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    The Last Evolution
    The Last Evolution
    The Last Evolution
    Ebook44 pages35 minutes

    The Last Evolution

    By Leo Morey and John Wood Campbell

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 2009
    The Last Evolution

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      Book preview

      The Last Evolution - Leo Morey

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Evolution, by John Wood Campbell

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Last Evolution

      Author: John Wood Campbell

      Illustrator: Leo Morey

      Release Date: December 9, 2008 [EBook #27462]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST EVOLUTION ***

      Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      A Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, August, 1932

      The Last Evolution

      By JOHN W. CAMPBELL, Jr.

      I am the last of my type existing today in all the Solar System. I, too, am the last existing who, in memory, sees the struggle for this System, and in memory I am still close to the Center of Rulers, for mine was the ruling type then. But I will pass soon, and with me will pass the last of my kind, a poor inefficient type, but yet the creators of those who are now, and will be, long after I pass forever.

      So I am setting down my record on the mentatype.

      It was 2538 years After the Year of the Son of Man. For six centuries mankind had been developing machines. The Ear-apparatus was discovered as early as seven hundred years before. The Eye came later, the Brain came much later. But by 2500, the machines had been developed to think, and act and work with perfect independence. Man lived on the products of the machine, and the machines lived to themselves very happily, and contentedly. Machines are designed to help and cooperate. It was easy to do the simple duties they needed to do that men might live well. And men had created them. Most of mankind were quite useless, for they lived in a world where no productive work was necessary. But games, athletic contests, adventure—these were the things they sought for their pleasure. Some of the poorer types of man gave themselves up wholly to pleasure and idleness—and to emotions. But man was a sturdy race, which had fought for existence through a million years, and the training of a million years does not slough quickly from any form of life, so their energies were bent to mock battles now, since real ones no longer existed.

      Up to the year 2100, the numbers of mankind had increased rapidly and continuously, but from that time on, there was a steady decrease. By 2500, their number was a scant two millions, out of a population that once totaled many hundreds of millions, and was close to ten billions in 2100.

      Some few of these remaining two millions devoted themselves to the adventure of discovery and exploration of places unseen, of other worlds and other planets. But fewer still devoted themselves

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