Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1926. PROPHECY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 3 December 1926, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED OVER 50 YEARS.] FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1926. PROPHECY.

In ancient times prophecy was a. recognised and respected. aTt. The Roman aruspex foretold events from the burning entrails of the .sacrifice. The? Delphic Oracle was consulted on matters of policy >by the Greeks, and its, priests developed a genius for framing predictions in such cryptic and ambiguous terms that they would apply to every contingency. In our day, however, prophecy is rather discredited. Novelists are permitted to indulge their gift of second sight, but they are a class apart. The whole tribe of crystal gazers, clieiromantisls*, and the like have come under the ban of the Jaw. Serious scientists are, or till recently were, supposed to concern themselves with actual phenomena rather than speculation. But prophecy is coming into its own once more. While it is true in a general sense that Scientists are concerned only with veritable facts, some sciences are in their essence prophecy. Biology, .with its theory of evolution and Mendel's law, is a ease in point. The astronomer can, many years ahead, forecast with absolute certainty the date upon which an eclipse or a transit will occur, and indicate the precise spot: on the face of the globe from which it will be seen to best advantage. The actuary cannot say when individuals among a hundred children born on the same' day will die, but tie can say that a given proportion of them will live to a given age. The principle of insurance rests upon systematised prophecy. Prophecy, in a word, is in a great measure inferences from observed phenomena.. The dilliculty is that in many fields of human and national activity our records are too short to allow of any reliable deductions. We have insufficient data ,for instance, to decide whether cold winters come in Britain in periods of 70 or SO years—a simple problem which g little organisation would have solved. But there.are signs that a more ordered basis is being prepared for scientific prophecy. Mon are learning to co-operate through time. Experiments initiated by the father are continued by the son, and succeeding generations will analyse the results. There are two schools of modern prophets, the mechanists and the vitalists. The former view the future in terms' of the development of machinery. Man, with his nature very much what it. is to-day, is seen in an environment of mechanical perfection, a World of wireless tele-

graphy, moving pavements, rubber roads, fuelless, smokeless cities I ,' and all the rest of it. This is the original concept of Mr H. G. Wells. But the vitalists have a mess'age, in tire face of which tin st wonders seem tame, and even <pmb’. The time has arrived, thov say, when our science and inventive genius are to be applied to life itself, to the moulding of character, to the propagation or eradication of mental and bodily qualities. This theory is' more stimulating than the other.