h g wells primitive modernity

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Primitive Modernity: H. G. Wells and the Prehistoric Man of the 1890sAuthor(s): Richard PearsonSource: The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 37, No. 1, From Decadent to Modernist: And Other

Essays (2007), pp. 58-74Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20479278Accessed: 05-07-2015 08:06 UTC

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2/18

Primitive odernity: H. G. Wells and

thePrehistoric

an of the I89os

RICHARD PEARSON

University

f Worcester

This essay

is n

attempt ocome

to terms ithWells's anthropological nd socio

logical thinking

n

the I89os,

and

to see

this s

part of

a cultural

formation

hat

saysmuch about the transition rom ictorian tomodern(ist) society. ost

readings fWells

in

the

I89os tend to foreground

is

scientificnd prophetic

writings,

nd the

scientific

iscourse

in

his

work.

Many

of his novels

and

short

stories ealwith the

otential

disasters f

an

unregulated

modern

science

stolen

bacteria, crashing eroplanes),

nd a

society

n transition

hrough

he

discovery

or

invention f new

technologies.

am

arguing, owever,

or he

mportance

f

his sense of

culture,

nd

thathis

connections

with the

emerging

discipline

of

sociologyplace

hiswork

in

a

grey

area

between

literature nd

science, ust

as

thatisciplinefound itself oplaced. Indeed,Wells fought longbattle in the

press against thosewho

called themselves scientific ociologists':Herbert

Spencer,Benjamin

Kidd,

and

J.

B. Crozier

(Wells ought

chair

of

sociology

for

imself

n

the eriod

around

I904).

1

e saw

his

brand of

sociology

s related

to

utopianism;

thework

of

Comte, Spencer,Kidd,

and

Crozier,

he

said,

were

interesting

intellectual

experiments

of

extraordinary

little

permanent value,

and the

proper

method

of

approach

to

sociological questions

is the

old,

various

and

literary

way,

the

Utopian

way,

of

Plato,

of

More,

of

Bacon,

and not

the

nineteenth

century

pneumatic style,nor by its onstant invocation

to

biology

and 'scientific'history and its

incessant

unjustifiable pretension

to exactitude and

progress.2

Wells's 'sociological' fictions re mostly rooted inmodern-day Victorian

England,

and never

permit

the

ociologist-author

imself to

step

outside of his

own frame f reference.

am

always

fond f

pointing

ut to students

hat

t

is

the

sychologist

n

Wells's

TimeMachinewho

presses

the ittle ever

n

themodel

and sends it nto

the

future;

ells's future

s in

fact

n

analysis

f the

dentity

f

modern-day man, who,

likeGraham

in

When the

leeperWakes, is the real

constructor r

originator

f

this uture.

Wells

always rejected

the

Spencerian promotion

of

progress

for

themore

Darwinan cocktail f chance, coincidence, nd contingency.sRoslynnHaynes

notes

in

a

reading

f The Island

f

Dr.

Moreau,Wells bases

his

system f natural

1

Letter

to

Beatrice

Webb,

29

April

1904,

in The

Correspondence f

H.

G.

Wells,

ed.

by

David C.

Smith,

4

vols

(London: Pickering

and

Chatto,

1998),

11,

5.

2

Letter

to

the editor

of

the

Fortnightly

eview

(c.

September

1905),

in

Correspondence f

G

Wells,

11,

9.


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3/18

RICHARD PEARSON

59

evolution n Darwin's

trinity

f

chance,waste,

and

pain,

the

workings

f nature

being seen as withoutdesign, 'careless f the type', nd inducing ufferingn

thosecreatures nfit r unable

in

the struggle or urvival.3 his recognition,

indeed, suffuses nticipations,ells's sociological analysisof modern society,

book often

recently

ondemned

forwhat is

seen as

a

Wellsian argumentfor

eugenic

solution to

the problems

of

theworking-classes. owever, the book

needs to be seen as the culmination f his I89os researches nto

primitivism,

which led

him

to

recognition

hat ulture eeds tobe

planned

in

rder

to

offset

the

ainfulworkings f instinct

nd nature.

Wells

as

pleased to receive letter

from idneyLow suggesting hat nticipationsas betterthan idd's

Social volu

tionI894), towhichWells respondedmischievously,I could eatKidd'.4) The

utopian

or

imaginative ociology

fWells

appears

to

argue

for more

cautious

relationship etween the sociologist nd his subject: that

n

someways it

is the

onlooker,

he

ociologist,

ho has the

most

to earn nd

benefit rom

ny

analysis

of theOther.

Wells retains

literariness

n

his scientific

hinking

hat

ompli

cated,

or even

confused,

his

evolutionary hinking.

n

the

mid- to late

I89os,

as

part

of a

group

of writers and thinkers hat includedGrant

Allen,

Edward

Clodd,

and

George Gissing,

and

through orrespondence

with

the emerging

novelistJoseph onrad,

Wells found

himself rawn into ebates that mbraced

new

thinking

round

theorigins f man, prehistory,rimitivismnd savagery,

ritual nd cultural urvivals, nd thenew evolution fman, which itself stab

lished scientificpposition to

the hurch.

The

relationship etweenWells

and Clodd

repays ome discussionfor hat

it an

tell

s of an

aspect

ofWells's work that smuch

neglected:his understand

ing

f and

imaginative ngagement

ith the

rimitive ast.

Anthropology

n

the

I89oswas a

booming subject,

nd

closely

linked to the

exciting iscoveries

n

archaeology

nd the

popularity

fornew collections

f

ethnographical rtefacts

in

museums.

Following

he ead of Edward

Tylor'sPrimitive

ulture

I87I),

in

rder

tounderstand the

position

and character f lateVictorian

culture,

esearchers

travelled he

globe

to

study rimitive

untouched'

ivilizations.

hey

were

closely

followed

by

the novelistswho

wanted

to

capture something

f the

spirit

f

adventure

in

such

explorations:

ider

Haggard,

for

instance,

ent

as

far

as

Mexico to

discussAztec

culture ithJ.

GladwynJebb

before

writing

ontezuma's

DaughterI893).

In

a

similar

way,

Grant Allen translatedJames razer's ideas

in

The Golden

ough

I890)

intonovelistic

orm

n

works likeThe Great

aboo

I890);

and

painters

like

Gauguin began

to

consider

the

aesthetic nterest f Pacific

primitivism.ll of this ccurred asWells was beginning ocontemplate future

in

writing,

t the

beginning

f the

I89os.

The interestf all of these

writers

n

3

Roslynn

D.

Haynes,

H.

G.

Wells,

Discoverer

of

the uture: The

Influence

of

Science

on

his

Thought

(London:

Macmillan,

1980),

pp. 27-32.

4

Letter

to

Sidney

Low,

29

June

1902,

in

Correspondence

f

H. G.

Wells,

1,

01.




4/18

6o H. G. Wells

nd

Transitionalan

the

concept

of

taboo is

particularly mportant, eflected

n

Wells,

for

xample,

in theEloi's fear f thewellswith towers nd their ear f thedark,a concept

he

describes inA

Storyof the

tone Age' as

primitive nd

instinctual.

Alongside this

nthropology

nd the studies

f primitive

mythologies

ame

thework on

primitive

an

and the

archaeological

excavations

in

Europe and

England

in

searchof

Hominid fossils nd

remains. he

most

significantubli

cation

in

this ield

n

England

was

probably

SirJohn

Lubbock's

Prehistoric

imes

of

I865

(with

revised ditions

in

I869, I872,

I878,

and

I890),

but

in

themid

I89os a series f

books

appearedmaking

the ubject

ccessible

to

the

ntelligent

general reader.Wells

recalled

something

f this

eriod

in

'The

Grisly Folk and

their ar withMen' (Storytelleragazine,April I921):

'Can

these

bones live?'

Could

anything

be

more

dead,

more

mute

and

inexpressive

to

the

inexpert eye

than

the

ochreous

fragments

of bone

and

the fractured

lumps

of flint

that

constitute the first

traces

of

something

human

in

theworld? We see

them

in

themuseum

cases,

sorted

out

in

accordance

with principles we

do

not

understand, labeled

with strange names.

Chellean,

Mousterian,

Solutrian and

the

like

[

..] Most of us

stare

through

the

glass

at

them,

wonder

vaguely

for

a

moment at

that

half-savage,

half-animal

past

of

our

race,

and

pass

on.

'Primitive

man,'

we

say.

'Flint

implements.

The

mammoth used

to

chase

him.'

[. .

.]

there are the

soundest

reasons for

believing that these

earlier

so-called

men

were not of our blood, not our ancestors, but a strange and vanished animal, like us,

akin to

us,

but

different

from us

[..

.] Flint

and

bone

implements

are

found

in

deposits

of

very

considerable

antiquity;

some in

our museums

may

be a million

years

old

or

more,

but the traces of

really

human

creatures,

mentally

and

anatomically

like

ourselves,

do

not

go

back

much earlier than

twenty

r

thirty housand years

ago.

True men

appeared

in

Europe

then,

and

we do not know

fromwhence

they

came[

.

].5

Wells

here

gives

three

xamples

f

early

tone

Age

man

from he

ower,Middle,

and

Upper Palaeolithic

periods: Homo

erectus,

Neanderthal,

and Homo

sapiens,

thus

displaying

his

knowledge

of

the

subject.

He also

tells

s

that

the

'grisly

olk'

s

he calls

them, heHomo

erectus,

hellean, larger ominids

who

made huge

stone

implements, passed

away before the

facesof the

truemen';

they

were

displaced

and died

out

by

the arrival

of the

Solutrians,

the

Homo

sapiens.

But

his

most

important

ontribution s

the

imaginative

nd

creative

reconstruction

f primitive

imesthat the story

nfoldsfor

the reader,

nd how

this

in turn

forces

reconsideration f

modern

man's

right

to

the epithet

'civilized'. Can

these

bones live?': from

he

glass

cases

of themuseums

Wells

transforms

he ifeless ones

into flesh

nd blood

humans

whose

very

existence

and

thought

atternsdemonstrate

in

Wells's

interpretations)

heir

onnections

withmodernity.

Culturally,

n

the

mid-I8gos,

prehistoric

man

and

concepts

of

primitivism

became

bound

up

with

notionsof

the

place

of

science

in

society,

he

develop

5

H.

G.

Wells,

The

Short Stories

of

H.

G.

Wells

(London:

Benn,

1927),

pp.

677-78.

All

further

quotations

from

Wells's

stories

are

to

this

edition

and will

be

given

in

the

text.




5/18

RICHARD

PEARSON

6i

ment of

man, human

intellect,ndmodern

consciousness nd

identity.

dward

Clodd, whomWells knewfrom ocialgatherings tClodd's Straffordouse and

from

nvitations o attend

dinners at

theOmar

Khayyam Club

(where lodd

was President

and Allen a

member), was a

wealthyVictorian

banker

who

became

a

leadingwriteron social

evolution

nd the

rigins

f

man. The Story

f

Creation:

Plain

Account

fEvolution

I887),

despite

its

rovoking

itle,

as a

survey

of

evolutionary

hought

nd

application

that

ought

to

explain the

mechanisms

of human

society to

a

general

readership.

s

his

biographer

JosephMcCabe

described

it,

the

book,

which sold 2000

copies

in a

fortnight

nd

5000

in

three

months,

was 'amodel of

the

presentation f

science to

thoughtful

ut

inexpert

readers'.6This approachwould have undoubtedlyappealed toWells, as a

novelist ntent

n

popularizingnew

scientific

deas; and, given

the

closenessof

the two

men,

it

ould be

surprising

f

Wells did

not know

Clodd's

work.

In

I895

Clodd

published

The

Story

f

'Primitive'an in

George

Newnes's

'Library

f

Useful

Stories'

series.7

his

compact

volume

became

a

popular

seller

through

the I89os

and was

reprinted everal times

p

to I909.

He followed

his ith The

Pioneersf

Evolution

I896),whichwas read

by

Meredith

and

Gladstone (the atter

disapproving

f what

he saw

as

its

nti-Catholicism),8

nd

Tom it

Tot:

n

Essay

on

Savage

hilosophy

n

olklore

I898).

These

texts ormed

art of

a

sudden

general

cultural

nterest

n

prehistoric

man.

The

popularity

f the

topic

can

be found

ven

in

the

poetry

f

Rudyard

Kipling, ever

alert to the

urrents f the

day,

who

published

two

poems on the

subject

in

I894-95:

'In

the

Neolithic

Age'

and 'The

Story

of

Ung'.

Kipling's

poems

offer comic

intervention

n

the

imaginative

endering

f

prehistoric

man.

The first ses

first-person

onologues

to

recreate

themodes

of

thought

of a

primitive

an,

whose

problems

nd

cultures

ound

distinctly

odern.

The

voice of the

I895

'In

theNeolithic

Age'

was

'singer

o

my

clan

in

that

im,

red

Dawn ofMan'; but as the oemunfolds he inger's rimitive arbarity ecomes

apparent,

in

a

comic

tone thatmirrors

the

Barrack-Roomallads of

contempo

rary

oldiers:

But a rival

of

Solutre,

told

my

tribe

my style

was

outre

'Neath

a

tomahawk,

of

diorite,

he fell.

And

I

leftmy views

on

Art, barbed

and

tanged,

below

the heart

Of

a

mammothistic

etcher

at

Grenelle.

Then

I

stripped

them, scalp

from

skull,

and

my

hunting-dogs

fed

full,

And

their

teeth

I

threaded

neatly

on

a

thong;

6

Joseph

McCabe,

Edward Clodd:

A

Memoir

(London:

John

Lane,

1932),

p. 73.

7

This

series,

which

ran

from

1895-1904

an


6/18

62

H.

G.

Wells

andTransitional

an

And I wiped my mouth and said,

'It

is

well that

they

are

dead,

For I know my work is right and theirs iswrong.'9

When theprehistoric

inger

merges

thousands f

years

later

s

a

relicof the

past, he becomes the subjectof

a

poem by

'aminor

poet

certified

y

Traill'

(H. D. Traill, the

magazine critic).

e finds hat the

world, however,

s still he

same 'Still cultured

hristian

age

sees us

scuffle,queak,

and

rage,

I

Still

we pinch and slap and jabber,

scratch nd dirk

... .]'

(p. 355).Kipling

reflects

the rgument lso

propounded by

Wells

at

this ime that

humanity

as

evolved

little ince

primitive imes, espite

the

modernity

f the

ge. 'The

Story

f

Ung'

similarly rovides

a

humorous

analogy

to

modern

times, escribing

nother

prehistoric rtist,

man

who fashions

mages

in snow

and etches pictures

of

animals

and hunters

on

bone.

Having

bewitched his

tribe,

he

man

suddenly

finds he tribe oubting the truth f

his

images; ppealing tohis father or elp,

he is told,

If

they ould see as thou seest they

ould do what thou

hast done,

I

And each man would make

him a

picture,

nd what would

become of my

son?'.

The artisthas benefitedfrom

the

gifts

he tribehas

brought

him

and

cannot

be

anything

ther than

pleased

that

thy

ribe isblind'.

'Straight

n

the

glittering ce-field, y

the

caves

of the lost

Dordogne'

the

prehistoric

rtist

whistles and sings as he goes back to scribinghis 'mammoth editions'

(pp. 358-59). Kipling's poems

not

only

demonstrate the

pervasive

cultural

impact f their ontemporaries' ritings n primitive an, but they eflect ow

far

thedebates

themselves ad

permeated

modern

thought. ipling

uses

the

subject

matter to

make

contemporary oints, scattering

he

poems

with

refer

ences

(such

as

Solutre

and the

caves

of

the

Dordogne)

that

his readerswould

understand,

nd

accepting fully

he

concept

of

prehistory alking

ack

to

the

present.

Edward Clodd's The Storyf 'Primitive'Manrovides the cademic

context

for

themid-I8gos debate, the inverted ommas of the title evealing lodd's own

scepticism about

the

designation

of

primitivism

as

necessarily below

or

supplantedby

a

civilized

modernity.

he

book establishes narrative f evolu

tion

that

uggests

an's arrival

n

the rea

around the

hames,

traced

n

works

like irJohn

Evans's Ancient tone

mplementsI872),

as

'drift-men'nd

gradually

settling

n

natural

dwelling

spaces

as

'cave-men',

a

somewhat

higher

state

of

culture'.'0

He focuses lot

on

the

most

basic

developments

f

man,

such

as

the

production

f fire nd basic

tools,

nd considers the ultural

survivals' hat till

govern

habits and rituals

n

themodern

age:

All

our

pleasures

and

our

pastimes

are the utcomeofprimitivenstinctsndprimitive ractices' (p.37).The mind

9

The

CollectedPoems

of Rudyard Kipling (Ware:

Wordsworth,

1994),

p.

354.

Further references

appear

in

the

text.

10

Edward

Clodd,

The

Story

of

Primitive'Man

(London:

Newnes,

1909),

p.

51;

subsequent quotations

are

from

this edition.




7/18

RICHARD PEARSON

63

of the tone Age

man

is also considered, articularly is ability

o

develop

new

ideas through hought:

such ideas

as

things around suggested

to his twilightmind were

a

tangle of confusion,

contradiction,

and bewilderment

[...

.]

he

dimly noted

the

difference,

which,

in

the long

run, lead themind to comparisons, and thereby lay the foundation

of

knowledge

-

of

the relation between

thingswhich

we

will call

cause and effect.

p.

66)

This process is set against

a

sketch f

the ife nd culture f such earlypeoples

-

the nimals they ived longside,

the

ociety

hey ormed. Clodd had therare

faculty,or uchworks,

f

visualizing

thepast

and

making helpful uggestions f

his own',

McCabe notes

in

his

biography."I

t is

this concentration n the

gradual development f themental faculties fman thatWells picks up forhis

'Story

f the tone

Age'.

As

described

below,

Wells's

story

s almost

an

imagi

nativereconstructionf the etails

nClodd's more scientificork.Like the hift

from ictorian toModern that onfronted

ells and Clodd themselves, heir

depictions

f

primitive

an

show

the

processes

of shifts

n

cultural

aradigms

as

linked

o intellectual

dvancement,

ased

on 'cause and effect'.

ccording

to

Clodd, primitive an, "'thinking

ithout

knowing

hat he

thought,"

..] was

pickingup knowledge for he dvantage of

all

who came

after im'

(P.

67).

Wells

appeared alongside

Clodd

in

Morley

Roberts's

biography

f

Gissing,

The

Private

ife f

Henry

aitland

(I9I2),

as 'G.H.

Rivers' (perhaps

n

allusion to

Pitt-Rivers

o indicateWells's

interest

n

museum

enthnography)

o Clodd's

'Edmund

Roden'.

Wells

also included comic sketch

f

Clodd as Edwin Dodd

in

Boon

(19I5):

Dodd is

a

leading

man

of theRationalist

Press Association,

a

militant Agnostic, and

a

dear compact man,

one

of thoseMiddle Victorians

who

go about with

a

preoccupied

carking air,

as

though,

after

having

been

at

great

cost and

pains

to banish

God from the

universe, they

were resolved not

to

permit

Him

back on

any

terms

whatever. He has

constituted

himself a sort of alert customs

officer

of

a

materialistic

age,

saying

suspiciously 'Here, now,what is thisrapping under the tablehere?' and examining every

proposition

to see that the

Creator hasn't ben

smuggled

back under some

specious

generalization.

Boon used to declare

that

every

night

Dodd looked under his bed

for the

Deity and slept

with a

large

revolver under his

pillow

for

fear of

a

revelation.

12

McCabe notes the

good-humoured

rguments

f themen at Strafford ouse

in

the

89os,

where

Wells once drew

a

caricature

f

'God

writing

book

to

prove

that o such

person

as

Edward

Clodd

existed'.13

t

is

lso

evident

from

he

etters

dating

to

I902

between

himself nd

George Gissing

that lodd

published

in

his

MemoriesI9I6)

that he

roup

analysed

nd discussed ach

others' atest

ritings.

Gissingwrote toClodd on iMarch I902:

11

McCabe,p.

78.

12

Cited

in

McCabe,

pp.

130-31.

13

McCabe,

p.

131.




8/18

64

H. G.

Wells

nd

Transitionalan

Oddly enough,

I have

just been writing

toWells with

very

much the same criticism of

his work that you suggest. I have asked him:What do you mean exactly by your 'God'

and your 'purpose'?

I

rather suspect

that he

means

nothing

more

definite

than

that

reverential hopefulness which is

natural to every

thoughtful

nd gentle-hearted

man.

In

his

lecture to

theRoyal Institution

he

goes,

I

think, ntirely

too

far, alking

about eternal

activity

of the

spirit

of

man,

and

defying

the

threats

of

material outlook. Well. Well,

let

us agree

that

it

isvery good

to

acknowledge

a

great mystery; infinitely etter

than

to use

the

astounding phrase

of

Berthelot,

'Lemonde

n'a

plus

de

mystere.'

ow

to

go

further

than

this recognition

I know not.

That there

is

some

order,

ome

urpose,

eems

a

certainty;

my

mind, at all events,

refuses to grasp

an

idea of

a

Universe which

means

nothing

at

all.

But just as unable

am I to accept any

of

the solutions

ever

proposed.'4

By I92IWells and Clodd had largely one their eparateways, andWells'swork

had moved

towards

hemore

fixed attern f social reconstructions reflected

in themodern utopias of his

twentieth-centuryritings. he post-war

period

brought

a sombre note

into the debates about human

progress

that

posited

evolution

as

neutral at

a

time

when

Wells turned ver

more towards

olitical

solutions.

lodd

wrote

in

the

Sunday

imes

n

ii

April

I92I,

the

year

that

Wells

wrote

'The

Grisly

Folk':

man has

remained unchanged

since the Stone

Age.

There

isno

evidence that

our

brains

are

superior

to

the

remarkable

Cro-Magnon people [

..]

And what

guarantee

have we

thatour civilization,with all itshideous engines of destruction,will not be added to the

vast

rubbish

heaps

which

witness

to

the

decline

and

fallof

empires?

To-day

all the

forces

of

disintegration

are

in full

play.

Of

moral

advance,

whereon Mr. Wells's scheme

must

rest,

there is

no

proof whatever anywhere

[

.

].15

Although 'The

Grisly Folk'

was

written

in I921,

the

idea it expresses of the

replacement f one form f protohuman

with anotherhas

its

ounterpart

n

the

fiction f the I89os.

Perhaps

Clodd's articlereminded

Wells of thedebates that

proliferated

n

the I89os about

the

entwining f primitive nd civilized

in

the

human.

The

concept complicates

the

simplistic

iew

of

evolution

as

a

linear

ascent fromanimal toman, and enables us to reread the early scientific

romances

and short stories

as texts

that articulateboth

a

consciousness

of

change

and

an

anxiety

about

the

transition

rom ne state

to

another.The

Victorian

being

of

futurity,

etamorphosing

between

the loi and

the

orlock,

provided

a

symbol

for themodern

age

of

the

fundamentally

ivided and self

destructive

syche

of the

new

man.

And

I

think use

the

term

man'

correctly.

Wells,

in

his

I89os

work,

is

lmost

wholly

concernedwith the transitionf

man,

from ictorian tomodern, and

part of his representation f male identity

involves he

wkward nd alienatingrelationship ith

woman.

The transitionaleing is foundinall ofWells's earlynovels.Griffin, n The

Invisiblean, propels

himself

nto

his ownmodernity

through hediscovery f

14

Edward

Clodd,

Memories

(London:

Chapman

and

Hall,

1916),

pp.

180-81

(original italics).

15

McCabe,

p. 199.




9/18

RICHARD PEARSON

65

invisibility,

hich transformsim into superhumanfigure olding an advan

tage over his species.This mutation, however, roves the perverse feature f

Darwinism and natural selection: ts astage, and thethreat fmutation leading

only to extinction. ut

it

lso demonstrates secondmore important spect of

Wells's vision: thatnatural adaptations

are not the

only

form f 'natural

elec

tion'. he

power

of culture seven

greater.

riffin's

daptation

is

ccompanied

by

a

breakingof taboo, by

the

gradual

escalation of hismurderous attitudes

(killing rom at tohuman).The killing f

Griffin

t the nd of

The

Invisiblean

is ritualistic: he ommunity everts o

a

primitive nstinctf self-preservation

n

order to defend its rder and

organization.

here is

no

safety

or

riffin, ho,

because of his transgressionf taboo, is thehuntedof all society.6 his theme

is lso present

n

the ther texts: heMorlocks' cannibalism, he liens' eatingof

the

human, and,

more

directly,

he

east-people's ating

f flesh

re

depicted

as

deplorable sacrileges.

Thus, human advancement,

in

Wells's view, is not solely the province of

biological evolution,

nd isnot tobe seen as a

complacentprogression owards

everhigher

ivilization.

ndeed, the

nteraction f cultural

hange and biologi

cal

change

is

complex;

but forWells

the

omponent

f cultures themore

signif

icantof the two.Since culture is theprovince of sociology, nd sociologyfor

Wells

is

not

a

science, then t s the maginative ngagementwith cultural rac

tices nd rituals

hat

ecome crucial

for is

understanding

f

the andscape and

mindset ofmodernity.

Wells's

short tories

f the

I89os

offer new

perspective

n the

osition

ofman

in

themodern world, and, likehis utopias,derive from sense that resent-day

modern man must view himself from nother space or time

in

order to fully

come

to

terms

ith his

own

modernity.

sJohn Hammond

says

of the stories:

'they xemplify hefragmentationnd doubt characteristic f thebreak-upof

theVictorian

age'.'7

Aepyornis Island',

a short

tory

rom hePallMall

Budget

of

I3

December

i894 (later

ollected

in

The Stolen

acillus),

features collector

for museumwho travels o

adagascar

where he discovers he ones and three

eggs

of a

bird, long thought xtinct, reserved

n

tar-like ud. He is eft lone

on

an

island

after the revolt f his

native

helpers,

and

eats two

of the

eggs,

despite

the econdone

having developed'.

n

his loneliness

n

the eserted

toll,

he

cultivates he ast

gg

and hatches

it, efriending

he mallbird

inside,

hom

he calls

'Friday'. hey

become close

companions,

but thebird

graduallygrows

to a height f fourteen eet nd begins tohuntButcher,their riendship orgot

ten.

I'll

admit

felt mall to see this

lessed fossil

ording

t

there',

ays

utcher.

18

16

Brian

Murray

notes

that

'[t]he

Invisible Man

is,

in

a

sense,

Huxley's

"primitive

man,"

standing

for all that

Wells would

repeatedly

condemn':

H.

G

Wells

(New

York:

Continuum,

1990),

p.

94.

17

J.

R.

Hammond,

H. G

Wells and the hort

Story

(London:

Macmillan,

1992),

p.

28.




10/18

66

H. G.

Wells nd

Transitional

an

Eventually, an

triumphs;

utchermakes

a

bolus and

flings t round

the ird's

legs,runsfrom hesea, and saws through is longneck.Then he sits own and

cries.

He lets the fish

ick the

bird,

as

he

cannot

bring

himself to eat

him, and

thenhe

gets

picked up

and sells

the

bones

toa

dealer

near

the ritish

Museum.

The story

ramatizes the

ery rocess

of 'making

he ones

live' utsideof

their

museum

cases

the

gg/artefact, ossilized

nd extinct,

eturns he

ntellectual

collector

to

a

more

primitive

ime

nd forces is

reversion

o

a

hunter

seeking

only to

survive.

cratch the urface

f

a

civilized

man, and

a

primitive,

ntuitive,

ritualistic

eing isbarely

concealed.

The point

was made by

Clodd

in

The

Story

of

'Primitive'Man:

civilization

retains, and,

in

no

small

degree,

shares his

[primitive

man's]

primitive

deas

about his

surroundings [

..]

we

have

not

altered so

much as we

vainly think;

if

the

civilized part

in

us

is

recent,

in structure

and inherited

tendencies

we

are

each of us

hundreds of

thousands of years

old.'9

Hammond

sees

'Aepyornis

sland' as

a

reworking

f

Defoe's Robinson

rusoe,

connected

to

late ictorian

anxieties

ver

race

(the

treatment

f

native

helpers).

The

narrative, e

suggests,

rings utcher

to

recognition f his

own

humanity

(the

tragedy

f

killing

his

'friend'),

nd creates

a

kind

of

modern-day

Ancient

Mariner retelling is

story

to

the

narratorwho

passes it

on to

us

(a device

Hammond

suggests

dds to

the 'realism' f the

piece).20

However, it is

also a

story

bout

culture,

nd the

clash of

culture and

instinct.

irst,

the

Crusoe

references

ndicate

a

difference

n

Butcher's

island

Butcher

does

not, like

Robinson,

reconstruct

is

ownmodern

culture.

nstead

he

removes

imselffrom

such

influencesnd focuses ll

of his

attention

n

the

egg

and bird.

His arrival

on

the atoll

reminds utcher of

Defoe,

and he

thinks

imself

on a

Boy's Own

adventure: 'finer'

nd

more

'adventurous

.

.

.]

business'

he

couldn't

imagine

(p.

303).

But this

oes

not

last:

our

little

aradise

went

wrong'

(p. 306).

It

isnot

the bird's death

that

upsets

Butcher,

as

Hammond

suggests,

ut his

loss of

culture

'that

place

was

as

monotonous as a

book of sermons.

went

round

finding

atable

things

nd

generally

hinking;

ut

I

tell

you

I

was

bored

to

death

before the first

ay

was

out'

(p. 303).

His solace is

the

Aepyornis

bird,

but we are

continually

eminded that

the

bird is 'an

extinct nimal'

who

should

not

be there

p.

308),

and that

he

was a

good

companion

'before e

went

wrong'

(p. 309).

The

relationship

annot exist

in a

simultaneous

ime,

nd

as

soon as

the

bird

reaches

maturity

its

nstinct

o

survive akesover.

Butcher

imagines

himself

to

have been

the

educator

of the

bird,and now abuses its ngratitude.ut thebird hasmerely followed ts wn

path

of

'development'.

he

humanizing

of

it is

entirely

utcher's own

way of

18

Short

Stories

of

H.

G.

Wells,

p. 307.

19

Clodd,

Story

of

Primitive'

Man,

p.

193

(original italics).

20

Hammond,

pp.

60-62.




11/18

RICHARD PEARSON 67

relating o it.The irony f his name isnot thathe is a 'butcher'

nd kills the

bird,asHammond suggests, ut theopposite.The butcher is a culturalfigure,

providingmeat for ur society; ut Butcher is driven to kill against

hiswishes,

and cannot eat themeat of thebird.He is forced to reacknowledge

is own

instinct or urvival,

nd

to

live

in

thebird's age of thehuntermore thanhis

own. Indeed, this

s the final

rony

f the

story it

s

notButcher

who gets to

reconstruct is own culture ike

rusoe, but the epyornisbird that ndermines

the

culture

f

Butcher.

The

primitive

ossil as provedmore durable than the

modern

culture fman.

A second tale f the I89os that ealswith the rimitive orld isWells's 'A tory

of the tone

Age', published

in

I897

in

the

May-September

issues

f The

Idler

and

collected

n

Tales f Space

ndTime

n

I899. It is ctuallythe ompanion story,

in a sense, to thebetter- nown

A Storyof the ays toCome', which follows t

in the I899 volume.But inmany ways all of the tales

in

the short

eries arry

with them

defamiliarizing

f

perspective:

The

CrystalEgg'

contains

within it

scenes

froma Martian

landscape;

'The

Star'

concludes with the 'Martian

astronomers' atching

thenear miss of

a

comet to theearth and speculating,

'from heir wn standpoint f course', on the ittle isibledamage

it aused to

the arth

p.

729).

The titles

Story

of the tone

Age'

and

A

Story

f

the ays

toCome' are

clearly

inked

to the

popularity

f 'stories'

hat

rovide

scientific

information,

s

in

Newnes's

Library

f

Useful Stories

eries,

nd

Kipling's 'Story

of

Ung'. They

indicate

packaging

of

science

in

consumable,narrativeform.

The

tale

appears very

unlike

Wells:

a man

of

the

future,

f

prophesy,

riting

about prehistoric

an? But

it

tells s

a

lot boutWells's view

of

evolution nd

the

development

f

social

culture.

gain,

it

says

more about

the ateVictorian

period

than

it

does about

50,000

BC,

not least

because,

like theTime

Machine's

imaginedterritoryf thefuture, ells has tomake a huge leap of the magina

tion to take

the

Victorian)

eaderback to

Stone

Age

man.

The

story

s about

change,

nd

it

ndicates

owwe

might argue

that

hange

for

ells

might

be seen

as

an

intertwining

f

psychology

nd

technology.

n

the

ase of

the

volving

f

man,

Wells

suggests

hat combination

f

chance,

genius/imagination,

ultural

adaptation,

and

biological prowess

determines

the

future

f

the

human

race.

The

story ells

f

a

conflict

over

woman)

within

a

prehistoric ribe,

here

Uya

the

unning,

the tribal

eader,

ishes

to

possessEudena,

a

younggirl.

he

flees

under

the

protection

f

her

lover, gh-lomi,

who

fightsya

with

the

precious

firestone,husbreakinga tribal taboo.The young couple are chased by the

group,

which is intent

n

killing and eating)

them. heir

escape

is followed

y

Ugh-lomi's gradual discovery

f

technologies eyond

thoseof the tribe:

first,

how to

make

an

axe,

and then

horse

riding.

e

slays ya,

rescues

captured




12/18

68

H.

G.

Wells ndTransitional

an

Eudena, and defeatsmost of the tribe

n

a

frenzied attle.He becomes the ord

of the rest:

He called manfully to

her

to

follow him

and turned back, striding, ith the club swinging

in

his hand, towards

the

squatting-place,

as

if

he

had

never

left

the

tribe; and she ceased

her weeping

and

followed quickly

as a woman

should

[...

.]Thereafter, formany moons

Ugh-lomi

was

master

and had his will in

peace. And

in

the fullnessof time

he

was killed

and

eaten even as

Uya

had been slain.

(pp.

794-95)

There

are

two

centralhuman

developments

n

the

story:

gh-lomi's

discovery

of the

xe-weapon,

nd the

foretelling

fman's dominion

over animals. nitially,

the

etting

s harmoniousworld

-man and

animal live

together

'there as

no fear, o rivalry,ndno enmity etween them' p.731).Man has arrived; Man

was

indeed

a

newcomer to

this

art

of

theworld

in

that ncient

time, oming

slowly long

the

rivers, eneration

fter

eneration,

rom ne

squatting-place

o

another, rom he outh-westward'p. 748).

Ugh-lomi

is described

as

somehow

more

thoughtful

han the

other tribal

members.

He is shown

'thinking',

nd then 'novel

things egan

to

happen'

(p.

757).

He defeats

bear,

the

terror

f the

beginning

f the

story;

he

nimals

talk

n

the

narrative, omplacent

bout the

new

arrivals

nd

viewing

thehumans

as

aberrations:

I

suppose

it's sort f

monkey

gone

wrong',

'It's

change',

'The

advantagehe hadwasmerelyaccidental' (p.758).ButUgh-lomihas also a sense

of

his own

power,

nd

a constant

esire

for

revenge

nd

domination;

he kills the

male

bear,

as

he does

Uya,

thistime

by rolling

boulder from he cliff

op on

to the

ear

below.

Later,

he

captures

horse,

gain partly y

accidentand

partly

by

design

and much

out

of

curiosity.

nce

more,

thehorses think im

a

harmless

'pinkmonkey' (p. 763).

'In

the

days

before

Ugh-lomi therewas little

trouble etween thehorses nd

men.

And

in

those

ays

man

seemed

a

harmless

thing nough.

No

whisper

of

prophetic intelligence

old

the

species

of

the

terrible

lavery

hat

was

to come'

(pP.

76i-62).

As

Ugh-lomi

mounts

thehorse,

by jumping

from

tree,

tbolts

away

with the

primitive

man

clutchingto its

back.

His ride

is

like

the

witch-back f theTime

achine,

nd he is taken

y

the

experience:

the

xultation

rew.

twas

man's first

aste

f

pace'

(p.

767).

At

the nd

of the

story,gh-lomi has become

a

man on the ergeof his own

modernity.

He has

surpassed

his

colleagues,

and

his

symbolic function s to

demonstrate

he

hange

that omes

over

the

first xertion

f

man's

power

over

his environment nd those

other

creatures

within it.This

is

a

sociological

change,

and

not a

biological

evolution.

gh-lomi

has

control

f bears and lions

(tribal emon figures)nd of horses (helpers),nd he evenexchangeshis devel

oped

axe for new

club,

set

with the

teeth

f

the ion/Uyahe has killed having

foundthe enefit f

technological nvention).

nd

yet

he

has

also

been

damaged

by

his achievements. His

killing

of the lion

was

done

to save

a

woman,

and he

remains

ame

after

he

fight.

ike Lewisham

inLove

nd

r

Lewisham

I899),

he




13/18

RICHARD PEARSON

69

isan advancedman, but has been reducedby his desire for

female ompanion

ship. nd Wells's last ine that gh-lomi is ventually illed nd eaten likehis

predecessor creates n evolutionary attern f slow

development, ut also a

sense

of

futility.

he

story

s an

elegy

to

man's ancestry. ut it is also about

instinct, he evolutionof man, and the belief that such evolution is at best

ambivalent; hange

does not

always imply rogress, lthough

it

does imply he

acquisitionof power.

In

the

year

before

'A

Story

of

theStone

Age'

Wells wrote an article

entitled

'Human Evolution' for he

Fortnightly

eview

October

i896).21

his was

devised

as a responsetoKidd's SocialEvolution,nd aimed to suggest hatthenotionof

'improvement' as not a result f 'natural election', ut of 'a

process new

in

thisworld's

history',

n

'evolution

f

suggestions

nd ideas' linked to the

developing ocial body (p. 21I).Wells

wrote:

there are

satisfactory rounds

for

believing

that

man

(allowing

for racial

blendings)

is still

mentally, morally,

and

physically,what

he

was

during the

later

Palaeolithic period, that

we

are, and that the

race

is

likely

to

remain,

for

humanly speaking)

a vast

period

of

time,

at

the

level

of the

Stone Age. (p. 2II)

This

view

of human

evolution

as

essentially

tatic

raisesquestions

about our

commonviewofWells's fiction. ells clearlyhad amore sophisticated iew of

the

cology f evolutionary hange

than s ndicated

y

the

more

symbolic sage

of the idea

in

The TimeMachine and his other

works

of the

I89os.

Bringing

together

nformationbout rabbitswith thaton

man,

Wells

points

out

how

crucial to our

understanding

f natural

selection

as

the

driving

mechanism

behind evolution s the

subject

f

birth rate

and violentdeath.

Man,

he

points

out, passes through

ive

enerations

ach

century,

s humans are not

prepared

for

reeding

until

they

rewell intotheir eens r

beyond.

Rabbits,

on the ther

hand,

are

capable

of

breeding

within six

months

of birth:

thus

in

a

single

century

abbits an

have

passed through

wo

hundred

generations..

he rabbit's

large litter ould also produce adaptations

suited to

surviving

tsvulnerable

existence,

hilst

the

weak

end

of the itter ies

early

nd does

not

breed.

Taking

all these

points

together,

nd

assuming

four

generations

of

men

to

the

century

a

generous

allowance

and

ten thousand

years

as

the

period

of

time

that

has

elapsed

since

man

entered

upon

the

age

of

polished

stone,

it

can

scarcely

be

an

exaggeration

to

say

that he has had

time

only

to

undergo

as

much

specific

modification

as

the rabbit

could

get

through

in

a

century.

(p.

2I3)

21

Reprinted

in

H.

G. Weih:

Early

Writings

in cience and Science

iction,

ed.,

with critical

commentary

and

notes,

by

Robert

M.

Philmus

and David

Y

Hughes

(Berkeley:

University

of

California

Press,

1975),

from which

subsequent

page

references

are

taken.




14/18

70

H. G. Wells

and

Transitional

an

Comparing microscopic bacteria

with

this,

an

is static

n

terms f evolution.

Cultural effectsrewhat have changedman: speechandwriting, ertainly,ut

-

centrally

whatWells called the artificial an'. Wells

remarks:

That

in

civilized

man we have (i)

an

inherited factor,

the natural man, who

is theproduct

of

natural

selection,

the

culminating

ape,

and a

type of animal

more

obstinately

unchangeable than

any

other living

creature; and

(2)

an

acquired factor,

the

artificial

man, the highly plastic

creature of

tradition, suggestion, and

reasoned

thought.

(p.

2I7)

Civilization

and

the

artificial

ave,

for

Wells, developed together,

nd

through

this

relationship

e

recognizes

the

concept

of

taboo,

and that 'whatwe call

Morality becomes the adding

of

suggested motionalhabitsnecessary

tokeep

the roundPalaeolithic savage in the quarehole of the ivilized state' p. 2I7).22

This is a significantebate

in the

I89os, and was present

in

various cultural

discourses, ncluding

ace

and

issues f

masculinity.

orWells

there

s

residual

savage

state

n

the ndividual

and

in

society)

hat

s

only

held

in

check

by

moral

conscience.

And

yet

Wells

is

not

confident,

n

the

in

de

siecle

imes,

hat such

morality

will remain stable

(we

see

this

n

Griffin, oreau,

and the

violence

released

in

Butcher),

nd thus

Education',

he

says

is

the

careful nd

systematic

manufacture

of the artificial actor

nman'

(p. 217).

This

is

why

Wells

is

not a

eugenicist:

n

ideal social

organization,

a

utopia

can

be

hoped

for

thatwill

prevent ny such

social e-creations f the

wastage

of

aggressive

atural selec

tion.As

RoslynnHaynes states,

howing

the difference etween

Huxley

and

Wells:

whereas Huxley's emphasis

on

ethics led

him at times to

mistrust even the intellectwhen

itwas divorced from

a

moral education,

Wells

came

increasingly

to place

his

hope for

the

future

of mankind

in

intelligence

and

will

as themeans

of

overcoming

the

chance

and

cruelty of

the

evolutionary

process.23

In

thepress

of

the

mid-I8gos

Wells

was

part

of a

debate about just exactly

what was

happening

to the

human

species.

n the

ontext f the

growing

ense

of

modernity,

his

s

particularly nteresting.

he

relationship

etweenWells and

Grant Allen shows some differences

n

opinion

and

literary echnique

that

indicate hegradations

nd

shades

of

belief

around

the ubject f the rimitive.

Allen

certainly

eld

a

strong nclination owards he

elief that

volutionmeant

progress

and

thatWestern

man was

the highestcurrent chievement.

n the

same edition f the

ortnightly

eview

n

which

Wells wrote 'Morals

nd

Civiliza

tion',

his

follow-up

rticle to 'Human

Evolution', appeared Allen's review

of

22 Peter Kemp, whose book title is taken from this essay, comments thatWells was 'obsessively concerned

with the

possibility

that

man

may

also

turn

out

to

be

a

terminating

ape

?

destroying

his

own

species,

unless

he

can

adapt

his

animal

nature

to

rapidly

changing

circumstances':

H.

G Wells

and

the

Culminating

Ape: Biological

Themes and

Imaginative

Obsessions

(London:

Macmillan,

1982;

rev.

edn.

1996),

p.

5.

However,

in

his

early

work

on

prehistoric

man,

Wells indicates that the instinctive

primitivism

of

man

will

always

be with

him;

it

will

not

'adapt'.

The Morlocks

are

the 'civilization' of the

future,

not

the cattle-like Eloi.

23

Haynes,

p.

27.




15/18

RICHARD

PEARSON 7I

Edward Clodd's Pioneersf Evolution;

ntitled Spencer nd Darwin', this eview

(which immediately receeded Wells's article) claimed forDarwin only the

discovery f natural selection, nd for pencer

the deasof 'OrganicEvolution,

and of Evolution in

General, including osmic Evolution,

planetary volution,

Geological Evolution, Organic

Evolution,

Human

Evolution, Psychological

Evolution, ociological

Evolution,

nd

Linguistic volution,before arwin had

published

one

word on

the

subject'.24

ells saw that

the

rchaeology f primi

tive

an

allowed

a

window on to form

f

humanity

hat

hallenged the tifling

order of Victorian

society.

e

conceived

of

the

connections etween

thepre

historic

nd

the

ontemporary

s innate nd

immediate: the

nherent ossibil

ities f themodern human child t birth ould differnnomaterial respect rom

those

of

the ancestral

child

at

the

end

of the age of

Unpolished Stone'.25

In

what

becomes almost an

essay

on sexual

frustrationith

monogamy,Wells

describes

morality

as 'the

adding

of

suggested

motions nd

habits,by

which

the roundPalaeolithicman is

fitted nto the

square hole of the civilized state'

(p. 22I).

For

him,

as

for

lodd,

the Primitive'

an

has

never

gone away.

Wells draws

upon

his

knowledge

of current

anthropological research

into

contemporary rimitive

ribes

n

order to defend his view

that

man

is not so

much evolving s biologically static, nd changesmore particularly nder the

pressures

f civilizedforms f

society. e raises the

ssue f sexualmorality, nd

showshow the dea of

monogamy

is

present

nly

to

prevent

the

social

disorder

that

would follow

general polygamy,

nd that

ritualistic aboos

help to keep

such

moral

systems

n

place. During

the

I89os

the

concept

of taboo

became

widely discussed,not ust because

society

tself aced a

challenge

to

traditional

Victorian sexual nd

social

mores,

butbecause

of

the

ontext

f

work on anthro

pology

and

primitive

elief

systems.

longside

Wells's

fiction ere the

popular

novelsof another

evolutionist,

rant

Allen, whose novel TheGreat

aboo I890)

was

based

entirely ponJames

Frazer's

Golden

ough I890),

as

his Prefacemakes

clear.

It describes

the

arduous

experience

of

a

young

white

couple,

Felix and

Muriel,

washed

up

from

ship

on

the

hores

f

a

South Pacific

island nhabited

by

cannibals.The

relationship

etweenWells's work and

Allen's has

been

little

discussed,

nd

yet

the

two

men

were

well

known to

each other

and

even

took

cycling olidays together

owards

he

nd of

the

I89os.

Allen's

novel The

British

BarbariansI895)

bears

a

strong

imilarity

o

The

TimeMachine

n

kindof reverse.

An

'Alien'

rom

hefuture

wenty-fifthentury

ands

n

small

uburb

f

London

and unpicks ngland'smoral follies its taboos beforefalling n lovewith

a

marriedwoman.

The

novel

is

comedyattacking

ocial

customs

f the

I89os,

24

Grant

Allen,

'Darwin and

Spencer',

Fortnightly

eview,

51

(February 1897),

p.

261.

25

'Morals

and

Civilization',

repr.

in

G.

Wells:

Early

Writings,

p.

220.




16/18

72

H. G.

Wells ndTransitional

an

even as

far

s marriage the

'sex

taboo':

'marriage rises

from he

stone age

practice of felling woman of another tribewith a blow of one's club, and

dragging

her

off

by

the

hair of her

head

to

one's own cave as

a

slave and

a

drudge'.26

he

story

ears

not

only

resemblances

o

theTime

Machine,

but also

to

The

Wonderful

isit,

nd it

is

The British arbarians hat

Wells refers o

in

his

essayon 'Morals

and

Civilization',

and reviewedforthe

magazines.

The narrative f The Great abooplays upon the ritualistic tructure f the

primitive eligion, nwhich

a

chiefGod, Tu-Kila-Kila, renewsthe owers of his

tribe y

sacrificing

n an

annual basis outsiders

dentified

s

minor deities.Felix

andMuriel

are

made Gods

and

placed

under

a

taboo:

no

one

can

touch them

and allmust

worship

them.At the end of their llotted time

they

will be

sacrificed nless

they

an learn

the

ecret f

the taboo and what

might

counter

it. elix has to steal u-Kila-Kila's 'soul' located

n

branch of

a

tree

e

guards,

like theGolden Bough)

and

to kill

the

god

in

hand-to-hand combat. This he

does.

The details of the island

life rant Allen handles

quite aesthetically.

here

are

parallels

to

be

drawn

between

his

descriptions

of

Polynesian

life and

Gauguin's

primitivistaintings eing produced

at

the

same

time.

The sight was, indeed, a curious and picturesque one. The girls, large-limbed, soft

skinned,

and with

delicately-rounded figures,

sat on the

ground, laughing

and

talking,

with their

knees crossed

under

them;

their

wrists were encinctured with

girdles

of dark

red dracoena leaves,

their

swelling

bosoms

half-concealed,

half

accentuated by hanging

neckletsf

flowers.27

But the annibalism nd lack f religion f the slanders s the ticking oint for

Muriel,

and

Grant

Allen

certainly mphasizes

the heroism of the civilized

combatants

nd their esire

to

reform heheathen.Muriel

says

t

the

eginning,

with

trepidation:

You

don't

mean to

say

that slands

ike

these, tanding ight

n

the

very

track f

European steamers,

re

still

eathen and

cannibal?'

(p. 5).

At the nd

of

thenovelAllen

makes

right he efeat

f

Tu-Kila-Kila by Felix,

the 'civilized

man',

as an

inevitable nd

justified

ct of the

civilized

over

the

savage.

Whilst

Tu-Kila-Kila

fights, oaming

t

the

mouth 'with

mpotent age',

and rushes

on

Felix

violently,

elix

fights

with the calm skill

f

a

practiced

fencer',having

learned 'the

gentle

art

of thrust

nd

parry'

in

'thatcivilized

school'.When

Tu-Kila-Kila

pauses

for

breath,

Felix brains him.

Unlike the

cannibals,however,

e feels

remorse

nd

values life:

Felix

azed

at

the

blood

bespattered

face

remorsefully.

t is

an

awful

thing,

ven

in

a

just quarrel,

to

feel

thatyouhave reallytaken human life ' pp. 251-52).Being now thenewGod

himself

Felix

abolishes cannibalismas thenativesprepare to eat Tu-Kila-Kila,

26

Grant

Allen,

The

British

Barbarians:

A

Hilltop

Novel

(London:

John

Lane,

1895),

p. 172.

27

Grant

Allen,

The

Great

Taboo

(London:

Chatto &

Windus,

1890),

p.

80;

further references

are

to

this edition.




17/18

RICHARD PEARSON

73

and announces his intention

o return ome and bring them hristianity: Iwill

send outmessengers, erygoodmen, who will tellyou of a God more powerful

by

much

than

ny you

ever

knew, nd very righteous. hey will teachyou great

things ou have never dreamed

of' (p. 263). But thenatives re not convinced

and do not want theirgods

to leave.Just in time,theBritish arrive,heavily

armed, and take the uropeans back. In an attempt o add

a touch f irony t

the nd of the

book,

Allen then takes elix andMuriel

to

London andMuriel's

aunt,who is shocked

to

find that theyhave spentweeks alone

together n a

desert sland. ven

though

hey ntend omarry, ondon taboos

are still nplace.

Allen's novel is significant

ecause it hows usthow pervasive

were the deas

aboutprimitivismt thetime, ut also howAllen's simplisticotions f progress

and moral order tarnish is thinking ith an arrogant

omplacency.

he

Great

Taboo s popular rendering

f thenaturalmoral order supporting estern civi

lization. s Allen notes, for

him:

Civilization

is an

attribute

of

communities;

we

necessarily leave

itbehind when we find

ourselves

isolated among barbarians

or

savages.

But culture is a purely personal and

individual possession;

we carry it

with

us

wherever

we go;

and

no

circumstances of life

can ever

deprive

us

of it.

(p. 67)

The

replacing

f the

oupari

gods

with

Christianity

hows thedamage done to

local cultures hen invadedby the foreign utsider. s Allen suggests, It is an

awful

thing

or

ny

race or

nation

when its

taboos

fail ll

at

once and die out

entirely ..

.]

Anarchy

and

chaos

might

rule'

(p. 278).

Wells's work of the 89os

is

bout

man on

the usp

of

modernity. is work draws

upon

the scientificchools

of Darwinian

thought,

nd

upon

the

current

evel

opments

in

sociology,

nthropology,

nd even

archaeology. hrough

these

he

imaginativelynvestigates

hewider

implications

or hemind

ofmodern

man.

When

the ime

Traveller

ventures nto

the

future,

e

enters

symbolic ealm,

much like oreau's island, r the toll of theAepyornis, r, indeed, theprimi

tive

andscape

of

prehistoric

ritain.The Time Travellerdoes

notmove

from

his

physical

ocation: the

garden

and the

passageways

of the

future

re

present

in

his house of the

I89os,

in

the

link

between the laboratory

nd

the

dining

room.

The

laboratory

pace

containsboth

the inner nd

outer

worlds of

the

future,

oth

the

dark

world inside the

Sphinx

and the

false

paradise

of the

garden; pulling

the

machine

across

from

ne to

the other

in

the future

nly

moves

it

cross the

aboratory

n

the

resent.

he Time Travellerhimself sboth

theEloi

and theMorlocks.

Man

does

not

evolve

so

quickly

thathe

can leave

those instinctive

acets ehind.

The

primitive,

s

Conrad

also

suggests

n his

earlywork,

is nside he ivilized.

Wells reviewed onrad's

An

Outcast

f

the

slands

and knew

Almayer's olly,

both

of which

were

contemporary

ith

The Time

Machine,

nd both of

which deal

with the latent

iolence

inside the

veneer

of




18/18

74 H.

G.

Wells ndTransitionalan

respectability,nd the riental cultural threat o the rtificial uropean moral

order.28 y splitting rimitivismnd civilization etween theMorlocks and the

Eloi,Wells plays a gamewith the reader. he Time Travellerassociateshimself

with the loi, he calls them human'

r near

human and feels ympathy or hem.

He even

strikes p his

friendship

ith

the

ndrogynous eena,

and sees

her as

the

hope

of

humanity symbolized

n

her

white flowers.

ut it iswith

the

Morlocks that he

ime

Traveller

really

as

the

most

association.

His

repulsion

at them, is retreat oWeena are

only

a

denial ofwhat the textmakes clear: the

Time Travellercontains theprimitive,ust like theMorlock. He is the

abourer,

lovingmachines, the ater ofmeat, and theviolentdestroyer f what threatens

him.As he stumbles ack into thedining room forhis dinner, e replicates he

movementsof the lind and stumbling orlocks fleeing rom hefire e

set.

is

lameness dds

to

the hambling ppearance, his hair is greyer', is

face

'ghastly

pale',

like

heirs,

nd

he

is dazzled

by

the

ight'.29

ells's

modern

man

is

ctually

little ore than confused rimitive, nd it s this ense ofmodernity as being

beyond humanity

that strikes

e as

central

and

distinct boutWells's I89os

work.His

characters

o

not

stride

onfidently,

ike

gh-lomi,

into the

future;

f

they

o,

likehim

they

anish and

die.

Modernity forWells is the recognition f theprimitive undamental ature

of

man,

and

the feebleartificial haracterof his civilization. an's

folly,

ike

Almayer's, is to believe thathis civilization

ill

save him.Wells's modern man

must

understand

his

primitivism,

r

perish.

28

For

the

relationship

between

Wells and Conrad

see

John

Batchelor,

'Conrad and Wells

at

the End of

the

Century',

Critical

Review,

38 (1998),

69-82.

Wells

and

Conrad

corresponded during

this

period,

after

Conrad

discovered

that

Wells

wrote

the review of

his

work in

1896.

In

December

1902 Conrad,

Gissing,

and Clodd

also

corresponded,

as

Gissing

drew

Clodd's

attention

to

this

'great

riter'

following

the

publication

of

Youth

and

Two

Other Stories

(which

included

Heart

ofDarkness);

see

Clodd,

Memories,

p.

186.

29

H.

G.

Wells,

The

Time

Machine,

ed.

by

Patrick

Parrinder

(1898;

London:

Penguin,

2005),

pp.

13-14.

h g wells primitive modernity

Documents