The Note Books Of Samuel Butler

44 The Germs of Srew/ion

Some few hints we have determined to venture upon,
though we do so with the profoundest diffidence. Firstly we
would remark that as some of the lowest of the vertebrate
attained a far greater size than has descended to their more
highly organised living representatives, so a diminution in
the size of machines has often attended their development
and progress. Take the watch for instance. Examine the
beautiful structure of the little animal, watch the intelligent
play of the minute members which compose it; yet this
little creature is but a development of the cumbrous clocks
of the thirteenth century-—it is no deterioration jfrom them.
The day may come when clocks, which certainly at the
present day are not diminishing in bulk, may be entirely
superseded by the universal use of watches, in which case
clocks will become extinct like the earlier saurians, while the
watch (whose tendency has for some years been rather to
decrease in size than the contrary) will remain the only
existing type of an extinct race.

The views of machinery which we are thus feebly indi-
cating will suggest the solution of one of the greatest and
most mysterious questions of the day. We refer to the
question : What sort of creature man's next successor in the
supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often heard
this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves
creating our own successors ; we are daily adding to the
beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are
daily giving them greater power and supplying, by all sorts
of ingenious contrivances, that self-regulating, self-acting
power which will be to them what intellect has been to the
human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves
the inferior race. Inferior in power, inferior in that moral
quality of self-control, we shall look up to them as the acme
of all that the best and wisest man can ever dare to aim at.
No evil passions, no jealousy, no avarice, no impure desires
will disturb the serene might of those glorious creatures.
Sin, shame and sorrow will have no place among them.
Their minds will be in a state of perpetual calm, the content-
ment of a spirit that knows no wants, is disturbed by no
regrets. Ambition will never torture them. Ingratitude will
never cause them the uneasiness of a moment. The guilty
conscience, the hope deferred, the pains of exile, the insolence