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1The Sunset of Mankind "A queer thing I soon discovered about my little hosts, and that was their lack of interest. They
2would come to me with eager cries of astonishment, like children, but, like children they would soon stop examining me,
3and wander away after some other toy. The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that
4almost all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how speedily I came to disregard these little
5people. I went out through the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was satisfied. I was continually
6meeting more of these men of the future, who would follow me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and, having
7smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again to my own devices. "The calm of evening was upon the world as
8I emerged from the great hall, and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At first things were very
9confusing. Everything was so entirely different from the world I had known--even the flowers. The big building I had
10left was situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames had shifted, perhaps, a mile from its present
11position. I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest, perhaps a mile and a half away, from which I could get a wider
12view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One, A.D. For that, I should
13explain, was the date the little dials of my machine recorded. "As I walked I was watching for every impression that
14could possibly help to explain the condition of ruinous splendour in which I found the world--for ruinous it was. A
15little way up the hill, for instance, was a great heap of granite, bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast
16labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps, amidst which were thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like
17plants--nettles possibly--but wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and incapable of stinging. It was
18evidently the derelict remains of some vast structure, to what end built I could not determine. It was here that I was
19destined, at a later date, to have a very strange experience--the first intimation of a still stranger discovery--but of
20that I will speak in its proper place. "Looking round, with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested for a
21while, I realised that there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently the single house, and possibly even the
22household, had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage,
23which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. "'Communism,' said I to myself.
24"And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at the half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then,
25in a flash, I perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless visage, and the same girlish
26rotundity of limb. It may seem strange, perhaps, that I had not noticed this before. But everything was so strange. Now,
27I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes
28from each other, these people of the future were alike. And the children seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of
29their parents. I judged then that the children of that time were extremely precocious, physically at least, and I found
30afterwards abundant verification of my opinion. "Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I felt
31that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would expect; for the strength of a man and the softness
32of a woman, the institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an
33age of physical force. Where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a
34blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring are secure, there is less necessity--indeed there
35is no necessity--for an efficient family, and the specialisation of the sexes with reference to their children's needs
36disappears. We see some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age it was complete. This, I must
37remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was to appreciate how far it fell short of the reality. "While I
38was musing upon these things, my attention was attracted by a pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola. I
39thought in a transitory way of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed the thread of my speculations.
40There were no large buildings towards the top of the hill, and as my walking powers were evidently miraculous, I was
41presently left alone for the first time. With a strange sense of freedom and adventure I pushed on up to the crest.
42"There I found a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognise, corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and
43half smothered in soft moss, the arm-rests cast and filed into the resemblance of griffins' heads. I sat down on it, and
44I surveyed the broad view of our old world under the sunset of that long day. It was as sweet and fair a view as I have
45ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon and the west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars
46of purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames, in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel. I have
47already spoken of the great palaces dotted about among the variegated greenery, some in ruins and some still occupied.
48Here and there rose a white or silvery figure in the waste garden of the earth, here and there came the sharp vertical
49line of some cupola or obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs of proprietary rights, no evidences of agriculture; the
50whole earth had become a garden. "So watching, I began to put my interpretation upon the things I had seen, and as it
51shaped itself to me that evening, my interpretation was something in this way. (Afterwards I found I had got only a half
52truth--or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.) "It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane.
53The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first time I began to realise an odd consequence of
54the social effort in which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a logical consequence enough.
55Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions of
56life--the true civilising process that makes life more and more secure--had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of
57a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put
58in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw! "After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of today are
59still in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a little department of the field of human
60disease, but, even so, it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture and horticulture
61destroy a weed just here and there and cultivate perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving the greater number
62to fight out a balance as they can. We improve our favourite plants and animals--and how few they are--gradually by
63selective breeding; now a new and better peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger flower, now a more
64convenient breed of cattle. We improve them gradually, because our ideals are vague and tentative, and our knowledge is
65very limited; because Nature, too, is shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better organised, and
66still better. That is the drift of the current in spite of the eddies. The whole world will be intelligent, educated,
67and co-operating; things will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature. In the end, wisely and carefully
68we shall readjust the balance of animal and vegetable life to suit our human needs.
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