Charles Galton Darwin - The Next Million Years (1952), Sarmatian chomikuj, ebook, pdf

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THE NEXT
MILLION YEARS
BY
CHARLES GALTON
DARWIN
PREFACE
W
HEN anyone starts to write on a subject, at
which he has not hitherto worked professionally,
his proper procedure should be to set out on a long
course of reading, with careful preparatory annotations
of all he has read. Such a course on a tremendous subject
like the present one might easily take ten years. At the
time when I determined to write this essay I was already
over sixty-one, and it is safe to say that it would never
have been written, if I had adopted this policy. Since I
very much wanted to write it, the only alternative
seemed to be to give up the idea of elaborate preparatory
reading, and to make use from memory of a very
considerable amount of unsystematic reading and
thinking on the subject. A book written in this way can
of course make no claim to the sort of authority that
might be given to one which was based on exhaustive
preliminary studies.
I fear that the absence of references will give some
inconvenience to my readers. I might be able to quote
some of the references, but many of them I could not,
and some of these among the most important, so that
justice would not be done to the subject by only citing
the sources I could recall accurately. In the same way, I
have gathered a good many of my ideas from conversa-
tions and discussions, in only some of which could I
name my informants, so that there again it is juster to
7
PREFACE
name none of them. In view of these doubts about the
sources of my knowledge, it would not be proper for
me to claim any originality in the views I express; I
believe that some of them are original, but even with
regard to these I shall not be at all surprised, if it turns
out that I have been anticipated.
I have realized to the full the dangers to which I am
exposing myself in forgoing the elaborate preliminary
studies which the subject demands, but from my ex-
perience in other subjects I am encouraged to think
that little harm will be done by it. The spirit of criticism
is much commoner in the world than the spirit of
invention, and progress has often been delayed by
authors, who have refused to publish their conclusions
until they could feel they had reached a pitch of certainty
that was in fact unattainable. Progress in knowledge
is more rapidly made by taking the chance of a certain
number of errors, since both friends and enemies are
only too pleased to exert their critical faculties in
pointing out the errors; so they are soon corrected,
and little harm is done.
Nevertheless I have taken all possible precautions so
as not to make mistakes. I have tried to avoid errors both
of principle, and in the examples which I cite, by getting
comments from various friends who are well versed in
the different branches of the subject, and I have certainly
been saved from a good many errors in this way. Lest
they should be thought responsible for opinions they
may not share, I will preserve their anonymity, but I
would take this opportunity to thank them for the
great help they have given me.
8
PREFACE
In composing the essay I have had the difficult task of
deciding the degree of knowledge that I might assume
in my readers. It has seemed to me wise to err, if any-
thing, on the side of explaining too much rather than
too little, and I had therefore better apologize in advance
if some readers consider I have wasted their time by
explaining in too much detail things with which they
were already familiar.
9
CONTENTS
Page
13
I INTRODUCTION
29
II POPULATION
46
III THE FOUR REVOLUTIONS
58
IV MATERIAL CONDITIONS
77
V THE SPBCIES HOMO SAPIENS
100
VI CREEDS
VII MAN—A WILD ANIMAL
115
134
VIII LIMITATION OF POPULATION
IX THB PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
155
167
X THB HISTORY
170
POPULATION
178
GOLDEN AGES
l8l
SCIENCE
1
86
BCONOMICS •
19
0
POLITICS
197
CIVILIZATION
205
XI EPILOGUE
INDEX
209
11
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