A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an OptimistRussell, T. Baron
Philosophy
A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist
Russell, T. Baron
Forecasting; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
which he was doing business on behalf of his master; and a succeeding
day on which, for the same offence against commercial integrity,
he could be charged before a magistrate and ultimately punished by
the law. Thus the difference between scientific progress and social
progress is not so great as has been sometimes imagined. And on the
other hand, although to the casual observer scientific discoveries and
new inventions often appear to have been attained at a single step,
to a person interested in the particular branch of science, or the
particular path of invention where a new achievement occurs, it is
generally quite evident that the latter has been led up to by steady
progress extending over a long period. The existence of unidentified
constituents in atmospheric air, for instance, must have been long
suspected before the isolation of argon gave, to the public eye, the
impression of a sudden discovery: and astronomical disturbances have
generally puzzled a great army of observers for a long time before the
public is indulged by the announcement of a "new" star in the heavens.
To the reader who has been good enough to grant any validity at all
to the arguments by which I have sought to show that, as time goes
on, there will be a decreasing tendency to attempt desired reforms by
legislative process, and an increasing tendency to make the public the
guardian of its own security, it will be evident that any differences
which exist between the nature of scientific progress and the nature of
social progress are likely to be accentuated rather than diminished in
the course of this century. A change brought about by the spontaneous
activity of the people naturally occurs without the definite line of
demarcation created by an Act of Parliament.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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