THE DISCOVERY OF THE F[^TURE.« 



Bv H. (I. Weli.s. 



It will load into my subject most comoniontly to contrast and 

 separate two divergent t\"pe.s of mind, types which are to he distin- 

 o'liished chiefly by their attitude toward time, and more particularly 

 by the relative iuiportance they attach and the relative amount of 

 thought they give to the future of things. 



The tirst of these two types of mind, and it is, I think, the predominant 

 type, the type of the majority of living people, is that which seems 

 scarcely to think of the future at all, which regards it as a sort of black 

 nonexistence upon which the advancing present will presently write 

 events. The second type, which is, I think, a more modern and nuich 

 less abundant type of mind, thinks constantly and by preference of 

 things to come, and of present things mainl}' in relation to the results 

 that must arise from them. The former type of mind, when one gets 

 it in its purity, is retrospective in hal)it, and it interprets the things of 

 the present, and gives value to this and denies it to that, entirely with 

 relation to the past. The latter type of mind is constructive in habit, 

 it interprets the things of the present and gives value to this or that, 

 entirely in relation to things designed or foreseen. While from th;it 

 former point of view our life is simply to reap the consequences of the 

 past, from this our life is to prepare the future. The former t}' pe one 

 might speak of as the legal or submissive type of mind, because the 

 business, the practice, and the training of a lawyer dispose him toward 

 it; he of all men must most constantly refer to the law made, the right 

 established, the precedent set, and most consistently ignore or con- 

 demn the thing that is only seeking to establish itself. The latter type 

 of mind 1 might for contrast call the legislati\(\ creativ(\ organizing, 

 or masterful t^'pe, because it is perpetually attacking and altering the 

 established order of things, perpetually falling away fi'om respect for 



"Reprinted by permission from "Nature," London, No. 1684, vol. 65, Feb. 6, 1902. 

 ''A (bscourse dejivered at the. lloyal Jnt^titutiou uu Friday, January 24, 1902, liy 

 Mr. II. (1. \\\'\h. 



;J75 



