It is natural that we should, in
some degree, pride ourselves on such triumphs. It is well that we
should have poems about them, and pictures of them. But such poems and
pictures cannot touch our hearts very deeply. They cannot stir in us
the sense of our kinship with the whole dim past and the whole dim
future. The ancient Egyptians were great at scientific dodges--very
great indeed, nearly as great as we, the archaeologists tell us. Sand
buried the memory of those dodges for a rather long time. How are we
to know that the glories of our present civilisation will never be
lost? The world's coal-mines and oil-fields are exhaustible; and it is
not, I am told, by any means certain that scientists will discover any
good substitutes for the materials which are necessary to mankind's
present pitch of glory. Mankind may, I infer, have to sink back into
slow and simple ways, continent be once more separated from continent,
nation from nation, village from village. And, even supposing that the
present rate of traction and communication and all the rest of it can
forever be maintained, is our modern way of life so great a success
that mankind will surely never be willing to let it lapse? Doubtless,
that present rate can be not only maintained, but also accelerated
immensely, in the near future.
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