Ourselves and the Future

When I was a boy they tried to teach me arithmetic. I said, in effect, “I do not want arithmetic. I have no use for it.” They replied, “Some day you will be sorry.” And my answer was, “Perhaps I shall; but just now I do not want it.” I felt no obligation whatever towards that future “I” of twenty years on. Indeed, even the “I” of tomorrow was not very interesting to me, while the “I” of an hour hence was apt to be merely a nuisance.

They said that I was foolish. But I thought I was merely being sensible, practical and realistic. Why should I bother about an “I” which I did not actually feel as “I”? I could not realise it or imagine it. It seemed to be simply somebody else. But I soon learned to bother about the “I” of tomorrow, and even the “I” of next year and the “I” of ten years hence. And now I bother even over a more remote “I.”

The upshot is this. We do not really bother about a future self unless we have already come to feel that future self as in fact ourselves. Consequently, if we wish to influence the improvident, we must appeal chiefly to the imagination. It is not enough to reason with them upon the assumption that the present “I” and the future “I” are identical.

We must, however, distinguish this conscious anticipation from conduct which is merely serviceable to the future. Consider our own eating. We seldom eat in order to live. We eat because, as we say, the spirit moves us to it, or because we have acquired an habitual response to the dinner bell. The act is biologically useful, but we need not consciously envisage the future life which it preserves. Much of the conduct of men and animals is of this kind. It serves the future without consciously anticipating the future.

But some animals do genuinely anticipate. Köhler’s apes, for example, could discover solutions to problems in order to obtain food. In the course of development such anticipation becomes commoner, and perhaps also more far-reaching. Yet I hesitate over that second claim. It may be safer to say, not that anticipation becomes more far-reaching, but that it certainly becomes commoner.

Let us try to sketch, very roughly, the evolution of our awareness of the future. First there are creatures which live only in the present. They have no memory and no anticipation, but exist in what we may call an eternal present. Even in dogs, one sometimes wonders whether memory in the full sense is present, or only something very sketchy. And much behaviour which looks like anticipation may not be anticipation at all. A bird’s nest-building is not real anticipation; it is merely a pleasurable activity, rather like our habitual response to the dinner bell.

Secondly, with the ape-men there appear gleams of real memory and anticipation. They begin to prepare for tomorrow, and perhaps even to store things for subsequent use. Thirdly, primitive peoples make boats, houses, earth walls and dams. They store food for the winter, raise tumuli and organise expeditions against their enemies.

Fourthly, among the barbarians, preparation for the future operates upon a much larger scale. The influence of death itself becomes important. There are mummies, pyramids and tombs, together with palaces and temples—buildings on a great scale.

Fifthly, civilised men construct roads, aqueducts, castles and harbours. They undertake trading expeditions which may occupy many years. Sixthly, modern men carry out great public works: the Suez Canal, large schemes of drainage and irrigation, afforestation—though in this respect we are still very backward—and schemes for the production of electricity, such as the Shannon scheme. There is also scientific research.

Still, we are very short-sighted. In spite of all these achievements, we seldom look farther than a few years ahead.

We may next distinguish several grades in the development of interest in the future. First there is the primitive, momentary “I,” which is aware neither of a future nor of a past. Secondly there is the “I” which recognises its own future theoretically, as a child may do, but cannot be bothered with it.

Thirdly there is the “I” which actually prepares for its own future—perhaps only for tomorrow, perhaps for next year, or perhaps systematically throughout life. Fourthly there is the “I” which recognises that a future will continue beyond its own death, but still cannot be bothered with it. And fifthly there is the “I” which makes preparation for a future beyond its own life. It may work for the future of its children; for the future of its firm, its craft, its college or its profession; for its nation or its city; or, finally, for the future of the human race.

These stages represent different levels of imagination and intelligence. From each level, the level below is apt to seem stupid, while the level above seems madly idealistic.

As our apprehension increases, however, we conceive wider loyalties. The child scoffs at loyalty to its own future self, but that loyalty inevitably emerges. Today men scoff at loyalty to Man. Yet this wider loyalty also emerges, and, barring accidents, must emerge as the world becomes unified and as knowledge increases.

What factors govern this development of interest in the future? First there is the bare apprehension that there is a future at all. Memory gives me my past. What once was present has now become past, and there is a new present. From this succession I expect an indefinite, indeed an infinite, series of new presents. That expected series is what we call the future.

Secondly, our apprehension of the future is limited by our power of imagining the circumstances which are to come. In boyhood we cannot imagine very much of manhood. We cannot adequately imagine either what it will feel like to be a man or what the surrounding circumstances of manhood will be.

Thirdly, interest in the future beyond our own lives depends partly upon parental impulses. These may be directed towards our own children, or they may be extended towards the future population generally. Such interest depends also upon the degree of clarity with which we envisage the future. The more doubtful and obscure the whole prospect seems, the less concerned we are about it.

Fourthly, the extension of interest to what we call the future of society depends upon how far we can foresee that future—that is, upon how much the present can suggest about it.

Finally, we should notice that we are interested not in “futurity” as an abstraction, but in the future of some object: myself, my children, my group, my nation or the world. The reach of our interest depends upon the object’s prospect of life. The merely momentary self has no prospect beyond the moment. The ordinary “I” interests itself up to its death. A group such as a college may have decades before it; a nation may have centuries; mankind has millions of years.

So far I have been talking about our interest in the future. I want now to turn from our own state of mind to future events themselves.

Let us classify, very roughly, the near and far futures. The nearest future of all is only a fraction of a second away. A missile may already be approaching one’s eye, and it is too late even to blink. A slightly less near, though still very near, future is measured in seconds. A tennis ball is coming towards one. Or a shell has burst, and one has time to wonder whether a splinter is going to strike one.

Then come futures measured in quarter-hours and hours. Am I going to bore you before this lecture is over? Shall I catch the train home? Beyond these are days, weeks and months. How, for example, am I to pay the income tax which falls due in January?

Next come years and decades. How are we to educate our children? How are we to establish them for life? How are we to provide for our own old age? And how will England emerge from the present crisis?

Then there are centuries and thousands of years. What will happen when the oil is exhausted, and the coal? Beyond these lie hundreds of thousands and millions of years, when we are clear of the previous ice age. At a distance of hundreds of millions, or even thousands of millions, of years, all existing mountains will have been worn flat and the next mountain-forming age will have come.

Still farther away, after millions of millions—or perhaps hundreds of thousands of millions—of years, the earth will have become uninhabitable. And beyond this again are futures measured in millions of millions of millions of years, when the universe has run down completely.

We must distinguish between the futures which do in fact concern us and the futures which ought to concern us. Each of us is chiefly concerned with his own future, both near and far. What shall I do tomorrow? How shall I meet next year’s problems? How shall I face old age?

Many people are also concerned with the future of their children—with their education and their careers. All of us, again, are concerned with the future of the nation, since we are citizens. But mostly we cannot do much about it, except through mass movements of opinion.

All of us ought also to be concerned with the future of humanity. It is true that an isolated individual act is ineffectual upon this scale. But massed opinions and massed acts are important. Public opinion does control public policy—in the long run.

We should notice that the future of Man reaches much farther than the future of any nation. Man is older than nations and will outlast them. Yet in a comparatively near future the good of one nation may conflict with the good of Man. Policies which would preserve a particular nation might harm mankind as a whole, either soon or in the long run.

There are, of course, arguments against bothering about the future of Man. The first is that humanity is too diverse, too vague and too unreal to appeal to us. It is said that the races have nothing in common and cannot really get in touch with one another. Englishmen and Frenchmen, we are told, will never agree. East is East and West is West. The Chinese eat birds’ nests.

There are two parts to the answer. First, the world is becoming more and more one. It is not becoming one through political organisation, but it is increasingly one in common interest and common culture. Nations can no longer afford to remain exclusive.

Secondly, the present races will not last for ever. In a thousand years the nations and races will be different from those which now exist.

This sheet carries only the printed letterhead of the University Club, Liverpool, with its telephone number; it contains no lecture text.

What, then, can we actually do about the future of Man? First, we can avoid acts which would jeopardise that future or wreck such civilisation as we already possess. A really destructive war might do this. So might the waste of oil and nitrates. We might also undermine human nature itself, either by misguided social policy or by misguided biological control.

Secondly, we can learn to think and feel in terms of Man, and in terms of a long future. This means that we must use our imaginations. I should say that this is our chief task at present. We have to familiarise ourselves with the idea “Man.”

Thirdly, we can begin to form an ideal of what Man should do with himself. For example, he should seek to produce beings capable of richer experience—of profounder knowing, finer feeling and more reasonable will. Each individual should be self-harmonious. But this does not mean that all individuals should conform to a single pattern. On the contrary, mankind should produce very diverse and original beings, not stereotyped beings.

These diverse individuals should nevertheless be in perfect accord with one another. The aim is not mere uniformity, but harmony among differences. Society itself should be of just the right size and form to secure both organisation and freedom. Further ideals will emerge.

Fourthly, there is the practical work of world organisation and of eugenics, including the elimination of deficients.

This final sheet bears the University Club, Liverpool, letterhead and the Liverpool University Library archive stamp STAP. F13/34; it contains no further lecture text.