Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/56

 gradually in the scale, according to more or less favouring conditions, and culminating in man. The coloured suns had their planetary and lunar system like the white suns; and, doubtless, the populations of coloured light exhibited, mentally as well as physically, some of those striking effects which science has lately begun to notice as the result of colour. Indeed, Black made no secret of looking upon colour, in this grand department of its application, as tantamount to the aberration or eccentricity, or, to put it more plainly, to the insanity of the heavens.

Yellowly gave us a forecast of the future of our social and political condition, in view of the race of change and progress upon which society had now entered. The future of his own class's large section of society had, of course, especial interest for him. The effects of universal education, and of the rapid and general application of machinery to supersede more and more the deadening and exhausting toil of working-class life, must alike elevate this class and equalize the condition of the whole body of society. The day might come, and not perhaps be so very far off, when every man, woman, and child would come up to the social front well-dressed, well-mannered, well-educated, and well-off.

The time must come, too, when the follies and miseries of war must cease amongst nations. But it was as yet to be sadly confessed that our advancing civilization had not hitherto backed this hope, but had rather converted hope into despair. Yellowly's