Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/66



predictions in the foregoing chapter will have suggested to all who accept them that the cultivation of pleasure must occupy a large part of the energy of the new age. From the moment when men, sufficiently astute and purposeful to accumulate enormous fortunes if they were permitted to do so, are required by law to desist from useless and injurious moneygetting, a vast amount of ingenuity will be diverted to the development of the useless. The skill expended upon money-making—and let it be admitted frankly that, however unscrupulous one may be, it is not easy to become a millionaire—will be turned to the task, almost equally difficult, of spending it satisfactorily. We may consider it as practically certain that the pleasures of the new age will be largely intellectual in their nature. The stupidity of merely sensual pleasures will revolt the intelligence of the future. Athletic sports of some kind, facilitated by certain inventions which can easily be foreseen, will no doubt be a