1. I begin and end with one of the more extraordinary daydreams from an age of philosophical daydreaming, one of such startling theoretical acceleration that it seems to expand at the speed of the universe. Floating off the rocky seaboard of Norway east of Arendal, Mary Wollstonecraft gazes on the barren shoreline and allows her mind to wander:

The view of this wild coast, as we sailed along it, afforded me a continual subject for meditation. I anticipated the future improvement of the world, and observed how much man still had to do, to obtain of the earth all it could yield. I even carried my speculations so far as to advance a million or two of years to the moment when the earth would perhaps be so perfectly cultivated, and so completely peopled, as to render it necessary to inhabit every spot; yes, these bleak shores. Imagination went still farther, and pictured the state of man when the earth could no longer support him. Where was he to fly to from universal famine? Do not smile: I really became distressed for these fellow creatures, yet unborn. The images fastened on me, and the world appeared a vast prison. I was soon to be in a smaller one—for no other name can I give to