320 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



increase in the consumption of coal) ; inventions and 

 discoveries would have multiplied on all sides ; means 

 might even have been devised for accomplishing, with- 

 out coal, the greater part of the work which coal now 

 does for us; and at the worst we should be in a 

 position to obtain abundant supplies of coal from other 

 countries. It is not, however, too much to say that, 

 even if these hopes were not justified, 1,000 years of 

 prosperity is a future which this nation might contem- 

 plate with satisfaction. Whatever our pride in our 

 country in her past history, her present condition, or 

 her future prospects we are to remember that it is 

 not given to any nation to endure for ever. As the 

 most powerful nations of antiquity passed into deca- 

 dence, so one day must it happen with this country, 

 though we, her children, may well believe that that 

 day is far off, and that the might and prosperity of 

 this nation will rather undergo a change of form than 

 a complete destruction not perishing, but being merged 

 in the might and the prosperity of one or other of the 

 nations which have sprung from ours. 



(From the Cornhill Magazine for October 1872.) 



