we may
claim to have solved it. Society would indeed have fully deserved being
devoured if it had failed to answer a riddle so entirely simple. In
fact, to speak by the book, it was not necessary for society to solve
the riddle at all. It may be said to have solved itself. The solution
came as the result of a process of industrial evolution which could not
have terminated otherwise. All that society had to do was to recognize
and cooperate with that evolution, when its tendency had become
unmistakable."

"I can only say," I answered, "that at the time I fell asleep no such
evolution had been recognized."

"It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep, I think you said."

"Yes, May 30th, 1887."

My companion regarded me musingly for some moments. Then he observed,
"And you tell me that even then there was no general recognition of the
nature of the crisis which society was nearing? Of course, I fully
credit your statement. The singular blindness of your contemporaries to
the signs of the times is a phenomenon commented on by many of our
historians, but few facts of history are more difficult for us to
realize, so obvious and unmistakable as we look back seem the
indications, which must also have come under your eyes, of the
transformation about to come to pass. I should be interested, Mr. West,
if you would give me a little more definite idea of the view which you
and men of your grade of intellect took of the state and prospects of
society in 1887. You must, at least, have realized that the widespread
industrial and social troubles, and the underlying dissatisfaction of
all classes with the inequalities of society, and the general misery of
mankind, were portents of great changes of some sort."

"We did, indeed, fully realize that," I replied. "We felt that society
was dragging anchor and in danger of going adrift. Whither it would
drift nobody could say, but all feared the rocks."

"Nevertheless," said Dr. Leete, "the set of the current was perfectly
perceptible if you had but taken pains to observe it, and it was not
toward the rocks, but toward a deeper channel."

"We had a popular proverb," I replied, "that 'hindsight is better than
foresight,' the force of which I shall now, no doubt, appreciate more
fully than ever. All I can say is, that the prospect was such when I
went into that long sleep that I should not have been surprised had I
looked down from your house-top to-day on a heap of charred and
moss-