But Bertie Swanborough and Stark
Munro will be blowing about on the west wind, and
dirtying the panes of careful housewives long before the
half of it has come to pass.
And then man himself will change, of course. The
teeth are going rapidly. You've only to count the
dentists' brass plates in Birchespool to be sure of that.
And the hair also. And the sight. Instinctively, when
we think of the more advanced type of young man, we
picture him as bald, and with double eye-glasses.
I am an absolute animal myself, and my only sign of
advance is that two of my back teeth are going. On the
other hand, there is some evidence in favour of the
development of a sixth sense-that of perception. If I
had it now I should know that you are heartily weary of
all my generalisations and dogmatism.
And certainly there must be a spice of dogmatism in
it when we begin laying down laws about the future; for
how do we know that there are not phases of nature coming
upon us of which we have formed no conception? After
all, a few seconds are a longer fraction of a day than an
average life is of the period during which we know that
the world has been in existence. But if a man lived only
for a few seconds of daylight, his son the same, and his
son the same, what would their united experiences after
a hundred generations tell them of the phenomenon which
we call night? So all our history and knowledge is no
guarantee that our earth is not destined for experiences
of which we can form no conception.
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