SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



233 



of hours, and the possibilities of coming, doing the 

 day's work, and returning, must fix the extreme 

 limits to which a city could grow before there were 

 locomotive mechanisms capable of travelling more 

 than eight miles an hour. The author points out 

 in a footnote that in 1801 " the density of popula- 

 tion in the City of London was half as dense again 

 as that of any district even of the densest ' slum ' 

 districts, to-day." Referring, therefore, to the 

 probabilities of increased means of rapid transport 

 from one place to another, it is probable that in 

 the twentieth century, London, Manchester, Bir- 

 mingham, and other large centres of trade will 

 become almost entirely non-residential. Especially 

 is this likely to be the case when we consider the 

 developments that will probably take place in the 

 telephone and telegraph services, also in other 

 directions, which the space available will not allow 

 us to enumerate. Mr. Wells is careful to ignore 

 all boundary lines and foreigners, and, indeed, it 

 would scarcely be necessary to consider these 

 purely arbitrary divisions, as his deductions are 

 applicable with slight modifications to most civilised 

 communities. 



The chapters on social subjects and " The Faith 

 and Morals of the New Republic " are full of points 

 for thought and consideration. In dealing with 

 these subjects, however, we cannot help thinking 

 that Mr. Wells has regarded human beings too 

 much as machines that will develop, as in the case 

 of locomotion, in set lines. Though man is of 

 course largely mechanical from a physiological 

 point of view, there are, in his complex organisa- 

 tion, so many other factors to be considered, such 

 as heredity and environment, which have assisted 

 his development on the downgrade as well as up- 

 wards, that it is scarcely possible to foretell with 

 any certainty what social elements the twentieth 

 century will bring forth. Also, it is a question 

 whether in the process of development suggested 

 in this book, qualities of selfishness, and fighting 

 for a " lone hand," might not be so increased as to 

 bring about a process of deterioration in the 

 twenty-first century. 



With regard to wars of the future Mr. Wells is 

 of opinion that the soldier will necessarily have to 

 become more and more a scientific man. The 

 instruments of warfare .will require fewer men to 

 work them, several probably being controlled from 

 some central position. " For the commander-in- 

 chief," he says, " on a picturesque horse, senti- 

 mentally watching his ' boys ' march past to 

 death or glory in battalions, there will have 

 to be a loyal staff of men working ; and 

 at the front, every little isolated company 

 of men will have to be a council of war, a little 

 conspiracy under the able man its captain, con- 

 spiring against the scarcely seen company of the 

 foe. The battalion commander will be replaced in 

 effect by the organizer of balloons and guns." The 

 natural tendency of such developments would 



apparently be to shortly put an end to war as we 

 now understand it, and the superiority of different 

 nations, instead of being shown on the field of 

 battle, or in naval engagements, will really be 

 tested in the colleges and universities. The nation 

 that produces the largest development of educated 

 and intelligent people of all sorts, and succeeds 

 best in checking the vices that lead to decay, will 

 certainly be the most powerful both in warfare 

 and peace, thus becoming the dominant nation. 



Perhaps one of the most interesting chapters in 

 the book before us is that on the " Conflict of 

 Languages." Tracing the probable origin of the 

 diversity of languages, the author points out that 

 all divisions, whether ethnographical, linguistic, 

 or political, are really caused in the first instance 

 by difficulties in the means of transit from one 

 place to another. He strongly opposes the division 

 of races into Teutonic or Celtic; these, he main- 

 tains, "are not races at all if physical character- 

 istics have anything to do with race. . . . There 

 is no such thing as a racially pure and homo- 

 geneous community in Europe distinct from other 

 communities." In the times long past, when 

 language was in its beginning, the first complete 

 isolations that established race were breaking 

 down. Races were finding means of communica- 

 tion with other races, chiefly by means of war- 

 paths. There would still be great differentiation, 

 as without frequent intercourse and interchange 

 of women the tribes would develop dialectic and 

 customary, if not physical and moral, differences. 

 These variations would naturally be caused by the 

 necessity of adaptation to environment. As, how- 

 ever, civilisation advanced and means of transit 

 were facilitated, the areas of assimilation would 

 increase until a time arrived when the only checks 

 sufficient to keep a language uniform would be the 

 sea, or mountains. Another development which 

 has largely assisted in the amalgamation of differ- 

 ent races is the invention of writing. In the same 

 way as it is impossible for a kingdom, as dis- 

 tinguished from a mere tribal group of vil- 

 lages, to exist without horses, so is an empire 

 without writing. Though the Roman Empire 

 did much west and north of the Sahara Gobi 

 barrier to dominate the world, the union was 

 never at its stablest time more than political. It 

 retarded, but did not prevent, the inevitable 

 differentiation of nation from nation, and province 

 from province. In England at the commencement 

 of the nineteenth century, the dialects of the non- 

 educated men of Somerset, Yorkshire, Sussex 

 and other counties would have been almost in- 

 comprehensible to persons of another county. 

 The axioms and idioms differed entirely ; in fact, 

 as far as language was concerned, they were 

 almost foreigners to one another, but as education 

 increased, that difference began to die away, 

 because they read newspapers as well as . books, 

 which are written at centres and are there- 



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