The Discovery Of The Future

by H. G. Wells Narrated by Kevin McCarthy

Overview

The Discovery of the Future is a 1902 philosophical lecture by H. G. Wells that argues for the knowability of the future. It was originally delivered to the Royal Institution on January 24, 1902. Wells begins by distinguishing between "two divergent types of mind," one that judges and attaches importance principally to what has happened in the past and one that judges and attaches importance principally to what will happen in the future. To the former he attributes the adjectives "legal or submissive," "passive," and "oriental," and to the latter the adjectives "legislative, creative, organizing, or masterful," and "active," calling it "a more modern and much less abundant type of mind."... Confessing himself to be among "those who believe entirely in the forces behind the individual" rather than in individuals themselves as determining causes, Wells argues that there is "no reason why we should not aspire to, and discover and use, safe and servicable, generalizations upon countless issues in the human destiny." Wells devotes the last part of his text to speculations about "the question what is to come after man," considering it "the most persistently fascinating and the most insoluble question in the whole world." He concludes with a statement of personal faith "in the coherency and purpose in the world and in the greatness of human destiny.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175390200
Publisher:	Century Audio
Publication date:	03/17/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

that the essential thing in the scientific pro- cess is not the collection of facts, but the analysis of facts. Facts are the raw mate- rial and not the substance of science. JJti is analysis that has given us all ordered' knowledge, and you know that the aim and the test and the justification of the scientific process is not a marketable conjuring trick, but prophecy. Until a scientific theory yields confident forecasts you know it is un- sound and tentative; it is mere theorizing, as evanescent as art talk or the phantoms politicians talk about. The splendid body of gravitational astronomy, for example, es- tablishes itself upon the certain forecast of stellar movements, and you would absolute- ly refuse to believe its amazing assertions if it were not for these same unerring fore- casts. The whole body of medical science aims, and claims the ability, to diagnose. Meteorology constantly and persistently aims at prophecy, and it will never stand in a place of honor until it can certainly fore- tell. The chemist forecasts elements before he meets themit is very properly his boast =and the splendid manner in which the mind of Clerk Maxwell reached in front of all experiments and foretold those things that Marconi has materialized is familiar to us all. All applied mathematics resolves into computation to foretell things which otherwise can only be determined by trial. Even in so unscientific a science as economics there have been forecasts. And if I am right in saying that science aims at prophecy, and if the specialist in each science is in fact doing his best now to prophesy within the limits of his field, what is there to stand in the way of our building up this growing body offorecast into an ordered picture of the future that will be just as certain, just as stri...

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