Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History"

By H. G. Wells

After Wells published "An Outline of History", which was among the first comprehensive histories based on a scientific viewpoint, the Roman Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc fought back with a series of essays condemning the book, especially for omitting God and for his acceptance of evolution theory. "Mr. Belloc Objects to 'The Outline of History'" constitutes Wells' own literary retort, and is both entertaining and impressive. Contents include: "Mr. Belloc's Arts of Controversy", "The Theory of Natural Selection Stated", "Mr. Belloc as a Specimen Critic of Natural Selection", "Mr. Belloc's Adventures Among the Sub-Men", and "Fixity or Progress". Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to the science fiction genre thanks to such novels as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), and "The War of the Worlds" (1898). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473345096

H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells (1866-1946) is best remembered for his science fiction novels, which are considered classics of the genre, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). He was born in Bromley, Kent, and worked as a teacher, before studying biology under Thomas Huxley in London.

Book preview

MR. BELLOC OBJECTS

TO

THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY

By

H. G. Wells

Copyright © 2016 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library

Contents

H. G. Wells

FOREWORD

I. — MR. BELLOC'S ARTS OF CONTROVERSY

II. — THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION STATED

III. — MR. BELLOC AS A SPECIMEN CRITIC OF NATURAL SELECTION

IV. — MR. BELLOC'S ADVENTURES AMONG THE SUB-MEN MANIFEST TERROR OF THE NEANDERTHALER

V. — FIXITY OR PROGRESS

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, England in 1866. He apprenticed as a draper before becoming a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School in West Sussex. Some years later, Wells won a scholarship to the School of Science in London, where he developed a strong interest in biology and evolution, founding and editing the Science Schools Journal. However, he left before graduating to return to teaching, and began to focus increasingly on writing. His first major essay on science, ‘The Rediscovery of the Unique’, appeared in 1891. However, it was in 1895 that Wells seriously established himself as a writer, with the publication of the now iconic novel, The Time Machine.

Wells followed The Time Machine with the equally well-received War of the Worlds (1898), which proved highly popular in the USA, and was serialized in the magazine Cosmopolitan. Around the turn of the century, he also began to write extensively on politics, technology and the future, producing works The Discovery of the Future (1902) and Mankind in the Making (1903). An active socialist, in 1904 Wells joined the Fabian Society, and his 1905 book A Modern Utopia presented a vision of a socialist society founded on reason and compassion. Wells also penned a range of successful comic novels, such as Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910).

Wells’ 1920 work, The Outline of History, was penned in response to the Russian Revolution, and declared that world would be improved by education, rather than revolution. It made Wells one of the most important political thinkers of the twenties and thirties, and he began to write for a number of journals and newspapers, even travelling to Russia to lecture Lenin and Trotsky on social reform. Appalled by the carnage of World War II, Wells began to work on a project dealing with the perils of nuclear war, but died before completing it. He is now regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction writers of all time, and an important political thinker.

FOREWORD

IN the autumn of 1925 and the spring and summer of 1926 there was published a revised and illustrated version of  The Outline of History, by Mr. H. G. Wells. There followed a series of articles by Mr. Belloc attacking this Outline and Mr. Wells. These articles were published in  The Catholic Universe, in  The Southern Cross of Cape Colony, in  The American Catholic Bulletin, and possibly elsewhere. Every fortnight, keeping pace with the issue of  The Outline, these attacks appeared; in all, twenty-four voluminous articles. They were grossly personal and provocative in tone, and no doubt a great joy and comfort to the faithful. Mr. Wells prepared a series of articles in reply; and as no one outside the public of these Catholic journals seemed to have heard of Mr. Belloc's attacks, he offered them to the editors concerned, proposing, if necessary, to give the use of this interesting matter to them without payment. Six articles he asked to have published—in reply to twenty-four. This offering was declined very earnestly by these editors. To the editor of  The Catholic Universe  Mr. Wells protested in the terms of the following letter:—

MY DEAR SIR,

I am sorry to receive your letter of May 19th. May I point out to you that Mr. Belloc has been attacking my reputation as a thinker, a writer, an impartial historian, and an educated person for four-and-twenty fortnights in The Universe? He has mis-quoted; he has mis-stated. Will your Catholic public tolerate no reply?

Under the stimulus of this remonstrance, the editor of  The Universe, after a month's delay and various consultations with Mr. Belloc and the directors of his paper, offered Mr. Wells the opportunity of correcting definite points of fact upon which he might have been misrepresented, but declined to allow him to defend his views or examine Mr. Belloc's logic and imputations in his columns. Mr. Wells was disinclined for a series of wrangles upon what might or might not be a point of fact. He then offered his articles to various non-Catholic papers, but, with one accord, they expressed their lack of interest in either Mr. Belloc himself or in his exposition of Catholic ideas about natural selection, the origin of man, and the general course of history. Yet it seems to Mr. Wells that, regarded as a mental sample, Mr. Belloc is not without significance, and that the examination of the contemporary Catholic attitude towards the fundamental facts of history is a matter of interest beyond Catholic circles. Accordingly he has decided to issue these articles in the form of a book, and he has urged the publishers to advertise them, as freely as may be permitted, in the Catholic press. He has retained the cross-heads customary in journalistic writing.

Caricatures of Hilaire Belloc and H.G. Wells

from The New Statesman.

I. — MR. BELLOC'S ARTS OF CONTROVERSY

I am the least controversial of men. Public disputations have rarely attracted me. For years I have failed to respond to Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, who long ago invented a set of opinions for me and invited me to defend them with an enviable persistence and vigour. Occasionally