Discovery of the Future

Wells H. G.

Description

Though best remembered as an important early figure in the development of the genre of science fiction, H. G. Wells was a intellectually voracious thinker and writer who used his novels and short stories as a means of getting at significant, timeless truths. In this lecture, Wells discusses the ways that certain types of thinking are better suited to helping to usher in a new era of advanced science and technology.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776533053
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE
A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION
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H. G. WELLS
 
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The Discovery of the Future A Discourse Delivered at the Royal Institution First published in 1911 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-305-3 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-306-0 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
The Discovery of the Future
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A Discourse Delivered at the Royal Institution.
It will lead into my subject most conveniently to contrast and separatetwo divergent types of mind, types which are to be distinguished chieflyby their attitude toward time, and more particularly by the relativeimportance they attach and the relative amount of thought they give tothe future.
The first of these two types of mind, and it is, I think, thepredominant type, the type of the majority of living people, is thatwhich seems scarcely to think of the future at all, which regards it asa sort of blank non-existence upon which the advancing present willpresently write events. The second type, which is, I think, a moremodern and much less abundant type of mind, thinks constantly and bypreference of things to come, and of present things mainly in relationto the results that must arise from them. The former type of mind, whenone gets it in its purity, is retrospective in habit, and it interpretsthe things of the present, and gives value to this and denies it tothat, entirely with relation to the past. The latter type of mind isconstructive in habit, it interprets the things of the present andgives value to this or that, entirely in relation to things designed orforeseen.
While from that former point of view our life is simply to reap theconsequences of the past, from this our life is to prepare the future.The former type one might speak of as the legal or submissive type ofmind, because the business, the practice, and the training of a lawyerdispose him toward it; he of all men must constantly refer to the lawmade, the right established, the precedent set, and consistently ignoreor condemn the thing that is only seeking to establish itself. Thelatter type of mind I might for contrast call the legislative, creative,organizing, or masterful type, because it is perpetually attacking andaltering the established order of things, perpetually falling away fromrespect for what the past has given us. It sees the world as one greatworkshop, and the present is no more than material for the future,for the thing that is yet destined to be. It is in the active mood ofthought, while the former is in the passive; it is the mind of youth, itis the mind more manifest among the western nations, while the former isthe mind of age, the mind of the oriental.
Things have been, says the legal mind, and so we are here. The creativemind says we are here because things have yet to be.
Now I do not wish to suggest that the great mass of people belong toeither of these two types. Indeed, I speak of them as two distinct anddistinguishable types mainly for convenience and in order to accentuatetheir distinction. There are probably very few people who broodconstantly upon the past without any thought of the future at all, andthere are probably scarcely any who live and think consistently inrelation to the future. The great mass of people occupy an intermediateposition between these extremes, they pass daily and hourly from thepassive mood to the active, they see this thing in relation to itsassociations and that thing in relation to its consequences, and theydo not even suspect that they are using two distinct methods in theirminds.
But for all that they are distinct methods, the method of reference tothe past and the method of reference to the future, and their minglingin many of our minds no more abolishes their difference than theexistence of piebald horses proves that white is black.
I believe that it is not sufficiently recognized just how differentin their consequences these two methods are, and just where theirdifference and where the failure to appreciate their difference takesone. This present time is a period of quite extraordinary uncertaintyand indecision upon endless questions—moral questions, æstheticquestions, religious and political questions—upon which we should allof us be happier to feel assured and settled; and a very large amount ofthis floating uncertainty about these important matters is due to thefact that with most of us these two insufficiently distinguished ways oflooking at things are not only present together, but in actual conflictin our minds, in unsuspected conflict; we pass from one to the otherheedlessly without any clear recognition of the fundamental differencein conclusions that exists between the two, and we do this withdisastrous results to our confidence and to our consistency in dealingwith all sorts of things.