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
It is a class with scarcely any specific characteristics beyond its
defining one, of the possession of property and all the potentialities
property entails, with a total lack of function with regard to that
property. It is not even collected into a distinct mass. It graduates
insensibly into every other class, it permeates society as threads and
veins of gold permeate quartz. It includes the millionaire snob, the
political-minded plutocrat, the wealthy sensualist, open-handed
religious fanatics, the "Charitable," the smart, the magnificently dull,
the great army of timid creatures who tremble through life on a safe
bare sufficiency,[23] travellers, hunters, minor poets, sporting
enthusiasts, many of the officers in the British Army, and all sorts and
conditions of amateurs. In a sense it includes several modern royalties,
for the crown in several modern constitutional states is a _corporation
sole_, and the monarch the unique, unlimited, and so far as necessity
goes, quite functionless shareholder. He may be a heavy-eyed sensualist,
a small-minded leader of fashion, a rival to his servants in the gay
science of etiquette, a frequenter of race-courses and music-halls, a
literary or scientific quack, a devotee, an amateur anything--the point
is that his income and sustenance have no relation whatever to his
activities. If he fancies it, or is urged to it by those who have
influence over him, he may even "be a king!" But that is not compulsory,
not essential, and there are practically no conditional restrictions
whatever laid upon him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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