GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
"On the other hand, after observing how the processes that have
brought things to their present stage are still going on, not with
a decreasing rapidity indicating approach to cessation, but with
an increasing rapidity that implies long continuance and immense
transformations; there follows the conviction that the remote future
has in store, forms of social life higher than any we have imagined:
there comes a faith transcending that of the Radical, whose aim is
some re-organisation admitting of comparison to organisations which
exist. And while this conception of societies has naturally evolved,
beginning with small and simple types which have their short existences
and disappear, advancing to higher types that are larger, more complex,
and longer-lived, coming to still-higher types like our own, great
in size, complexity, and duration, and promising types transcending
these in times after existing societies have died away--while this
conception of societies implies that in the slow course of things
changes almost immeasurable in amount are possible, it also implies
that but small amounts of such changes are possible, within "short
periods"--Herbert Spencer: The Study of Sociology, Chapter XVI.
It has repeatedly been necessary, in the course of this survey, to
stimulate the indulgence of the reader by a reminder, based upon the
speed of our progress in the past and its steady acceleration in recent
decades, that there is much more danger of underestimating than of
exaggerating the advances likely to have been achieved a hundred years
hence. In order to guard against misconception of the manner in which
these advances will be brought about, it is now advisable to mention
specifically what has been once or twice hinted parenthetically,
namely, the fact that the progress of the Future is certain to be
produced in a way perfectly capable of being deduced from the manner
of our progress in the past. One of the most fruitful causes of error
in existing prognostications has been the tacit assumption that,
at some vague moment in the spacious middle-distance of the coming
time, sudden and cataclysmal movements of society, and also unexpected
and revolutionary discoveries in science, will occur: and it is as a
precaution against one aspect of this mistake that a weighty quotation
from the writings of one of the sanest and most perspicuous thinkers
who have ever written upon that science of society which he may almost
be said to have created has been recalled to the memory of the reader
at the head of this chapter.
The forecast now almost concluded, imperfect and visionary as it
must necessarily be, was commenced with some reflections on the
rate of future progress made probable by the movements of the recent
past. But nothing whatever can be deduced from what history, remote
or recent, shows us, to suggest that any stable institution can be
created otherwise than by steady development: it is only the speed
of development which is likely to alter, and even this will only
alter by a progression gaining impetus from the influence of its
own components. Whether we consider material improvements effected
by science and invention and the interaction of these; or social
improvements effected by readjustment of the conditions of life forced
upon us through the influence of intellectual and moral changes in
the individual units of society making themselves felt as aggregated
forces; the manner of attainment is nearly identical. It is commonly
objected to this view, that whereas science and invention commonly
progress in a movement characterised (so to speak) by a succession
of jerks, social conditions change imperceptibly. But thus to object
is to overlook the fact that, while no doubt society develops from
time to time certain needs whose growth is so steady as to preclude
the possibility of pointing to a final moment when the satisfaction
of them has become at length inevitable, yet, when this satisfaction
is gained by legislative enactment, there is always a moment when
the public, ripe for a given reform, takes definite possession of
it. For example (to name a comparatively recent case), no doubt
the desire for some method by which the public could distinguish
between foreign and home-made articles of merchandise had for some
time been generally felt before the passing of the Merchandise Marks
Act fixed a moment at which all dubiety on the subject would vanish,
by endeavouring to require that any imported object bearing marks
calculated to give the impression that it had been manufactured in
England should also bear a definite and correct statement as to
its place of origin. Whether we consider this enactment to have
been desirable or not, it is impossible to deny that there was a
specific moment when it took effect. And similarly, the bill for
the repression of secret commissions in business has come so near
to being passed through Parliament that many people imagine it to
be already law, though it is not, at the time of writing, even (in a
technical sense) before the legislature. Without question, therefore,
public opinion is ripe for this reform, and has with great gradualness
become so: but the reform itself, when it takes place (as it may quite
conceivably have taken place by the time this book is printed), will
occur suddenly. There will be a day when the manager of a business
house could, with immunity from any overt punishment except the loss
of his employment, receive a secret bribe from another house with
which he was doing business on behalf of his master; and a succeeding
day on which, for the same offence against commercial integrity,
he could be charged before a magistrate and ultimately punished by
the law. Thus the difference between scientific progress and social
progress is not so great as has been sometimes imagined. And on the
other hand, although to the casual observer scientific discoveries and
new inventions often appear to have been attained at a single step,
to a person interested in the particular branch of science, or the
particular path of invention where a new achievement occurs, it is
generally quite evident that the latter has been led up to by steady
progress extending over a long period. The existence of unidentified
constituents in atmospheric air, for instance, must have been long
suspected before the isolation of argon gave, to the public eye, the
impression of a sudden discovery: and astronomical disturbances have
generally puzzled a great army of observers for a long time before the
public is indulged by the announcement of a "new" star in the heavens.
To the reader who has been good enough to grant any validity at all
to the arguments by which I have sought to show that, as time goes
on, there will be a decreasing tendency to attempt desired reforms by
legislative process, and an increasing tendency to make the public the
guardian of its own security, it will be evident that any differences
which exist between the nature of scientific progress and the nature of
social progress are likely to be accentuated rather than diminished in
the course of this century. A change brought about by the spontaneous
activity of the people naturally occurs without the definite line of
demarcation created by an Act of Parliament.
But there is one way in which the analogy between scientific and
social progress will be noteworthy. It is a commonplace of industrial
history that an improvement in one machine, or the introduction of some
novel method of applying power, always produces, and may very often
necessitate, modifications in a number of procedures not previously
seen to be connected with it: and great results from little causes
flow. No one foresaw, when Mr Edison discovered the differences in
the electrical conductivity of carbon induced by slight variations of
pressure--a discovery at first utilised only in the micro-tasimeter,
the appliance used for measuring small changes in the size of
objects submitted to it--that the same discovery would presently
render commercially practicable the electrical transmission of speech
and numerous other conveniences, themselves the progenitors of fresh
inventions now in constant use. Similarly, political and social changes
quite easy to foresee will undoubtedly have effects which in their
entirety no one can possibly foresee. The rate of advancement cannot
be calculated like a geometrical progression: all that we can hope
to do is to realise more or less vaguely the acceleration which the
action and interaction of anticipated (and often antagonistic) forces
will produce; the general manner of the world's progress representing
the resultant of their activities. What we must constantly keep in
mind is the fact that changes in the institutions of society can only
be stable when they are the result of corresponding changes in the
temper of the age which yields them. As this temper is a thing of
gradual development, we must believe that many temporary expedients
will have to be tolerated by advanced thinkers since (as Spencer
remarks) society can only be held together when the institutions
existing, and the conceptions generally current, are in tolerable
harmony. We can foresee many changes which will be in beneficent
existence a hundred years hence; but it would be irrational to show
impatience because these changes cannot be immediately proposed; since,
being not yet in harmony with the current conceptions of the world,
their immediate adoption would be mischievous instead of beneficial,
and their results anarchic instead of stable. For a great many
years we must go on passing laws for the regulation of social life,
which we can quite easily perceive that the altered social life of a
future age will not need, because they would be injurious to it. The
zealous reformer who wishes, as we must all wish, to help the world
in its wearied way to perfection must aim rather to assist the mind
of people to demand greater reforms than it could as yet assimilate,
than to procure the arrival of reforms for which society is not yet
ripe, and must be content with the effort
"... to ease the burden of the world
Laboriously tracing what must be
And what may yet be better."
To say this is not to deprecate the greatest possible energy in
all endeavour that makes for progress. The doctrine, founded upon
a perception of the impossibility of regenerating society except by
utilising the natural and evolutionary movement of society itself, that
nothing ought to be done except to wait upon this movement, betrays
an evident confusion of thought, akin to the fallacy of the schoolmen,
commonly called realism, partly adopted by Comte. "Society" is not in
itself an entity separable from the units of society; a progress of
society is only possible as the result of human volition progressively
exercised. What we have to look for is a steady enlightenment of public
ideals, issuing in the triumph of wisdom over folly, of virtue over
laxity, of progress over reaction and inertia. Always there will be
differences of opinion, exercising a salutary check upon hasty public
action, and giving time for the establishment of harmony between the
spirit of the age and the new institutions which mark its progress.
Naturally there will have been many changes in the material of daily
life which, either because they did not fit in with any one of the
divisions into which a forecast of the future naturally fell, or
because the consideration of them would have obscured the exposition
of matters more immediately connected with each other, it has not been
possible to mention. For example, we have had occasion to debate the
methods by which men and women will transact the business of trade and
commerce with the aid of certain foreseen conveniences; and we have
glanced at the probable future aspect of dwellings, conveyances and
similar conveniences; but nothing has been said as to the clothes in
which our descendants are likely to attire themselves or the enjoyment
of these advantages. The latter and a few other minor subjects may
perhaps be considered now, without very much mutual connection.
The clothing of men and women happens to illustrate rather
appropriately the very same tendency of civilised institutions to
develop by gradual, rather than violent, changes which has just been
referred to. For, while a good deal is heard about the "vagaries"
of fashion, technical writers on the subject always seem to be able
to predict some time in advance the movements of modish costume; and
they sometimes even condescend to explain the processes of thought
and observation by which their apparently inspired predictions are
arrived at. Moreover, admitting, and allowing for, the extremest
variations in detail, costume in civilised countries can hardly be
said to have materially and intrinsically altered--cannot, that is to
say, be said to have altered its fundamental characteristics--during
a century, in the case of men, nor during a great many centuries
in the case of women. Since the age of knee-breeches succeeded the
age of doublet and hose, men have always protected their legs with
"bifurcated integuments"--some sort of double tube secured to a
copious bag enclosing the middle of the body--and the upper part of
the trunk with a coat and waistcoat; while women have always worn
bodices and petticoats of one shape or another. Neither has the
loudest outcry against the irrationality of costume as a whole, nor
even the ridicule showered upon single elements of it, ever had the
least effect in producing revolutionary modification. Punch laughed
in vain at crinolines; Lord Ronald Gower protests in vain against
the silk "chimney-pot" hat. Will a more scientific and a more logical
age replace absurd or otherwise objectionable garments by others more
reasonably designed, to such an extent as to produce an entire change
in the sartorial aspect of civilised peoples?
It is impossible to doubt that in some respects it will. Already
sensible women decline to injure themselves and risk the injury of
their possible offspring at the command of fashion. Tight-lacing
and the wearing of such corsets as unnaturally compress the internal
organs of the body are evidently near the end of their long reign. In
a comparatively short time it is hardly possible to doubt that
at least these, the most evidently injurious articles of clothing
still surviving, will have joined the farthingale and the ruff in
the lumber-room of the obsolete, and when what is really the more
reasonable moiety of mankind is thus within easy reach of sacrificing
to hygiene what was dedicated to a wholly mistaken conception of
æsthetics, can we question that reforms in male dress founded upon
convenience and reason will follow, even to the abandonment of the
silk hat? If one were asked to suggest the various steps by which
the ultimate costume of the century, whether male or female, will be
arrived at, few would not boggle at the task. But the general nature of
the more-or-less-perfected dress of a hundred years hence may perhaps
be not unsuccessfully imagined, having in mind the considerations
likely to determine it.
We may be quite certain that two characteristics will be demanded
of all costume--that it shall give to all movements of the body the
greatest possible freedom consistent with warmth, and that it shall be
as easy as possible to put on and take off. The highly intellectual
life of the next century will certainly be impatient of anything
which detains it with occupations so uninteresting as the putting
on and taking off of clothes from pursuits more attractive. Hence
there will doubtless be a great deal of simplification of details, the
greatest practical diminution in the number of single objects worn. The
essentials of a satisfactory outfit will be, first, an inner garment
next the skin, worn merely for cleanliness; next a middle garment
for warmth, and finally an outer suit for protection. The innermost
garment will no doubt be made of some fabric not much unlike the soft
silky papers now made in Japan, so that it can be destroyed as soon
as it is taken off. It is not in the least likely that so insanitary
and degrading an occupation as that of the washerwoman can survive
in a civilisation really advanced. The middle garment, completely
cleansable by vacuum action and oxygenation, will of course have to be
made of some vegetable fibre like cotton or flax. It will most likely
be some developed form of "combination," easy to put on and take off,
fastening by means of a single knot or button, and will be just tight
enough to give freedom to the movements. Its warmth will be dependent
upon contained air, and it, like everything else we wear, will be
highly porous; for the importance of properly ventilating the skin,
perfectly well understood even now, will by that time be also acted
upon. Thus far male costume and female costume will be practically
identical. There is no reason to expect, however, that this identity
will be carried so far as the externals of dress, because realising
(as we shall of course realise) the tendency of the sexes to become
less divergent in their natural and moral characteristics, we shall
instinctively seek to maintain all the salutary and romantic contrast
that we can. But it is not to be believed that woman, already long
since emancipated from the corset, will have continued a slave
to the skirt, the petticoat and other restraining garments. With
underclothes practically identical with the sensible garments of men,
our female descendants will no doubt wear a costume much like what
Miss Rehan wore as Rosalind--a tunic and knee-skirt (probably in one)
with gaiters made of some elastic material.
Deprived as we shall be of animal products, the leather boot will
naturally be unavailable, and a totally different kind of foot
covering will be used. But it is not the absence of leather which
will determine this change. Perfectly satisfactory boots of the
present form are worn by some extreme vegetarians already, carrying
consistency to its limit. With the disappearance of the horse from the
streets, however--a disappearance which will doubtless be at least
seventy years old by this time next century (for the motor car is
fast pushing out the horse already)--the chief need for an entirely
impervious foot-covering will have been obviated. Towns will be
sanitary underfoot--they are disgusting now--and free from mud; while
the drying appliances mentioned in an earlier chapter will clear away
rain as fast as it falls. Consequently it will no longer be necessary
to wear uncomfortable, unhealthy and deforming boots; the human foot
will cease to be the source of discomfort it now more or less acutely
is to nine people out of every ten, and we shall be much better walkers
and athletes. For health will be the consideration dominating all our
actions, health being a subject of careful tuition in every school:
and as men and women will rarely need to use muscular strength in
their work, they will gratify the natural yearning of healthy animals
for exertion, in athletic sports, by no means confined to the male sex.
Whether fashion as an institution will continue to exist is doubtful,
but probably it will not exhibit the extravagances, nor the capricious
development which now characterise it, and "a general uniformity
with infinitesimal differences," which has been defined as one of
Nature's uniformities, will be perceptible in the natural development
of the race.
Of course one object sought consciously or unconsciously to be attained
by the use of fashions is class distinction; and similarly jewellery is
probably worn much more because it is a sign of wealth than because
of any intrinsic beauty which it is supposed to possess. At one time
a man's occupation (and consequently his rank in society) could be
ascertained by his dress; and sumptuary laws occasionally made such
distinctions obligatory. It is no doubt of some law of his own time
that Shakespeare was thinking [34] when he made the tribune in Julius
Cæsar reprove the workmen for appearing on a business-day without
the leather aprons which marked their trade:--
"What, know you not
Being mechanical you ought not walk,
Upon a labouring day, without the sign
Of your profession?"
Will class distinction survive the democratising influence of
a century?
The dress of our own time tends to obliterate the evidence of these
distinctions; but a development from heterogeneity to homogeneity is
a reversal of the usual law of progress, and it can hardly be called
a sign of social advancement that artisans of our day generally wear,
when at work, the cast-off clothes of the employing classes, bought
second-hand, and for "Sunday best" often ape the fashions of the
rich. In a hundred years' time assuredly no worker will be ambitious
to give himself the aspect of an idler, and one may perpend the dry
answer of an American to the remark that in the United States there
is no leisure-class. "Oh, yes, there is," said the moralist, "only
we don't call them that; we call them tramps." Everyone will take
pride in his work, when work is no longer treated with the disgraceful
contempt which we are only by degrees becoming ashamed of. Consequently
the clothes worn at work will no doubt be, in every trade, specially
designed to facilitate the exertions of the worker: and in the copious
hours of leisure there will be variety, increased by the wearing of
special garments for special amusements. It is difficult to believe
that anyone, whatever his work, will dispense with the comfort of
a complete change of dress when play-time comes: and the ingenious
simplification of fastenings, and the reduced number of garments worn,
will facilitate the enjoyment of this luxury. Everyone will dress
for dinner--but not (one fancies) in a "swallow-tail" coat and stiff
shirt. It is quite certain that all our clothes will be soft, supple,
porous, light and warm a hundred years hence, and the clear-starcher
will no longer have the opportunity to destroy them.
Some attempt has already been made to suggest the general domestic
and architectural conveniences of the next century, but the subject
of furniture has not been referred to in detail. Allowing for the fact
that animal fabrics, as wool, leather, etc., will be absent, there is
no particular reason why chairs, carpets and curtains should be very
different from what they are now. No doubt light metallic alloys will
often be used in the framework of chairs and tables instead of wood,
because the tendency of civilisation is to make things lighter and
less cumbersome whenever this is possible. At one time it might have
been thought that upholstery, carpets and curtains would have to be
dispensed with. But to a thoughtful observer there must always have
been a difficulty here. A wooden chair, and even a rattan one, however
cunningly shaped, is so extremely discomfortable to sit in without
cushions, that it was easier to imagine that invention would correct
the unhealthiness of cushions and stuffing, than that an advanced
age would consent to dispense with these luxuries. The manner in
which the former solution of the difficulty would be attained was
actually foreseen by the present writer before the introduction of
vacuum cleaning was accomplished, and several passages in an earlier
chapter had to be rewritten when what had been somewhat fancifully
described as a convenience of the future suddenly became an existing
factor of the present: and in one or two places innovations have
similarly called for changes in the text--a circumstance which, it is
to be hoped, will give pause to critics disposed to condemn certain
suggestions in this book as chimerical. [35] Obviously, now that we can
thoroughly cleanse and free from every particle of dust by a simple
mechanical process any fabric or mass of fabrics, there is no longer
any reason to expect that our descendants will, on hygienic grounds,
find it necessary to dispense with comforts so essential to restful
leisure as easy-chairs, soft carpets and wall hangings.
On the other hand, it is quite certain that numerous inventions will
enhance and beautify the luxury of an age where rational luxury
will reign universally. One source of frequent discomfort to-day
is the necessity of living always in rooms of one size. Whether
we sit alone, or entertain a number of friends, the same apartment
has to serve our needs: consequently we are crowded on one day and
chilly on the next. With combustion abolished as a heating device,
there will be no objection against light sliding walls--a convenience
long since adopted by our allies the Japanese--which would be rather
dangerous nowadays and not particularly desirable, at all events in
England, where we have no means of warming most rooms except a fire
on one side, and no means of cooling them at all except by letting
in draughts and noise through the window. No doubt when matches and
fireplaces, about equally causative of conflagration, have vanished,
and when we have invented methods of warming the air in houses without
the horrible drying of it caused by the American pipe-stove system,
houses will be much more lightly built: and it is certainly not going
to be impossible to use thin, light walls without being able to hear
in each room every sound that occurs in the next. Concurrently, we
shall be able to change the size of rooms--a convenience greater than
might be supposed by those who have not thought about the matter. In
summer we shall just as easily cool our houses as we shall heat them
in winter. Very few servants will be required (another great comfort);
and lighting arrangements will naturally be free from their present
inadequacy.
Except that no one has yet troubled to think about it, there is
surely no reason why bathing should be such a tedious operation as it
is. Probably the speediest dresser of our own day does not consume less
than a quarter of an hour over his morning tub and the operation of
drying himself. A hundred years hence, people will be so avid of every
moment of life, life will be so full of busy delight, that time-saving
inventions will be at a huge premium. It is not because we shall be
hurried in nerve-shattering anxiety, as it is often complained that
we now are, but because we shall value at its true worth the refining
and restful influence of leisure, that we shall be impatient of the
minor tasks of every day. The bath of the next century will lave
the body speedily with oxygenated water delivered with a force that
will render rubbing unnecessary, and beside it will stand the drying
cupboard, lined with some quickly-moving arrangement of soft brushes,
and fed with highly desiccated air, from which, almost in a moment,
the bather will emerge, dried, and with a skin gently stimulated,
and perhaps electrified, to clothe himself quickly and pass down the
lift to his breakfast, which he will eat to the accompaniment of a
summary of the morning's news read out for the benefit of the family,
or whispered into his ears by a talking-machine.
Does this manner of beginning the day sound like a nightmare? That
is only because the purpose of it has been overlooked. Not because
they will be "short" of time will our descendants thus arrange their
lives, but because they wish to reserve as much time as possible
for culture (physical as well as intellectual) and for thought;
which the better distribution of wealth and labour will facilitate;
while labour itself, everywhere performed intelligently and with
interest, will be no longer irksome. The working man will ply his
trade with zest--working for himself and family--instead of seeking
every opportunity to shirk and evade it. And, his task accomplished,
he will hasten to enjoyments as elevating as labour itself.
Will man then, the critic may ask incredulously, have really been
perfected in a century? Decidedly not. But unless we doubt the evidence
which shows that improved institutions not only arise out of improved
popular character, but also help to promote it, we cannot resist the
inference that the removal of many causes of degradation must bring
us nearer to perfection, to which the moral evolution of the race
is slowly proceeding. There is nothing Utopian in the belief that
honesty, truthfulness, respect for the rights of others, will be
fostered by the increased intelligence of the new age; and from the
moment when this intelligence, disseminated throughout all society,
begins to make the moral improvement of the race a prime object in
every social reform, in every piece of legislation (emancipating
as well as restrictive) we have a right to expect the progress of
morality to receive a marked impetus. "Nature, careless of the single
life," will be assisted in the perfecting of the moral type, and the
dishonest man, the liar, the sensualist, and the man too stupid to
be unselfish, will become with every decade less fit for survival,
because the same unwisdom which is at the bottom of his faults will
handicap him in the battle of life, will hinder him in the competition
for the right to perpetuate his characteristics in children born of
his loins. It is only those who conceive of the race as capable of
remaining stationary, or moving backward, in morals, while in every
other respect it moves forward with constantly-increasing momentum,
who imagine that cunning and unscrupulousness are likely to be fostered
by enlarged civilisation. So long as we allow the world to be exploited
for the selfish advantage of a handful of millionaires, no doubt these
characteristics will continue at a premium. But it is impossible to
believe that the irresistible power of the mass of humanity will submit
in perpetuity to be thus made the tools of a minority. If the "ruling"
classes wished to maintain that status they should have kept the
people from the schoolroom. Numbers must inevitably prevail, and the
world will have reorganised itself in ways which, if we could foresee
them in their entirety, would suggest an almost unthinkable perfection.
INDEX
A
Actor, the (his art), 61
Agriculture, economies in, 216
----, scientific development of, 127
Alcohol, abandonment of, 36
---- and the law, 242
---- and crime, 244
Alphabet, the, 42
Anæsthetics, 120
Animal food, abandonment of, 34, 126
Antisepsis and asepsis, 10
Arboriculture, 217
Architecture, 194
Argon, 11, 290
Art, A.D. 2000, 196
Atheism, 177
B
Bacillary diseases, destruction of, 123
Ballot, the (its inadequacy), 262
Bathing, A.D. 2000, 305
Bedroom, the, A.D. 2000, 25
Bellamy, Edward, 5
Bible, inspiration of the, 176
Birth-rate, the (its artificial restriction), 14
Bread, wholemeal, 34
Buildings, high, 17
C
Calculating machines, 45
Canada (its future), 97
Casabianca, 155
Cereals, 35
Climate, artificial manipulation of, 128
Clothes, A.D. 2000, 294
Coal (its utilisation), 7
----, exhaustion of, 104
Combination, voluntary, as a mode of self-government, 210
Comte, Auguste, 293
Conscience, public, 185
Cooper, E. H. (The Twentieth Century Child), 145, 150, note
Co-operation, 51
Cooking, 22
Crime and heredity, 251
---- and poverty, 244
---- elimination, 247
Criminal appeals (in law), 257
D
Daily Telegraph, the, 84
Darwin, Charles, 179
Davy, Sir Humphry, 6
Diplomacy, A.D. 2000, 269
Domestic servants, 18, 24
Drainage, 25, note, 127
E
Economy in agriculture, 215
----, relation of prices to, 205
---- in use of wood, 215
Edison, T. A., 291
Education, A.D. 2000, apparatus of, 140
----, art in, 171
----, books in, 163
---- by pleasure, 149
----, corporal punishment in, 144
----, crime in relation to, 234
----, history in, 170
----, rational obedience in, 154
----, languages in, 164, 166
----, literature in, 171
----, mathematics in, 163
----, mixed (of boys and girls), 146
----, phonograph in, 141, 303, note
----, physical science in, 161
----, punishments in, 158
----, specialised, 162
----, Spencer on, 151 note
Education, Intellectual, Moral and Physical (H. Spencer), 151, note
Electricity, the end of its age, 11
----, wireless transmission of, 114
Eton, punishments at, 144
Euclid, 157, 158
Evolution (the term), 37, note
F
Fashion, A.D. 2000, 299
Flying-machines, 27, 55
Foods, vegetable, 33
Freight transportation, 46
Furniture, A.D. 2000, 302
G
Games in education, 143
Gases, liquefied, as a source of power, 116
H
Handicrafts, revival of, 50
Horse traffic (its abolition), 22
House construction, 20
---- cleaning, 21
Huxley, Thomas H., 6, 179
Hydrogen, uses of, 9, 102
Hypnotism, 131
I
Idæography, Chinese, 166, note
J
Journalism and literature, 92
Jury, trial by, 257
K
Kelvin, Lord, 108
Kipling, Rudyard, 147
Kitchen, the, A.D. 2000, 22
L
Lamb, Charles, 158
Land tenure, 99, 259
Lang, Andrew, 123, note, 164, note, 168
Language, a "universal," 165
Languages, modern, 19
Literature, A.D. 2000, 193, 198
---- and journalism, 92
Latey, John, 144
Law, the, A.D. 2000, 233
---- ----, alcohol and, 241
---- ----, changes in, necessitated by new conditions, 240
---- ----, cost of civil suits to be borne by Government, 253
---- ----, education and, 234
---- ----, marriage and, 278
---- ----, methods of legislation, 259
---- ----, "new offences" and, 234
---- ----, penology and, 249
---- ----, poverty and, 244
---- ----, protective enactments injurious where avoidable, 239
---- ----, protecting property, 245
---- ---- ----, the person, 246
---- ----, trial by jury, 257
Legislation, reform of, 266
M
Macaulay, Lord, 193
Manures (see Agriculture), 127
Marriage, law of, A.D. 2000, 278
Medicine, progress of, 119
Memory (children's), 151
Merchandise Marks Act, 289
Middleman, the, 88
Morality and education, 154
---- as affected by education, 136, 139, 235.
---- as affected by progress, 64
----, improving tendency of, 307
----, progress of, 136
Morris, William, 5
Motor-cars, slot-worked, 31
Music, A.D. 2000, 58, 201
----, Oriental, 201
Musician, the (his art), 62
N
Napoleon, 4
Newspapers, advertisements in, 83
----, editorship of, 68
----, A.D. 2000, how illustrated, 80
---- ---- ----, language of, 82
---- ---- ----, how printed, 79
O
Ocean cities, 98
---- ---- and the anhydrator, 99
---- ----, urban traffic in, 98
Oersted, 117
Oxygen, uses of, 9, 26, 102
Ozone and ozonators, 27
P
Payn, James, 144
Parliament, reform of, 260
Penology, principles of, in A.D. 2000, 249
Philosophy, A.D. 2000, 109
Phonograph, the, 40
---- in education, 141, 303, note
----, the printing, 41
Photography, chromatic, 59
Plato, 188
Plumbers (their technical education), 25
Poetry of the future, 193
Post Office, the, 276
---- in A.D. 2000, 44
Power, economy of, 212
Prayer in A.D. 2000, 190
Press, freedom of the (its possible restriction), 247
Prices, relation of, and economy, 205
----, significance of, 32
Progress, rate of, 1, 135, 288
Psychical faculties, development of, 65, 130
Punishment, capital, 237, 257
Punishments, violent, will be abandoned, 238 (see Penology)
R
Radiation in therapeutics, 119
Radium, 11, 108, 118
Railway transport, 27
Recent Development of Physical Science (Whetham), 116, note
Referendum, 265
Religion, A.D. 2000, 175
----, education and, 182
----, high civilisation and, 175
----, indifference towards, 181
----, morality and, 186
----, mysticism and, 186, 188
----, "natural," 188
----, philosophy and, 187
Review of Reviews, the, 71
Roadways, moving, 30
S
Sahara, desert of, proposal to flood, 95
Saleeby, Dr. C. W., 108, 123, note
Salpetrière Hospital, 130
Scott, Sir Walter, 4
Sculpture, A.D. 2000, 198
Sea air, 26
----, the, mineral wealth of, 101
---- ----, utilisation of, 95
Shakespeare, 186
Ships, A.D. 2000, 30
Shorter, Clement K., 144
Siberia (its future), 93
Socialism, 51, 206, 210, 273
Society, gradual progress of, 287
Socrates, 186
Spencer, Herbert, 18, 146, note, 188, 287, 292
Sports, athletic, 54
State, the, usurpation of wrong functions by, 74, 273 (see Socialism)
Steam-engine, the (its imperfections), 7
Suburbs, 15
T
Talking-machines (see Phonograph), 61
Teleautoscope, the (an instrument for seeing by electricity), 43
Telephones, recording, 39
Telephony, wireless, 38
Theatre, the, 60
Times, The, 68, 71, 84
Tobacco, 214
Trade, retail (its development and changes), 86
Traill, H. D., 169
Transmutation of matter, 119
Travel, pleasures of, 57
Tyndall, John, 151, note
U
Unemployed, problem of the, 48
V
Vacuum, cleaning by, 21
Vice, effect of progress on, 64
W
Wages, 33
---- and co-operation, 51
War, abolition of, predicted, 76
---- correspondence, 74, note, 76, 78, note
----, its supposed advantages discussed, 226
Waste by alcohol, 215
---- by animal food, 215
----, illness regarded as a, 214
----, sewage disposal a, 215
----, war as a, 219 (see Economy)
Water, electrolysis of, 8
Weaklings, perpetuation of, 125
Wealth, limitation of, 49
Wellington, 5
Wells, H. G., 5, 20
Whetham, W. C., 116, note
Woman (her political influence), 283
---- (her political influence in America), 284
---- (her political influence in New Zealand), 284
----, position of, A.D. 2000, 283, (see Law and Marriage)
Workmen, condition of, 52
----, trains for, 15
NOTES
[1] Drains, it might be supposed, would disappear altogether from the
scheme of things in favour of some kind of destructors. For reasons
connected with a more enlightened view than we have yet reached of
certain aspects of terrestrial economy, however, I think they will,
with modifications, still exist.
[2] The chief difficulty in utilising the useful integument of wheat
disappears when the whole grain is finely milled.
[3] It is necessary to say here, as an offset to possible
misconstruction, that the word "evolution" has been purposely abstained
from. The processes of evolution are far slower than the changes
here contemplated. The latter are voluntary and purposeful, involving
no constructional alteration in the physical frame of man, but only
functional modifications, intentionally inaugurated and pursued.
[4] There is a contrivance already in existence which not only weighs
what is placed upon it, but can also be made to calculate the value
of the goods at any desired rate per ounce, pound or hundredweight.
[5] A practical objection to this principle may be here anticipated
and answered. Politicians may say that for any one nation to be
the pioneer in the adoption of such a policy would have the effect
of driving trade and manufactures into other countries where the
restriction did not exist. But there are so many highly necessary
reforms open to a similar objection that I think there is no doubt
that ultimately the jurists of all nations will agree upon some
arrangement for universal legislation, whereby laws not affecting the
relations of one country with another will be simultaneously enacted
by a comity of nations. We have already one very imperfect example
of such a procedure in the Convention against bounty-helped sugar.
[6] Not of course in the artistic sense of the word; nor is the
supersession of art by optical process in the least contemplated
here. The psychological interest of art will have appreciators more
and more numerous in virtue of the diffusion of culture confidently
anticipated.
[7] Ante, Chapter I.
[8] Ante, Chapter I.
[9] Kipling: The Five Nations.
[10] It can hardly be disputed that the British generals in the late
war in South Africa would have done well to cut the cables altogether,
or at all events reserve them exclusively for their own use. There
is very good evidence that, in spite of the interdiction of "coded"
messages, information passed both ways between the enemy and his agents
in Europe. The resolute manner in which the Japanese kept newspaper
correspondents away from the scene of action until no action remained
for them to correspond about, shows conclusively what will become of
the war-reporter during the few remaining decades which separate us
from the final disappearance of moribund war itself from the planet.
[11] Ante, Chapter III.
[12] Ante, Chapter IV.
[13] Ante, page 7.
[14] That is to say, the gases which are most difficult to liquefy, and
which consequently store up most energy in liquefying, viz., hydrogen,
oxygen and nitrogen, as distinguished from ammonia, carbon-dioxide,
chlorine, and other gases relatively easy to liquefy.
[15] The Recent Development of Physical Science. By W. C. Whetham,
F.R.S., 1904. London: John Murray.
[16] I do not forget that a good deal of what is on record as an
account of experiments in transmutation is purely mystical writing,
and that when Paracelsus and some of the French alchemists describe
what appear to be chemical experiments they are in reality referring
to something quite different. But the learned in these matters tell
me that one of their chief difficulties arises from the fact that,
contemporary with the mystics, there were other investigators who,
not having the key to the occult significance of the masters'
writings, really devoted themselves to research, some valuable, if
accidental, results of which have come down to us and are recorded
in all text-books of chemistry.
[17] Ante, page 79.
[18] I might have "boggled" (to use one of Mr Andrew Lang's
stately colloquialisms) before this suggestion, but for a remark
by Dr C. W. Saleeby, which may here be quoted, to keep me in
countenance. "Malaria," he writes in Nova Medica, Nov. 1904,
"which causes more illness than any other disease, is already
obsolescent. Tuberculosis, which causes more deaths than any other
disease, can be disposed of, apparently, whenever the human race,
now mightily smitten with internecine strife, decides that this
campaign against a common foe is worth while. It takes some seconds
to realise--or begin to realise--what the extinction of tuberculosis
will signify in private and hospital practice. Yet the extermination
of the last tubercle bacillus is an event quite certainly hidden in
the womb of time--time pregnant by science."
[19] Ante, page 34.
[20] Ante, Chapter III.
[21] The Twentieth Century Child. Chapter III.
[22] Spencer: Study of Sociology. Chapter XV.
[23] Having properly decided that it is well for children to be
fed plainly while at school, parents take the greatest pleasure in
alleviating this plainness by "tuck baskets" during term, and the
most wicked and immoral palate-tickling during holidays. Indeed an
excessive appetite seems to be regarded even by quite sensible people
as rather an ornament to the juvenile character. Mr Cooper, whose
charming book, The Twentieth Century Child, has already been referred
to, describes with what I am afraid is approval the incident of a boy
whom he brought away from school for a pleasure-trip just after lunch,
and who cheerfully devoured a second lunch in the company of his
friend. Assuredly our descendants will make no such mistakes as this.
[24] Tyndall "On the Importance of the Study of Physics as a Branch
of Education," a lecture at the Royal Institution: quoted by Herbert
Spencer in his Education, Intellectual, Moral and Physical, a work
which, though not very practical, contains a mass of very suggestive
matter on a subject which no one else, so far as I am aware, has
approached in quite the same spirit. As this book has been reprinted
at so low a price as sixpence, there is no excuse for any parent who
is unacquainted with its absolutely invaluable teachings.
[25] I think Mr Andrew Lang.
[26] Should we ever have a "universal" language, is it altogether
chimerical to imagine that it might be an idæographic one? Provided
that some simple code of idæographic writing were invented to denote
the very limited number of concrete notions essential to commercial
correspondence, no one who has had occasion to study Chinese, even
in the most cursory manner, would think it at all a severe effort of
the imagination to conceive of an idæographic notation as being used
for business correspondence. In Chinese, the unit of expression is
an idea. Words which relate to kindred subjects include, in their
idæographs, the sign for the connecting link. Thus the idæograph
for "agriculture" is made up of the sign for "strength" and for
"a field." Consequently, although the Japanese language when spoken
sounds so entirely unlike Chinese that a person knowing neither can
distinguish one from the other when heard across the width of a street,
the Japanese can read Chinese books without difficulty, and one form
of printing can be read by the Chinese of the North and those of
the South, although the spoken dialects differ so much that "pidgin"
English is often used by the two as a means of spoken communication. An
idæographic medium of commercial writing (not of course so archaic nor
so cumbersome as Chinese, but philosophically devised for the purpose)
would release the student from all difficulties of speech and accent;
he would always name the signs to himself in his own language.
[27] A method, it may be added, which can very usefully be practised
now. Those of us who "rub-up" our French or German a little before
a summer holiday by reading a novel or two, would always find the
results of this rubbing-up process to be greatly more effective, when
presently utilised abroad, if we would read always aloud instead of
in silence according to the usual procedure.
[28] Over-civilised, if one please, but I do not admit for an instant
that man can be over-civilised.
[29] Ante, Chapter III.
[30] Ante, Chapter II.
[31] Against some methods of securing this object no doubt the
unintelligent sentimentality of the present time would rebel; but if
any inconsistency be detected in my suggestion that the next century,
which is expected to be even milder than this, will accept them, it
only needs to be replied that the gentleness of our descendants will
be a reasonable and ordered gentleness, not a mere effect of morbid
sentimentality. They will not hesitate before an apparent and temporary
cruelty which is capable of preventing much greater suffering in a
much greater number of persons. The crime of permitting children to
be born with brains abnormally predisposed to evil of any sort will
more greatly revolt an intelligent age than any conceivable measure
adopted for its prevention.
[32] It may, perhaps, be thought that the disuse of trial by jury
would be liable to perpetuate a somewhat glaring abuse of our
present jurisprudence--the disproportionately severe repression of
offences against property as compared with the disproportionately
light repression of offences against the person. But the mere fact
that the "unlearned" bench is conspicuously inept in this particular
is no reason for thinking that "learned" courts would be so: and
meantime, as judges, like other men, are children of their epoch,
we may suppose that the increased mildness of the new age will be
reflected here as elsewhere, and that extenuating circumstances
will be allowed more weight in determining a sentence for larceny,
and less weight in determining a sentence for assault.
[33] Study of Sociology, Chapter XV.
[34] At least this was the opinion of the editors of the Clarendon
Press edition of the Plays.
[35] While actually correcting the proof sheets I read in a London
evening newspaper, The Star, that gramophones had been utilised in
certain schools for the teaching of foreign languages, a device I had
suggested in the chapter on Education as likely to be adopted in the
schools of the future.
THE END
COLSTON AND COMPANY, LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
End of Project Gutenberg's A Hundred Years Hence, by T. Baron Russell