A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE The Expectations of an Optimist By T. BARON RUSSELL Author of "A Guardian of the Poor," "The Mandate," etc. LONDON T. Fisher Unwin Paternoster Square 1905 There is a history in all men's lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceased; The which observed, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life; which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie intreasured. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., III. i. They pass through whirl-pools, and deep woes do shun, Who the event weigh, 'ere the action's done. Webster, Duchess of Malfi, II. 4. PREFACE The following was at first intended to be no more than an attempt to foresee the probable trend of mechanical invention and scientific discovery during the present century. But as the work took shape it was seen to involve a certain amount of what may be called moral conjecture, since the material progress of the new age could not very well be imagined without taking into account its mental characteristics. In these expectations of an optimist, a great ethical improvement of the civilised human race has been anticipated, and a rate of progress foreseen which perhaps no previous writers have looked for. Both in regard to moral development and material progress, it has been the aim of the author to predict nothing that the tendencies of existing movement do not justify us in expecting.