Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thoughtWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thought
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization; Communication and traffic; Social prediction; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
How far will that possible diffusion accomplish itself? Let us first of
all consider the case of those classes that will be free to exercise a
choice in the matter, and we shall then be in a better position to
consider those more numerous classes whose general circumstances are
practically dictated to them. What will be the forces acting upon the
prosperous household, the household with a working head and four hundred
a year and upwards to live upon, in the days to come? Will the resultant
of these forces be, as a rule, centripetal or centrifugal? Will such
householders in the greater London of 2000 A.D. still cluster for the
most part, as they do to-day, in a group of suburbs as close to London
as is compatible with a certain fashionable maximum of garden space and
air; or will they leave the ripened gardens and the no longer brilliant
villas of Surbiton and Norwood, Tooting and Beckenham, to other and less
independent people? First, let us weigh the centrifugal attractions.
The first of these is what is known as the passion for nature, that
passion for hillside, wind, and sea that is evident in so many people
nowadays, either frankly expressed or disguising itself as a passion for
golfing, fishing, hunting, yachting, or cycling; and, secondly, there is
the allied charm of cultivation, and especially of gardening, a charm
that is partly also the love of dominion, perhaps, and partly a personal
love for the beauty of trees and flowers and natural things. Through
that we come to a third factor, that craving--strongest, perhaps, in
those Low German peoples, who are now ascendant throughout the
world--for a little private _imperium_ such as a house or cottage "in
its own grounds" affords; and from that we pass on to the intense desire
so many women feel--and just the women, too, who will mother the
future--their almost instinctive demand, indeed, for a household, a
separate sacred and distinctive household, built and ordered after their
own hearts, such as in its fulness only the country-side permits. Add to
these things the healthfulness of the country for young children, and
the wholesome isolation that is possible from much that irritates,
stimulates prematurely, and corrupts in crowded centres, and the chief
positive centrifugal inducements are stated, inducements that no
progress of inventions, at any rate, can ever seriously weaken. What now
are the centripetal forces against which these inducements contend?
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