hine and wet weather. It would probably need
less labour to manipulate such contrivances than is required at present
for the constant conflict with slush and dust. Now, of course, we
tolerate the rain, because it facilitates a sort of cleaning process....

Enough of this present speculation. I have indicated now the general
lines of the roads and streets and ways and underways of the Twentieth
Century. But at present they stand vacant in our prophecy, not only
awaiting the human interests--the characters and occupations, and
clothing of the throng of our children and our children's children that
flows along them, but also the decorations our children's children's
taste will dictate, the advertisements their eyes will tolerate, the
shops in which they will buy. To all that we shall finally come, and
even in the next chapter I hope it will be made more evident how
conveniently these later and more intimate matters follow, instead of
preceding, these present mechanical considerations. And of the beliefs
and hopes, the thought and language, the further prospects of this
multitude as yet unborn--of these things also we shall make at last
certain hazardous guesses. But at first I would submit to those who may
find the "machinery in motion" excessive in this chapter, we must have
the background and fittings--the scene before the play.[12]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the earlier papers, of which this is the first, attention will be
given to the probable development of the civilized community in general.
Afterwards these generalizations will be modified in accordance with
certain broad differences of race, custom, and religion.

[2] Of quite serious forecasts and inductions of things to come, the
number is very small indeed; a suggestion or so of Mr. Herbert
Spencer's, Mr. Kidd's _Social Evolution_, some hints from Mr. Archdall
Reid, some political forecasts, German for the most part (Hartmann's
_Earth in the Twentieth Century_, e.g.), some incidental forecasts by
Professor Langley (_Century Magazine_, December, 1884, e.g.), and such
isolated computations as Professor Crookes' wheat warning, and the
various estimates of our coal supply, make almost a complete
bibliography. Of fiction, of course, there is abundance: _Stories of the
Year_ 2000, and _Battles of Dorking_, and the like--I learn from Mr.
Peddie, the bibliographer, over one hundred pamphlets and books of that
description. But from its very nature, and I am writing with the