ants in ant-hill circles, in a world that doesn’t matter: that goes on and rambles into nothingness. New York--New York doesn’t even strike me as horrible. New York was nothing but an ant-hill kicked to pieces by a fool.” These observers are justified at least in one contention: that the future, whether in orderly progress or with sudden or gradual retrogression, will be astonished at the “illusion of security” in which to-day society reposes; forgetting that but a thin crust separates it from the central elemental fires, that the heart of the earth is a flame. There are forces of resistance to disintegration and decay, even amongst this shabby crowd which appears to the indignant observer but an aggregation of aimless, impossible lives. Mr. Wells himself in earlier work has shown us the humanity and romantic ardour of Mr. Hoopdriver and the resolute hope of Mr. Lewisham, even if in later effort he can see little but the fatuous ineptitude of Mr. “Art” Kipps or the ineffective blunderings of Mr. Bert Smallways. Mr. Anatole France has revealed in his studies of contemporary life kindly intelligent citizens, doing bravely the work of the day. In no panic fear, certainly with no acquiescence and despair, the reformer to-day will contemplate the possible future of a society beyond measure complex, baffling and uncertain in its energies and aims. But the warning, always useful, but now more than ever necessary, cannot be too strongly emphasised: that with the vertical division between nation and nation armed to the teeth, and the horizontal division between rich and poor which has become a cosmopolitan fissure, the future of progress is still doubtful and precarious. Humanity--at best--appears but as a shipwrecked crew which has taken refuge on a narrow ledge of rock, beaten by wind and wave; which cannot tell how many, if any at all, will survive when the long night gives place to morning. The wise man will still go softly all his days; working always for greater economic equality on the one hand, for understanding between estranged peoples on the other; apprehending always how slight an effort of stupidity or violence could strike a death-blow to twentieth-century civilisation, and elevate the forces of destruction triumphant over the ruins of a world. CHAPTER XI POSTSCRIPT