nearly perfect the mechanical side of life correspondingly abolishes the need for men. Thus it is calculated to-day that whenever, in accordance with a growing tendency, coal is superseded by oil in industry two men are enabled to do the work of twelve. That is merely typical of what is taking place generally in our modern system of civilisation. Everywhere a small number of men are being enabled to replace a large number of men. Not to avoid looking ahead, we may say that of every twelve millions of our population, ten millions will be unwanted. Let them do something else! we cheerfully exclaim. But what? No doubt there are always art and science, infinite in their possibilities for joy and enlightenment, infinite also, as we know, in their possibilities of mischief and shallowness and boredom. Let it only be true science and great art, and one man is better than ten millions. To say that is only to echo unconsciously the ancient saying of Heraclitus, “One is ten thousand if he be the best.”
The vistas that are opened up when we realise the direction in which the human race is travelling may seem to be endless; and so in a sense they are. Man has replaced the gods he once dreamed of; he has found that he is himself a god, who, however realistic he seeks to make his philosophy, himself created the world as he sees it and now has even acquired the power of creat-
