devour society, because the answer was not forthcoming. It is
well worth sleeping a hundred years to learn what the right
answer was, if, indeed, you have found it yet."

"As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays,"
replied Dr. Leete, "and there is no way in which it could arise, I
suppose we may claim to have solved it. Society would indeed
have fully deserved being devoured if it had failed to answer a
riddle so entirely simple. In fact, to speak by the book, it was not
necessary for society to solve the riddle at all. It may be said to
have solved itself. The solution came as the result of a process of
industrial evolution which could not have terminated otherwise.
All that society had to do was to recognize and cooperate with
that evolution, when its tendency had become unmistakable."

"I can only say," I answered, "that at the time I fell asleep no
such evolution had been recognized."

"It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep, I think you said."

"Yes, May 30th, 1887."

My companion regarded me musingly for some moments.
Then he observed, "And you tell me that even then there was no
general recognition of the nature of the crisis which society was
nearing? Of course, I fully credit your statement. The singular
blindness of your contemporaries to the signs of the times is a
phenomenon commented on by many of our historians, but few
facts of history are more difficult for us to realize, so obvious and
unmistakable as we look back seem the indications, which must