224 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



which may be regarded as the planting of the vine, its 

 growth, its grape-bearing and the vintage season ; 

 secondly, the new era which (speaking somewhat loosely, 

 as I have already said, for many glimpses as it were 

 of the dawn had in former centuries sporadically 

 appeared) began a century ago, and which corresponds 

 to the treading of the grapes in the vat, and to the 

 period of fermentation in which the forces of trans- 

 mutation are in active and vigorous development ; and 

 thirdly, the day of fulfilled prophecy, corresponding to 

 the gradual purification and mellowing of the wine in 

 the cask, when it becomes increasingly more generous 

 and pleasing to the palate. 



The fermentation of human energy has, during 

 the past century, been manifested among other 

 things in the hitherto unprecedented expansion 

 and multiplication of large towns as centres of 

 the industrial life of civilised communities. But 

 the time is not far distant when the great indus- 

 trial nations of the present day must have their 

 populations reduced to such numbers as their soil 

 can maintain. There will then be no room for such 

 immense town populations as London, Glasgow, and 

 Manchester, which latter towns with their suburbs 

 contain each not less than a million souls. In the 

 inevitable adjustments of population to the changing 

 conditions of existence we may anticipate a solution 

 of some of the most troublesome social problems that 

 are at present inseparable from the unwholesomely 

 crowded tenements and slums of great towns. I 



