II

THE NEW PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSE


The achievements of the nineteenth century are still a theme of
congratulation on the part of all who compare the present state of
the world with that of one hundred years ago. And yet, if we
should fancy the most sagacious prophet, endowed with a brilliant
imagination, to have set forth in the year 1806 the problems that
the century might solve and the things which it might do, we
should be surprised to see how few of his predictions had come to
pass. He might have fancied aerial navigation and a number of
other triumphs of the same class, but he would hardly have had
either steam navigation or the telegraph in his picture. In 1856
an article appeared in Harper's Magazine depicting some
anticipated features of life in A.D. 3000. We have since made
great advances, but they bear little resemblance to what the
writer imagined. He did not dream of the telephone, but did
describe much that has not yet come to pass and probably never
will.

The fact is that, much as the nineteenth century has done, its
last work was to amuse itself by setting forth more problems for
this century to solve than it has ever itself succeeded in
mastering. We should not be far wrong in saying that to-day there
are more riddles in the universe than there were before men knew
that it contained anything more than the objects they could see.