THE DI^^COVKRY OF THP] FUTURP:. 879 



charters; the legislati\'ie iiicessuntly assails these. ^Vhenever soine 

 period of stress sets in, some o-reat eonflict In'tween institutions and 

 the forces in things, there conies a sorting between these two types of 

 mind. The legal mind becomes gJoi"itied and transrtgured in the form 

 of hopek^ss loyalty, the ci'eatix'e mind inspires revolutions and recon- 

 structions. And particularly is this ditference of attitude accentuated 

 in the disputes that arise out of wars. In most modern wars there is 

 no doubt quite traceable on one side or tlui other a, distinct creative 

 idea, a distinct regard for some future conse([uence; but the main 

 dispute even in most modern wars and the sole dispute in most mediae- 

 val w^ars will be found to be a reference, not to the future, but to the 

 past; to turn upon a ((uestion of fact and right. The wars of Plan- 

 tagenet and Lancastrian England with France, for (>xample, were based 

 entirely upon a dummy claim, su})ported by obscure legal arguments, 

 upon the crown of France. And ti\o arguments that center about the 

 present war in South Africa ignore any ideal of a great united South 

 African state almost entirelv, and (|uil)ble this way and that al)()ut 

 wdio began the lighting and what was or was not written in some 

 obscure revision of a treaty a score of years ago; yet beneath the 

 legal issues the ))road creati\'e idea has l)een \'erv apparent in the pub- 

 lic mind during this war. It will be found more or less definitely 

 fornudated beneath almost all the great wars of the past century, and 

 a comparison of the wars of the nineteenth century with the wars of 

 the middle ages will show, I think, that in this tield also there has !)een 

 a discov(n'y of the future, an increasing disposition to shift the refer- 

 ence and values from things accomplished to things to come. 



Yet though fori^sight creeps into our politics and a reference to 

 consequence into our morality, it is still the past that dominates our 

 lives. But why? Why are we so bound to \t( It is into the future 

 we go, to-morrow is the eventful thing for us. There lies all that 

 remain's to be felt by us and our children and all those that are dear to 

 us. Yet WQ marshal and order men into classes entirely with regard 

 to the past, we draw sliame and honor out of the past; against th(» 

 rights of property, the vested inter(\sts, the agreements and estal)lish- 

 ments of the past the future has no rights. Litcn-atui'e is for tli(> most 

 part history or history at one nnnove, and whit is culture but a mold 

 of inter])retation into which new things are thmist, a collection of 

 standards, a soi'tof IxhI of KingOg, to which all new expi'cssions nuist 

 be lopped or stretcluHW Our conveniences, like our thoughts, are all 

 retrosp(M'tive. Wo travel on roads so nai row that they sutl'ocat(^ our 

 tratlic; we live in uncomfortable, inconveniiMit, 1 it'e- wast i ng hous(\s out 

 of a love of familiar shapes and familiar customs and a dread of 

 strangeness, all our public ail'airs are cratnped by local boundari(\s 

 impossibly restricted and small. Our clothing, our habits of s[)(MM'h, 

 our s])elling, <mr weights and nu^asures, oui' coinao-e.our religious and 



