nite, with their centre in the United
States. Gradually the European States will follow their example. War
will become rare, but more terrible. The forms of religion will be
abandoned, but the essence will be maintained; so that one universal
creed will embrace the whole civilised earth, which will preach trust
in that central power, which will be as unknown then as now. That's my
horoscope, and after that the solar system may be ripe for picking. 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.

But to drop down from the universe to my own gnat's buzz of an
existence, I think I have told you everything that might interest you
of the first six months of my venture. Towards the end of that time
my little brother Paul came down--and the best of companions he is!
He shares the discomforts of my little menage in the cheeriest spirit,
takes me out of my blacker humours, goes long walks with me, is
interested in all that interests me (I always talk to him exactly as if
he were of my own age), and is qu