XXVll 



THE NEXT MILLION YEARS 



Preview. The period of man • Human betterment ■ Difficulties in any 

 eugenic program • Biological background of eugenics • The moral at the 

 end of the tale • Suggested readings. 



PREVIEW 



The predictions in this chapter apply only to the next million years. 

 Beyond that time we do not venture to go, nor are we here con- 

 cerned with the possible future events of the next few years which 

 may fall within the span of our own lifetime, wherein we may be 

 shown to be mistaken in our owlish prognostications. Somewhere 

 between the immediate unfolding future and a million years hence 

 there lies an immense territory of safety for the would-be-wise 

 prophet over which the speculative imagination may freely roam 

 unchallenged. 



In any case much is bound to happen in this vast coming time, since 

 the laws of inevitable change are shown to be continuous and un- 

 changeable. They have been in operation upon this planet for so 

 many million years, and have always resulted apparently in so con- 

 sistent a swing of events, that whatever is likely to occur in the next 

 million years is in a general way reasonably predictable. 



The probable advent of mankind in the Pleistocene period some 

 500,000 years ago forms a comparatively recent episode biologically 

 in the grand drama of life, although since Pithecanthro'pus' day the 

 human pattern has been repeated and modified by probably over 

 20,000 successive generations. When we venture still farther back 

 into the evolutionary past and remember, for instance, that our 

 remote amphibian ancestors were able to pave the way for the develop- 

 ment of an animal with a human brain, what unthinkable changes 

 may we not expect to arise in the next comparatively short million 

 years from mankind, with his unfathomable potentialities as a start- 

 ing point ! 



The Period of Man 



In this changing world during recent geological years, man has been 

 coming more and more into his own. Some of the ways in which 



637 



