1902.] on the Discovery of the Future. 2S 



great unsuspected mass of matter should presently rush upon us out 

 of space, whirl sun and planets aside like dead leaves before the 

 breeze, and collide with and utterly destroy every spark of life upon, 

 this earth. So far as positive human knowledge goes, this is a con- 

 ceivable, possible thing. There is nothing in science to show why 

 such a thing should not be. 



It is conceivable, too, that some pestilence may presently appear, 

 some new disease, that will destroy, not ten, or fifteen, or twenty 

 per cent, of the earth's inhabitants, as pestilences have done in the 

 past, but one hundred per cent., and so end our race. No one, 

 speaking from scientific grounds alone, can say that cannot be. And 

 no one can dispute that some great disease of the atmosphere, some 

 trailing cometary poison, some great emanation of vapour from the 

 interior of the earth, such as Mr. Shiel has made a brilliant use of 

 in his ' Purple Cloud,' is consistent with every demonstrated fact in 

 the world. There may arise new animals to prey upon us by land and 

 sea, and there may come some drug or a wrecking madness into the 

 minds of men. 



And finally, there is the reasonable certainty that this sun of 

 ours must some day radiate itself towards extinction ; that at least 

 must happen ; it will grow cooler and cooler, and its planets will 

 rotate ever more sluggishly, until some day this earth of ours, tide- 

 less and slow moving, will be dead and frozen, and all that has lived 

 upon it will be frozen out and done with. There surely man must 

 end. That of all such nightmares is the most insistently convincing. 

 And yet one doesn't believe it. At least I do not. And I do not 

 believe in these things, because I have come to believe in certain 

 other things, in the coherency and purpose in the world and in the 

 greatness of human destiny. Worlds may freeze and suns may 

 perish, but I believe that there stirs something within us now that 

 can never die again. 



Do not misunderstand me when I speak of the greatness of human 

 destiny. 



If I may speak quite openly to you, I will confess that, con- 

 sidered as a final product, I do not think very much of myself or 

 (saving your presence) my fellow-creatures. I do not think I could 

 possibly join in the worship of Humanity with any gravity or 

 sincerity. Think of it. Think of the positive facts. There are 

 surely moods for all of us when one can feel Swift's amazement, 

 that such a Being should deal in Pride. There are moods when one 

 can join in the laughter of Democritus ; and they would come oftener 

 were not the spectacle of human littleness so abundantly shot with 

 pain. But it is not only with pain that the world is shot — it is shot 

 with promise. Small as our vanity and carnality make us, there has 

 been a day of still smaller things. It is the long ascent of the past 

 that gives the lie to our despair. We know now that all the blood 

 and passion of our life was represented in the carboniferous time by 



