncalled the growing sentimentality of the age, which opens all pockets\nat the call of want, and doubtless sometimes leads to ridiculous\nexhibitions of mistaken feeling, is a proof that the ethical sense\nof the people is by no means blunt; and it shows a constant tendency\nto become keener. It is mysticism rather than morality which is\nchiefly lacking to a re-development of the religious spirit. And\nalthough the opinions of the mass of the people are likely to be\ninfluenced at all times more by the results at which what are called\nleaders of thought arrive than by the reasons which lead up to those\nconclusions, it is rational to expect that with the improved and much\nmore thoroughly disseminated education which the necessities of the\ncoming century are going to enforce upon us, will make the people\nmore accessible to philosophical reasoning than they have ever been\nsince Socrates. Consequently, the general attitude of the world a\nhundred years hence towards mysticism will depend greatly upon the\nconclusions of eminent thinkers. These conclusions will require time\nin order to exercise their influence; but it seems probable that the\ninfluence will be towards and not away from mysticism.\n\nAn attempt to foresee the probable position, as an institution, of\nreligion in the future therefore demands the consideration of what\nnet result is likely to be deduced from science and philosophy by the\nimproved average intelligence of this century. I speak expressly of\nreligion as an institution, intending thereby to limit the inquiry to\nan attempt to determine the popular view of religion; the pretence to\nanticipate the opinions of the great philosophers that this century\nwill no doubt produce being a little too presumptuous even for the\npresent writer, who may not be considered in any event to have fallen\ninto many errors resulting from excessive modesty.\n\nWe can only come within reasonable limits of safety and consistency\nin such an inquiry by allowing here, as I have allowed all through,\nfor a great increase in general intelligence. Probably the mass of the\npopulation will be less greatly removed in reflective and reasoning\npowers from the greatest minds than at present; because the changes\nwhich have been predicted are likely to have more effect in raising\nthe general standard of intelligence than in producing individual\nand exceptional minds of very great calibre.\n\nNo doubt the people will be in closer touch with advanced thinkers than\nnow. But I do not see any reason for supposing that the latter can be\nconspicuously greater than the thinkers of past time, from Plato to\nHerbert Spencer. Consequently it is impossible to restrict the inquiry\nto strictly popular developments. We must ask what direction abstract\nthought is likely to take: and it certainly does not seem that the\ninfluence of recent discoveries in physics--especially those which\nhave produced the new theory of the constitution of the atom--can\ntend to materialism. With atoms resolved by the latest science into\nelectrons, which have been declared in a passage already cited to be\nnot merely carriers of electrical charge but the electrical charges\nthemselves, the objectivity of matter has assuredly not received any\nnew support. And if speculation as to the beginning of things (always\nthe kind of speculation most important to philosophy, where philosophy\nis made the handmaid of religion) is relieved of the necessity of\naccounting for the creation of matter, and only has to concern itself\nwith the creation of force, we evidently approach the more abstract\nconception of a \"Something not ourselves\" which is admittedly the\nphilosophical necessity most favourable to spiritual religion.\n\nBut for many people natural religion is a poor alternative for\nrevelation, and if we interrogate probability as to the future of a\nfaith in directly-revealed religion we approach a much more difficult\nquestion. The verbal inspiration of Scripture appears to be no longer\nregarded as a necessity of this faith; and with its final abandonment\nwe shall no doubt enter upon a period of much more abstract thought\nand of vaguer belief, but (as I think) also a far more spiritual\nattitude towards the Unseen. From the moment when faith is relieved\nof all danger from the critical discrediting of any particular set of\ndocuments, it is of course freed from certain great dangers. Probably\nthe Christian of the year 2000 will have abandoned all dependence\nupon the authenticity of the original sources of information, and will\nbe quite ready to let what used to be regarded as the foundations of\nbelief take their place with other mythologies. But this position need\nnot be regarded as irreligious; possibly it need not be considered\nun-Christian. The hospitality which all truly religious thought\nbegins to extend, not merely to uncanonical scriptures but to the\nbest religious thought of all ages, will strengthen rather than\nweaken the spiritual attitude; and, however we may probe into the\nsciences of life and of the universe, the awful mysteries which lie\nbeyond the sphere of science will always tempt man to speculate and\nto aspire. Always we shall yearn towards the eternities which preceded\nand the eternities which must follow the little interval that we call\nTime. Always beside the grave that has closed upon what we have loved,\ndespair will lure us on to seek consolation in a faith which promises\nre-union beyond the bourn. Always the manifold injustice of Fate will\nmake aspiration inevitable. Always the uplifting spectacle of the\nstars, the immensities of ocean and infinite mysteries of the soul of\nman will make us welcome the spiritual teaching which can throw gleams\nof mystic illumination upon the riddles of the universe and justify the\nways of God to man. We may not always see our way to find efficacy in\nritual incense; we may not long continue to ask direct interventions of\nthe Deity in prayers which we know in a literal sense to be unthinkable\nand profane; we may cease the impertinence of offering suggestions to\nthe Maker of the world on the subject of next week's weather; and yet\nwhen we uplift our hearts in aspiration and beg that we may divine more\nspiritually the nature of the Creator, and learn to love our neighbour\nmore effectually and with a better enlightenment, we may still pray\nand know that our prayer is answered. If we cease to think that wicked\nmen descend into some chastisement of which fire and flames are the\nabandoned symbols, we may still realise that none can act against\nthe moral intuitions of his nature without mutilating his own soul:\nand if this soul of man be immortal, its punishment is thus eternal\nalso, and can be cancelled only by the act of divine mercy which we\nshall still call man's redemption. We begin to know something of the\nmind's independence of the body where (in phenomena of which evidence\nseems to be accumulating) mind can speak to mind by other means than\nthe senses: and everything which points that way cuts fresh ground\nfrom under the notion that bodily death is the end of us. Although\nthe philosophical theory of immortality does not need this evidence,\nfaith is assisted by it. On the great ideas which are the support and\njustification of religion there seems no reason to suppose that the\ndiscoveries of the next hundred years are likely to throw discredit.\n\nTo sum up, then, I believe that the effect of improved education\nwill be to conserve rather than to destroy religion; but I do not\nbelieve that religion will be a historical so much as a philosophical\nconception. The present great obstacle to religious feeling in\nnon-Catholic countries, namely the pretence of the State to \"teach\nreligion\" as if it were a science or an art, will have been removed\nsome while before this time next century, and individual effort will\nbe cultivated in this, as in certain other respects, instead of being\nrepressed. The Bible will be read for its morals, its poetry, its\nliterature; and the aspiration to conceive the Divine will continue\nto take the shape of some kind of public worship probably much unlike\nanything which we now practise, and totally divorced from any faith\nin miracles and verbal inspiration. In religion men will seek their\nconsolation against the buffeting and injustice of destiny, and in a\nmore reasoned notion of immortality dry their eyes before the poignant\nspectacle of Death.\n\nThe whole tendency of the modern mind is to become more spiritually\nimaginative. We are often scornfully told that this is an age of\nhysteria, when the mere fact is that it is an age of imagination. The\nhighly civilised life of our day [28] naturally exalts intelligence\nin comparison with mere activity of body; mind gains ascendency\nover muscle. It is much more important to worldly success just now\nthat a man should be able to think accurately than that he should\nbe able to lift great weights, endure great physical fatigues or\nfight satisfactorily. Consequently, there is a great premium upon\nintelligence, and only a much smaller premium upon bodily strength;\nand this condition of affairs is likely to become accentuated as\nthe present century develops. With increase of intellectual agility\nwe obtain increase of subtlety and intuition, and of those finer\nperceptive and critical faculties which make expression of the\nemotions important and interesting. It has often been argued that\nepochs of high civilisation are unfavourable to poetry and the fine\narts, and a well-known passage of Macaulay argues the point at some\nlength. Whether such an epoch as that of a hundred years hence be\nprobably fertile in art or no, assuredly appreciation of the fine\narts will be widespread and acute. Of course you can never account\nfor the extraordinary phenomenon called genius, and while it is\nno doubt true that genius, like everything else, is the product of\nits age, yet genius consistently transcends its age. The number of\nminds in a thousand able to bring a reasonable degree of competent\nappreciation to the writings of Shakespeare is much greater now than\nwhen Shakespeare wrote. There never was a time when a great writer,\nor a great painter (despite what happened to Whistler) was in less\ndanger of public neglect than the present. And the next century\nwill be yet more critical than this. Every one of the fine arts\nwill be more generally and more subtly appreciated than now. The\nexisting masterpieces of antiquity will be even more reverently\nenjoyed than now, and the lessons they embody will be more completely\nassimilated. It remains to be answered, whether the next century will\nbe fertile in new masterpieces of literature and art.\n\nThere has been, in my opinion, too great a readiness on the part of\nmost writers to assume that high civilisation necessarily creates\nepochs of ugliness. No doubt railways, factories and other civilised\nand civilising conveniences do not, in the natural course of things,\ntend to assume forms gratifying to the \u00e6sthetician. The present\ntendency of domestic architecture, for instance, shows an abject sort\nof spirit by basing any effort which it may make for comeliness on\nan attempt to imitate the picturesqueness of the past rather than to\nform new and beautiful styles adapted to modern requirements. Because\nold red-brick, timbered rough-cast, and the quaintly-shaped buildings\nof old time please the eye by contrast more than by inherent beauty,\nunintelligent builders just now think they can redeem dwelling-houses\nfrom plain ugliness by imitating these peculiarities, and they are\nencouraged in this course by the people who are to live in such houses\nand by the exploiters of estate development. But such fine examples as\nthe new Westminster Cathedral show that the spirit of beauty has not\nleft our architects. The growing intelligence of the new age ought, at\nall events, to develop, as its resources will reward, originality. And\nthe developed \u00e6stheticism of the age will demand beautiful buildings,\nnot slavishly copied from the antique, but created by the imagination\nof the modern. Reverence for natural beauty, already manifest in the\nrevolt against advertisement-boards in juxtaposition with notable\nscenery and even along the sides of railways (where one would have\nthought that a little more ugliness could do no great harm) will\nno doubt be accentuated when the unviolated virginities of Nature\nhave become fewer; and a steady growth of public taste is evidenced\neven now by the success of the better sort of street advertisements\nand the failure of the uglier kind, as demonstrated by the steady\nabandonment of the latter. The most fashionable artists no longer\nthink it beneath them to design wall-posters. If the advertisers\nwho pay their large fees find it profitable to purchase art in an\nexpensive market, it must be because popular taste is better than it\nused to be; and even if the cult of the photograph and the process\nblock in illustrated newspapers, to the detriment of drawings and\nwood engravings, be cited as evidence in the other direction, we have\na right to quote in rebuttal of this the rather violent efforts of\nthe more intelligent class of amateurs to secure a recognition of\nselective and manipulated photography as an art. Moreover, just as\nsome critics have argued that it is better for the people to read\nthe atrocious letterpress of the popular papers than not to read\nanything, it can also presumably be contended that it is better for\nthe people to look at photographs reproduced by \"process\" than not\nto look at any pictures at all, though, in reality, it is doubtful\nwhether bad pictures and inferior \"literature\" are not much worse\nand much more degrading to popular taste than none. That we really\ndo care for pictures even in England (however little critical ability\nwe may possess to distinguish good pictures from bad) is evidenced by\nthe crowds which throng the Royal Academy. It would be better if they\nthronged the National Gallery; but even the Royal Academy is evidence:\nand the success of the sixpenny-admission plan on the days when it is\nadopted, and the large attendance at Burlington House on Bank Holidays,\nprove that the taste for pictures is shared even by the least educated\npart of the public. Thus there is no reason to be found in present\ntendencies for apprehending a decay of \u00e6stheticism as a result of\nmaterial progress. Probably even the cheap papers will eventually\nimprove, both in their reading-matter and in their illustrations,\nwhen it grows less profitable than it is at present to print the\nworst attainable examples of both.\n\nOf course it would be very easy to argue that the tendency of all this\nis rather to develop a somewhat higher standard of mediocrity than to\nproduce brilliant examples of art in any manifestation. Beauty, up to\na certain point, can be bought. The demand will evoke the supply. But\nthe highest manifestations of the beautiful must be the spontaneous\nproduct of subtle brains and lissom fingers working for Art's\nsake. Yet it is also not very difficult to show that circumstances\naffect production even of the highest. An example may be found in\nthe extraordinary merit of modern French sculpture, as compared with\nthe wretched work produced in England. In the Paris Salon, which may\nbe said to correspond with our Royal Academy, sculpture is shown\nin a manner which renders the huddled cloak-room full of mediocre\nmarble and third-rate work in clay at Burlington House almost too\npainful to be ludicrous. However meritorious the work of an English\nstatuary, he would get no chance--does get no chance--in the Academy\nexhibition: and there is every justification for the opinion that\nit is not bad work which in this country produces official neglect,\nnor good work which in France has for many years led to the loving\ncare with which sculpture is shown in Paris; but on the contrary,\nthat the real opportunity which a French sculptor obtains has been\njust as instrumental in fostering the art there as our own utter\nneglect to appreciate sculpture of genius has been in stifling the\nart here. The French treatment of sculpture has not merely raised the\nstandard of average production. It has fostered actual genius. Even\nso the opportunities which the social conditions of a hundred years\nhence will afford to art will assuredly promote the artistic conditions\nfavourable to the development and fostering of genius, whenever genius,\nin its shy, fairy-like way, contrives to be born, no man knows how. A\ngeneral power of appreciating masterpieces has never been alleged to\nbe unfavourable to their production. What is unfavourable to it in\na highly civilised age is the hurry and preoccupation which leave\nno time for the appreciative faculties to employ themselves. It\nhas been very well said that the feature most inimical to art in\nAmerican civilisation is the absence of a \"leisure class.\" If there\nbe any validity in the conclusions for which I have been trying to win\nacceptance [29] in the earlier chapters of this work, the new age will\nbe an age of greatly increased leisure in all ranks, and this condition\nought to favour art in every way as highly as the improvement in the\nnature as well as in the extent of education must also favour it. And\nin this there will be both action and reaction--increased leisure\nand improved appreciation tending to foster genius, genius in the\nglorious perfection of its work generously returning the benefit by\ncultivating and refining the \u00e6sthetic sense of the new age.\n\nSimilarly in literature we may hope that the atrocious consequences of\ninstruction applied to a vast number of minds which no attempt is made\nto educate will be only temporary. Popular \"literature\" and journalism\nat the present time might well strike with despair the most hopeful\nheart. But when we remember that no attempt whatever is being made to\neducate the faculty of imagination, and that we stubbornly restrict\nall teaching to a vehement effort to cram as many facts as possible\ninto the mind of the scholar, with no endeavour at all to improve\nthe qualities of that mind itself; and when we grant, as I think any\nreasonably intelligent prevision of the future must grant, that all\nthis will before many decades have to give place to really educational\nprocesses: it seems evident that the future will gradually fling aside\nin deserved contempt the basely illiterate products of the printing\npress which enrich popular publishers and newspaper proprietors to-day,\nredeem poetry from its present practical neglect, and revive and enrich\nthe belles lettres, which, even in the latter part of the nineteenth\ncentury and these latter years of the dawning twentieth century, have\ncontrived to appear in masterpieces for which readers, fit, if few,\nhave never ceased to exist. One result of this will be to end, and\nend for ever, the idiotic and reactionary policy of \"limited editions\"\nfor beautiful books, by which alone, in many cases, the production of\nsuch books has been made possible. As the public for fine literature\ndecently printed becomes gradually larger, there will no longer be\nany object in accentuating popular ignorance by withholding from the\ngreatest part of the public the opportunity to possess and to enjoy\nthe best work in letters that the age is producing, and it will be\npossible for the poet of delicate imagination, the essayist of subtle\ninsight, and the story-teller of restrained and modest genius, to be\nas well paid as the inventors of nightmare horrors and the biographers\nof impossibly ingenious detectives apparently are to-day.\n\nThere remains to be considered the much less difficult problem of the\nsort of progress likely to be made in the mechanical implements of\nthe fine arts. Some conceivable developments in what may be called\nthe mechanism of literature have been discussed in the chapter on\njournalism, and just as it was there predicted that the forms of\nlanguage hallowed by tradition and made classic by antiquity and\nintrinsic beauty must always continue to be employed, so in the arts\nit is impossible to believe that the classical methods of expression\ncan ever become obsolete. But to say this is not to imply that new\nprocesses are incapable of being applied to the arts. Nothing which\nthe future may evolve as a modelling substance can conceivably\nrender obsolete clay or make marble antiquated; but innovation\nis always possible and may always in the right hands yield new\ntributes of loveliness. Prejudice is difficult to overcome where\nart is in question. But as was recently seen in the invention of\nsolid oil paints, new media are quite capable of creating new modes\nof expression, and daring as is the flight of imagination required\nby such a notion, may it not be conceived that the new methods of\nintercommunication between mind and mind, which may develop out of\nthe new psychology of our own age, might furnish the medium of a\nnew literature?\n\nIn music it does not seem necessary to surmise that the classical gamut\nmust be the last word of melodic thought. The barrier between East\nand West in regard to musical expression--a barrier as yet so firm as\nto make us feel that \"never the twain can meet\"--is precisely of this\nnature. A remark by an Indian scholar educated in England, and as well\nversed in Western as in Eastern art, is pregnant of promise. He said\nto a friend of the present writer, \"There is no doubt that in every\nform of invention, in every development of intellect, you surpass us,\nsave in one. Your music is poor and mean, compared with the music of\nthe East.\"\n\nNow to any English ear the music of Asia is as yet a mere snarl of\nincomprehensible cacophonies, destitute alike of melody, harmony\nor rhythm. But that it has laws of its own, intricate, involved and\nsubtle, no one can doubt. I remember, one night, finding my way into a\nChinese lodging-house in an Australian city. From one of the cubicles\nwith which it was filled came what seemed to me \"a rueful noise and\na ghastful\"--a noise as if some more than usually vocal tom-cat were\nbeing severely ill-used.\n\nFrom time to time the noise ceased, to be succeeded by energetic\ndisputations in the thin nasal and guttural tones of South China,\nthemselves, I knew, graduated in pitch, as all Chinese talk requires\nto be in order to be understood. Making my way to the source of these\nsounds, I found four young Chinamen. One of them was engaged in an\nunabashed bathing of his lower limbs. Other two were squatting on the\nfloor to enjoy the music of the fourth, who sat on a high packing-case,\nholding a book in his toes, and performing on an instrument something\nlike a violin. From time to time one of the others would interrupt,\ncriticising the executant, and the book would then be referred to\nwith energy and something as much like excitement as one ever sees\na Chinaman display. The musician would extract a few notes from the\ninstrument, clearly in defence of his rendering. Then the tumult\nwould die down while the wailing of the smitten strings went on again.\n\nNow it cannot be impossible to fathom the obscurities of Oriental\nmusic: and it is quite possible that they may, in the future, yield\nnew harmonies and melodies as yet undreamed-of to the West; for the\ndifference is mainly, if I understand aright what Orientals say of it,\na difference of scale. No doubt the conventions are all different. I\nhave often observed in India that music considered to possess a jovial\ncharacter is a shrill wailing in slow time; whereas funereal music\nalways sounds a lively air. Western civilisation finds no difficulty\nin comprehending the decorative art of India and the Far East, nor\nin highly appreciating it. May not Eastern music have gifts for us\nas yet undreamed-of?\n\nBut of course painting has a much more direct appeal to the emotions\nthan music, and it is not at all difficult to imagine--nay, it is\nhardly possible to doubt--that a new manner in painting will from\ntime to time develop, arriving out of newly-invented implements\nand materials.\n\nDoubtless improved methods of reproduction will multiply the numbers\nof those who can enjoy the masterpieces of the new age and of the\nold, just as in music it will unquestionably be possible to repeat\nsatisfactorily an indefinite number of times any sounds that have\nonce existed. Neither will any of the arts permanently suffer by the\nmechanical improvements applied to them--though the first employment\nof the latter will doubtless often have results which will be, to\nthe artist, rather terrible.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE AGE OF ECONOMIES\n\n\nThe next century will certainly be a frugal age in the sense of\nplanetary frugality. With a greatly-increased call on the resources\nof the world entailed by the vast increase of population it will\nbe absolutely necessary for us to \"make the most of what we here do\nspend.\" And with the more humane and gentler notions which will prevail\nit is also certain that the new age will be an age of cheapness. Of\ncourse, cheapness is a purely relative matter. The suit of clothes\nwhich would be very cheap at seven guineas in the United States\nwould be very dear at that price here, not merely because by reason\nof the tariff clothes and other things are expensive in America,\nbut also because wages are higher there than in England. In spite of\nthe enormous growth of population since, say, the accession of Queen\nVictoria, the standard of comfort is much higher now than then, and\nprices are lower, because production has increased more quickly than\npopulation. Comforts are cheaper, wages are higher. But the standard\nof comfort will be higher still a hundred years hence. Workmen will\nearn a greater share of the commodities of life, and whether their\npay be higher, computed as money, or lower, makes no difference to the\nquestion of cheapness. If wages are low commodities will be low-priced:\nthat is all.\n\nAnd probably this is the turn that events will take, though, even then,\nthe monetary earnings of the worker will probably be much higher than\nthey are nowadays. It is doubtful whether so clumsy a contrivance\nas metallic currencies, of intrinsic values corresponding with their\ntitles, can survive at all; but of course everything will be computed\nin terms of some currency or other--perhaps of an obsolete currency. We\nare apt to think that the steady value of gold can be counted upon\nto remain a constant factor of economics. But only a very small part\nof the real business of the world is even now transacted with actual\ngold. Much the greatest part is transacted in paper--that is by the\nsimple balancing of debits against credits in various clearing-houses.\n\nOf course, if there were any reason to suppose that State Socialism\nwould be the political basis of future institutions, currency of\nintrinsic value (which practically means, even now, only gold currency)\nwould be easily dispensed with, because almost every transaction would\nbe effected by means of orders on the national treasury, the State\nowning practically everything. Some visionaries have long included\nthe abolition of money in their schemes for the immediate economic\nimprovement of the race. But the disuse of a currency is not really a\nmeans to any end. It is only an effect which may or may not arise out\nof certain alterations in commercial method. There are signs that the\npeople are already growing tired of the extravagance attached to the\nsystem of State, and even of municipal, trading: and this fact makes\nsocialism improbable. Constant complaints are heard about such things\nas municipal tramways and municipal gasworks, and the proposal to\ntransfer the entire working of telephones to the Government has been\nfiercely opposed. Where the post-office works telephones side by side\nwith a telephone company, as in London, there is no indication that\nthe public prefers the Government service before the private service;\nand it is admitted that tramways privately owned work more cheaply and\nyield better returns on their capital than municipal tramways. Any\ninterference of the State in matters that could practically be left\nto private enterprise provokes incessant complaint. When continued and\ndeveloped, however, this interference has a vicious habit of extending\nitself into fresh fields. Having first undertaken the education\nof the people the State was not long in carrying that system to its\nnatural limit by relieving parents of school fees. Now, free meals for\npoor children, or meals sold below cost, are gradually becoming the\nfashion; what is the use of reading out lessons to children who are\ntoo hungry to listen? So the State must feed as well as educate. From\nthis to the free clothing of school children is a very short step. But\nonce the unavoidable sequence of such things is recognised, public\nopinion begins to revolt, asking where, if we go on at this rate,\nwe are likely to stop, so long as there is any parental duty that the\nState has omitted to assume. We perceive that, unless the process is\narrested, the begetter of children will have no obligations left,\nand the awful effects of relieving every member of the public of\nall responsibility being at length recognised, there is sure to be a\nreaction. It is certainly not beyond the wit of man to contrive that\nit shall be impossible for parents to leave their children untaught,\nwithout Government taking upon itself the function of schoolmaster. A\nhundred years hence I hope that it will long have been unnecessary\nto use force at all to compel parents to educate their children:\nand by that time the folly of our (perhaps temporarily unavoidable)\nexpedients will be laughed at, and the fatuity of a minimum standard\nof proficiency, which inevitably becomes the maximum standard also,\nwill be wondered at. In the matter here selected as the most convenient\nfor illustration, and in other matters where State powers, or powers\ndevolved by the State, are now employed in enterprises which do\nnot properly fall into the province of Governments, the abuses and\nwastefulness of governmental interference are already acting as the\nbest possible object-lessons against further interferences of the\nkind which makes for socialism.\n\nBut of all the restraining influences inimical to socialism, none will\nbe anything like so powerful in the present century as the new anxiety\nwith which the people will safeguard their own self-respect. It must\nbe borne in mind, and cannot be too often repeated, that before many\ndecades, systems of education will be valued chiefly in proportion as\nthey tend to develop and establish character in the individual. And\nwith the recognition of the great truth that character is much the\nmost important thing in the world, there will grow up a great jealousy\nof anything which tends to damage the public sense of individual\nresponsibility. This jealousy cannot but be adverse to socialism,\nwhose ideal is to relieve the individual of all responsibilities and\nto throw them upon committees.\n\nNot that the value of organisation and combination for various objects\nwill at all be lost sight of. But we shall perceive that voluntary\ncombination is a form of self-government vastly more friendly to the\npreservation of self-respect than legislative action, and also a form\nmuch less likely to be oppressive. It will be seen, for instance,\nthat it is more desirable for working men to fix, through their\ntrade-unions, the hours of labour in various industries, arranging\nto meet exceptional circumstances where the latter arise, than for\nParliament to decree that nobody shall work more than eight hours\na day. Neither is the panacea of compulsory arbitration in trade\ndisputes likely to be a feature of future politics, because we shall\ncertainly not be long before we perceive that, while it is no doubt\nquite easy to compel employers and employed to submit their respective\ncases to a tribunal appointed by law, there is no known way in which\nthe award of such a tribunal can be enforced, and if there were, the\neffect of its employment would be almost intolerably injurious to the\ncommerce of the country. What will happen a hundred years hence is\nthat trade disputes will have disappeared, because all the workers\nwill be practically their own employers.\n\nConsequently free contract and not socialism will be the basis of\nthe political system of a hundred years hence, and the standard of\ncomfort will be adjusted in the same way as everything else. But in\norder that this standard may be as high as the advanced humanity of\nthe new age will certainly demand for a population vastly increased,\nit will be necessary that all the resources of the planet be made the\nmost of. That motive power, one of the most important, if not the most\nimportant of all these resources, should be economically produced is,\nas has already been said, an absolute essential. When we make the most\nof the sources of power, and are able to apply power in convenient\nand portable ways to all sorts of work at present done by hand, one of\nthe greatest economies conceivable will have been effected. Probably\nmuscle, as an element of workmanship, will become quite obsolete,\nthough muscular strength will be developed by athletics as a recreation\nand a safeguard to the health of the race. Here again self-respect will\nbe sedulously nurtured, for nothing fosters it so much as a man's sense\nof his inherent bodily power. All sorts of wastefully laborious methods\nof labour will be superseded, in the same way as the steam hammer\nhas superseded the sledge hammer. With the perfect development of\npower-production achieved, a great deal of the dirtiness of manufacture\nwill vanish: and moreover, a use will have been discovered for every\nby-product of every manufacture. We are hideously wasteful as yet: and\nwastefulness makes for dirt. One perceives this at once on comparing a\nfactory where the by-products are of a nature to be utilised directly,\nwith one where these products are of small value. A goldsmith's shop\nis a clean place compared with the gasworks of even a modern town:\nbut these again are clean compared with what they used to be before\nthe various chemical uses of coal-tar and gas-liquor were discovered.\n\nIn the planning of machinery, notwithstanding the fact that power\nwill be obtained at a minimum of expense, all contrivances which\neconomise force will be highly valued. We have been increasingly\nvaluing them ever since steam first became important as a source\nof motive power. Early machines in the Patents' Museum at South\nKensington exhibit the most extraordinary recklessness in the waste\nof power. Considering the feebleness of the motive force available,\none would have expected that every means would be sought to minimise\nfriction. But instead, the force was transmitted by contrivances which,\nto a modern eye, seemed deliberately contrived to introduce as much\nfriction as possible. Every year brings out fresh inventions for the\navoidance of friction: and still we are but upon the very threshold\nof the subject. It was only in 1904 that a party of railway engineers\nwas entertained by a patentee who wished to show them the saving in\ncoal per train-mile which can be saved by a new bearing for passenger\ncoaches, and the superior smoothness (which is of course a factor in\nthe economy) of their running. Hardly any vehicle except a bicycle\nor a trotting buggy is yet constructed with any serious attempt to\nsave friction at the axles. The number of industrial machines to\nwhich ball-bearings might be applied with great economy of power\nis enormous. But ball-bearings are very little used. It is probably\nconsidered as yet that the saving in coal would not pay for the working\nexpenses connected with them and with other improvements. But as\nmachinery is further improved economies at present merely theoretical\nwill become practical and remunerative. In a hundred years' time\nwe shall certainly be able to make generally profitable the use\nof many devices as yet applicable only to delicate and exceptional\nmachines, and shall be able to use much power which at present runs to\nwaste. Every time a locomotive is stopped there is a great waste of\npower in the operation of the brakes, because it is not worth while\nto adopt any contrivance for utilising it. It disappears, as heat,\nand is lost. Many similar wastages could be cited, and engineers\nwould scoff at the citation, on the ground that the loss is not worth\nsaving. But it will be worth saving a hundred years hence. We shall\nnot be able to afford any waste. The world will have to be worked,\nas we say, \"for all it is worth.\"\n\nOf course all sorts of other wastes will be avoided through the natural\nprogress of discovery and the natural development of thought. Illness\nis a waste. Illness will be much less common in a hundred years'\ntime. A man who eats and consumes the world's products without\ncontributing to them will be too expensive a luxury for the new\nage to indulge itself with: and the present excuse for a \"leisure\"\nclass--already scorned in America--that a rich and leisured class\nfosters and patronises the arts, will be absurd. All classes will\nfoster and patronise the arts. For, just as we shall see that idleness\nis waste (and even more injurious to the idler than to his fellows),\nso we shall also see that overwork is a waste, because the legitimate\npurpose of human endeavour is not wealth, but happiness. When all work,\nall will be able to play.\n\nPlanetary economy will be a determining factor in the change of diet\nwhich the coming century must inevitably witness. Such a wasteful food\nas animal flesh cannot survive: and even apart from the moral necessity\nwhich will compel mankind, for its own preservation, to abandon the\nuse of alcohol, the direct and indirect wastefulness of alcohol will\nmake it impossible for beverages containing it to be tolerated. Very\nlikely tobacco will follow it. We are already in sight of legislation\nto restrain the use of tobacco by the young. It will probably be\nunnecessary for the law to prohibit its use by adults. The frugal adult\nof the new age will abandon it unbidden, the change taking place as\nsmoothly and silently as the process from the universal drunkenness\nof our great-grandfathers to the relative sobriety of ourselves,\na process of which it is surprising that anyone can fail to perceive\nthat the natural end must be the total disuse of alcoholic drinks. All\nthings work their way to their natural conclusion, and there is no\nmore fertile source of sociological blindness than the fallacy which\ntreats certain phenomena of society as static, whereas all phenomena\nof society are really in the dynamic state, and always must be so.\n\nIn such matters as the exhaustion of the soil, and the reckless\nwaste of wood, our present practice will certainly be reformed. There\nwill be great improvements in agricultural chemistry, necessitated\nby the disappearance of animal manure. The obsolescence of the\nhorse is already in sight; probably we ourselves shall see the day\nwhen the horse will cease to be employed except in the organised\nmaterial of war: and as soon as we cease to eat animals we shall\ncease to herd cattle, sheep and poultry. But some means will have\nto be found for returning to the soil the materials we take out of\nit. Of course the idiotic wastefulness of many systems of sewage\ndisposal, and the dangers, inconveniences and degrading occupations\nassociated with existing alternatives, will be rectified. By improved\nagricultural methods, lands at present unutilised will be brought\nunder cultivation: and the wasteful and selfish reservation of\ngame preserves, deer forests and excessive pleasure-grounds will\nhave to be abolished--not by legislative enactment, but probably\nby spontaneous social developments; by the natural development, in\nshort, of economy in the world's possessions. A hundred years hence\nwe shall cease to behave as though the resources of the planet were\nillimitable and could be wasted at will. In the succession of the\nages the spendthrift will have given birth to the miser, reversing the\nusual order of generations. No doubt the attention concentrated upon\nagriculture as a consequence of the greatly increased use of vegetable\nand cereal foods will have, as one of its consequences, the discovery\nof new means for improving all sorts of crops--means of which even the\nwonderful achievements of the scientific agriculture of the present\nday do not contain even the first germs. We shall also, perhaps,\nfind means for avoiding the terrible losses and wastage entailed by\nclimatic accidents. At all events, irrigation will be perfected, and\nprobably we shall be able by acclimatisation and modification to find\nuses for crops that will flourish during that portion of the year when,\nin temperate climates, the land at present lies idle. This will both\nstimulate and further necessitate the improvements in agricultural\nchemistry already mentioned.\n\nAs the combustions of solids will no longer be a general method of\nobtaining heat, we shall greatly economise wood; and the wickedly\nmischievous word \"inexhaustible\" will not be applied to timber\nregions like the Rocky Mountain district of Canada. Arboriculture will\nbecome a more practical art than it as yet shows any signs of being;\nand along with careful afforestation will go skilled improvement in\ntree-growing. We shall replace all the trees we use by better trees,\nbetter cultivated. Even so, however, there will have to be devised\ngreat economies in the use of wood--economies like the recent invention\nof a method by which, instead of being wastefully sawn into planks,\na tree-trunk can be cut up spirally, so that almost the whole of it\nmay be used. In many places where wood is now employed in the arts,\nmetals will doubtless be used instead, their greater neatness and\ndurability making it advisable thus to substitute them, for reasons of\nconvenience as well as economy; and probably new alloys, into which\nthe lighter metals, as aluminium, will enter, may give us increased\nstrength without increased weight, which will again be an economy,\nbecause it will save power. But even so, the world's expenditure of\nwood will continue to be enormous.\n\nWar has been alluded to above. War is too wasteful, as well as too\nimbecilely uncivilised, to survive this century. It may be well to\ninquire as to the manner in which its abolition is most likely to be\nbrought about. We may take it for granted that no sudden political\nor revolutionary movement will abolish the physical conflict of\npeoples. \"All the arts which brutalise the practical polemist\" will not\nbe abandoned at a moment's notice on the bidding of any potentate or\ncombination of potentates. To conceive of them as thus abandoned is to\noverlook the whole nature of political change. It is absurd (as Herbert\nSpencer remarks) to assume \"that out of a community morally imperfect\nand intellectually imperfect, there may in some way be had legislative\nregulation that is not proportionately imperfect.\" But it would be\nequally absurd to believe that the moral and intellectual advance which\nour present tendencies show to be gradually taking place--an advance\ncertain to be greatly accelerated during the middle half of the next\nhundred years--can fail to put a stop to war as a political device.\n\nWar will probably not be dispensed with in response to any great and\nsudden revolt of the world's conscience against the bloodshed and\nother evils much worse than bloodshed which it entails--of which\nindeed it actually consists. The world knows quite well already\nthat war is wicked, wasteful and silly: if it were possible for a\nsuddenly-exasperated realisation of this to take an instantaneous\neffect, we could and should similarly abolish numerous other evils\nwhich we show every disposition to tolerate for some time yet. The\nfact that single families are able to hold wealth in enormous excess\nof the maximum amount which it can possibly be good for the community\nthat individuals should hold, is such an evil. The \"Yellow\" journalism\nof America and England is another evil just about as difficult, or as\neasy, to abolish at a stroke as war, and not much less injurious. The\nmanipulation of tariffs and currencies to suit the greedy aims of\nmanufacturers, landowners and capitalists is another evil which is\nconstantly experienced or threatened in one part of the world or\nanother; and if as a race we were yet enlightened enough to utter\nthat great \"Peace; be still!\" which must some day be breathed over the\ntroubled waters of international diplomacy, we should be enlightened\nenough to rid ourselves of these other evils. But instead, the change\nmust be gradually worked up to. It is not even at all certain that the\nwhole world will at one given moment decide to abandon war. It is not\nnecessarily the case that the first nation enlightened enough to lay\ndown the sword would immediately fall under the oppression of its armed\nneighbours, as Bismarck prophesied, and would no doubt have practised\nto arrange. Nor need we assume, as so many have thought it necessary\nto believe, that universal peace can only follow the exhaustion of\nuniversal war, the dove winging her first flight over the shambles of\nArmageddon. I do not for an instant believe that the actual horrors of\nwar are the likely or possible source of peace; on the contrary, war\nalways tends to breed war, partly through international exasperation,\npartly through the unashamed and cynical self-seeking of professional\nwarriors. Peace hath her outrages no less severe than war. It is\nagainst the preparation for war, rather than against war itself,\nthat we shall revolt.\n\nOf course the increased urbanity of future thought, the tenderer\nconscience of the future, will help the cause of peace. The world's\nrulers will be more humane, less reckless than those set up by the\ninferior morality and intellect of the present age. It is not from\nthe rulers, but from the ruled, however, that peace will come. It is\nthe peoples that will refuse to be the supporters of idle, useless,\nprofligate and dangerous millions, trained to no duty but slaughter,\nskilful only in the service of national crime. Every decade will see\nthe burden of armament grow heavier. In every decade fresh efforts will\nbe made to lift the weight of them off the rich, the governing classes,\nand throw it upon the poor, the governed classes. The workers will\nbe taxed, and their taxes manipulated to their disadvantage. And they\nmust pay in person as well as purse. There is no civilised and highly\ndeveloped country in the world that can possibly escape universal\nmilitary service within the next quarter of a century, unless it be\nthe United States: and only that country if the people of the United\nStates abandon absolutely their present dreams of empire and renounce\nthe luxury of an effective Foreign Office. As for ourselves, it is\nmost likely universal naval service that we shall have to endure. And\nthe rulers of the nations will play the chess of diplomacy, using the\npeoples as their pawns, until the pawns, grown wiser than the bishops,\nand more agile than the knights, reach the eighth square of intellect\nand become sovereign in themselves. It is not by high diplomacy\nthat war will be abandoned, but by the will of the workers. Only a\nvery careless and unthoughtful observer of the last fifteen years'\nhistory can have failed to note the steady growth of international\nsolidarity in labour questions. The trade societies of different\nnations frequently contribute to each other's strike-funds: they\nconstantly communicate and confer, and they do so with increasing\nfrequency and effectiveness every time there is any special advantage\nto be seen in joint action against the common enemy--greed. Conceive\nfor an instant what is going to be the effect of this when working\nmen and women, infinitely the most important and most worthy part of\nthe race, are no longer degraded by stupid restrictions of education,\nno longer brought up on the insane system of striving only for a\nstuffed memory instead of for a developed character, and have learned\nto think about their political duties instead of only transacting them\nwithout thought, without any possible opportunity of learning how to\nthink. The whole mass of workers throughout the world will come to\nan understanding. They have no possible conflicting interests which\ncan compare in importance with the interests which, for their class,\nare identical all the world over. Already the improved morality of\nthe peoples will have yielded improved governments, more enlightened\nparliaments, wiser statesmanship. The administrative organ will\nonly need to be properly stimulated by the solid agreement of workers\nthroughout civilisation. There is never the least sign of international\nor racial jealousy among working men in their international relations,\nand what, by reason of the clash of international interests and the\ndanger of national aggression diplomatists could not accomplish, the\nirresistible volition of the unanimous peoples will force upon the\ncabinets of the world. It will come about by degrees. The preparations\nfor it will be long visible, long misunderstood. And we shall usefully\ntinker at the question, often stave off little dangers of war by\narbitrations, treaties of mutual understanding, peace conferences and\nthe like; and though probably no great war necessary to reconcile the\nconflicting destinies of peoples was ever prevented by such means,\nwe shall avoid many fights which might have arisen out of the vain\nnotions of prestige, dignity, and national self-sufficiency. But\nonce means have been found for the destruction of the machinery of\nwar, the worst danger of war will have been got rid of: and then the\npractice we shall have had in settling disputes peacefully will be\nof the greatest service to us.\n\nWhen the armies and the navies of the world are disbanded there will be\na condition of affairs which it is highly necessary to consider. In all\nnations entitled to rank as world-powers there is an enormous military\nclass. When the armies go home for the last time, and magazine rifles\nand machine guns become museum objects and nothing more; when it is no\nlonger conceived to be the greatest service a man can render to his\ncountry to organise clubs wherein men may inexpensively learn how to\nshoot, so as to be able to kill each other with a creditable precision\nwhen the chance comes; then there will arise the problem of how to\nemploy these disbanded drones: and to some this problem has appeared to\npresent acute difficulties on account of the labour-problem involved.\n\nBut to apprehend anything beyond the most transient embarrassments from\nthis cause is surely to misconceive the whole subject of economics. The\nmen at present withdrawn from productive labour by employment,\neither transiently (as in countries where conscription is used),\nor more or less permanently (as in England), have to be fed, clothed\nand housed in any event; and they can only be thus supplied with the\ncommodities of life by the labour of other men. What the term of their\nmilitary service happens to be is immaterial to the subject. Whether\nthere are standing armies and navies with long or short service, and\na reserve; or armies and navies served for three years by successive\ndrafts; the amount of labour withdrawn in any community is at any one\nperiod the same in that community. The return to civil life of the\nvolunteer armies employed in the United States during the Civil War\nand the war of the deliverance of Cuba did not produce troublesome\neconomic conditions; and only those persons who think that a society\nis enriched by the circulation of money spent in wasteful expenditure\nlike the fireworks and banquets consumed in celebrating an event\nlike the visit of a foreign potentate, or commemorating more or less\nirrelevantly the failure of \"Gunpowder treason and plot,\" can imagine\nthat a nation would be impoverished by the vast accession to its\nproductive power yielded by the abolition of armaments. Similarly,\nto think that the suppression of Woolwich arsenal and the closing\nof Krupp's gun factory would be an industrial calamity instead of\nan enormous saving of national money, is to adopt the uninstructed\nview of politics which conceives of governments as self-supported\nand self-created institutions whose expenditure is a gift to the\npeople; instead of as being organisations paid by the people out of\nearnings which would otherwise be enjoyed by themselves. This sort\nof conception, fatuous as it appears when once reduced to logical\nterms, is common enough. Whenever any object of popular desire\nappears inaccessible we are always being told that the Government\nought to provide it--as if Government were a sort of deity capable of\nproducing wealth from somewhere outside the world. But such notions\nhave only to be for a moment examined in order that their fallacy may\nbecome manifest and palpable; and it is equally easy to see that the\nwealth-producing power of the men composing armies would be a direct\ngift to the community of the world if armies were abolished, and that\nthe moneys formerly, but no longer, expended upon their accoutrements,\nweapons and sustenance would be so much waste obviated. Here will,\nin fact, be one of the many economies of a hundred years hence.\n\nIt will be convenient to digress, in passing, in order to notice one\nvery curious contention sometimes rather fancifully introduced into\ndiscussions on the subject of universal peace.\n\nIt is stated that war is an inevitable feature of national life, and\nthat it exercises a beneficent effect upon national character--that it\nfosters manliness and a respect for the virile attributes of courage,\nsteadfastness and self-respect; that nations which have abandoned\nthe art of war sink into effeminacy, slothfulness and destructive\nluxury; and that the peace of the nations, if it ever comes, will\nbe associated with a terrible deterioration of the race. As to the\nnotion that anything can prevent the abolition of armed conflict as\na means of settling the differences of peoples, we may very well be\nsatisfied to await the issue. No one who recognises the steady growth\nof humanitarian feeling; no one who remembers, even to deplore, our\ngrowing sentimentalism; no one who has insight enough to perceive\nthat progress, at an ever-increasing speed, must inevitably be\naccompanied by advanced intellectuality, increased self-restraint and\ngreater wisdom, can doubt that a process so illogical, barbarous and\nbrutalising as battle must be banished, as well by the new humanity as\nby the economic necessities of our race. But the notion of deploring,\non moral grounds, the assured coming of a reform so salutary, calls\nfor more strenuous reprobation. One would have thought it evident,\nfrom the popular effect of the war in South Africa, that, so far from\nbeing a matter for self-congratulation, this highly necessary war was\na terrible lesson in the brutalising effect of armed conflict, not\nalone on the men actually engaged, but also on the people who remained\nat home. Indeed, since it is only a comparatively small fraction of a\ncommunity that can ever be personally active in military operations,\nthe effect on the home-stayers is evidently what the upholders\nof war as a civilising influence must be thinking of. It would be\nridiculous, and it is quite unnecessary to the argument, to deny the\nfine qualities of determination, of fortitude before national disaster,\nand of calm confidence in the prowess of the nation's arms which, in\nthe bulk of the English people, the Transvaal war called forth. It\nwould be just as idle to deny the sublime exhibition of patriotism\nand self-abnegation which, on one side at least, was provoked by the\nRusso-Japanese war. But it would also be foolish not to recognise\nthe quite evident brutalisation which has followed our war in South\nAfrica, the remarkable increase in crimes of murderous violence, and\nespecially of double crimes--murder and suicide--which has lately\noccurred. The true source of these increased evils is the reflex\neffect of familiarity (either at first hand, or more remotely through\nnewspaper reading and through the personal narrative of returned\nsoldiers) with the notion of violent slaying, and the diminished\nsense of the sanctity of human life which accompanies the spectacle\nof man-slaying by wholesale held up to popular admiration, and indeed\nnecessitated and justified by the conditions of war and the duty of\npatriotism. No doubt it is true (as has been finely said) that there\nis one thing which is worse for a nation than war, and that is that\na nation should be so afraid of war as to submit to aggression rather\nthan fight in defence of its rights. But to subscribe to this doctrine,\nwhich no rational thinker will dispute, is a very different thing from\nagreeing that the nations would be otherwise than strengthened and\ncivilised by the universal abandonment of battle. Probably we are as\nyet some decades from the time when we shall have sufficient nobility\nof sentiment to be entirely agreed, without a single dissentient,\nin recognising the enormous service to national and international\nmorality which Mr Gladstone rendered when he had the courage to\nwithdraw from the conflict with the Boers after Majuba. It will\nbe long before we are logical enough to see that the fact of this\nmagnanimity having been basely abused does not in the least detract\nfrom its moral weight and moral beneficence. But the influence of such\nan act cannot be without effect upon progress. It is by such acts,\nand the possibility of their glad acceptance by nations of sufficient\nmoral elevation to perform them, that war will be banished.\n\nIn the meantime, while noble virtues can be displayed by nations in\ntime of combat, and by civilians as well as soldiers, it is a new\ndoctrine that we are asked to accept when we are told that there is\nanything individually elevating to the character in sitting at home\nwhile someone else goes out and fights for that home's protection. One\nof the least satisfactory features of public interest in games of\nmanly endeavour and endurance, games of danger and violent effort,\nlike football and cricket, is that of the very greatly increased\nnumbers who \"follow\" these games and watch the fortunes of selected\nteams in the Cup contests only a very small proportion play the\ngames themselves. Thousands of young men hardly see a football match\nfrom September to April, though they keenly follow the admirable\ndescriptions of them in their sporting papers. It is taking a very\nshort-sighted view to applaud the growing interest in athletics, which,\njust now, we show, as a sign of our manliness. Not very much endurance\nis required in order to bet on the success of a favourite team: and to\nassist, as a contributor to gate-moneys, in paying selected athletes\nto endure risk and violent fatigue in a game which one does not play\nfor oneself is exactly on a level with applauding the exploits of an\narmy to which one contributes nothing but taxes.\n\nMoreover, this beneficent effect of actual war-in-progress could only\nexercise itself during limited and distressful periods. No nation is\nable to be seriously at war, in modern conditions, for very long, and\ngreat periods of recuperation must intervene between war and war; the\ncombatant nations being meanwhile subject to aggressions from keepers\nof the peace, because they are not in a position to fight again with\na fresh and an unexhausted adversary. Consequently, any beneficent\neffect must be expected to be exercised chiefly in time of peace. And,\nin practice, it does not seem to be the case that nations in which\nthe military standard is high and the military class is exalted above\nthe civil class, show always in any remarkable manner the virtues\nsupposed to be fostered by the manly art of war. No one would contend\nthat the average German is more self-reliant and self-respecting,\nquicker to decide on action in a moment of stress, braver, manlier,\nmore enduring of reverses of fortune, than the average American. Yet\nGermany, where military officers are held in such esteem that they\ncan behave with unrestrained arrogance and brutality towards civilians\nin public places without provoking any signs of popular indignation,\nunless when their acts are commented upon in the socialist newspapers;\nand can even inflict disgusting and degrading indignities upon private\nsoldiers without being officially punished, except where they have\ncarried brutality to the limit (and they are punished with the\ngreatest tenderness even then): Germany, I say, ought to show the\nvirtues of a military state at their best. Whereas in America, where\nthere is practically no standing army, and where military titles,\nthe residue of wars conducted almost entirely by volunteer and\namateur soldiers, are so common that the very holders of them treat\nthese titles as subjects of humorous depreciation, the people are\nconspicuous for manliness, for high endurance, for patience under the\nreverses of fortune, for temperance: and in the average of physical\ncourage America far excels any military nation. There seems to be no\nreason at all for apprehending that the obsolescence of militarism\nwill have a deleterious effect on the manhood of the race: while\nthere are incontestable evidences that it will greatly foster the\nequally important virtues of gentleness, humanity, and respect for\nthe weak. Thus, while, for reasons of sentiment and common sense,\nwar is certain to become obsolete before the end of this century,\nwe shall find in the release of the funds and of the labour hitherto\nemployed in the organisation of war one of the greatest economies of\nan age which in all things will be thrifty: and there is no reason at\nall to apprehend difficulty in providing for the warrior who finds his\noccupation gone, when we have so reorganised (as we must reorganise)\nour social system, that no man will live in excessive luxury on the\nlabour of his fellows, but that all will be contributors to a common\nfrugality.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nTHE LAW A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE\n\n\nUsing the figurative words, \"the law,\" in their widest possible\nsense, to mean the entire system which governs the relations of the\nindividuals in a community with each other and with the community at\nlarge, we can easily see that in a century's time many changes of law\nwill have taken place. If it be true that legislative restraints are\nmostly necessitated by the ill-conceived energies of mankind, and\nthat the right function of the law is to assure to each citizen the\nlargest possible liberty that is consistent with the equal liberty of\nevery other citizen and of all, then it will be right to believe that\nthe great extension of general intelligence, and the equally great\nextension of general morality, anticipated for the next century,\nwill render many forms of existing restraint obsolete because\nunnecessary. Regarding offences both against the person and against\nproperty as manifestations, for the most part, of unintelligence, we\nmay expect that increased intelligence will lead to a diminution of\ntheir number. In applying statistics to an examination of the question\nwhether and to what extent improvements in the general standard of\neducation have in the past diminished crime, and consequently how\nfar crime is likely to be still further diminished in the future,\nwe must be careful to keep in sight two considerations--first, that\nan increased vigilance and elaboration on the part of authority\nmay easily make it appear that crime has failed to diminish under\neducational influences, when it is only the detection and punishment\nof crime that have been rendered more perfect; and second, that if\none kind of education have not had all the salutary effects expected\nof it, it does not follow that a different kind will not have all\nthis expected efficacy and more. Manifestly, legislation against\ncrimes formerly outside the reach of the law--that creation of \"new\noffences\" which one hears rather foolishly objected to--will increase\nstatistics of crime, if we compute crime in terms of prison-admissions;\nand the fact that such increase, due entirely to legislation, has taken\nplace concurrently with some other reform, such as the improvement of\neducation, obviously does not entitle us to connect the increase with\nthe reform. The latter may even be operating in exactly the opposite\nmanner, despite the statistics. A number of new offences were created,\nfor instance, by what is called in England the Criminal Law Amendment\nAct, and it would be easy for a shocked observer of prison statistics\nto observe, in a period of years during which the administration of\nthat useful act was being perfected, dreadful increases in the crimes\nwhich it represses; whereas the fact probably is that crime of this\nsort has diminished, largely through the action of the very causes\nwhich would make it appear to have been increasing. Therefore, if\nanyone still argues that education as a means of diminishing crime has\nproved a failure, it is not upon judicial statistics that he must base\nhis contentions. Probably that argument is obsolete: but if it were\nnot, and if it were allowed all the validity of which it is capable,\nit would still furnish no ground whatever from which to throw doubt\nupon the expectation that in a hundred years' time crime will have\ndiminished very greatly, as a result of the improved education of the\nnew era. For indeed, as education is at present conducted, it would\nbe rather a remarkable thing that it should have any effect upon\ncriminality at all. What influence increased intelligence may have\nin restraining one part of the population from the desire to commit\ncrime might easily be neutralised by the effect, on another portion,\nof the increased craft and subtlety imparted by education. Knowledge\ncan facilitate crime as well as deter from it. A man who has not\nlearned to write, it has been shrewdly remarked, will not commit\nforgery: but that is not a reason for thinking that a knowledge of\nwriting tends to promote criminality. The man who, being (perhaps\nunduly) proficient in it, becomes a forger, would not necessarily\nhave remained blameless if he had continued illiterate. He would very\nprobably have been a thief, which does not require penmanship: but\non the other hand, the increased facility of obtaining employment\nwhen one can write might just as easily have saved him from some\ntemptations to dishonesty. It is not very rational to expect a great\nmoral effect upon character from the mere acquisition of knowledge. But\nfrom the moment we conceive that means and methods of education in the\nfuture will be valued in proportion to their influence in developing\ncharacter, and especially intelligent self-control, it is impossible\nto doubt that the new teaching will be among the most potent of moral\ninfluences. One benefit derived from this will be the possibility\nof abandoning legislative restrictions whose effect is inimical to\nself-control and to intelligent self-protection. It will no longer be\nnecessary to protect the people by law from the consequences of their\nown foolishness, and we shall have learned that it is much better\nfor the public to be encouraged to safeguard its own interests than\nto be relieved of the necessity to do so.\n\nAnticipating, therefore, that many existing forms of restraint will\nhave become obsolete because unnecessary, we may very fairly ask\nourselves whether, in an improved moral and intellectual atmosphere,\nit will not have been found advisable to abolish other restraints and\nrequisitions as a directly remedial measure. The suggestion may, at the\nmoment, appear chimerical, but so must every intelligent anticipation\nof a coming time appear to anyone who approaches the subject without\nallowing for the difference of conditions, and conceives of changes\nwhich will take place so gradually as to be almost unperceived,\nas if they were to occur per saltum, without any process of slow\nmoral preparation. So would nearly every social condition of the\npresent age have appeared individually to a citizen of the world\nof 1800, if, possessing intelligence to foresee it, he lacked the\nimagination necessary to foresee the accompanying and subservient\nconditions. That public opinion should be so shocked by the execution\nof capital punishment, that only the most atrocious murders are thus\npunished--the sentence, where there is any real extenuation at all,\nbeing habitually commuted nowadays--is a condition which would hardly\nhave suggested itself even to the most alert imaginations in an age\nwhere small thefts were constantly punished by death. Our sense of\nwhat may be called the accidental influences of punitive measures is\neven yet so little developed that only a small minority of the public\nat the present day is able to perceive that the deterrent effect of\nflogging, as a punishment for violent robbery, is dearly purchased at\nthe expense of the brutalising relish with which sentences of flogging\nare welcomed by the public, and even on the judicial bench, where\nexpressions of regret that the same penalty cannot be inflicted for\nother crimes are still common. Yet it would seem obvious enough that\nthe sanction given to acts of violence by the deliberate adoption of\nhanging and flogging by the law, which is supposed to be the exemplar\nof public morality, must tend nearly as much to perpetuate crimes\nof violence as fear of these chastisements to deter. In attempting\nto foresee the spirit of legislation in the future it is absolutely\nnecessary to foresee concurrently the spirit of the communities by\nwhich the legislation will be adopted. Anticipating, as we cannot fail\nto anticipate, a sedulous care for moral effects in education, we must\nanticipate an equal care in legislation. It would be unworthy of the\nsupremely logical age which assuredly is coming, to use all possible\nmeasures in the schoolroom to foster in childhood self-reliance and\nintelligent self-protection, while continuing by \"grandmotherly\"\ngovernment of the people to remove as often as possible any need for\nself-reliance in the adult. The advantages attending little bits of\nprotective law-making often blind us to their ill-effects. It is no\ndoubt very useful to provide, as we do provide, that condensed milk,\nwhen deprived of its full proportion of cream, shall only be sold in\npackages notifying that deprivation. If we did not do this children\nwould be starved by their parents' ignorance. But the necessity for\nthis enactment is at least in part created by the existence of a host\nof similar laws, the aggregate effect of which is to give a general\nimpression that anything sold as food is good and useful unless it\nbears some warning to the contrary; and meantime every evasion of\ncommercial morality which does not come under legislative restraint\nis naturally held to be perfectly justifiable--not at all a good\nthing for commercial morality. Now it would be a highly perilous\nmeasure to abolish, at a stroke, all protective legislation against\nadulterated or impoverished foods. We have built up a social condition\nin which every man thinks himself entitled to be protected against\nsuch frauds. But in a community which has been taught to take care of\nitself, and protect itself against frauds by its own intelligence,\nsuch protections would be retrograde and injurious. The aim of\nlegislatures in the next century will be to foster all kinds of\nself-reliance. They will perceive that even the high importance of\na reform which can be more or less easily enforced by law does not\ncompensate for the bad effect of thus enforcing it, if it could be\nmaintained by the spontaneous vigilance of a wisely-nurtured public;\nand the degrading effect of superfluous law will be more dreaded than\nthe temporary dangers against which the law might protect the citizens.\n\nNevertheless, it is inevitable that, during a period more or less\nextended, material progress will be accompanied by numerous legal\nenactments such as a perfect state would dispense with, and possibly\nthe end of all of them will not have been reached even in a century's\ntime. How invention tends to promote legislation has recently been\nnoticeable in the new laws affecting automobile traffic on roads. In\na perfect state it would doubtless be unnecessary to provide legal\nmachinery to compel the owners of powerful and rapid vehicles to\nrespect the rights of their fellow-citizens and to abstain from\nrunning away without identifying themselves when they had caused an\naccident. In proportion as the moral condition of the next century\napproximates to perfection, such ordinances as the motor-car laws\nwill be unnecessary. But for a long time new laws will always be\ncoming into necessity as a result of new inventions. For instance,\nwhen, as was suggested in an earlier chapter, business is carried\non largely through the medium of recording telephones, wirelessly\nactuated, special laws will have to be devised to protect trade\nagainst the various kinds of fraud which this method of transaction\nwould otherwise facilitate, and some methods will have to be devised\nfor giving legal force to arrangements made by telephony, akin to the\nmethods which now give legal force to written contracts. Similarly,\nvarious by-laws will have to be enacted to protect the public against\nthe accidents incidental to the various methods of rapid transit that\nwill have come into use. Probably it will no longer be necessary,\nand it will have been perceived to be injurious, to protect travellers\nagainst their own rashness.\n\nIt is a well-known phenomenon that periods of material prosperity and\nhigh wages are fruitful in crime. Probably increased consumption of\nalcohol in prosperous times is the sole cause of this. There can be\nno direct connection between wealth and criminality; the bulk of the\ncriminal population is, on the contrary, poor. It would be idle to\nspeculate as to whether the next century will or will not continue\nto legislate against intoxicants, because it is morally certain that\nintoxicants will have been legislated out of existence already, without\nwaiting for the period when it would no longer be necessary to abolish\nthem forcibly. For at present, and in the more immediate future,\nthere is no ground whatever for anticipating that the legislative hand\nwill be withheld wherever law-making appears the simplest and most\nobvious method of getting rid of any crying evil: and there can be no\ndoubt that the abuse of alcohol is an evil of precisely the sort that\nlegislature will be active in suppressing. Some changes in the method\nof government will have to take place before Parliament can legislate\nagainst alcohol: but that it will so legislate before the middle of\nthis century is morally certain. In what country the alcohol law is\nfirst likely to be passed is immaterial. Every country which adopts it\nwill thereby assist in forcing the same measure upon other countries,\nbecause, with international travel constantly becoming cheaper and more\neasy, it is certain that numerous people who object to being deprived\nof stimulants and intoxicants in one country will migrate to others\nwhere their appetite can have full play, and will intensify the drink\nproblem in those countries until these, too, are forced, or will think\nthemselves forced, to legislate in self-protection. Thus such laws will\nbecome universal. No doubt this condition will be reached gradually,\nmeasures of restriction preceding measures of prohibition. But the\nend will be the same, and it will be forced upon the world as much\nby the increased evils inflicted by alcohol on nerves increasingly\nsusceptible to its influence, as by any other consideration. Anyone who\nhas taken the trouble to observe the nervous and physical condition of\nmen and women in the average, during even so short a period as the last\nquarter of a century, must have been impressed by the marked increase\nof neurotic states, not merely in exceptional individuals, but in all\nthe people. The neurotic temperament is much more adversely affected\nby alcohol than any other; and we are all growing more neurotic. All\nthe conditions of modern life tend that way: and it is not alcohol\nalone that will have to go, but all sorts of habit-inducing drugs,\nsuch as morphine, cocaine, and the rest, all of which, like alcohol\nitself, will soon be so restricted in regard to their sale that\ntheir abuse will be rendered practically impossible, and their use\nrestricted to a purely medical employment. It is even quite possible,\nand I have already ventured to predict, [30] that when the progress of\nneurotism has worked itself out, even such mild exhilarants as tea and\ncoffee will have to be made the subjects of legal restriction. There\nexist many individuals at the present moment upon whom coffee acts\nas a stimulant nearly as powerful as alcohol, moderately employed,\nupon the rest of us--that is to say, they experience the same mild\nexhilaration after a cup of strong coffee as a moderate man does\nafter a glass of burgundy or a whisky-and-soda. These effects are no\nmore injurious, at present, than those of a moderate use of wine or\nspirits: but they can become perilous, and may develop in all sorts\nof ways, when the nervous organisation becomes more delicate. Thus,\nthe abolition of alcoholic beverages, at present the fad of a minority\nnot always very respectable in the methods of its propaganda, will\npresently be an indispensable feature of social progress.\n\nUnless all criminologists are wrong in their deductions, something\nlike fifty per cent. of all crime will be got rid of when alcohol no\nlonger exists to cause crime. There are further ameliorative influences\ncertain to be at work which will tend to reduce the sorts of crime\nchiefly troublesome at present. Adopting the familiar division of\ncrime into (a) offences against the person and (b) offences against\nproperty, it is very easy to see that what may be called private crime\n(as distinguished from crime against the body politic) will diminish\nautomatically. When the extremes of wealth and poverty have become as\nmuch less marked as I have endeavoured to show that they must become,\nit is evident that the temptation to offences of greed will be greatly\ndiminished. A large proportion of all these crimes arises out of\npoverty alone, or out of poverty coupled with stupidity. A man who\nhas not enough intelligence to earn is very likely to steal in order\nto provide for himself; and one who is equipped by the knowledge of\na trade is consequently not so liable to be dishonest as one who is\nless hopefully situated. He is also likely to be more intelligent,\nand consequently better qualified to perceive that the balance of\ncomfort is on the side of the honest worker and not on the side\nof the burglar or thief. Anyone who has had occasion to observe\nthe proceedings of criminal courts must have noticed the frequency\nwith which the description \"labourer\" is adopted by the offenders\ncharged. \"Labourer\" means an unskilled worker--a man who has learned\nno trade, and brings nothing to his work but thews and sinews. It\nis much less common to find a trade claimed: one rarely sees a thief\nor burglar described on the charge sheet as \"John Doe, carpenter,\" or\n\"Richard Roe, gas-fitter.\" They do not even profess to have a trade. Of\ncourse where a man's business is such as to lend itself to criminal\npursuits, the case is different: one finds banknote forgers described\nas \"engravers\" and \"lithographers,\" and makers of counterfeit money\nas \"die sinkers.\" But in the average of crime--at least crime of\nthe more stupid sorts--it is the tradeless man who is nearly always\ncharged. It is impossible to resist the inference that poverty is\na determining cause in most crimes of greed. In a hundred years'\ntime the spread of technical education will have thinned the ranks of\nthe unskilled. At the same time the inducements to honesty and steady\nindustry will have been enormously increased through the universality\nof the profit-sharing system; and the position of the steady worker\nwill have become so greatly more attractive than that of the casual\nthief, that only the utmost stupidity can tempt anyone to the latter's\ncourse of life. Self-respecting labour for a share in the profits\nof labour, instead of mechanical toil for wages that do not bear any\nrelation to profits nor to anything else except the fluctuations of\nthe labour-market, will so elevate the average of industrial character\nthat it will be rare for workmen to drift into crime. At the same\ntime, and similarly, the restraint placed upon undue accumulation\nof wealth will diminish temptation to crimes of greed at the other\nextremity of social life. It will no longer be worth anyone's while\nto organise colossal schemes of dishonest company-promoting. Thus,\ncrimes against property are certain to become relatively infrequent,\nbecause the greatest temptations to them will have been removed.\n\nApart from the largely preponderating number of cases in which\noffences against the person--assaults and the like--arise now out of\nintoxication, the tendency to crimes of violence will also diminish\nas the temper of society grows milder. An age so much advanced in\nsentimentality as to revolt against the cruelty of breeding horses for\ntraction and cattle for food is not likely to be fruitful in offences\nof violence. These offences, where associated neither with drink nor\nrobbery, probably arise more often from jealousy between the sexes\nthan anything else. It is unfortunately impossible to suggest that\nsexual jealousy can be wholly eliminated from human nature. But no\ndoubt its violent exhibition will have been educated out of us to\na large measure. Other personal offences, as rape, criminal assault\nand various criminal vices will doubtless diminish in frequency as\na consequence of general moral improvement. In short, the work of\nthe policeman will be greatly eased in the course of this century,\nand no doubt many functions at present relegated to the police, such\nas the direction of street traffic, the care of vagrant dogs, and the\nlike, will be performed by officials of a different character. Even\nthese duties will be far less onerous than they now are, when we have\nbecome intelligent enough to see that the best way for every man to\nsecure his own freedom and comfort is to respect the freedom and the\nrights of others.\n\nIt remains an open question whether at some time during this century\nit may not be temporarily needful for the State to undertake the\nrestraint of offences against the intellect, such as the publication\nof false or grossly exaggerated news, and of matter calculated to\nencourage vice, as betting. No doubt the balance of advantage is in\nfavour of the entire freedom of the Press; but it cannot be denied\nthat this freedom is at present greatly abused. It would be easy to\nname a dozen types of periodicals whose forcible suppression would be\nan enormous gain to the public; and in an age so increasingly prone to\nlook to the governing body for assistance in every conceivable matter\nno one can deny the probability of some legislative steps being taken,\nwhen the public first begins to concern itself seriously with public\nmorals. But this possibility is much nearer at hand than the end of\nthis century; at the latter period public opinion will probably be\nwell able to take care of itself, and any laws of the kind I have\nsuggested will, like numerous other forms of legislation, including\nmany now operative, have fallen into desuetude because there will be no\ntemptation to the misdemeanours they are, or may be, framed to repress.\n\nThe question of the form which the repression of crime will take a\nhundred years hence can only be answered if we first endeavour to\nsee what the developments of penology, or the science of punishment,\nare likely to be during the next hundred years. Naturally, they will\nhave the same tendencies as the society which produces them. We may\nsafely anticipate that the more savage punishments, as death, flogging\nand painful labour will be eliminated, together with all punishments\nthat are not believed to be reformatory in their character. And even\nthe relatively mild penalty of long imprisonment may to the gentler\nmind of a new age appear unduly vindictive.\n\nPunishment will be regarded as a diminishingly necessary evil; and\nour \"object all sublime\" will not be to make it fit the particular\ncrime for which it is awarded, but to make it diminish crime as a\nwhole. Punition as a moral force will be judged according to its effect\nin two different directions, namely, its force as a means of reforming\nthe convicted individual by preventing his relapse into crime, and its\nforce as a means of deterring other persons from committing the same\ncrimes at all; and of these two the second will be considered greatly\nthe more important in an age that will be logical as well as mild;\nbecause it is obviously a greater object to produce an effect upon\nthe minds of a possibly great number than to produce it upon the mind\nof one culprit. Consequently, although a benevolent solicitude for\nthe reformation of the detected offender will not be excluded from\nthe consideration of future penologists, the deterring from crime of\nthe tempted classes will be much more demanded. As to this, it cannot\nbe questioned that improvements in detection and in legal procedure\n(eliminating the chances of escape for the guilty without endangering\nthe freedom of the innocent) are capable of accomplishing a great\ndeal more than could possibly be looked for from any alteration in\nthe nature of the punishment used. Experience shows that hitherto\na ferocious punishment not very certainly applied does not deter\nanything like so much as comparatively mild punishment with very\nlittle chance of escape. Coining, for instance, is less common\nnow than when coiners were slowly pressed to death under weights,\nif detected; and the diminution of this crime has not been due to\nfear of the punishment now long abandoned; neither was that penalty\nremoved from our system of criminal law because it had done its work\nand stamped out counterfeiting. On the contrary, improvements in the\nminting of real money, by rendering the detection of counterfeits\neasy, may be said to have almost eliminated the offence in question,\nand this result is all the more remarkable when we remember that,\nowing to the appreciation of gold, real silver shillings, half-crowns\nand other pieces just as good in assay as the royal mintage could be\ncoined by counterfeiters at a handsome profit.\n\nOur very proper anxiety to avoid every possible chance of committing\nand punishing the innocent doubtless enables many guilty persons to\nescape every year; and probably quite half the prisoners acquitted\nat every assize are really guilty in some degree. The jurisprudence\nof a hundred years hence will certainly have been so much improved\nthat innocent persons will rarely be accused at all, and that\nguilty ones will not be able to escape on technical grounds: and\nwith improved detective methods the chances of escape in any given\ncase will be greatly diminished. What punishments are inflicted will\nbe of a reformatory character, and no doubt provisional release,\nfreed from the many crying scandals of the ticket-of-leave system,\nwill play a great part in scientific penology. Recidivism will, of\ncourse, be the subject of much sharper punishment. In the meantime,\nthe study of mental science in its relation to crime will have made\ngreat strides, and if the views of our own age in regard to heredity\nshould be maintained, a very great source of crime will probably be got\nrid of altogether, because men and women with just that mental twist\nwhich leads to crime will, by one device or another, be absolutely\nprevented from propagating their race. [31]\n\nIt is impossible to work out here the various methods of individual\nreform applicable to convicts of various sorts, because the nature of\nthese methods must necessarily depend, to a great extent, upon the\nconditions of a society of which only the most salient and extreme\npeculiarities can be foreseen even by the most imaginative. But all\nevidence seems to suggest that actual crime will have become much\ndiminished in amount, while the necessity for dealing with what\nmay be called technical crimes--misdemeanours, and offences against\nregulations made for the convenience of society rather than for the\ndefence of life and morals--will probably have been reduced to a\nminimum, partly by the intelligence of the population, and partly\nthrough the fact that the minor offences will have ceased to be\ndealt with by law, and will be sufficiently repressed by natural\ncauses. Not only, therefore, will the amount of necessary restraint\nbecome less, through the diminution of crime and of temptation to\ncrime, but the employment of legal restraint will be less demanded,\nthe latter being recognised as, when avoidable, dangerous to public\nmorals. And, while criminal law will be less active, civil litigation\nwill also probably be much less heavy. The same causes which will\ntend to make us more careful to avoid committing offences against\nthe common right of others, will make us more scrupulous to perform\ncontracts. And as a consequence of the improved morality which there\nseems every reason to anticipate, a hundred years hence, it will no\ndoubt have become possible to execute a reform which many thinkers have\ndesiderated as an element of perfected polity. It is hardly necessary\nhere to recapitulate the arguments in favour of the contention that\nthe cost of civil suits should be borne, as the cost of criminal\nprosecutions is always supposed to be borne, by the State. That\nthe man who brings successfully an action at law, or successfully\ndefends one, should be able to do so only at an expense to himself,\nis against public policy: and there are even now numerous cases every\nyear in which even the unsuccessful party in a lawsuit is really doing\nthe public a service. In a perfect state of public morality he would\nalways be doing so: and in a hundred years' time he will certainly\nbe more often worthy of public thanks than he is now--he will be\nless often seeking to impose or defend a wrong. As matters stand,\nit is notorious that the grant of costs following the judgment in a\ncivil suit is only a partial relief to the successful suitor. He has\nto pay his solicitor more than his solicitor can obtain leave from\nthe taxing master to collect from the other side; while if (as not\ninfrequently happens) the other side cannot pay, the costs awarded\nby the Court have to be borne by the winner of the suit. It is a\nfrequent reply of dishonest defendants, when threatened with legal\nproceedings, that they \"will meet the plaintiff in the Bankruptcy\nCourt.\" On the other hand, a man will often submit to oppression rather\nthan be subjected to the expense of even a successful defence. Every\nlitigant who maintains his right, whether as plaintiff or defendant,\nrenders very much the same service to the public which we often hear\napplauded on the part of persons who \"come forward to prosecute\"\nin criminal or misdemeanour cases. He is assisting to make probity\nprofitable and evasion dangerous; in other words, he is subserving\npublic morality and helping to repress dishonesty. It would be much\nto the public advantage that his costs should be borne by the public\npurse, and borne generously, every expense legitimately incurred\nbeing allowed him. Logically, he ought also to receive a sufficient,\nand even a fairly liberal, solatium for his trouble and loss of time:\nand an honest loser ought to be able to receive a certificate from the\ncourt entitling him to the same amenities, the withholding of which\nwould constitute a deterrent penalty against factious litigation. But\nit may be urged on practical grounds that to make the path of the\nlitigant too easy would lead to too much invocation of the law, and\nthat the full recognition of the public usefulness of litigants must\nbe postponed to the millennium--which age of ideal perfection will\nnot occur (it may be thought necessary to concede) a hundred years\nhence. And it is not difficult to imagine means by which the public can\nbe protected against the factious and unnecessary litigation to which,\nin the absence of some safeguard, we should certainly be exposed. The\nplaintiff might be required to obtain some sort of fiat, such as is\nrequired now before a suit of criminal libel can be prosecuted: and\nthere would be no hardship in the litigant who failed to obtain the\nfiat being left to bear his own expenses up to the time of failure,\nthough, in the event of his success, he would of course have them\nrepaid. The legal machinery for obtaining permission to sue need not\nbe made too complicated: it must not be allowed to develop into a\nsort of preliminary trial. Probably some sort of arrangement as the\nabove will be instituted a hundred years hence, and all law-costs\nborne by the State, except in the case of obvious dishonesty or bad\nfaith; the trouble and loss of time necessarily incurred exercising\na restraining influence upon the litigious.\n\nIn regard to the general machinery of the law it would be tedious to\nattempt to foresee all the reforms of which the growing complexity\nof human affairs will certainly impose the necessity upon us. The\nclumsiness of a system by which important civil cases have to be tried\nthree times, in ways differing in detail, before a final decision is\nreached, needs no insisting upon: and there is a manifest inconsistency\nin the fact that an action about a matter worth \u00a3101 can be twice\nappealed, while a man tried for his life, or something even more\nimportant than life, has no appeal at all against an adverse verdict,\nexcept to a secret tribunal of Civil Service clerks--for in the\n\"commutation\" of sentences the Crown stands for the Home Secretary,\nand the Home Secretary is necessarily obliged to depend upon his\nassistants, who in their turn may very possibly have to derive their\ninformation from officials whose credit would be damaged if some fact\nfavourable to the prisoner came out. To admit this inconsistency is\nnot by any means equivalent to admitting the necessity for courts\nof criminal appeal: and anyone who knows the methods of criminal\njurisprudence in the United States must recognise that such courts are\ncapable of abuse highly dangerous to public morality, so dependent upon\nrespect for law. But with the great increase in scrupulosity and in\nthe mildness of public temper which the tendencies of human development\nclearly vaticinate for the next century, it seems impossible to doubt\nthat some method will be adopted by which criminal trials can be\nreviewed, even though the class of cases in which the necessity for\nreview is most often mentioned now will no doubt have disappeared with\nthe abolition of capital punishment. And it does not seem likely to\nbe beyond the ingenuity of the coming time to discover some means by\nwhich civil cases can be settled in one trial, instead of requiring\nthree, without danger to the justice of any individual suit.\n\nIt is sometimes questioned whether trial by jury will continue a\nfeature of modern civilisation. The remark of a legal cynic that\n\"the man with a good case is always safe with a judge, while the man\nwith a bad case has always a chance with a jury,\" is sufficiently\nsound to make it a question whether juries are worth the trouble\ngiven to the members of them, and the vast amount of additional\nlabour which their employment inflicts on the courts of which they\nare a feature. The conditions which make trial by jury \"the blest\npalladium of our liberties\" have passed away in civilised countries,\nand to a great extent in Ireland. It is no doubt characteristic of\nthe British people that we should so long as this have retained the\nuse of juries in civil suits, though even here there are many cases\n(especially in divorce and libel) where the average common sense of\na jury is really helpful to the judge, and constitutes a check upon\nhis prejudice or impatience. There was a time when the jury was a\ngenuine safeguard against oppression in private as well as Crown\ncases, and it is like us, as a nation, to have retained them when\ntheir usefulness in this respect was happily obsolete. But it seems\nto the writer pretty certain that in civil trials juries will have\nbeen dispensed with long before the end of this century, and this\ndispensation will probably be the stepping-stone to a system whereby\ncriminal causes will be tried by a bench of judges, instead of by\na judge and jury. The whole tendency of modern conditions (in which\nmust be included our growing, and highly discreditable, individual\nimpatience of the trouble of jury-service) seems to point to this. [32]\n\nReforms of judicial procedure of course constitute only a relatively\nsmall part of the legislative work which will have been accomplished by\nthe end of the century. Apart from the work of gradually remodelling\nthe law with the idea (which nowhere seems to suggest itself to\npresent-day legislators) of making it act beneficially upon public\ncharacter, there will no doubt be a vast amount of work for the\nvarious parliaments of the world in codifying existing statute-\nand common-law systems, which in all communities have fallen\ninto complexity and confusion of a degree which makes them highly\nunsatisfactory instruments of social protection: and there will also\nbe a great amount of constructive legislation, particularly in regard\nto the tenure of land, to the simplification of conveyancing, to a\nmore intelligent machinery of contracts, to the equitable handling of\nsuch accidental or conditional sources of wealth as we call \"unearned\nincrement\" and the discovery of unexpected minerals, to the useful\nlimitation of inheritance, and to other matters too numerous to be\nsafely named. And in order that these great works may be accomplished,\nit is quite certain that, not only in England, but in all those\nStates where really free parliaments exist, great reforms will have\nbeen found necessary, and will have become so much a part of the\nmachinery of legislation and administration a hundred years hence,\nthat our descendants will hardly be able to realise how Government\nwas ever carried on without them. Indeed, it is by the difficulty of\nadministering anything at all by parliamentary methods--every year\nmore evidently breaking down--rather than by the desire to undertake\nlarge schemes of legislation, that statesmen will in a very short time\nbe forced to initiate the changes whose full development will have\nbecome time-honoured by the end of this century. The organisation of\npolitical opposition in parliaments has reached a point which makes it\nevident that before long the minority in parliaments will have become\na nonentity. The minority, in fact, has already, here and in other\ncountries (of which the Austro-Hungarian empire is, at the moment,\nthe most noticeable example), become so powerful for obstruction\nof business that, by a sort of paradox, its power is on the eve of\ncomplete destruction. At St Stephen's the effect of obstruction working\nin this manner is plainly visible. Whatever party is in power will\nalways, so long as the existing system continues, be obliged to silence\nthe opposition by the force of parliamentary machine; and whatever\nparty is in power will always be accused of tyranny and autocracy by\nthe other party. In practice there is no method by which any important\ngovernment measure can be passed through the House of Commons except\nby force. It is a mere farce to make a show of debating the details\nin committee. Naturally the Opposition, when it does not want the\nmeasure passed at all, will delay its passage to the last possible\nmoment, and will make its enactment impossible unless a term is set\nto the deliberations of committee of the whole house. Whether the\ntime granted by the Government be long or short makes no difference:\nit is impossible to pass any serious and complex bill except by the\nclosure. In other words, the Government (which practically means\nthe Civil Service officials and parliamentary draftsmen employed by\nthe particular department concerned with the bill--the Home Office,\nthe Local Government Board Office, the Exchequer, or what not)\nmust triumph. Even the suggestions of individual supporters of the\nadministration in power must be ignored, unless there is a cave\nwhich might turn out the ministry altogether. In detail, therefore,\nwe are governed, not by Parliament, but by the permanent officials,\nso far as really important Government measures are concerned: and it is\nquite evident that bills introduced by private members will very soon\nnot be considered at all. The private member is rapidly being reduced\nto nothingness by the force of parliamentary development. Meantime,\nthe waste of public time by the introduction and debating of bills\nwhich the Opposition eventually succeeds in destroying, is appalling,\nand of course it is aggravated by the idiotic rule which destroys\nat the end of each session all the work which has been begun and\nnot completed. The system, not less imbecile, in which opinion is\nascertained in Parliament is another great time-waster. It is only\nnecessary to ask for a single moment what our grandsons, or even\nthe younger of our children, will think of a Parliament in which a\nvote was taken by solemnly walking through lobbies, with elaborate\narrangements for counting and checking the members (when it might\nall be done by the simple use of an electric signal in front of each\nseat in the chamber) in order to perceive the miserable inadequacy\nof even the mechanical arrangements of all the parliaments of the\nworld. And if even all the crass follies and medi\u00e6val stupidities of\nmodern parliamentary arrangements were reformed, as nine-tenths of\nthem could be by any competent board composed of a few engineers,\nelectricians and architects, we should still be in possession of a\nlegislative machine such as the intelligence of a hundred years hence\nwould laugh to scorn if its restoration were suggested.\n\nNor is this all. The whole institution of parliaments, as a contrivance\nfor giving effect to the will of the peoples, has long been utterly\ninadequate, and must be reformed from the bottom. We elect members\nto carry out schemes of legislation and forms of policy never fully,\nand sometimes not even partially, formulated, upon which, even if\nthey were set out in full detail, we could not possibly have any\ncomplete influence in giving our votes. For instance, let us suppose\nthat, at a general election, one party wishes to increase the Navy,\nto abolish publicans' compensation, and to legalise marriage with\na deceased wife's sister: while the other party not only objects\nto all these three proposals but also wishes to put a protective\ntariff on foodstuffs and machinery, to give Home Rule to Ireland,\nand to disestablish the Church of England. A Home Ruler who was\nalso a teetotaler could not vote for either party without outraging\none or other of his convictions. A believer in the support of our\nnational supremacy who also considered that the Church ought to\nbe disestablished would have to choose between voting against the\nincrease of the Navy or against the Disestablishment: and the Deceased\nWife's Sister Bill advocate must vote against all the proposals on\nthe other side (all of which he may agree with) if he do not wish\nto assist in perpetuating what he believes to be a hardship to his\nfellow-countrymen, and very possibly to some of his own friends, or to\nhimself. And any of these perplexed voters, having somehow contrived\nto strike a balance with his conscience, and to give a vote, will,\nperhaps, in a year's, or in six years', time find that he has been\nthe instrument of placing in power an administration which is now\nproceeding to pass measures that he abhors. He has no redress. Nor,\nabandoning the extreme case of such highly-mixed policies as I have\nendeavoured to amuse the reader by imagining, has the voter who changes\nhis mind, or who finds that he has been bamboozled with false promises,\nany means of helping to undo the harm he has helped to do. It used to\nbe said that, on an average, parliamentary government worked well--that\nit carried out in a rough way the will of the people. But the peoples\nof a hundred years hence are going to be much more particular about\nmatters of such high importance. They are not going to be content\nwith a rough approximation in matters of the very highest moment when\nthey are able to secure with perfect accuracy most of their wishes\nin matters of quite minor importance. They will not be satisfied to\nknow exactly what time it is at any moment of the day (as of course\nthey will know, all instruments for time-measuring being controlled\nby wireless synchronisation) and not to know exactly what their rulers\nare going to do about matters upon which the very fate of the country\nmay depend. Neither will they have remained so stupid as to think that\nwhatever one body of politicians considers right must be right and\nthat whatever another body thinks right must necessarily be wrong. It\nis quite certain that in a really intelligent age so clumsy a system\nas that of party government will have been relegated to oblivion.\n\nThe political machinery to replace it will be of a nature determined by\ncauses much too complex to be foreseen, except in the merest outline,\nas yet; and probably it will, like most political institutions, be a\ndevelopment rather than an invention. The system, already talked of,\nby which any matter of great national importance should be made a\nreferendum, the subject of a direct vote by the whole nation, is no\ndoubt capable of ingeniously modified arrangement so as to provide\nfor its expeditious use, without undue interference with the course\nof ordinary business. But obviously this device is only capable of\nlimited application, and it could not be employed at all, without\nproducing dangerous confusions and incongruities, except in a community\nwhose political education had made strides almost inconceivable in\nthe light of our present limited experience. It is difficult to see\nhow the general legislative business of a considerable nation could\nbe carried on unless by committees of a parliamentary character;\nand limited as we are by the history of political institutions\narising out of states of public intelligence which will have become\ncontemptible in comparison with the intelligence of the next century,\nthere is a difficulty in conceiving how such committees or parliaments\ncould work out otherwise than on some sort of party system. But the\nanalogy of progress in general may help us to a conjecture, which is\nhere offered only for what it is worth. All progress, as we know it,\nis a development from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. One form\nof progress consists of the development of specialism. At one time,\nand not so very long ago, every housewife made her own jams, pickles,\nperfumes, essences and condiments, which are now purchased ready\nmade. A man of science, in Davy's time, often embraced a number of\ndifferent branches as his province; whereas now even a single science\nis seldom completely handled by any individual professor, entomologists\ndifferentiating themselves from general biologists, and coleopterists\nfrom general entomologists. Does it not appear likely, then, that\nthe functions of the politician and of the legislator will presently\nbe differentiated, with great advantage to nations? In a legislature\nof the present time professional law-makers are numerically few, and\nnot very highly regarded. While in a matter relatively unimportant,\nlike coach-building, civilisation has made specialism necessary; in\na matter of the highest importance, the making of a nation's laws,\nwe continue to trust the general practitioner, and the suggestion\nthat specialists alone should be employed in it would probably awaken\na torrent of objection not unmingled with execration. But specialism\nof all sorts will have extended its sway to such an extent a hundred\nyears hence that the likeliest solution of the difficulties at present\nenvisaged is that the business of law-making will be relegated to a\nspecially qualified and specially educated class, and that parliaments,\nif they exist at all, will have nothing to do with it, but will concern\nthemselves with what they are often rather contumeliously told now is\nnot their business (though it ought to be); namely, the management of\ninternational policy. The way in which this evolution will come about\nis, moreover, fairly easy to imagine. At some time during the century\nthe manifold confusions, inconsistencies and evident inconveniences\nof the existing corpus of the law are pretty sure to require drastic\nand laborious treatment, which can only be administered by professional\nexperts. At the same time, the public, having awakened to the ludicrous\nfact that laws are passed in every session of every Parliament in the\nworld, which, when they come to be administered, break down because\nthey have either been so stupidly and unimaginatively conceived,\nor so clumsily expressed in the statutes which embody them, that\npractical working immediately reveals their fatal defects. A clever\nyoung lawyer once said to the present writer that he knew of no\nintellectual pleasure so delightful as that of discovering how to\ncircumvent the provisions of an Act of Parliament. This diverting,\nif immoral, remark illustrates the faults of a social system in\nwhich laws are made chiefly by persons having little experience in\nthe working of laws, and elected to that duty by persons having no\nsuch experience at all. Having in mind the fact that international\nlaw is already relegated practically to specialists, it requires no\ngreat effort of imagination to foresee that the Hercules that will\ncleanse the Augean stable of the Statute Book will be a committee\nof professors of law. And once the public has become familiarised\nwith the idea, what more natural than that a similar body should\nbe formed to provide against such legislative blunders as we were\nall recently laughing at, when, having provided for the restraint of\nhabitual drunkards by placing them on what was called the black list,\nParliament presently learned that it had so framed the law that no\none could be black-listed except by his own consent? The development\nfrom this to a system by which laws would not merely be amended,\nbut devised ab ovo, by professional legislators, is easy to foresee;\nand with properly-devised precautions to ensure that the laws created\nshall express the will of a sovereign people sufficiently educated\nin political duty to possess a will worthy of consideration, probably\nno better solution of the legislative difficulty can be imagined.\n\nThe conduct of foreign affairs is a matter much less easy to reform. If\ndespotisms were not such desperately untrustworthy things, a good\nsound autocracy would probably be the best form of government for the\nfunction of conducting the affairs of one nation with another. The\nextraordinary diplomatic success of Russia is an evidence of\nthis. But Russia also illustrates the drawbacks of despotism. In its\nmanagement of foreign affairs Russia has (despite the habit which\nits departments occasionally display of acting in conflict with one\nanother) beaten all the civilised nations. Russia has a \"continuous\"\nforeign policy. There are no changes of ministers to nullify each\nother's work and to encourage the diplomatists of other nations to\nprocrastinate and shilly-shally over negotiations in the hope that\na general election will bring in a new set of statesmen, easier to\ndeal with. And Russia can herself procrastinate, prevaricate and play\nall sorts of tricks, neglect her promises, ignore her pledges, and\nprosecute her cryptic aims, without the smallest fear of a question\nin Parliament to spoil her game by letting all the world into her\ndark and devious secrets. The more a nation becomes democratised,\nthe less competent it is to manage its foreign policy against less\ndemocratic nations, and a truly popular Government is, in the present\nstate of the world, about the worst conceivable instrument for that\npurpose. With an ever-increasing democratisation of all governments\nsuch as we are sure to witness during this century, foreign offices\nof the present kind will become more and more incompetent until some\nsort of machinery is invented in their place.\n\nNor will the disappearance of the ultimate resort to arms, as a\npossibility always threatening in the background, tend to improve\nmatters. It will, on the contrary, make them worse. There can be\nno doubt that the awful fear of war, which must haunt the pillow\nof every statesman in our day with dreams of pitiable horror,\ndoes exercise an influence in settling controversies which, without\nthis terror, would drag their slow length along from generation to\nexasperated generation. And if we try to imagine that the increased\nconscientiousness of a better time will help nations to deal more\nhonourably with each other, it is to be feared that even the vast\nprogress of the quick-moving century on which we have entered will not\nsuffice to bind the princes to its pleasure and teach their senators\nwisdom. It is unfortunately in regard to honour between nation and\nnation that conscience develops most slowly, and many a man who would\nscorn to trick a fellow-citizen, or even defraud a railway company,\nand who would quite possibly hesitate before smuggling a box of cigars\nthrough the custom-house, will calmly advocate acts of international\ndishonesty and oppression abhorrent to any conscientious mind.\n\nThere can be no doubt that the most deleterious influence of our times,\nwhich encourages nations to delay and deny to each other justice and\nthe fulfilment of solemn obligations, is the habit of waiting upon\nthe chances of a minister's fall, and a resulting change of policy. So\nlong as almost any day may bring a new set of statesmen, predisposed\nagainst anything which their predecessors may have approved, diplomacy\nwill be disfigured by ways that are dark and tricks that are vain:\nand the logical twentieth of the centuries may be trusted to perceive\nthis. Consequently some method will have to be devised by which a\ncontinuous foreign policy may be made compatible with the performance\nof a nation's will. And here the wiser nature of the new age will\nassist the constructive genius of the reformer. No doubt the habit of\nchanging our minds on the basic principles of government about once\nevery six years will have been eradicated. Peoples will deliberate\nmore intelligently upon the important questions which they decide by\ntheir votes: and it will no longer be thought--or rather, we shall no\nlonger act as if we thought--that a modification of general opinion\nin regard (say) to Home Rule for Ireland must necessarily carry with\nit a change of opinion as to whether it is desirable to extend our\ninfluence in Afghanistan. When this error is abandoned, probably\nforeign affairs will no longer be made part and parcel of the work\nof the same set of men that is elected to manage domestic policy. It\nwill then be possible for the people to express--as they rarely have\nany opportunity to express under the present system--their sovereign\nwill in regard to international matters. And here, as everywhere,\nresponsibility will certainly exercise an educative influence. When men\nintelligently realise that by their votes they are deciding the fate\nof their country, they will deliberate long before yielding a decision\nso momentous. Inasmuch as the foreign affairs of any nation are truly\nunderstood only by a very limited class, because very few people are\nwilling to give up enough of their leisure to the studies necessary for\nsuch an understanding, it seems reasonable to think that one feature\nof the polity of the year 2000 may be the limitation of the right to\nvote on foreign affairs to men and women who have demonstrated in some\nsufficient manner their competence to assist in directing the action\nof their representatives in matters so intricate. The increased leisure\nwith which other reforms already foreseen will endow the people will of\ncourse facilitate the acquirement of this competence, and the right to\nvote on foreign affairs will doubtless be a coveted social distinction,\nsubserving the perennial love of titles and the childlike pleasure of\nhaving letters after one's name. Nor need we be too much daunted in\nthis conjecture by the whispered word \"oligarchy.\" When oligarchy\nreally means government by those best qualified to govern--the\nnature of this \"bestness\" being intelligently determined--oligarchy\nwill be recognised as the most satisfactory form of government:\nand in order to exclude objectionable one-sidedness in the method of\nselecting voters for the high duty of guarding the nation's honour,\nno doubt some method of selection by vote can be discovered, free\nfrom liability to reintroduce the baleful evil of party.\n\nComing now to other functions of a State, the most obvious subject\nfor conjecture is that suggested by the tendency in recent times of\ngovernments (and following their example of municipalities) to engage\nin trade. The comment which gained currency over a decade ago, that\nwe were all socialists then, is still more justified now. Will States\ncontinue their increasing practice of usurping the place of private\nadventurers? Will railways, canals, telephonic and teleautographic\nsystems, street conveyances, and so forth, be owned and controlled\nby various public authorities, after education, some other functions,\nincluding the feeding and clothing of poor children during school age,\nand the care of the unemployed (which States before long will certainly\nhave embraced) have by a more enlightened polity been returned to the\nproper hands? The whole question of whether socialism is a probable\nsolution of the difficulties which its advocates believe it capable of\nsolving is here involved. Applying our familiar principle of estimating\nthe tendencies of the future by the trend of events in the past, it\nseems certain that there will for a good many years immediately to\ncome be an increase in the functions assumed by the State: but that\nthe whole plunge into socialism will not be undertaken. For, while\nmeasures undisguisedly socialistic in character are more and more\nadvocated and adopted, the open principle of State socialism seems\nto find less support every year. Whenever distress becomes prevalent,\nplenty of writers, for instance, loudly denounce Governments for not\nfinding work for everyone who fails to find work for himself--so long\nas he is a man! (No one appears to think it the Government's duty to\nfind work for women.) But when socialism is openly propounded, the\nsame authors just as vehemently denounce the socialistic system to\nwhich this principle of regarding the State as the duty-bound employer\nof the workless clearly tends. What will most likely happen is that\ndevices, more and more socialistic, for dealing with emergencies, and\ninconveniences of various sorts, will be adopted and maintained until\ntheir own inconvenience and injustice have made themselves felt: and\nthen a more reasonable age will get rid of them--better remedies having\nmeantime been discovered--at the same time perceiving their deleterious\neffect upon private responsibility, and wondering why it has tolerated\nthe old methods so long. In other words, socialistic experiments will\nhave demonstrated their own evils before the habit of indulging in\nthem has gone so far as to allow States to drift the whole way into\nsocialism. It is even possible that the example of some single nation,\ndrifting thus far, and setting up a socialistic State, may serve as\na useful warning to the rest of the world, and determine the gradual\nabandonment of the dangerous tendencies which will have increasingly\nmanifested themselves. For it is certain that, unless in exceptional\nand abnormal instances--of which the Australian Commonwealth is very\nlikely to furnish an example--political systems will always continue\nto develop by evolutionary, and not by revolutionary, steps. We shall\npass gradually, and by a process of construction and elimination,\nfrom one condition to another, until the very greatly improved system\nof government and administration whose period of existence I have\nventured to place at about the beginning of the next century, has\nbecome general throughout the world.\n\nWe may, for instance, very easily imagine how a more intelligent\nelectorate will abolish some abuses, by considering the condition\nof the post-office department of this and other countries. It is\nhardly thinkable that, during any period of the world's history, the\nbusiness of carrying letters can be thrown open to anyone who chooses\nto undertake it. If there were nothing to be dealt with except the\ndomestic correspondence of each nation, probably it would be a great\ndeal better that it should be thus thrown open to competition: it is\nhardly likely that the vast business of international correspondence\ncan ever be satisfactorily conducted, except by administrations\nacting in the name and behalf of every State. But there is not the\nleast reason for thinking that the abuses which deface the postal\ndepartment of this and every other nation will be perpetual. The\nBritish post-office contributes annually a \"profit\" of several\nmillions sterling to the Exchequer. Every person who writes a letter,\ntherefore, is taxed for doing it. In proportion to the intelligence,\ncommercial enterprise, family affection, or professional diligence\nby which he is prompted to use correspondence, every one of us is\ncompelled to contribute something more to the up-keep of the State\nthan his neighbour who is too lazy, too ignorant or too callous to\ntrouble himself with letter-writing. No doubt it is impossible,\nwithout a loss which would amount to subsidising, in an equally\nobjectionable manner, the users of the post-office, to conduct that\ndepartment except at a profit of some sort: but it surely will\nnot be pretended that it could not be conducted without exacting\nsuch a surplus as the post-office does annually contribute to the\nBudget. The vicious manner in which we treat the postal service as a\nsort of trading department, expected to yield the Chancellor of the\nExchequer a convenient sum towards his expenditure, is illustrated by\nthe disgraceful underpayment of the minor officials, such as postmen,\nsmall post-masters, telegraph messengers and the like. The post-office\nbuys its labour in the cheapest market: there is but too much reason\nfor the belief that it treats with oppressive harshness attempts on\nthe part of its servants to better their wages by organisation: and\nwhen reproved in the House of Commons for sweating his work-people,\na postmaster-general can always reply, amid applause, that he dare\nnot embarrass his right-honourable friend the Chancellor of the\nExchequer. The polity of the enlightened future will assuredly desist\nfrom penalising intelligence, enterprise, and the other commendable\ncharacteristics which tend to increase a man's correspondence; and\nthe postmaster-general who will be praised a hundred years hence\nwill be that one who has succeeded in managing his department with\nthe smallest possible surplus. We have only to envisage the obvious\njustice of this ambition to perceive the objections which attach to\nthe adoption of trading functions by the State. Though it is very\nlikely that railways will be nationalised in this, as they have been\nnationalised or subsidised in many other countries, it is quite\ncertain that if we do nationalise them we shall be compensated by\nnone of the advantages which make us tolerant, and even unconscious,\nof the abuses of the British post-office--itself in most respects\none of the least imperfect of bureaucracies. The faults generally\nfound with railways are precisely the faults of bureaucracy, and in\nproportion as railways become more and more united in their policy,\nthrough amalgamation and arrangements for mutual assistance, those\nfaults constantly increase. The same will presently be found true of\nall governmental usurpations of private enterprise: and it cannot be\ndoubted that in this, as in so many other respects, the functions of\ngovernments will be greatly reduced a hundred years hence.\n\nOne subject which cannot be neglected in any attempt to foresee the\nconditions of the law in the next century is the delicate and difficult\none of marriage laws: and on no subject are differences of opinion so\nnumerous and so acute. All that seems to be generally agreed is that\nunder the present system inconveniences and immoralities occur: and\nit is (of course) supposed to be a corollary that if the system were\nchanged these inconveniences and immoralities would disappear. This is\nthe usual method of considering social difficulties. Hardly anyone will\nconsent to base plans for the future upon experience of the past. It\nis always presumed that new laws can reform abuses, without changes\nin the spirit of the age, which gives rise to the abuses. One class of\nthinkers, despairing of moral improvement, considers that, immorality\nbeing irremediable, the only thing to be done is to give it sanction;\nas it must exist, it must be made respectable and unscandalous. Another\nset of reformers would penalise immorality by forbidding the guilty\nparty in a divorce suit to re-marry, just as there are people who\nwould prevent the physically unfit from marrying at all. Both forget\nthat the prohibition of legal unions is much more likely to lead to an\nincrease of irregular connections than to produce any other effect. No\ndoubt we could improve the physical standard of the legitimately born\nby the prohibition last digressively mentioned: but it would be at\nthe expense of an increase in illegitimate births accompanied by the\nadditional disadvantage of bodily weakness. Similarly, so far from\nthe prohibition of re-marriage restraining the immorally disposed,\nit is much more likely that it would encourage them: the fact that a\nco-respondent could not be called upon to marry the woman divorced\nin consequence of her guilty association with him would hardly act\ngenerally as a deterrent; while, if he had been willing to face the\nprobable consequences of publicity, expense and inconvenience attending\na liaison with a woman under coverture, the co-respondent would not\nthink it necessary to abandon his confederate, if he wished, and she\nwere willing, to continue their connection after all the penalties had\nbeen suffered, merely because the law prevented a regular union. It\nis agreed by all jurists that the only justification for the greater\nseverity with which matrimonial infidelity is visited on women\nas compared with men is the greater social degradation with which\nsociety visits women who have offended. To penalise their offence\nby prohibiting re-marriage would only perpetuate their degradation,\nand does in fact so perpetuate and increase it in countries where\nthe condemned party in a divorce is forbidden the altar.\n\nOn the other hand, to recognise a sort of promiscuity, as some\nwriters have suggested that we shall be obliged to do, would probably\nbe attended by worse effects than the bold and straightforward\nacceptance of polygamy as a necessary remedy for the excess of feminine\npopulation, which a writer of letters to the shocked and astonished\nnewspapers of this city recently proposed. Neither expedient is capable\nof being adopted: nor does there seem much likelihood that public\nmorality can be improved by legislation, though it is certain to be\nmuch improved by the spontaneous amelioration of public sentiment. No\ndoubt in one or two particulars the marriage laws will gradually\nundergo amendment. It will be realised that it is much more immoral\nto compel unwilling couples to live together matrimonially, than\nto set them free to remedy one of the most hideous of all possible\nmistakes. The difficulty of determining what shall be done where\none party wishes for divorce, while the other does not, is greater:\nbut on the whole it will probably be considered more conducive to\nmorality to dissolve the marriage here, after a precautionary and\nexperimental period of provisional separation, than to insist upon its\nperpetuation. That age will only be ripe for such a reform as this,\nwhich, by moral progress, has rendered intolerable the position of\na libertine capable of entering into matrimony with the deliberate\nintention of getting out of it again when it ceases to be attractive,\nand in which the social estimate of a person who acted in the same\nmanner through instability of character would be not much better. In\nany reform of the kind suggested, it would no doubt be arranged\nthat pecuniary liabilities, allocated to the support and education\nof children, would follow the party insisting on divorce; and this\nalso would act as a check upon dishonest contracts of marriage.\n\nThus, for any radical improvement in the system of matrimonial\nconnections, we must look to a corresponding improvement in the\nspirit of the age, and the first step in advance will have been\ntaken when marriage ceases to be the only legal contract which is\nenforced notwithstanding the ignorance of a contracting party as to\nthe engagement entered into. The frequency of divorce petitions will be\ngreatly diminished from the time we get rid of the idiotic and almost\nincredibly wicked convention by which we take every possible precaution\nwe can think of to ensure that a girl, when she marries, shall have\nno possible means of knowing to what she is committing herself. No\nmore ingenious contrivance for obtaining marital infelicity could be\nimagined. The next step will have been taken when it is recognised\nas disgraceful for parents to put pressure upon the inclinations\nof their children of either sex to induce them to marry, and when\nsocial execration renders such pressure impossible. Concurrently\nwith this, or as a result of it, a third step will be some abatement\nof our present entire neglect of any demand for good character in a\nbridegroom who would be outraged if he thought that the least aspersion\ncould be suggested concerning his bride. In other words, the greatest\nimprovements in the status of the world with regard to matrimony will\nbe effected when we recognise the claim of woman to be made the equal\nof man in knowledge, in discretion and in social rights. No legislative\nreform as yet ever suggested could have anything like as much effect\nin removing the evils under which we groan, in respect to matrimony,\nas this natural and inevitable development.\n\nNaturally the improvement in the position of women in the new age\nwill not arrive at a bound, nor will their rights in relation to\nmarriage be unaccompanied by other rights at present withheld,\nand perhaps not always unreasonably withheld. On the contrary, the\nrecognition of one set of rights will facilitate and accelerate the\nrecognition of the other. It is generally agreed that the tendency\nof the sexes is to become less divergent, intellectually and morally,\nfor reasons connected with what Spencer calls \"the less early arrest\nof individual evolution, and the result everywhere seen throughout\nthe organic world, of a self-preserving power inversely proportionate\nto the race-preserving power.\" [33]\n\nAs it will have been realised, long before the advent of the next\ncentury, that the surest way to improved capacity is to be found\nin increased responsibility, women will not, a hundred years hence,\nbe allowed or compelled to shirk their political obligations. We may\nsee with half an eye that every year women are becoming more capable,\nand also more desirous of aiding the counsels of the public: and\nin some of our Colonies, as well as in some States of the American\nUnion, they are already voting, and voting (as it turns out) with\nthe most wonderful intelligence and usefulness. The influence of\nthe female vote in, for example, New Zealand has been for some time\nperceptible in the legislation of that highly-enlightened colony:\nand I never heard anyone object to the results of this influence\nexcept persons whose conduct, or the conduct which they approved in\ntheir associates, was likely to be inconvenienced by them. It is no\ndoubt true that women are a great deal more fond of demanding that\nthe law should do work which it would be better to leave to natural\ndevelopments of public character than could be wished: but then so are\nmen, and it is an unquestionable thing that the misdeeds which men more\nreadily condone than women are much more likely to be bad for public\nmorality than those which women condone more freely than men. There is\nno particular reason for thinking at the present time (though there\nwas ample reason for thinking a few decades ago) that women will be\nmore prone to legislate unnecessarily, and therefore mischievously,\nthan men: and we are in any case bound to pass through a good many\nyears of parliament-worship before we awaken to the fact that the law\ncannot do everything, and that any reform which is accomplished by\nthe spontaneous influence of public opinion is always a great deal\nmore complete, a great deal more conducive to public self-respect,\nand a great deal better adjusted to the special requirements of every\nindividual circumstance that it touches, than one which is laboriously\nand mechanically embodied in statutes which cannot but be imperfect,\ncannot possibly fail to act oppressively and unjustly in one place or\nanother, and frequently prove to be unworkable from beginning to end.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nGENERAL CONCLUSIONS\n\n\n\"On the other hand, after observing how the processes that have\nbrought things to their present stage are still going on, not with\na decreasing rapidity indicating approach to cessation, but with\nan increasing rapidity that implies long continuance and immense\ntransformations; there follows the conviction that the remote future\nhas in store, forms of social life higher than any we have imagined:\nthere comes a faith transcending that of the Radical, whose aim is\nsome re-organisation admitting of comparison to organisations which\nexist. And while this conception of societies has naturally evolved,\nbeginning with small and simple types which have their short existences\nand disappear, advancing to higher types that are larger, more complex,\nand longer-lived, coming to still-higher types like our own, great\nin size, complexity, and duration, and promising types transcending\nthese in times after existing societies have died away--while this\nconception of societies implies that in the slow course of things\nchanges almost immeasurable in amount are possible, it also implies\nthat but small amounts of such changes are possible, within \"short\nperiods\"--Herbert Spencer: The Study of Sociology, Chapter XVI.\n\nIt has repeatedly been necessary, in the course of this survey, to\nstimulate the indulgence of the reader by a reminder, based upon the\nspeed of our progress in the past and its steady acceleration in recent\ndecades, that there is much more danger of underestimating than of\nexaggerating the advances likely to have been achieved a hundred years\nhence. In order to guard against misconception of the manner in which\nthese advances will be brought about, it is now advisable to mention\nspecifically what has been once or twice hinted parenthetically,\nnamely, the fact that the progress of the Future is certain to be\nproduced in a way perfectly capable of being deduced from the manner\nof our progress in the past. One of the most fruitful causes of error\nin existing prognostications has been the tacit assumption that,\nat some vague moment in the spacious middle-distance of the coming\ntime, sudden and cataclysmal movements of society, and also unexpected\nand revolutionary discoveries in science, will occur: and it is as a\nprecaution against one aspect of this mistake that a weighty quotation\nfrom the writings of one of the sanest and most perspicuous thinkers\nwho have ever written upon that science of society which he may almost\nbe said to have created has been recalled to the memory of the reader\nat the head of this chapter.\n\nThe forecast now almost concluded, imperfect and visionary as it\nmust necessarily be, was commenced with some reflections on the\nrate of future progress made probable by the movements of the recent\npast. But nothing whatever can be deduced from what history, remote\nor recent, shows us, to suggest that any stable institution can be\ncreated otherwise than by steady development: it is only the speed\nof development which is likely to alter, and even this will only\nalter by a progression gaining impetus from the influence of its\nown components. Whether we consider material improvements effected\nby science and invention and the interaction of these; or social\nimprovements effected by readjustment of the conditions of life forced\nupon us through the influence of intellectual and moral changes in\nthe individual units of society making themselves felt as aggregated\nforces; the manner of attainment is nearly identical. It is commonly\nobjected to this view, that whereas science and invention commonly\nprogress in a movement characterised (so to speak) by a succession\nof jerks, social conditions change imperceptibly. But thus to object\nis to overlook the fact that, while no doubt society develops from\ntime to time certain needs whose growth is so steady as to preclude\nthe possibility of pointing to a final moment when the satisfaction\nof them has become at length inevitable, yet, when this satisfaction\nis gained by legislative enactment, there is always a moment when\nthe public, ripe for a given reform, takes definite possession of\nit. For example (to name a comparatively recent case), no doubt\nthe desire for some method by which the public could distinguish\nbetween foreign and home-made articles of merchandise had for some\ntime been generally felt before the passing of the Merchandise Marks\nAct fixed a moment at which all dubiety on the subject would vanish,\nby endeavouring to require that any imported object bearing marks\ncalculated to give the impression that it had been manufactured in\nEngland should also bear a definite and correct statement as to\nits place of origin. Whether we consider this enactment to have\nbeen desirable or not, it is impossible to deny that there was a\nspecific moment when it took effect. And similarly, the bill for\nthe repression of secret commissions in business has come so near\nto being passed through Parliament that many people imagine it to\nbe already law, though it is not, at the time of writing, even (in a\ntechnical sense) before the legislature. Without question, therefore,\npublic opinion is ripe for this reform, and has with great gradualness\nbecome so: but the reform itself, when it takes place (as it may quite\nconceivably have taken place by the time this book is printed), will\noccur suddenly. There will be a day when the manager of a business\nhouse could, with immunity from any overt punishment except the loss\nof his employment, receive a secret bribe from another house with\nwhich he was doing business on behalf of his master; and a succeeding\nday on which, for the same offence against commercial integrity,\nhe could be charged before a magistrate and ultimately punished by\nthe law. Thus the difference between scientific progress and social\nprogress is not so great as has been sometimes imagined. And on the\nother hand, although to the casual observer scientific discoveries and\nnew inventions often appear to have been attained at a single step,\nto a person interested in the particular branch of science, or the\nparticular path of invention where a new achievement occurs, it is\ngenerally quite evident that the latter has been led up to by steady\nprogress extending over a long period. The existence of unidentified\nconstituents in atmospheric air, for instance, must have been long\nsuspected before the isolation of argon gave, to the public eye, the\nimpression of a sudden discovery: and astronomical disturbances have\ngenerally puzzled a great army of observers for a long time before the\npublic is indulged by the announcement of a \"new\" star in the heavens.\n\nTo the reader who has been good enough to grant any validity at all\nto the arguments by which I have sought to show that, as time goes\non, there will be a decreasing tendency to attempt desired reforms by\nlegislative process, and an increasing tendency to make the public the\nguardian of its own security, it will be evident that any differences\nwhich exist between the nature of scientific progress and the nature of\nsocial progress are likely to be accentuated rather than diminished in\nthe course of this century. A change brought about by the spontaneous\nactivity of the people naturally occurs without the definite line of\ndemarcation created by an Act of Parliament.\n\nBut there is one way in which the analogy between scientific and\nsocial progress will be noteworthy. It is a commonplace of industrial\nhistory that an improvement in one machine, or the introduction of some\nnovel method of applying power, always produces, and may very often\nnecessitate, modifications in a number of procedures not previously\nseen to be connected with it: and great results from little causes\nflow. No one foresaw, when Mr Edison discovered the differences in\nthe electrical conductivity of carbon induced by slight variations of\npressure--a discovery at first utilised only in the micro-tasimeter,\nthe appliance used for measuring small changes in the size of\nobjects submitted to it--that the same discovery would presently\nrender commercially practicable the electrical transmission of speech\nand numerous other conveniences, themselves the progenitors of fresh\ninventions now in constant use. Similarly, political and social changes\nquite easy to foresee will undoubtedly have effects which in their\nentirety no one can possibly foresee. The rate of advancement cannot\nbe calculated like a geometrical progression: all that we can hope\nto do is to realise more or less vaguely the acceleration which the\naction and interaction of anticipated (and often antagonistic) forces\nwill produce; the general manner of the world's progress representing\nthe resultant of their activities. What we must constantly keep in\nmind is the fact that changes in the institutions of society can only\nbe stable when they are the result of corresponding changes in the\ntemper of the age which yields them. As this temper is a thing of\ngradual development, we must believe that many temporary expedients\nwill have to be tolerated by advanced thinkers since (as Spencer\nremarks) society can only be held together when the institutions\nexisting, and the conceptions generally current, are in tolerable\nharmony. We can foresee many changes which will be in beneficent\nexistence a hundred years hence; but it would be irrational to show\nimpatience because these changes cannot be immediately proposed; since,\nbeing not yet in harmony with the current conceptions of the world,\ntheir immediate adoption would be mischievous instead of beneficial,\nand their results anarchic instead of stable. For a great many\nyears we must go on passing laws for the regulation of social life,\nwhich we can quite easily perceive that the altered social life of a\nfuture age will not need, because they would be injurious to it. The\nzealous reformer who wishes, as we must all wish, to help the world\nin its wearied way to perfection must aim rather to assist the mind\nof people to demand greater reforms than it could as yet assimilate,\nthan to procure the arrival of reforms for which society is not yet\nripe, and must be content with the effort\n\n\n        \"... to ease the burden of the world\n    Laboriously tracing what must be\n    And what may yet be better.\"\n\n\nTo say this is not to deprecate the greatest possible energy in\nall endeavour that makes for progress. The doctrine, founded upon\na perception of the impossibility of regenerating society except by\nutilising the natural and evolutionary movement of society itself, that\nnothing ought to be done except to wait upon this movement, betrays\nan evident confusion of thought, akin to the fallacy of the schoolmen,\ncommonly called realism, partly adopted by Comte. \"Society\" is not in\nitself an entity separable from the units of society; a progress of\nsociety is only possible as the result of human volition progressively\nexercised. What we have to look for is a steady enlightenment of public\nideals, issuing in the triumph of wisdom over folly, of virtue over\nlaxity, of progress over reaction and inertia. Always there will be\ndifferences of opinion, exercising a salutary check upon hasty public\naction, and giving time for the establishment of harmony between the\nspirit of the age and the new institutions which mark its progress.\n\nNaturally there will have been many changes in the material of daily\nlife which, either because they did not fit in with any one of the\ndivisions into which a forecast of the future naturally fell, or\nbecause the consideration of them would have obscured the exposition\nof matters more immediately connected with each other, it has not been\npossible to mention. For example, we have had occasion to debate the\nmethods by which men and women will transact the business of trade and\ncommerce with the aid of certain foreseen conveniences; and we have\nglanced at the probable future aspect of dwellings, conveyances and\nsimilar conveniences; but nothing has been said as to the clothes in\nwhich our descendants are likely to attire themselves or the enjoyment\nof these advantages. The latter and a few other minor subjects may\nperhaps be considered now, without very much mutual connection.\n\nThe clothing of men and women happens to illustrate rather\nappropriately the very same tendency of civilised institutions to\ndevelop by gradual, rather than violent, changes which has just been\nreferred to. For, while a good deal is heard about the \"vagaries\"\nof fashion, technical writers on the subject always seem to be able\nto predict some time in advance the movements of modish costume; and\nthey sometimes even condescend to explain the processes of thought\nand observation by which their apparently inspired predictions are\narrived at. Moreover, admitting, and allowing for, the extremest\nvariations in detail, costume in civilised countries can hardly be\nsaid to have materially and intrinsically altered--cannot, that is to\nsay, be said to have altered its fundamental characteristics--during\na century, in the case of men, nor during a great many centuries\nin the case of women. Since the age of knee-breeches succeeded the\nage of doublet and hose, men have always protected their legs with\n\"bifurcated integuments\"--some sort of double tube secured to a\ncopious bag enclosing the middle of the body--and the upper part of\nthe trunk with a coat and waistcoat; while women have always worn\nbodices and petticoats of one shape or another. Neither has the\nloudest outcry against the irrationality of costume as a whole, nor\neven the ridicule showered upon single elements of it, ever had the\nleast effect in producing revolutionary modification. Punch laughed\nin vain at crinolines; Lord Ronald Gower protests in vain against\nthe silk \"chimney-pot\" hat. Will a more scientific and a more logical\nage replace absurd or otherwise objectionable garments by others more\nreasonably designed, to such an extent as to produce an entire change\nin the sartorial aspect of civilised peoples?\n\nIt is impossible to doubt that in some respects it will. Already\nsensible women decline to injure themselves and risk the injury of\ntheir possible offspring at the command of fashion. Tight-lacing\nand the wearing of such corsets as unnaturally compress the internal\norgans of the body are evidently near the end of their long reign. In\na comparatively short time it is hardly possible to doubt that\nat least these, the most evidently injurious articles of clothing\nstill surviving, will have joined the farthingale and the ruff in\nthe lumber-room of the obsolete, and when what is really the more\nreasonable moiety of mankind is thus within easy reach of sacrificing\nto hygiene what was dedicated to a wholly mistaken conception of\n\u00e6sthetics, can we question that reforms in male dress founded upon\nconvenience and reason will follow, even to the abandonment of the\nsilk hat? If one were asked to suggest the various steps by which\nthe ultimate costume of the century, whether male or female, will be\narrived at, few would not boggle at the task. But the general nature of\nthe more-or-less-perfected dress of a hundred years hence may perhaps\nbe not unsuccessfully imagined, having in mind the considerations\nlikely to determine it.\n\nWe may be quite certain that two characteristics will be demanded\nof all costume--that it shall give to all movements of the body the\ngreatest possible freedom consistent with warmth, and that it shall be\nas easy as possible to put on and take off. The highly intellectual\nlife of the next century will certainly be impatient of anything\nwhich detains it with occupations so uninteresting as the putting\non and taking off of clothes from pursuits more attractive. Hence\nthere will doubtless be a great deal of simplification of details, the\ngreatest practical diminution in the number of single objects worn. The\nessentials of a satisfactory outfit will be, first, an inner garment\nnext the skin, worn merely for cleanliness; next a middle garment\nfor warmth, and finally an outer suit for protection. The innermost\ngarment will no doubt be made of some fabric not much unlike the soft\nsilky papers now made in Japan, so that it can be destroyed as soon\nas it is taken off. It is not in the least likely that so insanitary\nand degrading an occupation as that of the washerwoman can survive\nin a civilisation really advanced. The middle garment, completely\ncleansable by vacuum action and oxygenation, will of course have to be\nmade of some vegetable fibre like cotton or flax. It will most likely\nbe some developed form of \"combination,\" easy to put on and take off,\nfastening by means of a single knot or button, and will be just tight\nenough to give freedom to the movements. Its warmth will be dependent\nupon contained air, and it, like everything else we wear, will be\nhighly porous; for the importance of properly ventilating the skin,\nperfectly well understood even now, will by that time be also acted\nupon. Thus far male costume and female costume will be practically\nidentical. There is no reason to expect, however, that this identity\nwill be carried so far as the externals of dress, because realising\n(as we shall of course realise) the tendency of the sexes to become\nless divergent in their natural and moral characteristics, we shall\ninstinctively seek to maintain all the salutary and romantic contrast\nthat we can. But it is not to be believed that woman, already long\nsince emancipated from the corset, will have continued a slave\nto the skirt, the petticoat and other restraining garments. With\nunderclothes practically identical with the sensible garments of men,\nour female descendants will no doubt wear a costume much like what\nMiss Rehan wore as Rosalind--a tunic and knee-skirt (probably in one)\nwith gaiters made of some elastic material.\n\nDeprived as we shall be of animal products, the leather boot will\nnaturally be unavailable, and a totally different kind of foot\ncovering will be used. But it is not the absence of leather which\nwill determine this change. Perfectly satisfactory boots of the\npresent form are worn by some extreme vegetarians already, carrying\nconsistency to its limit. With the disappearance of the horse from the\nstreets, however--a disappearance which will doubtless be at least\nseventy years old by this time next century (for the motor car is\nfast pushing out the horse already)--the chief need for an entirely\nimpervious foot-covering will have been obviated. Towns will be\nsanitary underfoot--they are disgusting now--and free from mud; while\nthe drying appliances mentioned in an earlier chapter will clear away\nrain as fast as it falls. Consequently it will no longer be necessary\nto wear uncomfortable, unhealthy and deforming boots; the human foot\nwill cease to be the source of discomfort it now more or less acutely\nis to nine people out of every ten, and we shall be much better walkers\nand athletes. For health will be the consideration dominating all our\nactions, health being a subject of careful tuition in every school:\nand as men and women will rarely need to use muscular strength in\ntheir work, they will gratify the natural yearning of healthy animals\nfor exertion, in athletic sports, by no means confined to the male sex.\n\nWhether fashion as an institution will continue to exist is doubtful,\nbut probably it will not exhibit the extravagances, nor the capricious\ndevelopment which now characterise it, and \"a general uniformity\nwith infinitesimal differences,\" which has been defined as one of\nNature's uniformities, will be perceptible in the natural development\nof the race.\n\nOf course one object sought consciously or unconsciously to be attained\nby the use of fashions is class distinction; and similarly jewellery is\nprobably worn much more because it is a sign of wealth than because\nof any intrinsic beauty which it is supposed to possess. At one time\na man's occupation (and consequently his rank in society) could be\nascertained by his dress; and sumptuary laws occasionally made such\ndistinctions obligatory. It is no doubt of some law of his own time\nthat Shakespeare was thinking [34] when he made the tribune in Julius\nC\u00e6sar reprove the workmen for appearing on a business-day without\nthe leather aprons which marked their trade:--\n\n\n            \"What, know you not\n    Being mechanical you ought not walk,\n    Upon a labouring day, without the sign\n    Of your profession?\"\n\n\nWill class distinction survive the democratising influence of\na century?\n\nThe dress of our own time tends to obliterate the evidence of these\ndistinctions; but a development from heterogeneity to homogeneity is\na reversal of the usual law of progress, and it can hardly be called\na sign of social advancement that artisans of our day generally wear,\nwhen at work, the cast-off clothes of the employing classes, bought\nsecond-hand, and for \"Sunday best\" often ape the fashions of the\nrich. In a hundred years' time assuredly no worker will be ambitious\nto give himself the aspect of an idler, and one may perpend the dry\nanswer of an American to the remark that in the United States there\nis no leisure-class. \"Oh, yes, there is,\" said the moralist, \"only\nwe don't call them that; we call them tramps.\" Everyone will take\npride in his work, when work is no longer treated with the disgraceful\ncontempt which we are only by degrees becoming ashamed of. Consequently\nthe clothes worn at work will no doubt be, in every trade, specially\ndesigned to facilitate the exertions of the worker: and in the copious\nhours of leisure there will be variety, increased by the wearing of\nspecial garments for special amusements. It is difficult to believe\nthat anyone, whatever his work, will dispense with the comfort of\na complete change of dress when play-time comes: and the ingenious\nsimplification of fastenings, and the reduced number of garments worn,\nwill facilitate the enjoyment of this luxury. Everyone will dress\nfor dinner--but not (one fancies) in a \"swallow-tail\" coat and stiff\nshirt. It is quite certain that all our clothes will be soft, supple,\nporous, light and warm a hundred years hence, and the clear-starcher\nwill no longer have the opportunity to destroy them.\n\nSome attempt has already been made to suggest the general domestic\nand architectural conveniences of the next century, but the subject\nof furniture has not been referred to in detail. Allowing for the fact\nthat animal fabrics, as wool, leather, etc., will be absent, there is\nno particular reason why chairs, carpets and curtains should be very\ndifferent from what they are now. No doubt light metallic alloys will\noften be used in the framework of chairs and tables instead of wood,\nbecause the tendency of civilisation is to make things lighter and\nless cumbersome whenever this is possible. At one time it might have\nbeen thought that upholstery, carpets and curtains would have to be\ndispensed with. But to a thoughtful observer there must always have\nbeen a difficulty here. A wooden chair, and even a rattan one, however\ncunningly shaped, is so extremely discomfortable to sit in without\ncushions, that it was easier to imagine that invention would correct\nthe unhealthiness of cushions and stuffing, than that an advanced\nage would consent to dispense with these luxuries. The manner in\nwhich the former solution of the difficulty would be attained was\nactually foreseen by the present writer before the introduction of\nvacuum cleaning was accomplished, and several passages in an earlier\nchapter had to be rewritten when what had been somewhat fancifully\ndescribed as a convenience of the future suddenly became an existing\nfactor of the present: and in one or two places innovations have\nsimilarly called for changes in the text--a circumstance which, it is\nto be hoped, will give pause to critics disposed to condemn certain\nsuggestions in this book as chimerical. [35] Obviously, now that we can\nthoroughly cleanse and free from every particle of dust by a simple\nmechanical process any fabric or mass of fabrics, there is no longer\nany reason to expect that our descendants will, on hygienic grounds,\nfind it necessary to dispense with comforts so essential to restful\nleisure as easy-chairs, soft carpets and wall hangings.\n\nOn the other hand, it is quite certain that numerous inventions will\nenhance and beautify the luxury of an age where rational luxury\nwill reign universally. One source of frequent discomfort to-day\nis the necessity of living always in rooms of one size. Whether\nwe sit alone, or entertain a number of friends, the same apartment\nhas to serve our needs: consequently we are crowded on one day and\nchilly on the next. With combustion abolished as a heating device,\nthere will be no objection against light sliding walls--a convenience\nlong since adopted by our allies the Japanese--which would be rather\ndangerous nowadays and not particularly desirable, at all events in\nEngland, where we have no means of warming most rooms except a fire\non one side, and no means of cooling them at all except by letting\nin draughts and noise through the window. No doubt when matches and\nfireplaces, about equally causative of conflagration, have vanished,\nand when we have invented methods of warming the air in houses without\nthe horrible drying of it caused by the American pipe-stove system,\nhouses will be much more lightly built: and it is certainly not going\nto be impossible to use thin, light walls without being able to hear\nin each room every sound that occurs in the next. Concurrently, we\nshall be able to change the size of rooms--a convenience greater than\nmight be supposed by those who have not thought about the matter. In\nsummer we shall just as easily cool our houses as we shall heat them\nin winter. Very few servants will be required (another great comfort);\nand lighting arrangements will naturally be free from their present\ninadequacy.\n\nExcept that no one has yet troubled to think about it, there is\nsurely no reason why bathing should be such a tedious operation as it\nis. Probably the speediest dresser of our own day does not consume less\nthan a quarter of an hour over his morning tub and the operation of\ndrying himself. A hundred years hence, people will be so avid of every\nmoment of life, life will be so full of busy delight, that time-saving\ninventions will be at a huge premium. It is not because we shall be\nhurried in nerve-shattering anxiety, as it is often complained that\nwe now are, but because we shall value at its true worth the refining\nand restful influence of leisure, that we shall be impatient of the\nminor tasks of every day. The bath of the next century will lave\nthe body speedily with oxygenated water delivered with a force that\nwill render rubbing unnecessary, and beside it will stand the drying\ncupboard, lined with some quickly-moving arrangement of soft brushes,\nand fed with highly desiccated air, from which, almost in a moment,\nthe bather will emerge, dried, and with a skin gently stimulated,\nand perhaps electrified, to clothe himself quickly and pass down the\nlift to his breakfast, which he will eat to the accompaniment of a\nsummary of the morning's news read out for the benefit of the family,\nor whispered into his ears by a talking-machine.\n\nDoes this manner of beginning the day sound like a nightmare? That\nis only because the purpose of it has been overlooked. Not because\nthey will be \"short\" of time will our descendants thus arrange their\nlives, but because they wish to reserve as much time as possible\nfor culture (physical as well as intellectual) and for thought;\nwhich the better distribution of wealth and labour will facilitate;\nwhile labour itself, everywhere performed intelligently and with\ninterest, will be no longer irksome. The working man will ply his\ntrade with zest--working for himself and family--instead of seeking\nevery opportunity to shirk and evade it. And, his task accomplished,\nhe will hasten to enjoyments as elevating as labour itself.\n\nWill man then, the critic may ask incredulously, have really been\nperfected in a century? Decidedly not. But unless we doubt the evidence\nwhich shows that improved institutions not only arise out of improved\npopular character, but also help to promote it, we cannot resist the\ninference that the removal of many causes of degradation must bring\nus nearer to perfection, to which the moral evolution of the race\nis slowly proceeding. There is nothing Utopian in the belief that\nhonesty, truthfulness, respect for the rights of others, will be\nfostered by the increased intelligence of the new age; and from the\nmoment when this intelligence, disseminated throughout all society,\nbegins to make the moral improvement of the race a prime object in\nevery social reform, in every piece of legislation (emancipating\nas well as restrictive) we have a right to expect the progress of\nmorality to receive a marked impetus. \"Nature, careless of the single\nlife,\" will be assisted in the perfecting of the moral type, and the\ndishonest man, the liar, the sensualist, and the man too stupid to\nbe unselfish, will become with every decade less fit for survival,\nbecause the same unwisdom which is at the bottom of his faults will\nhandicap him in the battle of life, will hinder him in the competition\nfor the right to perpetuate his characteristics in children born of\nhis loins. It is only those who conceive of the race as capable of\nremaining stationary, or moving backward, in morals, while in every\nother respect it moves forward with constantly-increasing momentum,\nwho imagine that cunning and unscrupulousness are likely to be fostered\nby enlarged civilisation. So long as we allow the world to be exploited\nfor the selfish advantage of a handful of millionaires, no doubt these\ncharacteristics will continue at a premium. But it is impossible to\nbelieve that the irresistible power of the mass of humanity will submit\nin perpetuity to be thus made the tools of a minority. If the \"ruling\"\nclasses wished to maintain that status they should have kept the\npeople from the schoolroom. Numbers must inevitably prevail, and the\nworld will have reorganised itself in ways which, if we could foresee\nthem in their entirety, would suggest an almost unthinkable perfection.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nA\n\nActor, the (his art), 61\nAgriculture, economies in, 216\n----, scientific development of, 127\nAlcohol, abandonment of, 36\n---- and the law, 242\n---- and crime, 244\nAlphabet, the, 42\nAn\u00e6sthetics, 120\nAnimal food, abandonment of, 34, 126\nAntisepsis and asepsis, 10\nArboriculture, 217\nArchitecture, 194\nArgon, 11, 290\nArt, A.D. 2000, 196\nAtheism, 177\n\n\nB\n\nBacillary diseases, destruction of, 123\nBallot, the (its inadequacy), 262\nBathing, A.D. 2000, 305\nBedroom, the, A.D. 2000, 25\nBellamy, Edward, 5\nBible, inspiration of the, 176\nBirth-rate, the (its artificial restriction), 14\nBread, wholemeal, 34\nBuildings, high, 17\n\n\nC\n\nCalculating machines, 45\nCanada (its future), 97\nCasabianca, 155\nCereals, 35\nClimate, artificial manipulation of, 128\nClothes, A.D. 2000, 294\nCoal (its utilisation), 7\n----, exhaustion of, 104\nCombination, voluntary, as a mode of self-government, 210\nComte, Auguste, 293\nConscience, public, 185\nCooper, E. H. (The Twentieth Century Child), 145, 150, note\nCo-operation, 51\nCooking, 22\nCrime and heredity, 251\n---- and poverty, 244\n---- elimination, 247\nCriminal appeals (in law), 257\n\n\nD\n\nDaily Telegraph, the, 84\nDarwin, Charles, 179\nDavy, Sir Humphry, 6\nDiplomacy, A.D. 2000, 269\nDomestic servants, 18, 24\nDrainage, 25, note, 127\n\n\nE\n\nEconomy in agriculture, 215\n----, relation of prices to, 205\n---- in use of wood, 215\nEdison, T. A., 291\nEducation, A.D. 2000, apparatus of, 140\n----, art in, 171\n----, books in, 163\n---- by pleasure, 149\n----, corporal punishment in, 144\n----, crime in relation to, 234\n----, history in, 170\n----, rational obedience in, 154\n----, languages in, 164, 166\n----, literature in, 171\n----, mathematics in, 163\n----, mixed (of boys and girls), 146\n----, phonograph in, 141, 303, note\n----, physical science in, 161\n----, punishments in, 158\n----, specialised, 162\n----, Spencer on, 151 note\nEducation, Intellectual, Moral and Physical (H. Spencer), 151, note\nElectricity, the end of its age, 11\n----, wireless transmission of, 114\nEton, punishments at, 144\nEuclid, 157, 158\nEvolution (the term), 37, note\n\n\nF\n\nFashion, A.D. 2000, 299\nFlying-machines, 27, 55\nFoods, vegetable, 33\nFreight transportation, 46\nFurniture, A.D. 2000, 302\n\n\nG\n\nGames in education, 143\nGases, liquefied, as a source of power, 116\n\n\nH\n\nHandicrafts, revival of, 50\nHorse traffic (its abolition), 22\nHouse construction, 20\n---- cleaning, 21\nHuxley, Thomas H., 6, 179\nHydrogen, uses of, 9, 102\nHypnotism, 131\n\n\nI\n\nId\u00e6ography, Chinese, 166, note\n\n\nJ\n\nJournalism and literature, 92\nJury, trial by, 257\n\n\nK\n\nKelvin, Lord, 108\nKipling, Rudyard, 147\nKitchen, the, A.D. 2000, 22\n\n\nL\n\nLamb, Charles, 158\nLand tenure, 99, 259\nLang, Andrew, 123, note, 164, note, 168\nLanguage, a \"universal,\" 165\nLanguages, modern, 19\nLiterature, A.D. 2000, 193, 198\n---- and journalism, 92\nLatey, John, 144\nLaw, the, A.D. 2000, 233\n---- ----, alcohol and, 241\n---- ----, changes in, necessitated by new conditions, 240\n---- ----, cost of civil suits to be borne by Government, 253\n---- ----, education and, 234\n---- ----, marriage and, 278\n---- ----, methods of legislation, 259\n---- ----, \"new offences\" and, 234\n---- ----, penology and, 249\n---- ----, poverty and, 244\n---- ----, protective enactments injurious where avoidable, 239\n---- ----, protecting property, 245\n---- ---- ----, the person, 246\n---- ----, trial by jury, 257\nLegislation, reform of, 266\n\n\nM\n\nMacaulay, Lord, 193\nManures (see Agriculture), 127\nMarriage, law of, A.D. 2000, 278\nMedicine, progress of, 119\nMemory (children's), 151\nMerchandise Marks Act, 289\nMiddleman, the, 88\nMorality and education, 154\n---- as affected by education, 136, 139, 235.\n---- as affected by progress, 64\n----, improving tendency of, 307\n----, progress of, 136\nMorris, William, 5\nMotor-cars, slot-worked, 31\nMusic, A.D. 2000, 58, 201\n----, Oriental, 201\nMusician, the (his art), 62\n\n\nN\n\nNapoleon, 4\nNewspapers, advertisements in, 83\n----, editorship of, 68\n----, A.D. 2000, how illustrated, 80\n---- ---- ----, language of, 82\n---- ---- ----, how printed, 79\n\n\nO\n\nOcean cities, 98\n---- ---- and the anhydrator, 99\n---- ----, urban traffic in, 98\nOersted, 117\nOxygen, uses of, 9, 26, 102\nOzone and ozonators, 27\n\n\nP\n\nPayn, James, 144\nParliament, reform of, 260\nPenology, principles of, in A.D. 2000, 249\nPhilosophy, A.D. 2000, 109\nPhonograph, the, 40\n---- in education, 141, 303, note\n----, the printing, 41\nPhotography, chromatic, 59\nPlato, 188\nPlumbers (their technical education), 25\nPoetry of the future, 193\nPost Office, the, 276\n---- in A.D. 2000, 44\nPower, economy of, 212\nPrayer in A.D. 2000, 190\nPress, freedom of the (its possible restriction), 247\nPrices, relation of, and economy, 205\n----, significance of, 32\nProgress, rate of, 1, 135, 288\nPsychical faculties, development of, 65, 130\nPunishment, capital, 237, 257\nPunishments, violent, will be abandoned, 238 (see Penology)\n\n\nR\n\nRadiation in therapeutics, 119\nRadium, 11, 108, 118\nRailway transport, 27\nRecent Development of Physical Science (Whetham), 116, note\nReferendum, 265\nReligion, A.D. 2000, 175\n----, education and, 182\n----, high civilisation and, 175\n----, indifference towards, 181\n----, morality and, 186\n----, mysticism and, 186, 188\n----, \"natural,\" 188\n----, philosophy and, 187\nReview of Reviews, the, 71\nRoadways, moving, 30\n\n\nS\n\nSahara, desert of, proposal to flood, 95\nSaleeby, Dr. C. W., 108, 123, note\nSalpetri\u00e8re Hospital, 130\nScott, Sir Walter, 4\nSculpture, A.D. 2000, 198\nSea air, 26\n----, the, mineral wealth of, 101\n---- ----, utilisation of, 95\nShakespeare, 186\nShips, A.D. 2000, 30\nShorter, Clement K., 144\nSiberia (its future), 93\nSocialism, 51, 206, 210, 273\nSociety, gradual progress of, 287\nSocrates, 186\nSpencer, Herbert, 18, 146, note, 188, 287, 292\nSports, athletic, 54\nState, the, usurpation of wrong functions by, 74, 273 (see Socialism)\nSteam-engine, the (its imperfections), 7\nSuburbs, 15\n\n\nT\n\nTalking-machines (see Phonograph), 61\nTeleautoscope, the (an instrument for seeing by electricity), 43\nTelephones, recording, 39\nTelephony, wireless, 38\nTheatre, the, 60\nTimes, The, 68, 71, 84\nTobacco, 214\nTrade, retail (its development and changes), 86\nTraill, H. D., 169\nTransmutation of matter, 119\nTravel, pleasures of, 57\nTyndall, John, 151, note\n\n\nU\n\nUnemployed, problem of the, 48\n\n\nV\n\nVacuum, cleaning by, 21\nVice, effect of progress on, 64\n\n\nW\n\nWages, 33\n---- and co-operation, 51\nWar, abolition of, predicted, 76\n---- correspondence, 74, note, 76, 78, note\n----, its supposed advantages discussed, 226\nWaste by alcohol, 215\n---- by animal food, 215\n----, illness regarded as a, 214\n----, sewage disposal a, 215\n----, war as a, 219 (see Economy)\nWater, electrolysis of, 8\nWeaklings, perpetuation of, 125\nWealth, limitation of, 49\nWellington, 5\nWells, H. G., 5, 20\nWhetham, W. C., 116, note\nWoman (her political influence), 283\n---- (her political influence in America), 284\n---- (her political influence in New Zealand), 284\n----, position of, A.D. 2000, 283, (see Law and Marriage)\nWorkmen, condition of, 52\n----, trains for, 15\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n[1] Drains, it might be supposed, would disappear altogether from the\nscheme of things in favour of some kind of destructors. For reasons\nconnected with a more enlightened view than we have yet reached of\ncertain aspects of terrestrial economy, however, I think they will,\nwith modifications, still exist.\n\n[2] The chief difficulty in utilising the useful integument of wheat\ndisappears when the whole grain is finely milled.\n\n[3] It is necessary to say here, as an offset to possible\nmisconstruction, that the word \"evolution\" has been purposely abstained\nfrom. The processes of evolution are far slower than the changes\nhere contemplated. The latter are voluntary and purposeful, involving\nno constructional alteration in the physical frame of man, but only\nfunctional modifications, intentionally inaugurated and pursued.\n\n[4] There is a contrivance already in existence which not only weighs\nwhat is placed upon it, but can also be made to calculate the value\nof the goods at any desired rate per ounce, pound or hundredweight.\n\n[5] A practical objection to this principle may be here anticipated\nand answered. Politicians may say that for any one nation to be\nthe pioneer in the adoption of such a policy would have the effect\nof driving trade and manufactures into other countries where the\nrestriction did not exist. But there are so many highly necessary\nreforms open to a similar objection that I think there is no doubt\nthat ultimately the jurists of all nations will agree upon some\narrangement for universal legislation, whereby laws not affecting the\nrelations of one country with another will be simultaneously enacted\nby a comity of nations. We have already one very imperfect example\nof such a procedure in the Convention against bounty-helped sugar.\n\n[6] Not of course in the artistic sense of the word; nor is the\nsupersession of art by optical process in the least contemplated\nhere. The psychological interest of art will have appreciators more\nand more numerous in virtue of the diffusion of culture confidently\nanticipated.\n\n[7] Ante, Chapter I.\n\n[8] Ante, Chapter I.\n\n[9] Kipling: The Five Nations.\n\n[10] It can hardly be disputed that the British generals in the late\nwar in South Africa would have done well to cut the cables altogether,\nor at all events reserve them exclusively for their own use. There\nis very good evidence that, in spite of the interdiction of \"coded\"\nmessages, information passed both ways between the enemy and his agents\nin Europe. The resolute manner in which the Japanese kept newspaper\ncorrespondents away from the scene of action until no action remained\nfor them to correspond about, shows conclusively what will become of\nthe war-reporter during the few remaining decades which separate us\nfrom the final disappearance of moribund war itself from the planet.\n\n[11] Ante, Chapter III.\n\n[12] Ante, Chapter IV.\n\n[13] Ante, page 7.\n\n[14] That is to say, the gases which are most difficult to liquefy, and\nwhich consequently store up most energy in liquefying, viz., hydrogen,\noxygen and nitrogen, as distinguished from ammonia, carbon-dioxide,\nchlorine, and other gases relatively easy to liquefy.\n\n[15] The Recent Development of Physical Science. By W. C. Whetham,\nF.R.S., 1904. London: John Murray.\n\n[16] I do not forget that a good deal of what is on record as an\naccount of experiments in transmutation is purely mystical writing,\nand that when Paracelsus and some of the French alchemists describe\nwhat appear to be chemical experiments they are in reality referring\nto something quite different. But the learned in these matters tell\nme that one of their chief difficulties arises from the fact that,\ncontemporary with the mystics, there were other investigators who,\nnot having the key to the occult significance of the masters'\nwritings, really devoted themselves to research, some valuable, if\naccidental, results of which have come down to us and are recorded\nin all text-books of chemistry.\n\n[17] Ante, page 79.\n\n[18] I might have \"boggled\" (to use one of Mr Andrew Lang's\nstately colloquialisms) before this suggestion, but for a remark\nby Dr C. W. Saleeby, which may here be quoted, to keep me in\ncountenance. \"Malaria,\" he writes in Nova Medica, Nov. 1904,\n\"which causes more illness than any other disease, is already\nobsolescent. Tuberculosis, which causes more deaths than any other\ndisease, can be disposed of, apparently, whenever the human race,\nnow mightily smitten with internecine strife, decides that this\ncampaign against a common foe is worth while. It takes some seconds\nto realise--or begin to realise--what the extinction of tuberculosis\nwill signify in private and hospital practice. Yet the extermination\nof the last tubercle bacillus is an event quite certainly hidden in\nthe womb of time--time pregnant by science.\"\n\n[19] Ante, page 34.\n\n[20] Ante, Chapter III.\n\n[21] The Twentieth Century Child. Chapter III.\n\n[22] Spencer: Study of Sociology. Chapter XV.\n\n[23] Having properly decided that it is well for children to be\nfed plainly while at school, parents take the greatest pleasure in\nalleviating this plainness by \"tuck baskets\" during term, and the\nmost wicked and immoral palate-tickling during holidays. Indeed an\nexcessive appetite seems to be regarded even by quite sensible people\nas rather an ornament to the juvenile character. Mr Cooper, whose\ncharming book, The Twentieth Century Child, has already been referred\nto, describes with what I am afraid is approval the incident of a boy\nwhom he brought away from school for a pleasure-trip just after lunch,\nand who cheerfully devoured a second lunch in the company of his\nfriend. Assuredly our descendants will make no such mistakes as this.\n\n[24] Tyndall \"On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a Branch\nof Education,\" a lecture at the Royal Institution: quoted by Herbert\nSpencer in his Education, Intellectual, Moral and Physical, a work\nwhich, though not very practical, contains a mass of very suggestive\nmatter on a subject which no one else, so far as I am aware, has\napproached in quite the same spirit. As this book has been reprinted\nat so low a price as sixpence, there is no excuse for any parent who\nis unacquainted with its absolutely invaluable teachings.\n\n[25] I think Mr Andrew Lang.\n\n[26] Should we ever have a \"universal\" language, is it altogether\nchimerical to imagine that it might be an id\u00e6ographic one? Provided\nthat some simple code of id\u00e6ographic writing were invented to denote\nthe very limited number of concrete notions essential to commercial\ncorrespondence, no one who has had occasion to study Chinese, even\nin the most cursory manner, would think it at all a severe effort of\nthe imagination to conceive of an id\u00e6ographic notation as being used\nfor business correspondence. In Chinese, the unit of expression is\nan idea. Words which relate to kindred subjects include, in their\nid\u00e6ographs, the sign for the connecting link. Thus the id\u00e6ograph\nfor \"agriculture\" is made up of the sign for \"strength\" and for\n\"a field.\" Consequently, although the Japanese language when spoken\nsounds so entirely unlike Chinese that a person knowing neither can\ndistinguish one from the other when heard across the width of a street,\nthe Japanese can read Chinese books without difficulty, and one form\nof printing can be read by the Chinese of the North and those of\nthe South, although the spoken dialects differ so much that \"pidgin\"\nEnglish is often used by the two as a means of spoken communication. An\nid\u00e6ographic medium of commercial writing (not of course so archaic nor\nso cumbersome as Chinese, but philosophically devised for the purpose)\nwould release the student from all difficulties of speech and accent;\nhe would always name the signs to himself in his own language.\n\n[27] A method, it may be added, which can very usefully be practised\nnow. Those of us who \"rub-up\" our French or German a little before\na summer holiday by reading a novel or two, would always find the\nresults of this rubbing-up process to be greatly more effective, when\npresently utilised abroad, if we would read always aloud instead of\nin silence according to the usual procedure.\n\n[28] Over-civilised, if one please, but I do not admit for an instant\nthat man can be over-civilised.\n\n[29] Ante, Chapter III.\n\n[30] Ante, Chapter II.\n\n[31] Against some methods of securing this object no doubt the\nunintelligent sentimentality of the present time would rebel; but if\nany inconsistency be detected in my suggestion that the next century,\nwhich is expected to be even milder than this, will accept them, it\nonly needs to be replied that the gentleness of our descendants will\nbe a reasonable and ordered gentleness, not a mere effect of morbid\nsentimentality. They will not hesitate before an apparent and temporary\ncruelty which is capable of preventing much greater suffering in a\nmuch greater number of persons. The crime of permitting children to\nbe born with brains abnormally predisposed to evil of any sort will\nmore greatly revolt an intelligent age than any conceivable measure\nadopted for its prevention.\n\n[32] It may, perhaps, be thought that the disuse of trial by jury\nwould be liable to perpetuate a somewhat glaring abuse of our\npresent jurisprudence--the disproportionately severe repression of\noffences against property as compared with the disproportionately\nlight repression of offences against the person. But the mere fact\nthat the \"unlearned\" bench is conspicuously inept in this particular\nis no reason for thinking that \"learned\" courts would be so: and\nmeantime, as judges, like other men, are children of their epoch,\nwe may suppose that the increased mildness of the new age will be\nreflected here as elsewhere, and that extenuating circumstances\nwill be allowed more weight in determining a sentence for larceny,\nand less weight in determining a sentence for assault.\n\n[33] Study of Sociology, Chapter XV.\n\n[34] At least this was the opinion of the editors of the Clarendon\nPress edition of the Plays.\n\n[35] While actually correcting the proof sheets I read in a London\nevening newspaper, The Star, that gramophones had been utilised in\ncertain schools for the teaching of foreign languages, a device I had\nsuggested in the chapter on Education as likely to be adopted in the\nschools of the future.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n\n           COLSTON AND COMPANY, LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH","title":"A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":71082}