THE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE. 381 



dcteriiiinato, ju.st as settled and iiicvital)le, just as p()ssil)lc a matter of 

 kii()wled»i,e as the past. Our personal memory ii"i\ es us an impression 

 of the superioi- reality and trustworthiness of things in the past, 

 as of things that have finally eommitted themselves and said their say, 

 but the more clearly we master the leading conceptions of science the 

 better we understand that this impression is one of the results of the 

 peculiar conditions of our lives, and not an absolute truth. The man 

 of science comes to believe at last that the events of the year A. D. 

 4000 are as tixed, settled, and unchangeable as the e\'ents of the year 

 1G<I<>. Only al)out the latter he has some material for belief and about 

 the former pi'acticaliy none. And the cpiestion arises how far this 

 ab^ohdc ignorance of the future is a lixed and necessary condition of 

 human life, and how far some application of intellectual methods may 

 not attenuate even if it does not absolutely set aside the ^'eil between 

 ourselves and things to com(\ And I am venturing to suggest to you 

 that along certain lines and with certain (lualilications and limitations 

 a working knowledge^ of things in the future is a possible and })racti- 

 cable tiling. And in order to support this suggestion I would call 

 your attention to certain facts about our knowledge of tiie jjast, and 

 more particularly I would insist upon this, that al)out the ])ast our 

 range of al)solute certainty is \ery linuted indeed. Al)out the past I 

 would suggest we are inclined to ov^erestimate our certainty, just as I 

 think we are inclined to underestimate the certainties of the future. 

 And such a knowledge of the past as we have is not all of the same 

 sort or derived from the same sources. Let us consider just what an 

 educated man of to-day knows of the past. First of all he has the 

 realest of all kiiowledgc — the knowledge of his own personal expe- 

 riences, his memory. Uneducated people believe their memories 

 absolutely, and most educated people believe them with a few reserva- 

 tions. Some of us take up a critical attitude even toward our own 

 memories; we know that they not onl}' sometimes drop things out, but 

 that sometimes a sort of dreaming or a strong suggestion will put 

 things in. But for all that, memory remains vivid and real as no other 

 knowledge can be, and to have seen and heard and felt is to be nearest 

 to absolute conviction. Yet our memory of direct impi-essions is only 

 the suiallest part of what we know. Outside that bright area conies 

 knowledge of adifierent order — the knowledge brought to us by other 

 people. Outside our innuediate personal memory there comcvs this 

 wider area of facts or (juasi facts told us l)y more or less trustworthy 

 people, told us by word of mouth or ])y the written word of living 

 and of dead w^riters. This is the past of report, rumor, tradition, and 

 history — the second sort of knowledge of the past. The nearer knowl- 

 edge of this sort is abundant and clear and detailed, reniotcn* it becomes 

 vaguer, still more remotely in time and space it dies down to l>rief, 

 imperfect inscriptions and enigmatical traditions, and at last dies away, 



