WE ARISTOCRACY OF THE FUTURE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2635, 1 June 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

WE ARISTOCRACY OF THE FUTURE.

Tub aristocracy" of the future will be very unlike tho aristocracy of the prcs-nt if, as Charles Kinsley maintained in a lecture delivered at Crewe in 1871, but published for the first time in " Goud \Vords," it is an aristooiaoy of sound and rational science. Here is the passage in whi.:h the prediction occurs. After urging them to train themselves in the study of natural science, and to cultivate

the scieiitilie spirit by wliicli alone social iiml political <(ucstior.s can be judged, Kinsley said :—" Take my advice lor yourselves, and fov your children after you, for, believe r.ic, 1 am showing }ou l.ln: way to tii! true and useful, and there lure, to be just and deserve power. lam showing yon tho way to become members of what i trust will he—what 1 am err. tain ought, to be —the aristocracy of 'he future, i s.iy it deliberately, as a student; of society and history. Power will puss more and more, if all goes healthy and well, into ihe hands of scientific nun. For the nst. events saein but too likely to repeat themselves again and again all over tho world in the same hopeless circle. Aristocracies of mere birth decay and die, and give place to aristocracies of mere wealth : an t they a ain to ati-to-craciesof mere geuius, which ate really aristocracies of the noisiest of scribblers and spouters, such as France is writhing under at the present moment. Ami when these last ha ve blown off their steam, with, mighty roar, but without moving the engine a yard, then they are too likely to give place to the worst of all aristocracies —the aristocracies of mere ' order'—which means organized brute force and military despotism. And after that what can come, save anarchy and decay and social death ? What else ?-— unless there be left in the nation, in the society, as the salt of the land to keep it all from rotting, a sulliciunt number of wise men to form a true working aristocracy an aristocracy of sound and rational science ? If they be strong enough (and they are growing stronger day by day over the civilized world) on them will the future of the world mainly depend. They will rule and they will act—cautiously we may hope, and modestly and charitably, because in learning true knowledge they will have learned also their own ignorance and the vastnes?, the complexity, the mystery of Nature. But they will not be able to rule, they will be able to act, because they have taken the trouble to learn tho facts and the laws of Nature, They will rule."