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H. G. Wells. A Modern Utopia
H. G. Wells – A Major Prophet Of His Time
A Modern Utopia. A Note To The Reader
The Owner Of The Voice
CHAPTER THE SECOND - CONCERNING FREEDOMS
CHAPTER THE THIRD - UTOPIAN ECONOMICS
CHAPTER THE FOURTH - THE VOICE OF NATURE
CHAPTER THE SIXTH - WOMEN IN A MODERN UTOPIA
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH - A FEW UTOPIAN IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH - MY UTOPIAN SELF
CHAPTER THE TENTH - RACE IN UTOPIA
Appendix — Scepticism Of The Instrument
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By Edwin E. Slosson
We are in the beginning of the greatest change that humanity has ever undergone. There is no shock, no epoch-making incident—but then there is no shock at a cloudy daybreak. At no point can we say, "Here it commences, now; last minute was night and this is morning." But insensibly we are in the day. If we care to look, we can foresee growing knowledge, growing order and presently a deliberate improvement of the blood and character of the race. And what we can see and imagine gives us a measure and gives us faith for what surpasses the imagination. It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all that the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening. We cannot see for there is no need for us to see, what this world will be like when the day has fully come. We are creatures of the twilight. But it is out of our race and lineage that minds will spring that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves, and that will reach forward fearlessly to comprehend this future that defeats our eyes. All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars.—The Discovery of the Future.
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Nothing could better illustrate the difference in standpoint between Chesterton and Wells than this. The sympathies of Wells are undoubtedly with the giants, with the new forces that aim to transform the world, though he is not always confident of their ultimate triumph. Being a man of scientific training, he is a determinist but not a fatalist. All his prophecies are conditional. If the gulf between industrial and parasitic classes keeps on widening there will eventually be two races and the former will be master; this is the lesson of The Time Machine. If the engineer and business manager get control we shall have the well ordered prosperity of Anticipations. If Socialism prevails we shall have the Great State. His stories of the future are about equally divided between optimistic and pessimistic prophecy, between allurements and warnings. There are many different Wellses. Probably nobody likes all of them. He does not like all of himselves. In writing a preface or otherwise referring to an earlier work he is, after the manner of Maeterlinck, almost apologetic and looks back upon the author with a curious wonder as to how he came to hold such opinions and express them in such a way. Those of us who have grown up with him, so to speak, and followed his mind thru all its metamorphoses in their natural order can understand him better, I believe, than those of the younger generation who begin with the current serial and read his works backward. Mr. Wells is just about my age. We were in the laboratory together and breathed the same atmosphere, although five thousand miles apart. When he began to write I was ready to read and to admire the skill with which he utilized for literary purposes the wealth of material to be found in the laboratory. Jules Verne had worked the same rich vein, clumsily but with great success. Poe had done marvels in the short story with such scanty science as he had at his command. But Wells, trained under Huxley in biology at the University of London, had all this new knowledge to draw. upon. He could handle technicalities with a far defter touch than Verne and almost rivaled Poe in the evocation of emotions of horror and mystery. Besides this he possessed what both these authors lacked, a sense of humor, a keen appreciation of the whimsicalities of human nature. So he was enabled to throw off in the early nineties a swift succession of short stories astonishingly varied in style and theme. As he became more experienced in the art of writing, or rather of marketing manuscripts, he seems to have regretted this youthful prodigality of bright ideas. Many of them he later worked over on a more extensive scale as the metallurgist goes back to a mine and with an improved process extracts more gold from the tailings and dump than the miner got out of the ore originally.
The Star was the first of these I came across, clipping it for my scrap book from Harper's Weekly, I believe. First loves in literature make an indelible impression, so I will always hold that nothing Wells has done since can equal it. Certainly it was not improved by expanding it to In the Days of the Comet. The germ of that creepy tale of advanced vivisection The Island of Dr. Moreau appeared first in the Saturday Review, January, 1895, as a brief sketch, "Doctor Moreau Explains." The Dream of Armageddon, vivid and swift as a landscape under a flash of lightning, served in large part for two later volumes, When the Sleeper Wakes and The New Machiavelli. It was, as I have said, The Star that first attracted me to Wells. It was The Sea-Lady who introduced me to him personally. It was in the back room of a little Italian restaurant in New York, one of those 60 cent table d'hôtes where rich soup and huge haystacks of spaghetti serve to conceal the meagerness of the other five courses. Here foregathered for years a group of Socialists, near-Socialists and others of less definable types, alike in holding the belief that the world could be moved and ought to be, but disagreeing agreeably as to where the fulcrum could be placed and what power should move the lever. We called ourselves the "X Club," partly because the outcome of such a combination of diverse factors was highly problematical, partly perhaps in emulation o£ the celebrated London X. One evening some eight years ago, as I came late to the dinner, I noticed that the members were not all talking at once, as usual, but concentrated their attention upon a guest, a quiet, unassuming individual, rather short, with a sun browned face, tired eyes and a pessimistic mustache—a Londoner, I judged from his accent. Then I was introduced to him as "The man who. knows all your works by heart, Mr. Wells." This disconcerting introduction was their revenge for my too. frequent quotation in debate. The reason, I suppose, for the old saying, "Beware the man of one book," is because he is such a bore. Mr. Wells appeared to take the introduction literally and began to. examine me on the subject. "Did you ever read The Sea-Lady?" I happily was able to say I had, and was let off from any further questions, for he said that he had never met but two persons before who admitted having read the book. I am glad he did not ask me what it meant, for while I had an opinion on the subject, it might not have agreed with his.
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