The wonderful century, its successes and its failures

Front matter

!CO

L W.-YL

ITS SUCCESSES AND ITS FAILURES

Preface

than half the volume. But this was inevitable, for the very obvious reason that, whereas the successes are universally admitted and had only to be described, the failures are either ignored or denibd, and therefore required to be proved. It was thus necessary to give a tolerably full summary of the evidence in every case in which an allegation of failure has been made. The Yaccinatioii question has been discussed at the greatest length for several reasons. It is the only surgical operation that, in our country, has ever been universally enforced by law. It has been recently inquired into by a Royal Commission, whose Majority Report is directly opposed to the real teaching of the official and national statistics presented in the detailed reports. The operation is, admittedly, the cause of many deaths, and of a large but unknown amount of permanent injury; the only really trustworthy statistics on a large scale prove it to be wholly without effect as a preventive of small-pox ; many hundreds of persons are annually punished for refusing to have their children vaccinated; and it will undoubtedly rank as the greatest and most pernicious failure of the century. I claim that the evidence set forth in this chapter, with the diagrams which illustrate it, demonstrate this conclusion. It is no longer a question of opinion, but of science; and I have the most complete confidence that the result I have arrived at is a statistical, and therefore a mathematical certainty.

Of even greater importance, though less special to the century, is the perennial problem of wealth and poverty. In dealing with this question I have adduced a body of evidence showing that, accompanying our enormous increase of wealth, there has been a corresponding increase

PREFACE. ix of poverty, of insanity, of suicide, and probably even of crime, together with other indications of moral and physical deterioration. To the facts I have set forth I earnestly call the attention of all those who have at heart the progress of true civilization and the welfare of humanity.

A. E. W.

PARKS-TONE, DORSET, April, 1898.

The old times are dead and gone and rotten ;

The old thoughts shall never more be thought ; The old faiths have failed and are forgotten,

The old strifes are done, the fight is fought ; And with a clang and roll, the new creation Bursts forth, 'mid tears and blood and tribulation.

— Sir Lewis Morris.

Part I.— Successes. Chapter Page

I. MODES OP TRAVELLING, 1

II. LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY, ..... 12

III. THE CONVEYANCE OF THOUGHT> . . 17

IV. FIRE AND LIGHT, ... .24 Y. NEW APPLICATIONS OF LIGHT— PHOTOGRAPHY, . 31

VL NEW APPLICATIONS OF LIGHT-SPECTRUM ANALYSIS, 42

VII. THEORETICAL DISCOVERIES IN PHYSICS, . . 51

VIIL MINOR APPLICATIONS OF PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES, . 59

IX". THE IMPORTANCE OF DUST — A SOURCE OF BEAUTY

AND ESSENTIAL TO LIFE, 69

X. A FEW OF THE GREAT PROBLEMS OF CHEMISTRY, . 86

XI. ASTRONOMY AND COSMIC THEORIES, .... 93

XII. GEOLOGY : THE GLACIAL EPOCH AND THE ANTIQUITY

OF MAN, 110

XIII. EVOLUTION AND NATURAL SELECTION, . . .135

XIV. POPULAR DISCOVERIES IN PHYSIOLOGY, . . .143 XV. ESTIMATE OF ACHIEVEMENTS : THE NINETEENTH

AS COMPARED WITH EARLIER CENTURIES, . .150 xii CONTENTS.

Part Ii.— Failures. Chapter Page

XVI. THE NEGLECT OF PHRENOLOGY, .... 159 XVII. THE OPPOSITION TO HYPNOTISM AND PSYCHICAL

RESEARCH, 194

XVIII. VACCINATION A DELUSION— ITS PENAL ENFORCE- MENT A CRIME, 213

APPENDIX— THE CAUSES OF THE IMPROVEMENT IN THE HEALTH OF LONDON TOWARD THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE NINE- TEENTH CENTURIES, 316

XIX. MILITARISM — THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION, . . 325

XX THE DEMON OF GREED, 343

XXI. THE PLUNDER OF THE EARTH— CONCLUSION, . . 369 APPENDIX — THE REMEDY FOR WANT IN THE MIDST OF WEALTH. , 382

THE WONDERFUL CENTURY.

PART L— SUCCESSES.

Chapter I. Modes Of Travelling

Put forth your force, my iron horse, with limbs that never tire ! The best of oil shall feed your joints, and the best of coal your fire ; Like a train of ghosts, the telegraph posts go wildly trooping by, While one by one the milestones run, and off behind us fly ! Dash along, crash along, sixty miles an hour !

Right through old England flee !

For I am bound to see my love, Far away in the North Countrie.

— Professor Rankine.

men of the nineteenth century have not been slow to praise it. The wise and the foolish, the learned and the unlearned, the poet and the pressman, the rich and the poor, alike swell the chorus of admiration for the marvellous inventions and discoveries of our own age, and especially for those innumerable applications of science which now form part of our daily life, and which remind us every hour of our immense superiority over our comparatively ignorant forefathers.

But though in this respect (and in many others) we undoubtedly think very well of ourselves, yet, in the opinion of the present writer, our self-admiration does not rest upon an adequate appreciation of the facts. No

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one, so far as I am aware, has yet pointed out the altogether exceptional character of our advance in science and the arts, during the century which is now so near its close. In order to estimate its full importance and grandeur — more especially as regards man's increased power over nature, and the application of that power to the needs of his life to-day, with unlimited possibilities in the future — we must compare it, not with any preceding century, or even with the last millennium, but with the whole historical period — perhaps even with the whole period that has elapsed since the stone age.

Looking back through the long dark vista of human history, the one step in material progress that seems to be really comparable in importance with several of the steps we have just made, was, when Fire was first utilized, and became the servant and the friend, instead of being the master and the enemy of man. From that far distant epoch even down to our day, fire, in various forms and in ever-widening spheres of action, has not only ministered to the necessities and the enjoyments of man, but has been the greatest, the essential factor, in that continuous increase of his power over nature, which has undoubtedly been a chief means of the development of his intellect and a necessary condition of what we term civilization. Without fire there would have been neither a bronze nor an iron age, and without these there could have been no effective tools or weapons, with all the long succession of mechanical discoveries and refinements that depended upon them. Without fire there could be no rudiment even of chemistry, and all that has arisen out of it. Without fire much of the earth's surface would be uninhabitable by man, and much of what

MODES OF TRAVELLING.

is now wholesome food would be useless to him. Without fire he must always have remained ignorant of the larger part of the world of matter and of its mysterious forces. He might have lived in the warmer parts of the earth in a savage or even in a partially civilized condition, but he could never have risen to the full dignity of intellectual man, the interpreter and master of the forces of nature.

Having thus briefly indicated our standpoint, let us proceed to sketch in outline those great advances in science and the arts which are the glory of our century. In the course of our survey we shall find that the more important of these are not mere improvements upon, or developments of, anything that had been done before, but that they are entirely new departures, arising out of our increasing knowledge of and command over the forces of the universe. Many of these advances have already led to developments of the most startling kind, giving us such marvellous powers, and such extensions of our normal senses, as would have been incredible, and almost unthinkable even to our greatest men of science, a hundred years ago. We begin with the simplest of these advances, those which have given us increased facilities for locomotion.

The younger generation, which has grown up in the era of railways and of ocean-going steamships, hardly realize the vast change which we elders have seen, or how great and fundamental that change is. Even in my own boyhood the wagon for the poor, the stage coach for the middle class, and the post-chaise for the wealthy, were the universal means of communication, there being only two short railways then in existence — the

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Stockton and Darlington opened in 1825, and the Liverpool and Manchester line opened in 1830. The yellow post-chaise, without any driving seat, but with a postilion dressed like a jockey riding one of the pair of horses, was among the commonest sights on our main roads ; and together with the hundreds of four-horse mail and stage coaches, the guards carrying horns or bugles which were played while passing through every town or village, gave a stir and liveliness and picturesqueness to rural life which is now almost forgotten.

When I first went to London (I think about 1835) there was still not a mile of railroad in England, except the two above-named, and none between London and any of our great northern or western cities were even seriously contemplated. The sites of most of our great London railway termini were then on the very outskirts of the suburbs; Chalk Farm was a genuine farmhouse, and Primrose Hill was surrounded by open fields.

A few years later (in 1837-38) I was living near Leighton Buzzard while the London and Birmingham Railway, the precursor of the present London and North- Western system, was in process of construction; and when the first section was opened to Watford, I travelled by it to London, third-class, in what is now an ordinary goods truck, with neither roof nor seats, nor any other accommodation than is now given to coal, iron, and miscellaneous goods. If it rained, or the wind was cold, the passengers sat on the floor and protected themselves as they could. Second-class carriages were then what the very worst of the third-class are or were a few years ago — closed in, but low and nearly dark, with plain wooden seats — while the first class were exactly like the

MODES OF TRAVELLING.

bodies of three stage coaches joined together. The open passenger trucks were the cause of much misery, and a few deaths from exposure, before they were somewhat improved ; but even then there was evidently a dread of making them too comfortable, so a roof was put to them, also seats, and the sides a little raised but open at the top, about equal in comfort to our present cattle trucks. At last, after a good many years, the despised third-class passengers were actually provided with carriages of the early second-class type; and it is only in comparatively recent times that the greater railway companies realized the fact that third-class passengers were so numerous as to be more profitable than the other two combined, and that it was worth while to give them the same comfort, if not the same luxury, as those who could afford to travel more expensively.

The continuous progress in speed and comfort is matter of common knowledge, and nothing more need be said of it here. The essential point for our consideration is, the fundamental and even revolutionary nature of the change that has been wholly, effected during the present century. In all previous ages the only modes of travelling or of conveying goods for long distances were by employing either men or animals as the carriers. Wherever the latter were not used all loads had to be carried by men, as is still the case over a large part of Africa, and as was the case over almost the whole of America before its discovery by the Spaniards.

But throughout Europe and Asia the horse was domesticated in very early times, and was used for riding and in drawing war chariots ; and throughout the Middle Ages pack-horses were in universal use for carrying

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various kinds of goods and produce, and saddle horses for riding. All journeys were then made on horseback, and it was in comparatively recent times that wheeled vehicles for travelling in came into general use in England. The very first carriage was made for Queen Elizabeth in 1568; the first that plied for hire in London were in 1625, and the first stage coaches in 1659.

But chariots drawn by horses were used, both in war and. peace, by all the early civilized peoples. Pharaoh made Joseph ride in a chariot, and he sent wagons to bring Jacob, with his children and household goods, to Egypt. A little later chariots were sent by the Syrians as tribute to Pharaoh. Homer describes Telemachus as travelling from Pylos to Sparta in a chariot provided for him by Nestor :

" The rage of thirst and hunger now suppress'd, The monarch turns him to his royal guest; And for the promis'd journey bids prepare The smooth-haired horses, and the rapid car."

It is clear, therefore, that in the earliest historic times all the various types of wheeled vehicles were used — for war, for racing, for travelling, and for the conveyance of merchandise. They must also have been used throughout a large part of Europe, since Cresar found our British ancestors possessed of war-chariots, which they managed with great skill, implying a long previous acquaintance with the domesticated horse and its use in humbler wheeled vehicles.

Thus, throughout all past history the modes of travelling were essentially the same, and an ancient Greek or Eoman, Egyptian, or Assyrian, could travel as quickly

MODES OP TRAVELLING.

and as conveniently as could Englishmen down to the latter part of the eighteenth century. It was mainly a question of roads, and till the beginning of the nineteenth century our roads were for the most part far inferior to those of the Romans. It is, therefore, not improbable that during the Roman occupation of Britain the journey from London to York could have been made actually quicker than a hundred and fifty years ago.

We see, then, that from the earliest historic, and even in prehistoric times, till the construction of our great railways in the second quarter of the present century, there had been absolutely no change in the methods of human locomotion; and the speed for long distances must have been limited to ten or twelve miles an hour even under the most favorable conditions, while generally it must have been very much less. But the railroad and steam-locomotive, in less than fifty years, not only raised the speed to fifty or sixty miles an hour, but rendered it possible to carry many hundreds of passengers at once with punctuality and safety for enormous distances, and with hardly any exposure or fatigue. For the civilized world travelling and the conveyance of goods have been revolutionized, and by means which were probably neither anticipated nor even imagined fifty years before.

Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who predicted steam carriages, had apparently no conception of the possibility of railroads, the enormous cost of which would have seemed to be prohibitory. And we have by no means yet fully developed their possibilities, since even now a railroad could be made on which we might safely travel more

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than a hundred miles an hour, it being merely a question of expense.

In steam navigation there has been a very similar course of events, with the same characteristic of a completely new departure, leading to unknown developments and possibilities. From the earliest dawn of history men used rowing or sailing vessels for coasting trade or for crossing narrow seas. The Carthaginians sailed nearly to the equator on the west coast of Africa, and in the eleventh century the Northmen reached North America on the coast of New England. Exactly five hundred years ago Vasco de Gama sailed from Portugal round the Cape of Good Hope to India, and in the next century Columbus and his Spanish followers crossed the Atlantic in its widest part to the West Indies and Mexico. From that time sailing ships were gradually improved, till they culminated in our magnificent frigates for war purposes and the clipper ships in the China and Australian trade, which were in use up to the middle of the century. But during all this long course of development there was no change whatever in principle, and the grandest three-decker or full-rigged clipper ship was but a direct growth, by means of an infinity of small modifications and improvements, from the rudest sailing boat of the primeval savage.

Then, at the very commencement of the present century, the totally new principle of steam-propulsion began to be used, at first experimentally and with many failures, on rivers, canals, and lakes, till about the year 1815 coasting steamships of small size came into pretty general use. These were rapidly improved; but it was not till the year 1838 that the Great Western, of 1340

MODES OF TRAVELLING.

tons and 400 horse-power, made the passage from Bristol to New York in fourteen days, and thus inaugurated the system of ocean steam-navigation, which has since developed to such an enormous extent. The average speed then attained, of about ten miles an hour, has now been more than doubled, and is still increasing. But the horse-power needed to attain this high speed has increased in much greater proportion; and it is only the much greater size and capacity, both for passengers and goods, that render such high speeds and enormous consumption of coal profitable. Some of the smaller steelbuilt war-ships — torpedo-boats and torpedo-destroyers — have considerably exceeded thirty miles an hour, and the limit of speed is probably not yet reached. Many suggested forms of vessels, such as the cigar-shaped and the roller-boats, have not been adequately tried; and there are other suggested forms by means of which greater steadiness and speed may yet be obtained.

Almost as remarkable as our railroads and steamships is the new method of locomotion by means of the bicycle and tricycle. The principle is old enough, but the perfection to which these vehicles have now attained has been rendered possible by the continuous growth of all kinds of delicate tools and machines required in the construction of the infinitely varied forms of steam-engines, dynamos, and other rapidly-moving machinery. In the last century it would not have been possible to construct a modern first-class bicycle, even if any genius had invented it, except at a cost of several hundred pounds. The combination of strength, accuracy, and lightness would not then have been attainable. It is a very interesting fact that three out of the four methods of rapid locomotion we now possess should have attained about the same maximum speed. The racehorse, the steamship, and the bicycle, have each of them reached thirty miles an hour. The horse is, however, close upon, if it has not actually attained, its utmost limits; the bicycle can already beat the horse for long distances, and will certainly go at higher speeds for short ones; while the steamship will also go much quicker, though how much no one can yet say. The greatest possibilities are with the bicycle, driven by electric power or compressed air, by which means, on a nearly straight and fairly level, asphalt track, no doubt fifty miles an hour will soon be reached.

We see, then, that during the nineteenth century three distinct modes of locomotion have been originated and brought to a high degree of perfection. Two of them, the locomotive and the steamship, are altogether different in principle from what had gone before. Up to the very times of men now living, all our locomotion was on the same old lines which had been used for thousands of years. It had been improved in details, but without any alteration of principle and without any very great increase of efficiency. The principles on which our present methods rest are new; they already far surpass anything that could be effected by the older methods ; with wonderful rapidity they have spread over the whole world, and they have in many ways modified the habits and even the modes of speech of all civilized peoples.

This vast change in the methods of human locomotion, already so ubiquitous that by the younger generation their absence rather than their presence is considered re-