H. G. WELLS
All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars.—"The Discovery of the Future" (1902).
Is Wells also among the prophets? Surely, and none with better right, even though we use the word "prophet" in its narrowest and most ordinary sense as one who foretells the future. He has foretold many futures for us, some utterly abhorrent, others more or less attractive. If we shudder at the thought of humanity on a freezing world fighting a losing battle with gigantic crustaceans as in "The Time Machine", or being suffocated on a blazing world as in "The Star", or being crushed under the tyranny of an omnipotent trust as in "When the Sleeper Wakes"—if none of these please us, then we have the option of a businesslike and efficient organization of society under the domination of the engineer as in "Anticipations", or a socialistic state under the beneficent sway of the Samurai as in "A Modern Utopia," or an instantaneous amelioration of human nature as "In the Days of the Comet." In thus presenting various solutions to the world problem Wells is not inconsistent. Every com-
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