THE TIME MACHINE

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half-truth--or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.)

'It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane.
The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the
first time I began to realize an odd consequence of the social
effort in which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think,
it is a logical consequence enough. Strength is the outcome of need;
security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the
conditions of life--the true civilizing process that makes life more
and more secure--had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a
united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are
now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and
carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw!

'After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of to-day are still
in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but
a little department of the field of human disease, but even so,