296 Sir William B, Grove [April 20, 



alone. Paper-making, type-founding, printing, pasting, posting or 

 otherwise circulating, sandwicli-men, &c., all at work for purposes 

 which, I venture to think, are in great part useless ; and those who 

 might add to the j)roductiveness of the earth, or to the enriching our 

 knowledge, are helping to extend the limits of the black country/, and 

 wasting their time in interested self-laudation. And the consumer 

 pays the costs. "Buy my clothing, which will never w^ear out." 

 " Become a shareholder in our company, which will pay cent, per 

 cent." " Take my pills, which will cure all diseases," &c. These 

 eulogies come from those highly impartial persons the advertisers, all 

 promising golden rewards, but, as with the alchemists, on condition 

 that gold be paid in advance for their wares; and the silly portion of 

 the public (no small body) take them at their word. Though you 

 may not fully agree with this my anathema of the advertising system, 

 and though there may be some modicum of good in it, I thijik you 

 will agree that it affords a notable illustration of antagonism. If I 

 were a younger man, I think I should go to Kamchatka to avoid the 

 penuy j^ost ; possibly I should not be satisfied when I got there. 



Civilisation begins by supplying wants, and ends by creating them, 

 and each supj^ly for the newly created want begets other wants, and so 

 on, " toties quoties." As far as we can judge by its present j)rogress, 

 mankind seems tending to an automatic state. The requirements of 

 each day are becoming so numerous as to occupy the greater portion 

 of that day ; and when telegrams, telephones, electro-motion, and 

 numerous other innovations which will probably follew these, reach 

 their full development, no time will be left for thought, repose, or any 

 spontaneous individual action. In this mechanical state of existence 

 in times of peace, extremes of joy and sorrow, of good and evil, will 

 become more rare, and the necessary uniformity of life will reduce 

 passion and feeling to a continuous petty friction. The converse of 

 the existence contemplated by the Stoics will be attained, and instead 

 of a life of calm contemplation, our successors will have a life of 

 objectless activity. The end will be swallowed up in the means. It 

 will be all pursuit and no attainment. Is there sl juste miUeii,a point 

 at which the superfluous commoda vitse will cease ? None probably 

 would agree at where that point should be fixed, and the future alone 

 can show whether the human race will emancij^ate itself from being, 

 like Frankenstein, the slave of the monster it has created. 



In the cases I have given as illustrations — and many more 

 might be adduced — the evil resulting from apparently beneficial 

 changes is not a mere accident: it is as necessary a consequence 

 as reaction is a consequence of action. In the struggle for existence 

 or supremacy inevitable in all social growths, the invention, enact- 

 ment, &c., intended to remedy an assumed evil will be taken advantage 

 of by those for whom it is not intended ; the real grievance will 

 have been exaggerated by those having an interest in trading on it, 

 and the remedy itself will have collateral results not contemj^lated 

 by those who introduce the change. I could give many instances 



