The Discovery of the FutureWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
The Discovery of the Future
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization -- Philosophy; Forecasting; History -- Philosophy; Time
In the sphere of public affairs also these two ways of looking at things
work out into equally divergent and incompatible consequences. The legal
mind insists upon treaties, constitutions, legitimacies, and charters;
the legislative incessantly assails these. Whenever some period of
stress sets in, some great conflict between institutions and the forces
in things, there comes a sorting out of these two types of mind. The
legal mind becomes glorified and transfigured in the form of hopeless
loyalty, the creative mind inspires revolutions and reconstructions.
And particularly is this difference of attitude accentuated in the
disputes that arise out of wars. In most modern wars there is no doubt
quite traceable on one side or the other a distinct creative idea, a
distinct regard for some future consequence; but the main dispute even
in most modern wars and the sole dispute in most mediæval wars will
be found to be a reference, not to the future, but to the past; to
turn upon a question of fact and right. The wars of Plantagenet and
Lancastrian England with France, for example, were based entirely upon
a dummy claim, supported by obscure legal arguments, upon the crown of
France. And the arguments that centered about the late war in South
Africa ignored any ideal of a great united South African state almost
entirely, and quibbled this way and that about who began the fighting
and what was or was not written in some obscure revision of a treaty a
score of years ago. Yet beneath the legal issues the broad creative idea
has been apparent in the public mind during this war. It will be found
more or less definitely formulated beneath almost all the great wars of
the past century, and a comparison of the wars of the nineteenth century
with the wars of the middle ages will show, I think, that in this field
also there has been a discovery of the future, an increasing disposition
to shift the reference and values from things accomplished to things to
come.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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