“On the other hand, after observing how the processes that have brought things to their present stage are still going on, not with a decreasing rapidity indicating approach to cessation, but with an increasing rapidity that implies long continuance and immense transformations; there follows the conviction that the remote future has in store, forms of social life higher than any we have imagined: there comes a faith transcending that of the Radical, whose aim is some re-organisation admitting of comparison to organisations which exist. And while this conception of societies has naturally evolved, beginning with small and simple types which have their short existences and disappear, advancing to higher types that are larger, more complex, and longer-lived, coming to still-higher types like our own, great in size, complexity, and duration, and promising types transcending these in times after existing societies have died away—while this conception of societies implies that in the slow course of things changes almost immeasurable in amount are possible, it also implies that but small amounts of such changes are possible, within “short periods”—Herbert Spencer: The Study of Sociology, Chapter XVI.

It has repeatedly been necessary, in the course of this survey, to stimulate the indulgence of the reader by a reminder, based upon the speed of our progress in the past and its steady acceleration in recent decades, that there is much more danger of underestimating than of exaggerating the advances likely to have been achieved a hundred years hence. In order to guard against misconception of the manner in which these advances will be brought about, it is now advisable to mention specifically what has been once or twice hinted parenthetically, namely, the fact that the progress of the Future is certain to be produced in a way perfectly capable of being deduced from the manner of our progress in the past. One of the most fruitful causes of error in existing prognostications has been the tacit assumption that, at some vague moment in the spacious middle-distance of the coming time, sudden and cataclysmal movements of society, and also unexpected and revolutionary discoveries in science, will occur: and it is as a precaution against one aspect of this mistake that a weighty quotation from the writings of one of the sanest and most perspicuous thinkers who have ever written upon that science of society which he may almost be said to have created has been recalled to the memory of the reader at the head of this chapter.

The forecast now almost concluded, imperfect and visionary as it must necessarily be, was commenced with some reflections on the rate of future progress made probable by the movements of the recent past. But nothing whatever can be deduced from what history, remote or recent, shows us, to suggest that any stable institution can be created otherwise than by steady development: it is only the speed of development which is likely to alter, and even this will only alter by a progression gaining impetus from the influence of its own components. Whether we consider material improvements effected by science and invention and the interaction of these; or social improvements effected by readjustment of the conditions of life forced upon us through the influence of intellectual and moral changes in the individual units of society making themselves felt as aggregated forces; the manner of attainment is nearly identical. It is commonly objected to this view, that whereas science and invention commonly progress in a movement characterised (so to speak) by a succession of jerks, social conditions change imperceptibly. But thus to object is to overlook the fact that, while no doubt society develops from time to time certain needs whose growth is so steady as to preclude the possibility of pointing to a final moment when the satisfaction of them has become at length inevitable, yet, when this satisfaction is gained by legislative enactment, there is always a moment when the public, ripe for a given reform, takes definite possession of it. For example (to name a comparatively recent case), no doubt the desire for some method by which the public could distinguish between foreign and home-made articles of merchandise had for some time been generally felt before the passing of the Merchandise Marks Act fixed a moment at which all dubiety on the subject would vanish, by endeavouring to require that any imported object bearing marks calculated to give the impression that it had been manufactured in England should also bear a definite and correct statement as to its place of origin. Whether we consider this enactment to have been desirable or not, it is impossible to deny that there was a specific moment when it took effect. And similarly, the bill for the repression of secret commissions in business has come so near to being passed through Parliament that many people imagine it to be already law, though it is not, at the time of writing, even (in a technical sense) before the legislature. Without question, therefore, public opinion is ripe for this reform, and has with great gradualness become so: but the reform itself, when it takes place (as it may quite conceivably have taken place by the time this book is printed), will occur suddenly. There will be a day when the manager of a business house could, with immunity from any overt punishment except the loss of his employment, receive a secret bribe from another house with which he was doing business on behalf of his master; and a succeeding day on which, for the same offence against commercial integrity, he could be charged before a magistrate and ultimately punished by the law. Thus the difference between scientific progress and social progress is not so great as has been sometimes imagined. And on the other hand, although to the casual observer scientific discoveries and new inventions often appear to have been attained at a single step, to a person interested in the particular branch of science, or the particular path of invention where a new achievement occurs, it is generally quite evident that the latter has been led up to by steady progress extending over a long period. The existence of unidentified constituents in atmospheric air, for instance, must have been long suspected before the isolation of argon gave, to the public eye, the impression of a sudden discovery: and astronomical disturbances have generally puzzled a great army of observers for a long time before the public is indulged by the announcement of a “new” star in the heavens.

To the reader who has been good enough to grant any validity at all to the arguments by which I have sought to show that, as time goes on, there will be a decreasing tendency to attempt desired reforms by legislative process, and an increasing tendency to make the public the guardian of its own security, it will be evident that any differences which exist between the nature of scientific progress and the nature of social progress are likely to be accentuated rather than diminished in the course of this century. A change brought about by the spontaneous activity of the people naturally occurs without the definite line of demarcation created by an Act of Parliament.

But there is one way in which the analogy between scientific and social progress will be noteworthy. It is a commonplace of industrial history that an improvement in one machine, or the introduction of some novel method of applying power, always produces, and may very often necessitate, modifications in a number of procedures not previously seen to be connected with it: and great results from little causes flow. No one foresaw, when Mr Edison discovered the differences in the electrical conductivity of carbon induced by slight variations of pressure—a discovery at first utilised only in the micro-tasimeter, the appliance used for measuring small changes in the size of objects submitted to it—that the same discovery would presently render commercially practicable the electrical transmission of speech and numerous other conveniences, themselves the progenitors of fresh inventions now in constant use. Similarly, political and social changes quite easy to foresee will undoubtedly have effects which in their entirety no one can possibly foresee. The rate of advancement cannot be calculated like a geometrical progression: all that we can hope to do is to realise more or less vaguely the acceleration which the action and interaction of anticipated (and often antagonistic) forces will produce; the general manner of the world’s progress representing the resultant of their activities. What we must constantly keep in mind is the fact that changes in the institutions of society can only be stable when they are the result of corresponding changes in the temper of the age which yields them. As this temper is a thing of gradual development, we must believe that many temporary expedients will have to be tolerated by advanced thinkers since (as Spencer remarks) society can only be held together when the institutions existing, and the conceptions generally current, are in tolerable harmony. We can foresee many changes which will be in beneficent existence a hundred years hence; but it would be irrational to show impatience because these changes cannot be immediately proposed; since, being not yet in harmony with the current conceptions of the world, their immediate adoption would be mischievous instead of beneficial, and their results anarchic instead of stable. For a great many years we must go on passing laws for the regulation of social life, which we can quite easily perceive that the altered social life of a future age will not need, because they would be injurious to it. The zealous reformer who wishes, as we must all wish, to help the world in its wearied way to perfection must aim rather to assist the mind of people to demand greater reforms than it could as yet assimilate, than to procure the arrival of reforms for which society is not yet ripe, and must be content with the effort

To say this is not to deprecate the greatest possible energy in all endeavour that makes for progress. The doctrine, founded upon a perception of the impossibility of regenerating society except by utilising the natural and evolutionary movement of society itself, that nothing ought to be done except to wait upon this movement, betrays an evident confusion of thought, akin to the fallacy of the schoolmen, commonly called realism, partly adopted by Comte. “Society” is not in itself an entity separable from the units of society; a progress of society is only possible as the result of human volition progressively exercised. What we have to look for is a steady enlightenment of public ideals, issuing in the triumph of wisdom over folly, of virtue over laxity, of progress over reaction and inertia. Always there will be differences of opinion, exercising a salutary check upon hasty public action, and giving time for the establishment of harmony between the spirit of the age and the new institutions which mark its progress.

Naturally there will have been many changes in the material of daily life which, either because they did not fit in with any one of the divisions into which a forecast of the future naturally fell, or because the consideration of them would have obscured the exposition of matters more immediately connected with each other, it has not been possible to mention. For example, we have had occasion to debate the methods by which men and women will transact the business of trade and commerce with the aid of certain foreseen conveniences; and we have glanced at the probable future aspect of dwellings, conveyances and similar conveniences; but nothing has been said as to the clothes in which our descendants are likely to attire themselves or the enjoyment of these advantages. The latter and a few other minor subjects may perhaps be considered now, without very much mutual connection.

The clothing of men and women happens to illustrate rather appropriately the very same tendency of civilised institutions to develop by gradual, rather than violent, changes which has just been referred to. For, while a good deal is heard about the “vagaries” of fashion, technical writers on the subject always seem to be able to predict some time in advance the movements of modish costume; and they sometimes even condescend to explain the processes of thought and observation by which their apparently inspired predictions are arrived at. Moreover, admitting, and allowing for, the extremest variations in detail, costume in civilised countries can hardly be said to have materially and intrinsically altered—cannot, that is to say, be said to have altered its fundamental characteristics—during a century, in the case of men, nor during a great many centuries in the case of women. Since the age of knee-breeches succeeded the age of doublet and hose, men have always protected their legs with “bifurcated integuments”—some sort of double tube secured to a copious bag enclosing the middle of the body—and the upper part of the trunk with a coat and waistcoat; while women have always worn bodices and petticoats of one shape or another. Neither has the loudest outcry against the irrationality of costume as a whole, nor even the ridicule showered upon single elements of it, ever had the least effect in producing revolutionary modification. Punch laughed in vain at crinolines; Lord Ronald Gower protests in vain against the silk “chimney-pot” hat. Will a more scientific and a more logical age replace absurd or otherwise objectionable garments by others more reasonably designed, to such an extent as to produce an entire change in the sartorial aspect of civilised peoples?

It is impossible to doubt that in some respects it will. Already sensible women decline to injure themselves and risk the injury of their possible offspring at the command of fashion. Tight-lacing and the wearing of such corsets as unnaturally compress the internal organs of the body are evidently near the end of their long reign. In a comparatively short time it is hardly possible to doubt that at least these, the most evidently injurious articles of clothing still surviving, will have joined the farthingale and the ruff in the lumber-room of the obsolete, and when what is really the more reasonable moiety of mankind is thus within easy reach of sacrificing to hygiene what was dedicated to a wholly mistaken conception of Æsthetics, can we question that reforms in male dress founded upon convenience and reason will follow, even to the abandonment of the silk hat? If one were asked to suggest the various steps by which the ultimate costume of the century, whether male or female, will be arrived at, few would not boggle at the task. But the general nature of the more-or-less-perfected dress of a hundred years hence may perhaps be not unsuccessfully imagined, having in mind the considerations likely to determine it.

We may be quite certain that two characteristics will be demanded of all costume—that it shall give to all movements of the body the greatest possible freedom consistent with warmth, and that it shall be as easy as possible to put on and take off. The highly intellectual life of the next century will certainly be impatient of anything which detains it with occupations so uninteresting as the putting on and taking off of clothes from pursuits more attractive. Hence there will doubtless be a great deal of simplification of details, the greatest practical diminution in the number of single objects worn. The essentials of a satisfactory outfit will be, first, an inner garment next the skin, worn merely for cleanliness; next a middle garment for warmth, and finally an outer suit for protection. The innermost garment will no doubt be made of some fabric not much unlike the soft silky papers now made in Japan, so that it can be destroyed as soon as it is taken off. It is not in the least likely that so insanitary and degrading an occupation as that of the washerwoman can survive in a civilisation really advanced. The middle garment, completely cleansable by vacuum action and oxygenation, will of course have to be made of some vegetable fibre like cotton or flax. It will most likely be some developed form of “combination,” easy to put on and take off, fastening by means of a single knot or button, and will be just tight enough to give freedom to the movements. Its warmth will be dependent upon contained air, and it, like everything else we wear, will be highly porous; for the importance of properly ventilating the skin, perfectly well understood even now, will by that time be also acted upon. Thus far male costume and female costume will be practically identical. There is no reason to expect, however, that this identity will be carried so far as the externals of dress, because realising (as we shall of course realise) the tendency of the sexes to become less divergent in their natural and moral characteristics, we shall instinctively seek to maintain all the salutary and romantic contrast that we can. But it is not to be believed that woman, already long since emancipated from the corset, will have continued a slave to the skirt, the petticoat and other restraining garments. With underclothes practically identical with the sensible garments of men, our female descendants will no doubt wear a costume much like what Miss Rehan wore as Rosalind—a tunic and knee-skirt (probably in one) with gaiters made of some elastic material.

Deprived as we shall be of animal products, the leather boot will naturally be unavailable, and a totally different kind of foot covering will be used. But it is not the absence of leather which will determine this change. Perfectly satisfactory boots of the present form are worn by some extreme vegetarians already, carrying consistency to its limit. With the disappearance of the horse from the streets, however—a disappearance which will doubtless be at least seventy years old by this time next century (for the motor car is fast pushing out the horse already)—the chief need for an entirely impervious foot-covering will have been obviated. Towns will be sanitary underfoot—they are disgusting now—and free from mud; while the drying appliances mentioned in an earlier chapter will clear away rain as fast as it falls. Consequently it will no longer be necessary to wear uncomfortable, unhealthy and deforming boots; the human foot will cease to be the source of discomfort it now more or less acutely is to nine people out of every ten, and we shall be much better walkers and athletes. For health will be the consideration dominating all our actions, health being a subject of careful tuition in every school: and as men and women will rarely need to use muscular strength in their work, they will gratify the natural yearning of healthy animals for exertion, in athletic sports, by no means confined to the male sex.

Whether fashion as an institution will continue to exist is doubtful, but probably it will not exhibit the extravagances, nor the capricious development which now characterise it, and “a general uniformity with infinitesimal differences,” which has been defined as one of Nature’s uniformities, will be perceptible in the natural development of the race.

Of course one object sought consciously or unconsciously to be attained by the use of fashions is class distinction; and similarly jewellery is probably worn much more because it is a sign of wealth than because of any intrinsic beauty which it is supposed to possess. At one time a man’s occupation (and consequently his rank in society) could be ascertained by his dress; and sumptuary laws occasionally made such distinctions obligatory. It is no doubt of some law of his own time that Shakespeare was thinking1 when he made the tribune in Julius CÆsar reprove the workmen for appearing on a business-day without the leather aprons which marked their trade:—

Will class distinction survive the democratising influence of a century?

The dress of our own time tends to obliterate the evidence of these distinctions; but a development from heterogeneity to homogeneity is a reversal of the usual law of progress, and it can hardly be called a sign of social advancement that artisans of our day generally wear, when at work, the cast-off clothes of the employing classes, bought second-hand, and for “Sunday best” often ape the fashions of the rich. In a hundred years’ time assuredly no worker will be ambitious to give himself the aspect of an idler, and one may perpend the dry answer of an American to the remark that in the United States there is no leisure-class. “Oh, yes, there is,” said the moralist, “only we don’t call them that; we call them tramps.” Everyone will take pride in his work, when work is no longer treated with the disgraceful contempt which we are only by degrees becoming ashamed of. Consequently the clothes worn at work will no doubt be, in every trade, specially designed to facilitate the exertions of the worker: and in the copious hours of leisure there will be variety, increased by the wearing of special garments for special amusements. It is difficult to believe that anyone, whatever his work, will dispense with the comfort of a complete change of dress when play-time comes: and the ingenious simplification of fastenings, and the reduced number of garments worn, will facilitate the enjoyment of this luxury. Everyone will dress for dinner—but not (one fancies) in a “swallow-tail” coat and stiff shirt. It is quite certain that all our clothes will be soft, supple, porous, light and warm a hundred years hence, and the clear-starcher will no longer have the opportunity to destroy them.

Some attempt has already been made to suggest the general domestic and architectural conveniences of the next century, but the subject of furniture has not been referred to in detail. Allowing for the fact that animal fabrics, as wool, leather, etc., will be absent, there is no particular reason why chairs, carpets and curtains should be very different from what they are now. No doubt light metallic alloys will often be used in the framework of chairs and tables instead of wood, because the tendency of civilisation is to make things lighter and less cumbersome whenever this is possible. At one time it might have been thought that upholstery, carpets and curtains would have to be dispensed with. But to a thoughtful observer there must always have been a difficulty here. A wooden chair, and even a rattan one, however cunningly shaped, is so extremely discomfortable to sit in without cushions, that it was easier to imagine that invention would correct the unhealthiness of cushions and stuffing, than that an advanced age would consent to dispense with these luxuries. The manner in which the former solution of the difficulty would be attained was actually foreseen by the present writer before the introduction of vacuum cleaning was accomplished, and several passages in an earlier chapter had to be rewritten when what had been somewhat fancifully described as a convenience of the future suddenly became an existing factor of the present: and in one or two places innovations have similarly called for changes in the text—a circumstance which, it is to be hoped, will give pause to critics disposed to condemn certain suggestions in this book as chimerical.2 Obviously, now that we can thoroughly cleanse and free from every particle of dust by a simple mechanical process any fabric or mass of fabrics, there is no longer any reason to expect that our descendants will, on hygienic grounds, find it necessary to dispense with comforts so essential to restful leisure as easy-chairs, soft carpets and wall hangings.

On the other hand, it is quite certain that numerous inventions will enhance and beautify the luxury of an age where rational luxury will reign universally. One source of frequent discomfort to-day is the necessity of living always in rooms of one size. Whether we sit alone, or entertain a number of friends, the same apartment has to serve our needs: consequently we are crowded on one day and chilly on the next. With combustion abolished as a heating device, there will be no objection against light sliding walls—a convenience long since adopted by our allies the Japanese—which would be rather dangerous nowadays and not particularly desirable, at all events in England, where we have no means of warming most rooms except a fire on one side, and no means of cooling them at all except by letting in draughts and noise through the window. No doubt when matches and fireplaces, about equally causative of conflagration, have vanished, and when we have invented methods of warming the air in houses without the horrible drying of it caused by the American pipe-stove system, houses will be much more lightly built: and it is certainly not going to be impossible to use thin, light walls without being able to hear in each room every sound that occurs in the next. Concurrently, we shall be able to change the size of rooms—a convenience greater than might be supposed by those who have not thought about the matter. In summer we shall just as easily cool our houses as we shall heat them in winter. Very few servants will be required (another great comfort); and lighting arrangements will naturally be free from their present inadequacy.

Except that no one has yet troubled to think about it, there is surely no reason why bathing should be such a tedious operation as it is. Probably the speediest dresser of our own day does not consume less than a quarter of an hour over his morning tub and the operation of drying himself. A hundred years hence, people will be so avid of every moment of life, life will be so full of busy delight, that time-saving inventions will be at a huge premium. It is not because we shall be hurried in nerve-shattering anxiety, as it is often complained that we now are, but because we shall value at its true worth the refining and restful influence of leisure, that we shall be impatient of the minor tasks of every day. The bath of the next century will lave the body speedily with oxygenated water delivered with a force that will render rubbing unnecessary, and beside it will stand the drying cupboard, lined with some quickly-moving arrangement of soft brushes, and fed with highly desiccated air, from which, almost in a moment, the bather will emerge, dried, and with a skin gently stimulated, and perhaps electrified, to clothe himself quickly and pass down the lift to his breakfast, which he will eat to the accompaniment of a summary of the morning’s news read out for the benefit of the family, or whispered into his ears by a talking-machine.

Does this manner of beginning the day sound like a nightmare? That is only because the purpose of it has been overlooked. Not because they will be “short” of time will our descendants thus arrange their lives, but because they wish to reserve as much time as possible for culture (physical as well as intellectual) and for thought; which the better distribution of wealth and labour will facilitate; while labour itself, everywhere performed intelligently and with interest, will be no longer irksome. The working man will ply his trade with zest—working for himself and family—instead of seeking every opportunity to shirk and evade it. And, his task accomplished, he will hasten to enjoyments as elevating as labour itself.

Will man then, the critic may ask incredulously, have really been perfected in a century? Decidedly not. But unless we doubt the evidence which shows that improved institutions not only arise out of improved popular character, but also help to promote it, we cannot resist the inference that the removal of many causes of degradation must bring us nearer to perfection, to which the moral evolution of the race is slowly proceeding. There is nothing Utopian in the belief that honesty, truthfulness, respect for the rights of others, will be fostered by the increased intelligence of the new age; and from the moment when this intelligence, disseminated throughout all society, begins to make the moral improvement of the race a prime object in every social reform, in every piece of legislation (emancipating as well as restrictive) we have a right to expect the progress of morality to receive a marked impetus. “Nature, careless of the single life,” will be assisted in the perfecting of the moral type, and the dishonest man, the liar, the sensualist, and the man too stupid to be unselfish, will become with every decade less fit for survival, because the same unwisdom which is at the bottom of his faults will handicap him in the battle of life, will hinder him in the competition for the right to perpetuate his characteristics in children born of his loins. It is only those who conceive of the race as capable of remaining stationary, or moving backward, in morals, while in every other respect it moves forward with constantly-increasing momentum, who imagine that cunning and unscrupulousness are likely to be fostered by enlarged civilisation. So long as we allow the world to be exploited for the selfish advantage of a handful of millionaires, no doubt these characteristics will continue at a premium. But it is impossible to believe that the irresistible power of the mass of humanity will submit in perpetuity to be thus made the tools of a minority. If the “ruling” classes wished to maintain that status they should have kept the people from the schoolroom. Numbers must inevitably prevail, and the world will have reorganised itself in ways which, if we could foresee them in their entirety, would suggest an almost unthinkable perfection.