THE END OF THE MACHINE 463 



sense or science. We need not throw ourselves into the in- 

 tellectual muck of astrology, spiritism, or degrading gullibility. 

 But we may remember that time is long. To set out the matter 

 well, Professor Langley has drawn the threads of his fancy into 

 a graceful parable, whose import will ever be salutary : 



" We have read somewhere of a race of ephemeral insects who 

 live but an hour. To those who are born in the early morning, 

 the sunrise is the time of youth. They die of old age while its 

 beams are yet gathering force, and only their descendants live 

 on to mid-day ; while it is another race which sees the sun's 

 decline from that which saw it rise. Imagine the sun about to 

 set, and the whole nation of mites gathered under the shadow 

 of some mushroom (to them ancient as the sun itself) to hear 

 what their wisest philosopher had to say of the gloomy prospect. 

 If I remember aright, he first told them that, incredible as it 

 might seem, tEere was not only a time in the world's youth 

 when the mushroom itself was young, but that the sun in those 

 early ages was in the eastern, not the western, sky. Since 

 then, he explained, the eyes of scientific ephemera had followed 

 it, and established by induction from vast experience the great 

 ' Law of Nature ' that it moved only westward ; and he showed 

 that since it was now nearing the western horizon, science her- 

 self pointed to the conclusion that it was about to disappear 

 for ever, together with the great race of ephemera for whom 

 it was created. What his hearers thought of this discussion I 

 do not remember, but I have heard that the sun rose again the 

 next morning." l 



This is excellent. Yet the codified experience of the human 

 race is of worth. Reason, inference, induction, synthesis, will 

 ever remain the only means of dispelling the environing ignorance 

 into which we are born, or of effecting any amelioration of our 

 human lot. For the here and now it is our sole guide. So far 

 as it may surely lead, wide-eyed and fearless, we must follow. 



For the rest it is not probable that the main results of the 

 last two or three centuries will ever be materially impaired. 

 Our ideas and our presentation of them will insensibly change. 

 The facts undoubtedly will remain. What we have to consider 

 is that perhaps a very slight modification of our present ideas 



1 Langley, The New Astronomy. 



