Sibylla : $b or, The revival of prophecyMace, C. A. (Cecil Alec)
Philosophy
Sibylla : $b or, The revival of prophecy
Mace, C. A. (Cecil Alec)
Civilization; Progress
The vast and powerful machinery developed to meet the needs of
Scientific Management in industry, government, and education may
make it possible to initiate and control the operation of the
natural laws of change. Side by side with the direct control of
character, belief, and action, large-scale experiments in eugenics
may proceed. Such experiments would not demand the clumsy expedient
of the Act of Parliament. The triple control will provide adequate
means for eliminating the intractable factors in the situation.
Perhaps the constitution of the United States of America provides the
most promising machinery at present for large-scale sociological
experiment. These States, moreover, are fortunate in the character of
their population. But whether by education or by eugenic control man
himself will change. Physically, by a process of atrophy (at which Dr
Schiller will not, I trust, demur), he may consist chiefly in a head
from which will depend a mass of atrophied limbs. He will presumably be
more or less permanently mounted upon a compact automobile, travelling
by road or by air. No doubt a submarine attachment will be available to
facilitate his morning bath.[9] But it is not with his appearance that
we are here concerned. What is the future of his mind?
[9] But on all questions relating to our mechanical future I must
refer the reader to Professor A. M. Low, to whose works _The
Future_ and _Wireless Possibilities_ I myself am chiefly
indebted in this respect.
There are interesting possibilities in the sphere of sense alone.
Some of our present senses, such as taste or smell, may disappear
altogether. More and more we seem to depend upon purely visual cues. On
the other hand, vision and hearing may be considerably augmented. Even
though they be supplemented by microphones and microscopes, we always
strive to see and hear a little more than the best of instruments
allows. If, after all, the biological vitalists are right, so long
as we are interested in the constitution of matter there is a motive
for further variation. But, as Professor Low points out, our æsthetic
susceptibilities will have to be modified on the way. When we first
begin to perceive the fauna in the cheese and the microbes on our
walls, and when, like the birds, we go into the country to listen to
the worms, we shall have to revise our values. Our poets, too, will
find new themes to sing.
Memory, even more than sense, suggests many possibilities of
development. By hypnotism, or by the natural working of the unconscious
mind, it is said that we can recall even the earliest events of life.
Soon, perhaps, this power will be under conscious control, and the
autobiographers will have their millennium too. But, quite apart from
this, new methods of education and a little Scientific Management would
enable us, even now, to do much more with our memories through the
powers we already possess.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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