[1] See The Survey for March 30, 1912.
[2] See The Survey for May 10, page 212.
[3] It would be desirable if a sufficient number of persons interested would contribute so that it would be practicable to print in full the discussions, properly edited with bibliographies and notes, so as to make a really authoritative booklet on the questions under discussion.
BOOKS
THE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE
By H. G. Wells. B. W. Huebsch. 61 pp. Price $.60;
by mail of The Survey $.65.
This is a small book, sixty-one pages of large type, containing an address delivered at the Royal Institution in England. But the value of the publication is out of proportion to its size. Here is the abundant Wells literature of the last two decades in a compact and highly concentrated extract form. And this means, as every lover of this English author will know at once, a wealth of suggestive speculation and stimulating idealism.
The thesis of the book is that we now have the materials in hand for a systematic and accurate “exploration of the future.” There is no reason why we should not be able to forecast the future development of society, by a critical study of operative causes, as definitely as we now reconstruct the past conditions of the race by a critical study of the geological and archeological record. What the scientist now does in the fields of physics or astronomy, we ought to be able to do just as easily in the field of social life. “Suppose,” says Wells, “that the laws of social and political development were given as many brains, were given as much attention, criticism and discussion, as we have given to the laws of chemical combination, and what might we not expect?” Here, evidently, is the philosophical justification of The War of the Worlds, Anticipations, The Future in America, New Worlds for Old, and many another fascinating volumes from Wells’ pen which might be mentioned.