Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let
Thy feet, millenniums hence be set
In midst of knowledge, dreamt not yet.
The empire of Hephæstus is expanding before our eyes. His bellows blow
through our blast furnaces. His anvils ring in thousands of factories.
His engines career over the land, and his steamers over the sea. His
internal-combustion cars are strung out along the roadways, and his
avions run their furrows through the clouds. Wherever he goes, he
lightens the burdens of humanity and gladdens all hearts with his
gifts. He brings warmth and light into dark places. He draws mankind
closer and closer together. He draws them together without diminishing
the distance between them. He simply makes that distance impotent to
hold them apart. He enables the city children to leave their slums
and gather fresh health in the open country. He gives the grimed city
worker fresh clear air wherein to sleep. His lorries, thundering along
the highways, tighten the bonds between the farmer who gathers the
fruit and the town dweller who consumes it.
Nor is Hephæstus satisfied yet. His task is but half finished. The
whole earth must be Vulcanized.
The God of Fire and of Iron hobbles over the broad earth, seeking and
finding new paths of advancement towards a better and fuller life.
Man has become less and less limited by his permanent organism, that
Body which in the beginning was all he possessed. He has now as many
different shapes as ever Proteus had, and he can assume any of them
at will. At one time he has the shape of a rowing boat, his arms
prolonged seven feet or more till his blades skim the water. Again, his
legs will be two wheels, and his body will be like those steeds with
fire-breathing nostrils which Hephæstus made for the King of Colchis.
Again, the pupil of his eye will grow until its diameter measures 100
inches and then he will sound the depths of the heavens with the power
of 100,000 eyes in one. When he goes to war, he throws his “stone”
some seventy miles and arms it with vast destruction. He belches forth
deadly vapours which choke and strangle his enemies. He becomes an
armed slug creeping over all obstacles and destroying as he creeps.
In times of peace he dresses in various garbs to suit his changing
occupation. His womenfolk emphasize and glorify their variety of
personal presentation and expression. Protea shines in all the colours
and shades of the rainbow, and invents new colours and new forms every
day, forms of dress, of outline, and of her very bodily figure.
The resignations and renunciations of former ages are forgotten. Music,
travel, pictures, education――the luxuries of past generations are the
common property of all to-day. That is the sort of Communism which is
feasible and reasonable. Take all the luxuries and good things of this
life and bring them within reach of all by cheapening their cost of
production. Travel at a pound a mile is a luxury. Travel at a penny a
mile becomes a “necessity” as soon as people get used to it and take it
for granted.
Security and seclusion are privileges cherished by what used to be
called the “aristocrats.” Place both within reach of the masses by
insurance and by transport facilities. Make all these luxuries and
privileges common property. It is not so many centuries ago that a
mariner’s compass was bartered for diamonds. To-day it costs a penny.
And then we come upon a difficulty. When a thing becomes common
property, or so cheap as to be of practically no price, it ceases to be
coveted. There is a tendency deep-rooted in the human heart to reach
out beyond the things of to-day for something not yet attained. When
Communism has shared out the earth, it will ask for the moon. Humanity
will never assume a “dead level of mediocrity.” There will always be
the Thyroid Type, energetic, inquisitive, sensitive, inventive, and
restless. The class of Pathfinders will be recruited from that type.
The Pituitary Type will furnish commanders and organizers, while the
Adrenal Type will furnish the rank and file. But the intermixture of
the various types will bring out special constitutions and varieties in
unexpected quarters, and it behoves us to keep “_la carrière ouverte
aux talents_.”
Thus the human army will march forward, led by a Pillar of Fire. Its
pace will be constantly accelerated, but we shall hardly be aware of
it, for our methods of measuring time will change in the same ratio.
A well-made motor-car on a smooth road can hum along sweetly at sixty
miles an hour, and its occupants will be less impressed and excited
than they would be by the horse careering at 20 miles per hour! And
what are all these speeds to the absolutely smooth planetary speed of
nineteen miles per second!
It has been asserted that the tremendous powers conferred upon man
by machinery have produced the terrific wars of recent times by
placing power in the wrong hands. There may be some justice in this,
but the amount of destruction is negligible in comparison with the
amount of construction and reparation. When Kitchener saved a few
hundred casualties at Paardeberg by sparing his men, he lost 10,000 at
Bloemfontein by enteric fever. The bloodiest war is sometimes the least
costly on balance. The greatest war of all history ended but seven
years ago, and already the beaten nations have healed up their wounds
and are looking forward to the future with greater confidence than
many of the “victorious” nations. Mankind is increasing the rapidity
of its nervous reaction to emergencies and injuries. The leucocytes
of the body politic set to work sooner and more effectively to heal
the damage. Mankind as an organism is daily improving its circulatory
system, _alias_ its transport facilities. Its nervous system closely
imitates organic nerves by its cables and land-lines, and it improves
upon nature by adding wireless communication and resonance to the
organic devices of the body.
Mankind is being moulded into a single compact self-contained body on
the anvil of Hephæstus. It is still subject to feverish ailments and
some chronic diseases. But the general outlines of future development
are clearly discernible. There must be pauses and set-backs. The
brilliant scientific and artistic development of classical Hellenism
was all but lost in the destruction of the Roman civilization. But
the Arabs kept the flickering flame alive until Europe awoke from
its torpor and lit its torch once more. Since then there has been no
turning back. The age of science, discovery, and invention, the age
of mechanism and machinery and power, has come and come to stay. Man,
liberated from mechanical drudgery by the machine, has time to develop
his intellectual and artistic powers. His necessities being supplied by
pressing a button, he is liberated to enjoy a more varied existence.
If some men and women are still bound to monotonous tasks, it does
not necessarily mean unhappiness, for the Pathfinders’ life is one of
constant care and much anxiety. Discovery is 90 per cent. failure,
and something like a daily routine of regular and monotonous work
sometimes appears in the light of a blissful refuge. Besides, the human
heart and organism easily falls into a routine in which daily work is
hardly felt, being done without conscious effort. This fact is often
forgotten by those who envy the life of the organizer and financier,
which is one of much risk and anxiety, relieved by an occasional big
prize.
The ideal state of things would be attained if those of an adventurous
disposition could be given the adventurous part of human activity, and
if those who are plodders by nature could be left to do the plodding.
That is a matter for future development, either consciously fostered by
wise leaders of our race, or unconsciously evolved from the depths of
wisdom hidden below the threshold of the racial consciousness.
But the goal is in sight. The earth is being organized and unified
under the ægis of the human race, the protoplasm of this planet, the
race which, transcending the mechanism and long-established traditions
of its own germ-plasm, enlarged and multiplied its functions until
it acquired the use of, fire. Upon that achievement it built an
unprecedented form of life, a super-“natural” edifice of infinite
power, as yet but dimly realized, but which in its full beauty and
perfection will be nothing less than Divine.