For H. G. Wells (1866–1946), the novel provides a vehicle for the critical examination of the whole breadth of human life. He describes the novelist as “the most potent of artists” (“The Contemporary” 154) and believes that fiction writers are uniquely placed to consider the social, political and religious systems that control conduct (155). Importantly, Wells believes that the novel should not only be used for the artistic representation of reality. He argues that writers should use fiction to reconsider, resist and reshape established modes of conduct and the systems of thought that underlie them (154). Of course, social behaviors can only be changed if the mythic systems that inform them are altered. Wells’ SF displays a particular eagerness to dismiss the conceptions of the universe articulated by the Church, which he regards as having perpetuated social inequality. To replace established social systems, Wells’ SF works to articulate mythic narratives that incorporate Darwinian science and instill moral values. However, in attempting to encourage desirable social behaviors, Wells’ works tend to reinscribe religious frameworks by producing new spiritual myths.
Wells’ writings have been described as “mythopoeic” by critics including Bernard Bergonzi and Roger Bowen. However, these critics use myth to refer to the archetypal and classical narratives that Wells appropriates and reshapes in his fiction. For instance, Bowen suggests literary antecedents for The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), including Homer’s The Odyssey, and argues that “there are two basic myths which lay the foundation for the … story of Dr. Moreau: the myth of the island … and the myth of creation or metamorphosis” (320). Bergonzi similarly notes the correlation between Greek myth and The Island of Doctor Moreau (104), which he describes as an “island myth” (111).1 In a somewhat inconsistent treatment of myth, Bergonzi also draws on the Jungian view of myth as articulating inner needs and “pattern[s] of human experience” (19) in his interpretation of The War of the Worlds (20). These approaches to myth are not relevant to this study, which presents Wells as a maker of living myths that illuminate the nature of the universe and posit new guidelines for understanding human civilization.
As critics have noted, Wells’ sociological and scientific views reflect those expressed by biologist Thomas H. Huxley (1825–1895), who was a staunch supporter of Charles Darwin. Having studied biology under Huxley at the Normal School of Science, South Kensington in 1884, Wells embraces Darwinian science as a means of dismissing the theological doctrines upon which Christianity rests.2 Importantly, Wells also draws from Huxley the fear that the destabilization of religion by evolutionary theory will jeopardize the church-sanctioned moral laws upon which civilization rests. Echoing Huxley’s ideas, including those expressed in the 1893 lecture “Evolution and Ethics,” Wells’ SF makes a clear distinction between natural processes, governed by biology, and civilization, which is based on human beliefs and moral laws.3 As critic John Huntington observes in The Logic of Fantasy: H. G. Wells and Science Fiction (1982), “Wells follows Huxley in distinguishing between nature and civilization” (16) and the “conflict between evolutionary and ethical imperatives” (8) forms a “fundamental structural element in all of Wells’s early fiction” (21).4
Critics tend to regard the juxtaposition of nature and civilization in Wells’ SF as an unresolved and ongoing dialectic. Huntington argues that Wells’ early novels, including The Time Machine (1895) and The Island of Doctor Moreau, exhibit a “two world structure” (The Logic 21), in which nature and civilization are contrasted. Huntington asserts that these novels set up an opposition between differing states of existence but are “free from moral suggestions” (22). He writes: “in these … novels Wells does not set out to defend a specific point of view … instead, he constructs contradictions and then explores their structures and possibilities” (“The Science” 34). Similarly, David Y. Hughes asserts that “in the scientific romances [Wells] is never an explicit moralizer” (66) and Roger Luckhurst describes The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau as “ambivalent texts” (Science 40) in which there are no consistent lines of argument.
However, I argue that, in his early SF works, Wells examines nineteenth-century religious, moral, political and scientific discourses, challenges established beliefs, and ultimately suggests moral modes of conduct through the construction of new spiritual myths. As critic Ingvald Raknem asserts, “From the outset, social problems were Wells’s main concern” (425). Indeed, Huntington concedes that The Time Machine encourages the reader to reconsider their world (The Logic 55) and Luckhurst notes that Wells’ early-twentieth-century works become committed to a concrete sociological stance (Science 41). This chapter posits that Wells’ earliest, seminal novels, including The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, investigate the elements, both natural and artificial, that inform human society. It will be shown that these novels offer critiques of prevailing behaviors and beliefs and dismiss a range of established discourses. This chapter then examines the presentation of a clear design for the refashioning of human civilization in novels including In the Days of the Comet (1906) and A Modern Utopia (1905).5
It will be shown that Wells seeks, in his SF, to denounce the mythic systems that he regards as perpetuating inequality. He is especially dedicated to dismantling orthodox Christianity. In The Island of Doctor Moreau Wells draws on evolutionary science to highlight the incongruities between the biblical account of creation and the findings of nineteenth-century biology, while In the Days of the Comet represents institutional religion as responsible for producing thought patterns that sanction inequality. Importantly, Wells’ SF does not seek to supplant traditional religion with social schemes based on evolutionary science. Instead, these works suggest that social systems based solely on natural processes will lead to the moral degeneration and ultimate destruction of society. This belief is a response to Herbert Spencer’s misapplication of Darwinian science in his social Darwinist model. Spencer suggests that human society be organized according to the principle of the survival of the fittest, a phrase Spencer himself originated in response to Darwin’s theory. Social Darwinism asserts that social inequalities are a natural product of biological evolution whereby the strongest exert authority over the weaker (Spencer 307).6
Social Darwinism is strongly repudiated in The Time Machine, which envisions a horrifying future for humankind, should social stratification be allowed to persist. Wells’ rejection of social Darwinism correlates with Huxley’s philosophy. Huxley argues that social evolution is a process entirely distinct from that which brought about the biological evolution of the species (“Prolegomena” 37). In “Evolution and Ethics” he states that the development of a morally sound social system depends on combating the laws of nature and safeguarding the rights of all human citizens (81). This approach, drawn from the writings of Plato and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is also adopted in Wells’ SF.
Wells’ attempts to represent a humane society in his SF are complicated, however, by the fact that such a civilization requires a system of morality to curtail the natural individualism of its citizens. Given that morals had traditionally been prescribed by institutional religion, Wells recognizes that the dismissal of the Church imperils moral law. This is also an issue considered by Huxley and other thinkers in Wells’ context, including Matthew Arnold. For instance, Arnold writes in his 1869 work Culture and Anarchy that Christianity is particularly occupied with “the moral side of man” (106).7 In light of Spencer’s misapplication of evolutionary theory in propounding a harsh individualist worldview, Wells and Huxley conclude that science is not an appropriate medium for the communication of moral precepts.8 However, while Huxley and Wells both advocate a society governed by humane ideals and dismiss traditional religion as unscientific, they struggle to imagine a secular means of transmitting moral values to the populace.
This chapter illustrates that the creation of myths that articulate an awareness of science, reject dogmatic beliefs and convey moral values is the core goal of Wells’ SF and leads to the ultimate reinscribing of religious sentiments in his works. His novels tend to suggest that a coordinating, benevolent force is at work in the universe and is guiding humankind toward a better future. Indeed, A Modern Utopia explicitly describes a new religion based on this idea. Wells’ non-fiction treatise God the Invisible King (1917), which outlines Wells’ personal religion, complete with Godhead and moral code, is thus a reflection of the ideas conceived in his early SF. Although Wells repudiated his theology in later life and God the Invisible King is sometimes regarded as an uncharacteristic aberration within his corpus, I argue that it highlights that the search for a morally desirable myth dominated Wells’ career.9 Furthermore, Wells’ formulation of a religious system that differs from traditional Christianity reflects the intellectual orientation of his society. As Herbert Schlossberg explains in his 2009 study of Victorian religion, the early twentieth century saw the rise of new theological doctrines, reshaped to suit modern attitudes (2).
As Adam Roberts argues, “the turn … in … [Wells’] late writings towards the religious-mythical and theological fable can be thought of as merely making manifest a core dialectic present in his writings from the earliest” (The History 144). Roberts describes this dialectic as “between … a scientific and … a mystical perspective on the cosmos” (144). However, I suggest that the incorporation of religion and science in Wells’ works stems from the fundamental connection of science and religion as social discourses that attempt to explain the nature of the universe and humankind’s place in it. By engaging with emerging scientific theories, Wells inevitably deals with the religious myths that he regards science as destabilizing. We see in Wells’ SF a deliberate attempt to use literature to articulate social commentary and examine the myriad discourses of modern society. His works also illustrate the inability of late-nineteenth-century science to provide the moral values required by civilized society, thus explaining the continued appeal of religious systems of thought in Well’s context.
By utilizing the fledgling SF genre to examine and reconstruct the mythic underpinnings of human society, Wells sets the agenda for future SF. In examining the way that Wells’ SF rejects entrenched systems of thought and produces myths that reflect new developments in knowledge, this chapter illustrates one of the key functions of SF: the production of amalgamative myths for contemporary humanity. In particular, the failure of scientific theories to satisfy the social needs serviced by religion is a persistent thematic in twentieth-century SF, which seeks to produce ways of understanding the universe that will ensure the positive development of human civilization.
In contemporary literary criticism, Wells is considered one of the most important figures in SF, his early works being regarded as having a seminal influence on the genre.10 However, the popular and critical reception of Wells’ SF has varied over time and Wells’ status as a controversial public figure undermined the literary status of SF in the early twentieth century. Critics Patrick Parrinder and Christopher Rolfe note that, after his death in 1946, it took decades for Wells’ reputation to be rebuilt in the realm of critical study (9). Indeed, Frank McConnell observes in 1981 that SF had not yet been entirely accepted as a valid area of study in literary circles (vii). I argue that academic ambivalence toward SF can be linked to the mixed reception of Wells’ works. Responses to Wells’ SF have been negatively influenced by Wells’ personal beliefs about fiction and his public disagreement with successful artists, including Henry James, over the purpose of the novel. Wells’ belief that novelists should use their craft to enact change and articulate social criticisms led to friction between him and James, who regarded the novel as an Art form that should be primarily occupied with aesthetic concerns.
James and Wells carried on a written correspondence between 1898 and 1915. Wells sent James copies of his works and the renowned writer responded with criticism couched in generous praise and expressed genuine pleasure in Wells’ success. In a 1905 letter responding to A Modern Utopia, among other works, James tells Wells: “you are, for me … the most interesting ‘literary man’ of your generation…. I am lost in amazement at the diversity of your genius” (James and Wells 103). James similarly admires the “extraordinary force and sincerity” (111) of Wells’ In the Days of the Comet. However, James expresses concerns over the artistic cohesion and realism of Wells’ writings. He writes of Wells’ non-fiction Anticipations of the Reactions of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life (1902): “I think your reader asks himself too much ‘Where is life in all this, life as I feel it and know it?’” (76). Similarly, of Wells’ non–SF novel Love and Mr. Lewisham (1900), James comments: “I have found in it a great charm and a great deal of the real … if not all of it” (67).
James also publicly expresses his concerns over the artistic quality of early-twentieth-century novels in a 1914 article titled “The Younger Generation.” In the article, James singles Wells out, stating that Wells over-represents his personal opinions in his fiction. James writes: “It is literally … Wells’s own mind, and the experience of his own mind, incessant, and extraordinarily various, … that forms the reservoir tapped by him [in his fiction]” (189–90). Virginia Woolf makes a similar observation in her 1924 essay “Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown.” She argues that Edwardian novelists “[are] never interested in character in itself; or in the book in itself” (12) but are, instead, “interested in something outside” (12). Woolf is noting here a degree of social commentary in Edwardian novels and the attempt in such works to inspire action and social change.
Woolf writes that the somewhat propagandist novels produced by writers such as Wells and his contemporaries, including Arnold Bennett, “leave [the reader] with … a feeling of incompleteness and dissatisfaction [so that in] order to complete them it seems necessary to do something—to join a society” (12).11 Woolf argues that, while novels can be invested in the artistic representation of character or in considerations of the form itself, in Wells’ novels the focus is on the external world of society. James makes a similar observation in a private letter to Wells about In the Days of the Comet. He writes that he yearns to find refuge in literature but attains no such repose in Wells’ novels because “reading [Wells] is really being ‘acted upon’ in a manner that is akin to conscience and anguish” (James and Wells 111).
Wells willingly admits that his novels aim to inspire philosophical and behavioral change in the reader. While James and Woolf regard the novel as an artistic medium that expresses ideas through complex characters, Wells firmly believes the novel should be used as a discursive tool, rather than an aesthetic form. In a 1914 article based on his 1911 speech to the Times Book Club, Wells, as he puts it, “[makes] a … pronouncement against the ‘character’ obsession” (Experiment 2: 495) and advocates a novelistic style focused on social issues rather than characterization and other aesthetic concerns. He further writes: “There is … the theory that the novel is wholly and solely a means of relaxation” (“The Contemporary” 132) but that he, as a writer, is not content to merely serve as a producer of entertainment for the prosperous few (133).
Wells’ 1905 “Note to the Reader” in A Modern Utopia clearly represents his beliefs about the novel and his attitude toward his readership. He writes: “I have done my best to make … this book as … entertaining as its matter permits … I do not promise anything but rage and confusion to him who proposes … to read without a constantly alert attention” (A Modern xxxi–xxxii). He further adds: “If you are not already … interested and open-minded with regard to social and political questions, and … exercised in self-examination, you will find neither interest nor pleasure here” (xxxii). For Wells, then, the novel is a medium for the discussion of serious social matters, with the entertainment of the reader a secondary objective. Wells refuses to have his intellectual agenda hampered by the artistic expectations of readers or critics. He believes literature to be a means of “get[ting] [his] point over to the reader” (Experiment 2: 497), rather than an artistic form or mode of entertainment.12
Wells claims that the novel “is to be the social mediator, the vehicle of understanding, the instrument of self-examination, the parade of morals and the exchange of manners, the factory of customs, the criti- cism of laws and institutions and of social dogmas and ideas” (“The Contemporary” 154). He further declares that the novel “is to be the … initiator of knowledge, [and] the seed of fruitful self-questioning” (154). Thus, for Wells, the novel is inherently concerned with sociological critique and the production of new ideas and behaviours.13 Wells writes that he and James were, therefore, “at cross purposes” (Experiment 2: 488) because “[James] had no idea of the possible use of the novel as a help to conduct. … [and] thought of [the novel] as an Art Form” (488–89) while Wells saw it as a vehicle for questioning and reshaping human behavior and beliefs.
Of writers in his school, Wells declares “We are going to write … about the whole of human life. We are going to deal with political questions and religious questions and social questions” (“The Contemporary” 155). He asks:
What is the good of telling stories about people’s lives if one may not deal freely with the religious beliefs and organisations that have controlled or failed to control them?… We [writers] mean to deal with all these things…. We are going to write about business and finance and politics and precedence and pretentiousness and decorum and indecorum, until a thousand pretences and ten thousand impostures shrivel in the cold, clear air of our elucidations…. We are going to appeal to the young and the hopeful and the curious, against the established, the dignified, and defensive. Before we have done, we will have all life within the scope of the novel [“The Contemporary” 155–56].
Furthermore, in response to James’ public criticisms, Wells, writing under a pseudonym, articulates a scathing attack on James in his 1915 novel Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump. He states that James’ “vast paragraphs sweat and struggle…. And all for tales of nothingness” (108). In a later letter to James, Wells sums up the basis of their conflict saying: “To you literature like painting is an end, to me literature like architecture is a means, it has a use. Your view was … altogether too dominant in the world of criticism, and I assailed it in tones of harsh antagonism” (James and Wells 264).14
Wells’ belief that the novel is a vehicle for the exposition of social commentary, in conflict with James’ view of the novel as a form of art has, of course, tainted popular and critical responses to Wells’ works and, indeed, to SF more generally. James was already a respected artist when Wells emerged on the literary scene and James’ works became a stark counterpoint to Wells’ own corpus and ideas. Wells himself writes that “[James] was the most … artistic and refined human being I ever encountered, and I swam in the common thought and feeling of my period, with an irregular abundance of rude knowledge [and] aggressive judgements” (Experiment 2: 537). Wells’ antagonistic response to James in Boon contributed to negative public appraisals of Wells, compared with the older artist. Given Wells’ seminal influence on the emerging SF genre, this association of Wells with popular and didactic fiction undermined the way SF was initially conceptualized in the public mind and in literary circles.
Wells’ insistence that the novel be used to critically examine current systems and overtly encourage social resistance has also influenced SF by delineating one the genre’s primary objectives. I suggest that Wells’ endeavors have meant that SF has become fundamentally concerned with the social discourses of its time and with suggesting new myths to encourage changes in human conduct. In his fiction, Wells openly seeks alternative systems to replace those that inform his society. As he declares in his autobiography, Experiment in Autobiography: Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain (Since 1866): “if one does not accept the general ideas upon which the existing world of men is based, one is bound to set about replanning and reconstructing the world on the ideas one finds acceptable” (1: 167). This attitude underlies the SF myths presented in Wells’ fictions, in which we see the dismissal of traditional religion, the utilization of scientific theory and the construction of new spiritual narratives.
Wells was born in 1866, between the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). For Wells, these works undermine the validity of Christian doctrines and destabilize traditional conceptions of humankind’s status in the universe. In his autobiography, Wells writes that, as an adolescent, he felt that is was “of primary importance to find out if there was … a God” (Experiment 1: 161). The fundamental question that occupied Wells’ young mind was “In the absence of a God what [is] the universe and how [is] it run?” (1: 161). Wells is quite eager to dismiss Christianity, regarding it as the system that informed the disorderly nineteenth-century society that he disliked so much. This rejection of traditional religion, and the social system it informs, acts as a catalyst for Wells’ search for social reform and for new myths to explain the nature of the universe.
Other nineteenth-century thinkers were also dissatisfied with the living conditions and belief systems extant in their world. In 1890 Huxley writes: “there is an immense amount of remediable misery among us … which is the result of individual ignorance … and … faulty social arrangements” (“Letters” 238). Similarly, Thomas Carlyle, whose writings Wells read as a young adult, also describes the nineteenth century as a time of “endless calamity, disruption, dislocation, [and] confusion” (1).15 Having been raised in a lower-middle-class family, Wells witnessed the oppressive conditions under which the lower classes struggled for existence in late-nineteenth-century Britain. Indeed, Wells describes his childhood home in Bromley, Kent as a “dismal insanitary hole” (Experiment 1: 59).
Wells’ early SF also incorporates vivid images of lower-class poverty. Echoing Huxley, William Leadford, the protagonist of In the Days of the Comet, describes his nineteenth-century milieu as “a dark word … full of preventable disorder, preventable diseases, and preventable pain” (12). He explains that this miserable society is the product of systems of thought that are informed by “old-fashioned narrow … religious formulae” (13) that do not reflect the needs of the populace. He regrets that life is controlled by “rules of conduct … [and] conceptions of social and political order, that [have] no … relevance to the realities … of everyday contemporary life” (13). In Wells’ SF, the institution responsible for this “Age of Confusion” (Wells, Men 248) is the Church.
For Leadford, social life in Britain consists of “a clear case of robbery” (20) whereby the “Landlord and the Capitalist … with [their] cheat the Priest” (20) victimize the working classes, who are “herded together” (20) into a life of servitude and toil. Leadford describes his mother’s worldviews as completely dominated by the predominantly religious systems that keep her subservient to the upper class, observing: “Hers [is] the accepted religion, her only social ideas [are] blind submissions to the accepted order … and all … persons in authority” (25–26). This account correlates with Wells’ description of the influence of traditional religion on his own mother’s conception of her place in the world. He writes, “the real link between my mother and the godhead, was the Dear Queen, ruling by divine right, and beneath this again, the nobility and gentry, who … commanded the rest of mankind” (Experiment 1: 47). Wells further observes that “On every Sunday of the year, one went to church and refreshed one’s sense of this hierarchy between the communion table and the Free Seats” (1: 47). This correlation between institutional religion and class inequality is the basis for Wells’ desire to dismantle traditional spiritual myths.
Wells claims that, as a child, he “heartily destest[ed]” (Experiment 1: 67) the religious education his mother attempted to convey to him. It was not until his adolescence, however, that he began to understand the power religion held over society. In his autobiography Wells describes a moment of revelation in his youth when “A real fear of Christianity assailed [him]” (Experiment 1: 164) and he recognized that he had to “Either … submit, or, … declare the Catholic Church, the core and substance of Christendom … wrong” (1: 165). Wells recognizes that to denounce Christianity is “to assert that error [has] ruled the world so far” (1: 165) but still declares the Church a “disseminator … [of] fear and submission” (1: 166). He writes that, early in his youth, he realized that “The world would still turn on its axis, if all [current social systems] were replaced by different structures and arrangements” (1: 177).16
With the emergence of Darwin’s theory in the late nineteenth century, science began to assert itself as a system of thought that could provide alternative, secular myths.17 At the Normal School of Science Wells’ teacher, Huxley, “put the fact of organic evolution upon an impregnable base of proof and demonstration” (Wells, Experiment 1: 203). Wells describes his studies under Huxley as “the most educational year of [his] life” (1: 201), a year in which he learned the importance of the pursuit of knowledge as a means of formulating a coherent understanding of reality. Significantly, Wells regards evolutionary science as contradicting the theological narratives that inform nineteenth-century social life.
In The Outline of History (1925), Wells writes that “the geological record [does] not correspond to the acts of the six days of creation; and … [Darwin’s theory] point[s] away from the Bib[lical] assertion of a separate creation of each species … [and] towards a genetic relation between all forms of life” (616). Wells further states that, if humankind evolved from a simple life form, “there [were] no first parents, no Eden, and no Fall” (616). Given that the theological fabric of Christianity rests on the Fall of humanity and the subsequent need for divine grace, the contradictions between the Biblical creation myth and Darwin’s theory meant, for Wells, that “the entire … fabric of Christianity … collapsed like a house of cards” (616). Wells makes a similar observation in Anticipations, stating that Darwin’s theory “destroyed the dogma of the Fall upon which … Christianity rests” (290). Instead of a unique species, created in the image of God, humans become, for Darwinian thinkers, highly evolved animals. For Wells, this means that the belief systems upon which his society is based are not only unfair but are also untrue and need to be reshaped in light of scientific evidence.
Huxley also recognizes that biological science offers an entirely new way of understanding what it means to be human. He writes, “our whole theory of life [is] … influenced … by the … conceptions of the universe … forced upon us by physical science” (“Science” 149). Through a scientific study of the anatomical affinity of humans and apes Huxley further concludes that “the structural differences which separate Man from the Gorilla … are not so great as those which separate the Gorilla from the lower apes” (“On the Relations” 144). This assertion that humanity is separated from the animals by no greater structural barrier than that which separates animal species from one another, demands a fundamental readjustment of the mythic systems that had previously elevated humankind above all other life forms. An attempt is made in Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau to repudiate Christian doctrines by illustrating the physical similarities between humans and beasts and articulating a myth that conceives of human beings as tamed animals.
In the novel, Doctor Moreau believes he can surgically transform animals into humans via vivisection. When protagonist Edward Prendick encounters one of Moreau’s creations, a humanoid constructed from a bovine specimen, he cannot see “how [it] differ[s] from some … human yokel” (115). Further, when he returns to London from Moreau’s island, Prendick cannot convince himself that the men and women he meets are not “Beast People, animals half-wrought into the outward image of human souls” (183). Indeed, the physiological correlation between Moreau’s creations and human beings is so marked that, before learning of Moreau’s methods, Prendick initially imagines that the creatures are humans upon whom Moreau has performed a cruel experiment (79–80). In this novel, we thus see the presentation of a new worldview that recognizes the anatomical similarity of humans and beasts in accordance with Darwin’s theory.18
Huxley’s conception of reality also incorporates modern science as a means of understanding humanity’s place in nature. He states in 1876 that, in contrast to the traditional understanding of humanity as distinct from beasts, “man … is a living creature” (“On the Study” 270) and must, therefore, be included within the purview of biological science. He argues that “psychology, politics, and political economy [should] be absorbed into the province of Biology” (270). He further posits that, by understanding the biological origins of the species, it may be possible to gauge our evolutionary potential and adjust our social orientation to ensure the positive development of humanity (“On the Relations” 77–78). Interestingly, however, the social models that emerged in the late nineteenth century in response to evolutionary theory were, according to both Wells and Huxley, just as damaging as the traditional, religious alternatives.
Social Darwinism, as propounded by Spencer, seeks to apply natural law to human social behavior. It advocates individualism and laissez-faire capitalism as manifestations of the evolutionary process, in which, according to Spencer, only the strongest survive. However, thinkers such as Wells and Huxley regard social Darwinism as supporting the social inequalities established by traditional systems. Wells’ SF, particularly The Time Machine, illustrates that mass subscription to individualist doctrines may lead to the evolutionary decline of the species because natural law does not accommodate the moral principles essential to the successful functioning of human civilization. In opposition to Spencer, Huxley and Wells argue that humankind can only achieve positive evolution if natural law is resisted and the species works collaboratively to create a moral society where science is used to control the forces of nature.19 Huxley’s metaphorical description of human society as a cultivated garden is reflected in Wells’ early SF, including A Modern Utopia, which also looks to Plato’s writings for pre–Christian morals with which to replace religious laws.
In his 1862 work First Principles, Spencer argues that the same laws that Darwin outlined to explain the evolution of species can be applied to human social life. For Spencer, the separation of nineteenth-century humanity into distinct social classes is evidence of the evolutionary process at work. Spencer states that evolution involves a change from “the homogeneous to the heterogeneous” (307) so that “The authority of the strongest and cunningest makes itself felt among savages, as in the herd of animals or a posse of schoolboys” (307). He thus regards class inequality as a naturally occurring inevitability, declaring that “in the course of social evolution, we find an incipient differentiation between the governing and the governed” (307). He further observes that the role of ruler eventually becomes hereditary (308) and the community is finally “segregated into distinct classes” (310). Thus, according to Spencer, the inequality of nineteenth-century society is a natural result of evolution. Indeed, he argues that “A civilized society is made unlike a savage tribe by the establishment of regulative classes” (283).
However, as we have already established, Wells “deep[ly] resent[s] … social inequality” (Experiment 1: 160). He hopefully observes in his autobiography that, throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “World forces were at work [that tended] to disperse the aristocratic estate system in Europe, … necessitate new and better informed classes … and bring all men into one planetary community” (1: 242). Wells’ desire for an egalitarian, cooperative society is entirely at odds with the social Darwinism propounded by Spencer. This is not to say that Wells disagrees with Darwin’s theory. Rather, he believes it dangerous to apply blind natural law to human civilization and recognizes that Darwin never intended for his theory to be used as a social model. However, as Wells observes, by the end of the nineteenth century, Spencer’s “crude misunderstanding of Darwinism had become the fundamental mindstuff of … the ‘educated’ everywhere” (The Outline 617). This meant that the successful believed that “they prevailed by virtue of the Struggle for Existence, in which the strong and cunning get the better of the weak and … [have] to be strong … [and] ruthless” (Wells, The Outline 617) to maintain their dominance.
The manipulation of biological theories by individualist doctrines troubles Wells and his SF strongly critiques social Darwinist notions. The Time Machine offers a disturbing representation of the future of an individualist culture. The novel’s protagonist travels from his nineteenth-century society to the year AD 802,701. He expects to encounter a more highly evolved form of humanity and is devastated to discover that the human race has evolved into two inferior species: the Eloi, descended from the ruling elite, and the Morlocks, a race that developed from the working class. The Time Traveller describes the Eloi as a childlike race of indolent fools (31) and learns that the Morlocks are a monstrous nocturnal species that lives in subterranean mines and hunts the Eloi for food.20 The Time Traveller proposes several different theories to explain this evolution but, finally, social Darwinist doctrines are blamed for the evolutionary divergence of humanity along class lines in The Time Machine.21 The Time Traveller concludes that “the gradual widening of the … [nineteenth- century] social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer” (64) led to the development of two new species.22
A similar prediction is presented in Wells’ The Sleeper Awakes (1899)23 in which the nineteenth-century protagonist, Graham, wakes from a two-hundred-year sleep to encounter a beleaguered society where “luxury, waste, and sensuality on the one hand and abject poverty on the other still prevails” (458). Graham reflects that his nineteenth-century society was “making the future … [but] hardly [anyone had] troubled to think what future [they] were making” (458). In Wells’ SF, however, we see a recurrent consideration of the long-term evolutionary implications of contemporary worldviews. In The Time Machine it is shown that, under the guidance of social Darwinism, the evolution of humanity will not involve any “triumph of moral education and general co-operation” (66) but will instead result in the destruction of both the working class and the aristocracy that seeks to exploit them.
The evolutionary decline that The Time Machine forecasts for any individualist society highlights the flawed logic of social Darwinist theory. Spencer asserts that “Evolution … is a change from a less coherent to a more coherent form” (291). It is this assumption that underlies social Darwinism and implies that, in nature, evolution always involves a movement from a weaker state to a fitter one. According to this view, by following the laws of nature, humans will ascend toward a stronger form. However, this interpretation of Darwin’s theory is incorrect. As Wells points out in his 1891 article “Zoological Retrogression,” the evolutionary path of any given species does not always progress in a positive direction so that “There is … no guarantee in scientific knowledge of man’s permanence or permanent ascendancy” (168).24 Hence, the social Darwinist deferral to nature imperils the ascendency of humankind by preventing humanity from controlling its own evolutionary development. We see the negative impact of such a philosophy in The Time Machine, in which there has been an evolutionary “sliding down” (77) of humanity because the species failed to consider how social stratification would hamper its future development.
Ironically, in The Time Machine it is the fitter class, by Spencer’s standards, that becomes the prey of the formerly downtrodden, working-class Morlocks. The aristocracy, having established its supremacy through a rigid class system loses the vital ability to adapt to change and thus precipitates its own decline. In seeking “security and permanency” (Wells, The Time 104) the upper class metaphorically “commit[s] suicide” (104) by creating a social system that leads it toward indolence and intellectual stagnation. The Time Traveller observes that “It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble…. There is no intelligence where there is no change” (105). Hence, the aristocracy, in its perfect dominance of a static social system, loses the need for innovation and evolves into the feeble-minded Eloi. Further, because nature “lack[s] … absolute permanency” (Wells, The Time 105), when environmental change eventually occurs, the Eloi lack the mental faculties to adapt and fall victim to the more enterprising Morlocks, who, as a result of their struggle for survival as underprivileged citizens, have retained a degree of intelligence. Thus, the concretized class inequalities that social Darwinism presents as humanity’s evolutionary destiny are depicted, in Wells’ SF as imperiling the very survival of the species.25
The dangers of individualism are also commented on by Huxley, who argues in the 1893 lecture “Evolution and Ethics” that civilization requires each citizen to exercise self-restraint, rather than their natural self-assertion, to ensure that “no act of his weakens the [social] fabric in which he has been permitted to live” (82). This sentiment is clearly drawn from Rousseau’s The Social Contract (1762). Rousseau states that “The founder of nations must … replace the … independent existence we … received from nature with a moral and communal existence” (84–85) in which all citizens relinquish their instinctual desire for dominance and work toward social cooperation. Rousseau further argues that the union of the multitude in a single social body allows for the survival of each individual so that “Duty and self-interest … equally oblige … [humankind] to give each other mutual aid” (63). However, Huxley is concerned that this social contract is being imperiled by “the fanatical individual[ists] of [his] time [who attempt] to apply the analogy of cosmic nature to society” (“Evolution” 82).
Wells echoes Huxley’s statements, arguing that “In a measurable time mankind has to constitute itself into one state and one brotherhood, or it will certainly be swept down cataracts of disaster to an ultimate destruction” (Experiment 2: 752). This is not to say that Wells advocates a socialist state. In his twenties, Wells became a member of the Fabian Society, a socialist group chaired by playwright George Bernard Shaw, but he later dismissed the movement as unscientific. Wells describes the Fabian Society, and socialism more generally, in his autobiography, stating, “We denounced individualism … [and] laissez-faire” (Experiment 1: 250) but “Socialism … resisted any attempt to scheme or even sketch what the world was to be” (1: 262–63).26 Wells declares that Karl Marx was an “uninventive man” (1: 263) who “lacked the imaginative power necessary to synthesize a project” (1:263) so sought, through the incitement of class warfare, to “reconstruct the world on a basis of mere resentment and destruction” (1: 180).
Wells’ SF stresses that any successful social reform must involve careful planning and the communal striving of humanity as a collective.27 After being transported to a parallel, utopian Earth, the protagonist of A Modern Utopia reflects that “If we are to have any Utopia at all, we must have a clear and common purpose, and a great steadfast movement of will to override … egotistical dissentients” (90). Furthermore, the novel claims that “Utopia cannot come about … but by co-ordinated effort … a community of design … and wise social arrangements” (90). Wells states in his autobiography that, from Anticipations onward, “the cardinal reality of [his] thought and work” (Experiment 2:652) was to search for such a social arrangement.
Wells’ SF dismisses any social system based solely on natural law but represents scientific thinking as crucial to ensuring humanity’s positive evolution. In Wells’ novel In the Days of the Comet, Leadford’s friend declares that “science is more important than socialism. … [because] Socialism’s a theory … [while] science is something more” (30). Wells elaborates on this point in his autobiography, stating that the Fabian Society was ineffectual because it lacked “an experimental and analytical spirit” (Experiment 1: 251) and exhibited a “disposition to finality of statement which it is the task of experimental science to dispel” (1: 251). For Wells, then, the scientific spirit is characterized by a flexibility of mind that allows for the readjustment of one’s worldview and conduct in response to changes in knowledge and situation.28 Wells regrets that positive social change is hampered by what he regards as a general refusal to adopt this scientific point of view.
In the 1904 novel The Food of the Gods, Wells criticizes Edwardians for being locked into traditional patterns and for refusing to recognize that they live in a changing world. In the novel, British scientists discover an edible substance that promotes gigantic growth, producing a race of giant humans that will ultimately inherit the Earth. However, the unevolved citizens of Britain fight against this development. In the face of sudden human evolution, a staid country vicar refuses to even acknowledge the change. He declares: “We live in an atmosphere of simple and permanent things…. Things change … but Humanity—aere perennius” (106). Furthermore, Wells has the protagonist of In the Days of the Comet lament “the infinite want of adjustment in the old order of things” (33). For Wells, Darwinian science reveals the ever-changing nature of the universe and thus offers a view of reality that will produce myths that accommodate for the constant adaptation needed to thrive in a changing world.
The importance of adaptability is clearly conveyed in A Modern Utopia, in which the protagonist reflects that “The [Modern] Utopia … must … differ … from the … Utopias men planned before Darwin. Those were all perfect and static States. … the Modern Utopia must not be static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a … stage leading to a long ascent of stages” (11). Wells thus suggests that social models adopt a scientific recognition of the dynamic nature of the universe. His SF advocates cultural systems based on myths that change over time to accommodate the evolving needs of humankind.
Although Wells recognizes the potential application of science as a means of intervening directly in the physical evolution of humankind, his SF tends to present myths that adopt the scientific outlook as a means of formulating new social attitudes rather than forcing radical biological change.29 In his 1895 article “The Limits of Individual Plasticity,” Wells acknowledges that “a living thing might be … so moulded and modified that … it would retain scarcely anything of its inherent form and disposition” (36). He adds that the “shape and mental superstructure” (36) of a creature could be so extensively recast as to render an entirely new species. Wells thus recognizes that the future could involve “operators, armed with antiseptic surgery … and … knowledge of the laws of growth, taking living creatures and moulding them into the most amazing forms” (38–39). However, in The Island of Doctor Moreau such use of applied science is represented as horrific, inhumane and, ultimately, unsuccessful.
Moreau’s cruel experiments are based on a perversion of the logic presented by Wells’ himself in his article “The Province of Pain” (1895). In the article Wells argues that pain is a protective mechanism that warns the sufferer against the stimulus that causes the painful sensation (195). Wells posits that, the more evolved a creature, the less they will need pain because “higher animals, like man, look before they act” (198) and are “less automatic and more intelligent” (198). Thus, the more intelligent a species, the less they will rely on physical sensations, like pain, for an understanding of their environment. Wells goes so far as to assert that “the province of pain is … a phase through which life must pass on its evolution from the automatic to the spiritual” (198–99). Moreau echoes this sentiment, arguing that, “with men, the more intelligent they become the more intelligently they will see after their own welfare, and the less they will need [pain as a] goad to keep them out of danger” (100).
Moreau takes Wells’ belief that evolution involves a movement beyond the need for pain to a ghastly extreme. He declares that “The study of Nature makes man at last as remorseless as Nature” (101) and sets himself the task of surgically forcing his experimental subjects beyond the province of pain, toward a higher evolutionary form. He claims, “Each time I dip a living creature into a bath of burning pain, I say, This time I will burn out all the animal, this time I will make a rational creature” (106). This approach is represented as horrendously inhumane in the novel and even Moreau admits that his methods meet with continual failure (106).30
Importantly, “The Province of Pain” suggests an entirely different approach to encouraging positive evolution. Wells suggests that the adoption of the scientific outlook will allow humankind to grow beyond the limitations of entrenched systems and achieve the intellectual capac- ity needed to progress toward a higher form of evolution. He writes: “May [humanity] not so grow morally and intellectually as to get at last beyond the need of corporeal chastisement, and foresight take the place of pain, as science ousts instinct?” (197). Wells thus suggests that the development of modes of conduct based on scientific and moral notions will allow the species to positively evolve without the need of surgical manipulation.
Huxley also argues that the positive evolution of the species requires the formulation of a morally oriented society that uses scientific principles to resist the harsh laws of nature. He asserts that “the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process … but in combating it” (“Evolution” 83).31 Huxley thus envisions civilization as a way for humankind to manipulate natural law in favor of a system that will allow for the collective improvement of the species. Likening civilization to a cultivated garden, Huxley writes: “The garden is in the same position as every other work of man’s art; it is the result of the cosmic process working through and by human energy and intelligence” (“Prolegomena” 12). In other words, human society, like a garden, is the result of human intervention in natural processes. Huxley calls this interference “the horticultural process” (11) and argues that it is necessary to adjust the natural world to suit the aims of humanity.
The horticultural process is thus antithetical to natural law, which is characterized by “the intense and unceasing … struggle for existence” (Huxley, “Prolegomena” 13). Huxley writes that the horticultural process seeks the “elimination of that struggle, by the removal of the conditions which give rise to it” (13). Huxley believes that, by devising a civilization in which all individuals are assured of their basic needs, humankind will grow in intelligence and power, protected from the inhumane compulsions required for survival in the natural world. Thus, for Huxley, the positive evolution of human society is an entirely different process to that which brought about the evolution of the species (“Prolegomena” 37). It is a process that relies on humankind’s manipulation of the social systems that guide human behavior and the myths that underlie them.
Huxley’s statement that civilization is based on the rejection of natural law opposes the individualist doctrines being espoused in his context. He argues that “no society composed of human beings … will, come to much, unless their code of conduct [is] governed and guided by the love of some ethical ideal” (“The School” 396). This sentiment correlates with representations of utopian societies in Wells’ SF. It is observed in A Modern Utopia that “the way of Nature … is to kill the weaker…. But man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of Nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him” (96). In this novel the utopian society has rejected, on moral grounds, the law of natural selection. Having recognized “with a growing resentment the multitude of suffering ineffectual lives over which [the] species tramples in its ascent” (96) the Utopians conclude that “order and justice do not come by Nature” (118). They therefore set about fashioning their own, morally-oriented laws. They seek to ensure that every human being, regardless of status or talent, “live[s] in a state of reasonable physical and mental comfort” (96) thus rejecting natural law in favor of a humane system of human devising.
However, in A Modern Utopia it is also stated that a successful society must consist of citizens willing to compromise their individual desires for the needs of the social body (28–30). Thus, while each citizen is afforded a life of comfort, their freedoms are curtailed to the extent necessary to ensure the preservation of the civilization and the positive evolution of the species. This means that not all citizens in the Modern Utopia have equal influence or liberty. Such a notion correlates with Huxley’s philosophy, which opposes democratic equality. Huxley suggests that the governance of society “should be in the hands of those … with the largest share of energy … industry … intellectual capacity … tenacity of purpose … [and] sympathetic humanity” (“Prolegomena” 42).
Such a ruling class is also depicted in A Modern Utopia in which a voluntary elite, referred to as the samurai, govern society. It is explained that “Any intelligent adult in a … healthy and efficient state may … become one of the samurai, and take a hand in the universal control” (187) of society. Importantly, Wells’ samurai are expected to use their superior powers to serve the weaker members of the human race, rather than to achieve social dominance. However, it is also stated that utopian governance “demands a more powerful and efficient method of control than electoral methods can give” (174).32 This dismissal of democracy in Wells’ SF also correlates with Carlyle’s belief that the electoral method fails to promote the fittest politicians to office. Carlyle asserts that “there [is] no Nation that [can] subsist upon Democracy” (19) and adds, “the few Wise will have … to take command of the innumerable foolish” (30).33
Despite the fascist overtones of Wells’ samurai, A Modern Utopia draws more from Plato’s philosophy than from contemporary politics. This is not surprising given Wells’ disenchantment with the political, religious and social systems of his time. Wells writes: “A Modern Utopia … derives frankly from [Plato’s] Republic” (Experiment 2: 658) and admits that “the … notion of the Samurai, marks [his] debt to Plato” (2: 658). Furthermore, the protagonist of A Modern Utopia notes the similarities between the samurai and the Guardians of Plato’s Republic (174–75). Wells’ samurai, like Plato’s Guardians, are expected to use their powers to serve the human race rather than to amass personal wealth. Plato also notes that a level of compulsion should underlie the appointment of intellectually superior individuals to the ruling class. He acknowledges that good men avoid power because they recognize that a true ruler sacrifices his own desires to pursue the interests of his subjects (Republic 29). Carlyle similarly states that “He that is fittest [to govern], is … the unwillingest unless constrained” (20).
In spite of their disinclination, Plato declares that the best minds must be compelled to attain the highest form of knowledge and share their wisdom with the rest of society (Republic 246). It is acknowledged that this life of public service will “[force] them to live a poorer life than they might [otherwise] live” (Plato, Republic 246) but Plato asserts that compelling the most intelligent to lead is the best way to ensure the successful development of society as a whole. The citizens of Wells’ Modern Utopia are described as having reached a level of universal superiority sufficient to prevent the need for compulsion and to allow a voluntary elite to be formed. However, it is made clear that the samurai live under a set of rules that “forbid a good deal” (191) to ensure that they are not distracted from governance by self-indulgent pleasures. The laws of Wells’ utopia follow the tenets described by Plato, who states that, in his Republic, “the object of … legislation … is not the special welfare of any particular class … but of the society as a whole” (Republic 246–47). For Plato, and subsequently for Wells, social organization should “unite all citizens and make them share together the benefits which each individually can confer on the community” (Plato, Republic 247).
Of course, this expectation that citizens will relinquish their personal needs for the good of the collective also extends to the less able members of society in Wells’ Modern Utopia. Wells’ utopia consists of highly evolved individuals because of a strictly enforced breeding program that aims to manipulate the genetic development of the species. It is argued in A Modern Utopia that “in the civilized State it is … possible to make the conditions of life tolerable for every living creature, provided the inferiors can be prevented from increasing and multiplying” (125). This attitude is also reflected in Huxley’s writings, which comment that the humane preservation of every life may be ruinous to society (“Prolegomena” 31–32). Plato also suggests a breeding program, stating: “We must … if we’re to have a real pedigree herd, mate the best of our men with the best of our women as often as possible, and the inferior men with the inferior women as seldom as possible” (Republic 171). Drawing on Plato’s theory and Darwinian science, A Modern Utopia similarly suggests that “before you may add children to the community … you must be above a certain minimum of personal efficiency … and a certain minimum of physical development” (126).
This representation of a social system in which a degree of self-sacrifice is required of all citizens and humane precepts are tempered by scientific knowledge is echoed throughout Wells’ early SF. In The Food of the Gods, the scientists who discover the substance that will transform humankind into giants are described in terms reminiscent of those used by Plato to describe the gifted few who attain knowledge to serve the masses (Plato, Republic 244–47). We are told in Wells’ novel that the knowledge scientists build “is so wonderful, so portentous, so full of mysterious half-shapen promises for the mighty future of man” (4) that “the splendour has blinded [the scientists]. … so that for the rest of their lives they can hold the light of knowledge in comfort … that [everybody else] may see” (4).
Furthermore, these scientists ultimately usher themselves out of the world altogether, relinquishing Earth to the new society they have helped create. At the conclusion of The Food of the Gods, Redwood, a professor of physiology, declares, “We have made the new world, and it isn’t ours” (202). His friend, Cossar, a civil-engineer, similarly states, “We do our job and go…. That is what Death is for. We work out all our little brains … and then [the next generation] begins afresh” (203). This representation of positive evolution as the result of successive generations submitting to a higher purpose is also articulated by nineteenth-century writer Winwood Reade who argues: “In each generation the human race has been tortured that their children might profit by their woes. Our own prosperity is founded on the agonies of the past” (447).
This sacrificial attitude whereby each generation contributes to the next stage in humankind’s evolutionary journey is cast in a Biblical light in The Sleeper Awakes.34 The protagonist realizes that his nineteenth-century society spawned the undesirable future in which he awakes and therefore feels duty bound to sacrifice his life to redirect the evolutionary path of humanity. He reflects that “It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people” (463).35 Thus, in this novel, the individual who is willing to subordinate his life to the greater good of humanity becomes a Christ-like figure, saving the masses from themselves. Plato suggests that “persuasion or compulsion” (Republic 247) be used to ensure each individual submits to their social duty. However, as we have seen, individuals voluntarily sacrifice themselves for the good of the species in Wells’ early SF.
Thus Wells’ SF represents a moral system whereby self-sacrificing martyrs willingly relinquish their individual desires for the general welfare of the community. However, Wells recognizes that the dissemination of moral sentiments in his context is problematized by the destabilization of traditional Christianity, which had previously been responsible for the communication of moral law. In Wells’ works, there is therefore a question as to how humane myths of social harmony and cooperation will be re-established in his increasingly individualist world. This is a dilemma that is grappled with in Wells’ early SF, which seeks to reconcile myths that represent the bestial origins of humanity with grand designs for moral future societies.
As we have seen, Wells’ SF closely examines existing social systems and, drawing on Platonic philosophy and the ideas of contemporary writers, attempts to imagine how society can be reshaped to ensure the positive evolution of the species. Such social change naturally involves reshaping the mythic systems that inform our understanding of the world and guide our conduct. Wells is acutely aware of the contrast between the natural human, descended from self-assertive savages, and the civilized human, whose conduct is shaped by social ideologies. He is thus aware that a firm system of ideas is required to instill desired beliefs and behaviors into humankind. Both Huxley and Wells recognize that religion is an effective means of moderating human behavior.
Wells goes so far as to create his own religion in God the Invisible King (1917) as a means of conveying the moral system that he believes necessary for the achievement of a modern utopia. Whilst Wells later repudiates this religion, there is evidence of a recourse to religious phraseology in his earlier SF novels, in which characters often seek for, or believe in, a divine, higher purpose. Wells is determined, in his writing, to reject entrenched social systems and represent new modes of conduct. However, he struggles to imagine a way that moral values can be inculcated without religion. This illustrates a core dilemma in SF, whereby, in engaging with and attempting to resist the dominant myths of their time, writers recognize the major role of religious discourse in the formulation of human worldviews and ways of behaving.
Wells’ SF acknowledges that, as an intelligent animal, humankind requires mythic narratives to conceptualize its role in the world and inform its behavior within the construct of civilized society. Although the physiological correlation of humans and beasts is emphasized in The Island of Doctor Moreau, it is also made clear that there is a vast intellectual disparity between humans and other terrestrial species that allows for positive social evolution. Huxley too notes that, despite the structural affinity shared by human beings and chimpanzees, a “great gulf intervenes between the lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual power” (“On the Relations” 140–42). Huxley regards the power of speech as instrumental to the social and intellectual development of humanity. He states that, without the capability for complex communication, humankind “would be little … removed from the brutes” (“On Our” 474). Huxley explains that, without language, humans would be unable to organize their experience over successive generations and formulate social plans (474). This notion is echoed by Moreau, who argues that “the great difference between man and monkey is in the larynx … in the incapacity to frame … sound-symbols by which thought [can] be sustained” (98).36
Wells recognizes that the nature of humankind is generated by the interaction of inherent nature, or instinct, and socially determined behavioral norms. In the 1896 article “Human Evolution” he explains that “in civilised man we have … an inherited factor, the natural man, who is the product of natural selection … and a type of animal … and … an acquired factor, the artificial man, the highly plastic creature of tradition, suggestion, and reasoned thought” (217). By this, Wells means that, in biological terms, humanity is simply a highly evolved animal but that physiology is only part of what determines the nature of humankind. Tradition, in the form of mythic narratives, constructs what Wells describes as the “artificial man.” By terming the enculturated human “artificial,” Wells is signaling that civilized humanity is a social construct, created and manipulated by man-made ideological systems and the narratives that inform human understanding.
Wells thus draws a sharp distinction between Darwinian evolution and social evolution. He writes that “the evolutionary process … operating in the social body is one essentially different from that which has differentiated species in the past and raised men to his ascendency among the animals” (“Human” 211). Wells further explains that “man … is still mentally … and physically, what he was during the later Palæolithic period” (211) and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Wells credits the development of civilization not to biological evolution but to an “evolution of suggestions and ideas” (211), stating that “Morality [is] the padding of suggested emotional habits necessary to keep the round Palæolithic savage in the square hole of the civilised state” (217).
In A Modern Utopia the protagonist is told that “civilization is an artificial arrangement, and … the physical and emotional instincts of man are too strong, and his natural instinct of restraint too weak, for him to live easily in the civilized State” (196). Furthermore, it is a failure to recognize the power of instinctual impulses that thwarts Moreau’s experiments in The Island of Doctor Moreau. Moreau focuses primarily on physiological modification and thus fails to instill in his creations a system of moral laws sufficient to ensure that they behave as civilized humans. He eventually realizes that his surgical procedures cannot alter “the seat of the emotions” (106), which holds “Cravings, instincts, [and] desires that harm humanity” (106).
Moreau recognizes that “moral education is … an artificial modification and perversion of instinct” (98) and attempts to civilize his creatures by pronouncing himself their god and enforcing a crude set of moral prohibitions. However, Moreau’s Beast People always revert back to animalism. Moreau notes that “As soon as my hand is taken from them the beast begins to creep back” (106) as “First one animal trait, then another, creeps to the surface” (106). Thus, while under the direct influence of their god, the creatures obey Moreau’s orders but, when left to their own devices, they soon neglect his commandments. As Prendick observes, “A series of propositions called Law … battle[s] in their minds with the deep-seated, ever rebellious cravings of their animal natures” (110). It therefore becomes clear that instincts are not dulled by biological evolution but by the civilizing influence of moral laws, which must be continually reinforced. Moreau’s Beast People are thus representative of humankind. They highlight the biological correlation between humans and beasts while simultaneously signaling the ideological gulf that raises civilized humanity above the animals.37
By outlining the fundamental importance of universal codes of thought and behavior in human civilization, The Island of Doctor Moreau illuminates the dilemma faced by Wells’ society. Nineteenth-century science had presented a new vision of life on Earth and, in dismissing traditional religion, created the need for new, socially beneficial mythic systems. The effectiveness of religion in enforcing moral codes of behavior is noted in The Island of Doctor Moreau when the Beast People revert more swiftly to animalism after the death of their god. Upon Moreau’s demise, the creatures ask, “Is there a Law now?” (144) and declare, “We have no Master…. [but] We love the Law, and will keep it” (167). However, with the death of Moreau and the subsequent destabilization of the system that engendered moral behavior, the tenuous island civilization collapses.
There is a correlation between the death of god on Moreau’s island and Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1882 declaration that “God is dead” (The Gay 109).38 Nietzsche argues that “the Christian God has become unbelievable. … now that this faith has been undermined … much must collapse because it was built on this faith … for example, our entire European morality” (199). Nietzsche is invigorated by the prospect of a “new dawn” (199) in which “the lover of knowledge” (199) will be free to formulate new social ideas, unhampered by entrenched patterns.39 We know that Wells detested social inequality and held the Church responsible for the wretched conditions faced by the working class in Britain. However, in The Island of Doctor Moreau, there is an acknowledgment that the destabilization of established religion could have a devastating impact on human civilization.
Arnold regards religion as fundamentally concerned with morality (32), describing it as “the greatest and most important of the efforts by which the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect itself” (32). Writing in 1869, Arnold recognizes the danger of discarding traditional systems. He writes that now that traditional social, political and religious systems have been destabilized, the danger for his society is
not that people should obstinately refuse to allow anything but their old routine to pass for reason and the will of God, but either that they should allow some novelty or other to pass for these too easily, or else that they should underrate the importance of them altogether, and think it enough to follow action for its own sake, without troubling themselves to make reason and the will of God prevail therein [31–32].
Arnold hopes that traditional routines will be replaced by a new set of moral sentiments. He speaks of a culture in which love will promote beneficent action and a common desire to “leave the world [a] better and happier [place]” (30–31) by “stopping human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing the sum of human misery” (30).
Like Arnold, Wells also hopes that a universal set of morals will emerge in modern culture. He comments in his 1897 article “Morals and Civilisation” that “the future of our civilisation depends upon the possibility of constructing a rational code of morality to meet the complex requirements of modern life” (227). However, Wells also recognizes that his society, which had previously been ordered by the political, social and moral tenets espoused by the Church, is in turmoil at the close of the nineteenth century, searching for a set of myths to redefine human existence in light of new scientific discoveries. In A Modern Utopia, the protagonist observes of the early twentieth century, “The old … order has been broken up…. The old orthodoxies of behaviour … [and] the old ritual of thought … are smashed up and scattered … and no worldwide culture of toleration … has yet replaced them” (33–34).
The pivotal role of religion in shaping such behavioral codes is recognized by Arnold, Huxley and Wells. Arnold argues that the impulse toward moral behavior has been nowhere so powerfully manifested as within religious organizations (38). Similarly, despite his personal antipathy toward the Church, Wells recognizes the value of Christ’s teachings for instilling desirable morals. He describes Christianity as containing a quality that “compels men to … realize their own responsibility for the world” (The Outline 607). He also writes that “the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth had in it something profoundly new and creative…. There was nothing in [it] … to … interfere with any discovery or expansion of the history of the world and mankind” (615). However, Wells asserts that “St. Paul and his successors … substituted another doctrine for … the plain and … revolutionary teachings of Jesus, by expounding a subtle and complex theory of salvation … attained … by belief and formalities” (615). Wells thus acknowledges the potential of religion to produce positive modes of conduct when it is unhampered by undesirable, formulaic theology.
Thus, although Wells celebrates the destabilization of the Church, he regards the teachings of Christ as having established valuable myths of communal love. Wells is therefore concerned that the dismissal of traditional theology in his context will precipitate the loss of Christian morals. Indeed, Wells writes that he regrets that, after the publication of Darwin’s theory in 1859, “There was a real loss of faith. … [and the] true gold of religion was … thrown away with the worn-out purse that had contained it … and … was not recovered” (The Outline 617). Wells argues that “The new biological science [brought] nothing constructive … to replace the old moral stand-bys” (616). Wells’ recognition that no system of thought had emerged to sufficiently replace religion echoes Auguste Comte’s 1848 statement that “although theology is … palpably on the decline, … it will retain … some legitimate claims to the direction of society so long as … new philosophy fails to occupy this important vantage-ground” (13).40
Acutely aware of the traditional correlation between the Church and morality, Wells notes in 1897 that moral ideas are “inseparably interwoven … with the development of theological ideas” (“Morals” 227). Huxley also confesses that, although he is “in favour of secular education, in the sense of education without theology” (“The School” 397), he is “seriously perplexed to know … [how] the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, [is] to be kept up … without the use of the Bible” (397). Like Arnold, Huxley regards religious feeling as that which inspires moral conduct in humankind and, therefore, believes that the cultivation of religious feeling is an essential part of human socialization (Huxley 397; Arnold 32). Indeed, Huxley declares that, given the choice between schools in which religious instruction is given and secular education, he prefers the former because he believes that, although theology dulls the beneficial effect of religion, it cannot entirely destroy the positive morals espoused by religious discourse (“The School” 396).
Wells hopes that humankind will formulate a mythic system that produces moral values sans theology. In his article “Morals and Civilisation” (1897) Wells asks, “Are we not, at the present time, on the level of intellectual and moral attainment sufficiently high to permit of the formulation of a moral code, without irrelevant reference, upon which … people can agree?” (228). It is this question that occupies much of Wells’ early SF. Interestingly, a distinction between the religious attitude, taught by Christ, and limiting, orthodox theology is made clear in Wells’ 1923 novel Men Like Gods. In this later novel, protagonist Mr. Barnstaple is transported to a utopian world in a parallel universe. Among Barnstaple’s travelling companions is a narrow-minded priest whom Barnstaple eventually denounces with the declaration: “What you call Christianity is a black and ugly outrage upon Christ” (280). The Utopians in Men Like Gods have achieved a moral society that is devoid of theology by accepting Christ’s teachings without worshipping him (251). Such an elegant solution is not, however, posited by Huxley or by Wells’ early, seminal works. Wells’ early novels fail to find an effective method by which a cooperative, moral civilization can be established without recourse to religion.
The society of In the Days of the Comet only achieves a utopian world state after green vapors emitted from a comet cause a profound and lasting change in the minds of all humankind. With the arrival of the comet, all humanity is liberated from old ways of thinking so that the “old muddle of … traditions … [and the] teaching of the Churches … [become] nothing but a curious and … faded memory” (154–55). While Leadford explains that the “Change” (165) did not alter his “essential nature” (165), he acknowledges that his “power of thought and restraint had been wonderfully increased and new interests had been forced upon [him]” (165) by the vapors. These new interests revolve around the reconstruction of human society on humane grounds, a task that seems easy once humankind is liberated from limiting dogma. However, while the novel presents a critique of nineteenth-century society it suggests no practical method by which social change can be enacted in Wells’ world. Indeed, the novel ends with the statement that the comet caused “a change of heart and mind. … [that] dehumanized the world” (200), suggesting that a united, moral civilization can only be achieved through the fundamental transformation of human nature.
Wells presents a more plausible moral society in A Modern Utopia by drawing on Plato’s pre–Christian model for an ideal state. Like the Philosopher Rulers of Plato’s Republic, the ruling elite of Wells’ Modern Utopia draw morals from literature. In Plato’s Greece, there was no Bible from which to draw modes of conduct, instead it was through poetry that religion and moral values were conveyed (Lee 67). It is thus suggested by Plato that poetical works be regulated to prevent the dissemination of undesirable myths and ensure the communication of beneficial morals (Republic 85). Such a notion must have been particularly appealing to Wells, given his belief in the power of literature to convey modes of conduct and create mythic narratives.
Indeed, in Wells’ Modern Utopia, the founders of the society construct the Book of the Samurai, an anthology containing “a compilation of articles and extracts, poems and prose pieces, which … embody the idea of the order” (189–90). We are told that this book “play[s] the part for the samurai that the Bible did for the ancient Hebrews” (190). Under constant revision, this evolving canon expresses “The whole range of noble emotions … and all the guiding ideas of [the] Modern State” (190). More than just a guide for the ruling elite, “The Canon pervades [the] whole world” (191) and is taught to children in school.
However, the Utopia’s Canon is regarded as insufficient as a behavioral guide. A lengthy set of rules, which restrict the physical pleasures indulged by the samurai, are also instated. Furthermore, the mythic structure of the Modern Utopia is not generated solely through law and literature. In fact, the society is far from secular, the samurai themselves following a religious belief system involving a “transcendental and mystical God” (202). The novel asserts that “[man] is religious; religion is … natural to him” (200) but can be “turned to evil” (200) when hampered by “creeds and formulae” (201). It is therefore made clear that the religion of the samurai is not Christianity, or any other established religion. Rather, the Utopians “hold God to be complex and of an endless variety of aspects … expressed by no universal formula nor approved in any uniform manner” (201). According to Wells’ novel, the promotion of a private, personal religious life allows the Modern Utopia to “[escape] the delusive simplification of God that vitiates all terrestrial theology” (201).
The conceptualization of religion in A Modern Utopia as a private relationship between humanity and the divine correlates with the ideas espoused by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). James writes, “Religion … [is] the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (31).41 We see this view echoed in A Modern Utopia, which states that “religion must … exist in human solitude, between man and God alone” (201). Such a definition of religion allows for the construction of spiritual myths and the inculcation of morals but rejects institutionalized systems of regulation and control.
In the Days of the Comet also advocates the deregulation of religion. Leadford observes that “all men live by faith, but in the old time every one confused … Faith and a forced … Belief in certain pseudo-concrete statements” (89). In contrast, the belief systems depicted in A Modern Utopia and In the Days of the Comet have no organized or institutional aspects. A non-denominational, deistic religion is also outlined in Wells’ non-fiction work Anticipations. In this work Wells argues that, in the future, civilization will consist of “religious men” (281) who “have no positive definition of God at all” (281). However, despite Wells’ suggestion that these spiritual systems are entirely personal and private, his early works represent religious beliefs in a fairly consistent manner and describe a deity that actively seeks the positive evolution of humankind. For Leadford, God is “a Master Artificer, the unseen captain of all who go about the building of the world” (179). His utopian society is thus guided by a divine force, working through a transformed body of humanity.
A purposeful God who guides the development of humankind is also presented in The Food of the Gods, in which the new species of giants declares: “We fight … for growth…. That is the law of the spirit for evermore. To grow according to the will of God!” (209). In the same way, the samurai in A Modern Utopia make pilgrimages into the wilderness to contemplate “God’s purpose” (205). Similarly, in Anticipations, Wells’ imagines the citizens of future Earth “know[ing] God … under the semblance of a pervading purpose, of which [their] own individual freedom of will is a part” (283). Thus, we see Wells’ early writings depict a religion in which humankind must foster the values necessary for their active participation in God’s plan for the upward evolution of humanity.
However, religion is not solely regarded as a pragmatic means of engendering desirable conduct in Wells’ writing. In Anticipations, Wells presents a genuine rationale for the existence of God and assumes humankind will “inevitably” (281) retain religious beliefs, of one kind or another. He writes:
Either one must believe the Universe to be one and systematic, and held together by some omnipresent quality, or one must believe it to be … an incoherent accumulation with no unity whatsoever…. All science and most modern religious systems presuppose the former, and to believe the former is … to believe in God [281].
This logic underlies Wells’ early SF in which a divinity is presumed to coordinate and guide the universe. Such a viewpoint coincides with the spiritual notions articulated by many of Wells’ contemporaries.
Livingston explains in his 2006 study of Victorian religion that, although ecclesiastical theology was on the decline by the end of the nineteenth century, the intellectual discussion of religion flourished and new ways of understanding God and God’s relation to the world were conceived (2).42 Indeed, even Spencer, who seeks to apply biological science to human social life, believes in a divine creative force. He asserts that scientific knowledge can never explain everything in the universe (12; 53) and declares, “A Power of which the nature remains for ever inconceivable, and to which no limits in Time or Space can be imagined, works in us certain effects” (497). Spencer describes the “recognition of this supreme verity” (84) as the vital element of religion, which seeks to engage with the divine power that guides our lives. For Spencer, religion and science are reconciled in their mutual examination of “the Power which the Universe manifests to us” (37) as “an Absolute that transcends … human knowledge” (xv).43
Thus, both Spencer and Wells regard science and religion as united in contemplation of a divine organizing principle in the universe. Given the continued recognition of religion as both an aid to conduct and a way of understanding the true nature of the universe in Wells’ context, it is hardly surprising that Wells’ early SF incorporates spiritual myths. Indeed in 1917 Wells even develops his own religion, which he outlines in the non-fiction treatise God the Invisible King. In this work Wells professes a “profound belief in a personal and intimate God” (Preface) that bears a strong resemblance to the active God depicted in Wells’ early SF. This God is deliberately differentiated from the triune Christian God as “a single spirit and a single person” (9) who, like Leadford’s God, is the “leader of mankind” (9). For Wells, this religion provides “salvation from the purposelessness of life” (9) by drawing the individual believer into “THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD” (50). As in Wells’ early SF, the purpose of this God is “[the] peaceful and co-ordinated activity of all mankind upon certain divine ends” (God 57).
The religion outlined in God the Invisible King regards God as desiring that humankind work toward the moral development of civilization and the positive evolution of the species. Wells therefore asserts that “the first purpose of God is the attainment of … knowledge … as a means to power” (52). Each believer is to “increase [their] knowledge and powers” (56) while guarding themselves against “baser motives” (56) and instincts so that “God may work through a continually better body of humanity and through better and better equipped minds” (57). The ultimate goal of this coordinated activity between God and humankind is that “[God] and [the human] race … increase for ever, working unendingly upon … the mastery of the blind forces of matter” (57). This purpose safeguards the future evolution of humanity and encourages the self-surrender necessary for a moral, cooperative community.
In contrast with In the Days of the Comet, in which mysterious vapors are required for the transformation of humankind’s moral orientation, God the Invisible King declares that the adoption of Wells’ religion will precipitate the “Self-transformation” (58) of the believer. Wells argues that “It is AFTER the moment of religion that we become concerned about our state and the manner in which we use ourselves” (72). He further asserts that the “self-surrender and the ending of the self” (74) that his religion inspires will generate the moral community dreamed of in his early SF. God the Invisible King thus clearly identifies and utilizes religion as an effective disseminator of moral values.
As previously noted, both Huxley and Wells struggle to envision a secular society that engenders moral conduct. In God the Invisible King, Wells goes so far as to deny the vitality of atheistic morals. He writes that “the benevolent atheist stands alone upon his own good will, without a reference, without a standard, trusting to his own impulse to goodness, relying on his own moral strength” (44). Wells regards this position as tending toward self-righteousness and lacking external coordination. He asserts that “[the atheist] is … a masterless man. … self-centred … unrestrained by any exterior obligation” (44) and, therefore, subject to caprice. In contrast, the believer in Wells’ Invisible King experiences “a complete turning away from self” (44) and is “filled with the desire to serve [God]” (56). Wells thus designs a religion to unite humankind in an ever-improving moral community.
Furthermore, Wells differentiates his religious myth from the interventionist doctrines that had, according to James Frazer, made the Christian God incompatible with science. In The Golden Bough, Frazer asserts that science will subsume religion as a means of understanding the universe (712). He makes a sharp distinction between religion and science, viewing them as mutually exclusive disciplines. He argues that religion involves a belief that the divinities that control nature can be persuaded to “deflect, for our benefit, the current of events from the channel in which they would otherwise flow” (51) while science is defined by the assumption that nature is controlled by “immutable laws acting mechanically” (51).44 However, Wells strives to construct a theology that does not contradict science, writing that “no talisman, no God, can help you…. But God will be with you nevertheless…. God will be your courage” (God 19–20).
Wells thus asserts that his new religion is compatible with modern science and that, by amalgamating scientific principles and spiritual beliefs, it articulates the spirit of his generation. He recognizes the interest in alternative spiritual conceptions of the world in his context, writing that “the fog of obsolete theology has cleared” (84) and that “Men are beginning to speak of religion without the bluster of the Christian formulae” (81). In God the Invisible King, Wells asserts that “All mankind is seeking God” (82) and therefore regards himself as addressing, in his writing, the key concerns of his society.
However, Wells later seeks to repudiate the pronouncements he makes in God the Invisible King. In his 1934 autobiography, he represents his religious proselytizing as confined to a brief period during World War I and describes God the Invisible King as his attempt to personify and animate a god for the “God-needing people” (Experiment 2: 673) of his context. He writes that, during World War I, he became “aware of the numbers of fine-minded people who were still clinging … to the comfort of religious habits and phrases” (2: 673) and sought to accommodate their beliefs in his writing. He denigrates this reliance on religious faith as “Some lingering quality of childish dependence” (2: 673) and as a “falling back … towards immaturity under the stress … and anxiety” (2: 673) of the war. Wells thus attempts to cast God the Invisible King as a regrettable lapse in an otherwise atheistic career.
Wells’ adamant denouncement of God the Invisible King in his autobiography has led critics to regard Wells’ religious writings during World War I as an aberration, uncharacteristic of the rest of his corpus. Critic Martha S. Vogeler comments that “The war … made something of a religious mystic of Wells” (186). She writes that Wells was shocked by the horror of World War I and that, “Despairing over … Europe’s future, and no longer confident that scientific rationalism could produce social progress, [Wells] surprised … his admirers with a series of novels presenting religious ideas” (186–87).45 This is certainly the perspective Wells wishes to convey in his autobiography, which, as Vogeler notes, asserts that he returned firmly to atheism after this period (Vogeler 187; Wells, Experiment 2: 676–77).
However, as we have seen, there is a consistent recourse to a divine figure, similar to the God described in God the Invisible King, in Wells’ earlier novels, indicating an ongoing engagement with spiritual myth in Wells’ SF. The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Time Machine explore the impact of social systems, religious and otherwise, on the evolution of humankind and A Modern Utopia, In the Days of the Comet and The Food of the Gods all describe a divine being guiding humankind. Critic Ivor Brown also observes the correlation between God the Invisible King and the theology represented in Wells’ A Modern Utopia (90).46 I argue, therefore, that the religious ideas expressed in Wells’ later writings are simply an extension of the spiritual notions explored in his early SF.
The ongoing inclusion of religious notions in Wells’ SF indicates that, just as in twentieth-century society, scientific and religious discourses intermingle in SF conceptions of the universe. Wells describes civilization as a “fabric of ideas and habits” (“Morals” 221) that are not material but, rather, change over time in accordance with alterations in human conduct and beliefs. SF, in constructing combinatory myths out of the sum of knowledge available to modern humanity, both critiques and reflects the often contradictory ideas that prevail in human society. We see in Wells’ SF both an attempt to produce revolutionary myths that articulate new ideas and resist traditional patterns, and a return to entrenched patterns of belief. This paradoxical blending of the old and the new is seen in much twentieth-century SF.
Arthur C. Clarke’s SF, in particular, is shown to embody an amalgamation of spiritual and scientific ideas. However, Chapter 2 demonstrates that the spiritual myths articulated in Clarke’s early novels are the result of the blending of mystical and materialist notions in early-twentieth-century science. We see in Clarke’s works a deliberate attempt to adhere to scientific ideas, which results in the production of a variety of contradictory SF myths over the course of his career. In contrast, Philip K. Dick’s SF invokes Presocratic notions, modern philosophy and ancient religious beliefs to reject consumer capitalist discourses and formulate new spiritual myths. Finally, we see that Frank Herbert resists traditional hero myths and spiritual conceptions of the world in a deliberate attempt to reshape the mythic orientation of SF. It is shown, though, that each of these authors utilizes SF as a vehicle for the examination of human systems and the construction of new myths for contemporary society.
Of humankind, Wells reflects: “We are … caught in an irreversible process. No real going back to the old, comparatively stable condition of things is possible…. We are therefore impelled to reconstruct the social … organization…. The sooner all men realize that impulsion, the briefer our stresses and the better for the race” (Experiment 1: 243). It will be shown that SF writers are particularly aware of this imperative and use their fictions to articulate new ways of understanding the world in the hope of influencing human conduct and ensuring the positive evolution of the species.