220 MY LIFE 



This is surrounded with fine alpine peaks and snow-fields, and 

 though the weather was unsettled we spent a pleasant week 

 here — probably the last visit I shall make to ever-delightful 

 Switzerland — the sanatorium and alpine garden of overworked 

 Englishmen. 



From this time onwards I did not write many articles or 

 reviews, the more important being " The Problem of Instinct," 

 in 1897, in which I gave an attempted solution of bird migra- 

 tion, though the article was really a review of Professor Lloyd- 

 Morgan's " Habit and Instinct " ; an article on the question 

 whether " White men can work in the Tropics," which most 

 English writers declare to be impossible without thinking it 

 necessary to adduce evidence, but which, I affirm, is proved 

 by experience to be quite easy. Both these are reprinted in 

 my " Studies," as is also a short essay on " The Causes of War 

 and the Remedies," written for L'Hiimanite Nouvelle. I also 

 wrote letters to the Daily Chronicle on America, Cuba, and 

 the Philippines; and a protest against the Transvaal War in 

 the Manchester Guardian. 



In the year 1900 I wrote an article for the New York 

 Journal, on " Social Evolution in the Twentieth Century — An 

 Anticipation," for which I received a very complimentary let- 

 ter from the editor. During the next two years I was engaged 

 in preparing new editions of my books on " Darwinism " and 

 1 Island Life," and I also wrote several letters on political and 

 social subjects, such as an " Appreciation of the Past Cen- 

 tury ' (in 1 901, in the Morning Leader), and (in 1903) an 

 article on " Anticipations and Hopes for the Immediate Fu- 

 ture," which was written for a German paper (the Berliner 

 Local Anzeiger), but which was too plain-spoken for the editor 

 to publish, and which I accordingly sent to the Clarion. As it 

 gives my latest views, expressed in the plainest words, on some 

 of the most important problems of the day, I give it here for 

 the consideration of a wider circle of readers. 



Anticipations and Hopes for the Immediate Future. 



I am looking to the coming year with no expectation of any great 

 change, political or social, but with a hope and belief that the great 



