BOOKS OF THE DAY

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The Fate of Homo Sapiens (The Dean of St. Paul's) .

189

W. B. Yeats (Frederic Prokosch)

190

The Defence of France (D. R. Gillie) .

190

Workers of the World (Honor Croome) .

191

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Beware of the English! (Christopher Hobhouse)...

192

Introductions to English Literature (Monica Redlich) ...

192

Hammer, Sickle and Baton (Andrew Sharf)

193

Fiction (Kate O'Brien) ..

194

PLAIN WORDS TO HOMO SAPIENS

By THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S

AMONG the many projects for the benefit of the human race which have emanated from Mr. Wells' fertile mind is that of a new Bible. I do not think he intended to write it all himself, but there is no reason surely why he should not contribute to the Canon, and this book seems to be designed to take the place of Deuteronomy. The Mosaic writer set before his readers "life and death, the blessing and the curse," and Mr. Wells, with prophetic fervour, addresses Homo Sapiens, setting before him the same alternative—life or death. It is not, however, the Law of God which Mr. Wells recommends as the way of life ; it is the law of nature. Humanity as a species, so he believes, is at a critical moment in its biological history. " Adapt or perish has always been the implacable law of life for all its children," and man is failing to adapt himself. Mr. Wells has little hope that Homo Sapiens will rise to meet the crisis. " In spite of all my dispositions to a brave-looking optimism, I perceive that now the universe is bored with him, is turning a hard face to him, and I see him being carried less and less intelligently, and more and more rapidly, suffering as every ill-adapted creature must suffer in gross and detail, along the stream of fate to degradation, suffering and death." One cannot help reflecting how sadly "scientific" sociology has changed its note since the optimistic Herbert Spencer, who assured us that by the process of evolution we must reach, without any assistance from human planning, a state of perfect adaptation, and therefore of perfect content.

Whatever we may conclude about Homo Sapiens, we may note with pleasure that Mr. Wells is still full of life. He has never been more vigorous, more interesting, or—and this will please him most—more exasperating to people like the present writer. The thesis which he sets out to prove is simple enough. It is that the material environment of human life has been completely changed by the rapid advance of science. One of the social consequences of the change has been the production of an excess of bored and unemployed young men, who in earlier times were more or less absorbed and disposed of by small-scale wars, and the need for vigorous labour if the community was to subsist. The problem is a world problem, and can be dealt with only by a world com- munity, and that must be a world democracy. No other form of universal State, in Mr. Wells' opinion, can save the species from ultimate extinction. But we should be doing Mr. Wells an injustice if we supposed that he imagined salvation lies in organisation alone. He returns to his theme of the need for a World Brain—we need a new mentality which can be attained only by the dissemination of the true ideas of the universe which have now been disclosed to the men of science. We shall be saved by knowledge.

Perhaps the most interesting chapters of the book are those in which Mr. Wells attempts to show the inadequacy, and worse, of all the creeds and all the political movements which at present exist. He is a good hater, and he has a pretty turn for biting phrases. He searches the world for any hopeful cause or trustworthy leader, and he finds none. If he despises Mr. Chamberlain, he feels bitter contempt for Karl Marx ; if he regards Germany as a passionately resentful people led by a maniac, he can describe Soviet Russia as " a giant with the head of a newt." He can see in Catholic dogma nothing but a macs of absurdity ; but equally the Communist

The Fate of Homo Sapiens. By H. G. Wells. (Seeker and Warburg. 7s. 6d.) party is " dogmatic ignorance." There is no way out but by the development of a World Brain. It must be confessed that the conception is not altogether clear. It is easy enough to understand the general principle that reason, knowledge and organised intelligence ought to be applied to the affairs of mankind as a whole, and that there can be no real security until there is a world community, but it is not so easy to grasp where, in Mr. Wells' view, the World Brain is to reside. It is not apparently to be simply diffused throughout the whole of the species Homo Sapiens, but to have some local habitation. It is to compile a world encyclopaedia and, armed with this, somehow to direct the world. The vision of a dictatorship of the Council of a super-Royal Society rises before our minds, but it is not certain that the vision truly represents Mr. Wells' thought.

There is much in this book with which every intelligent man must agree. It is indeed deplorable that the world is so badly organised and that the resources of science have been largely used for destructive ends. But it seems to me that the thesis of the prophecy, in so far as it is not a truism, is based upon a mistake. Mr. Wells assumes that the remedy for our dangerous diseases is more science and better application of the science which we have. Is it not true, however, that science cannot deal with values? It may tell us how to arrive at a certain end, but not whether that end is worth arriving at. Thus, to adduce an example which goes to the root of the matter, Mr. Wells takes for granted that the sur- vival of the human race as a whole is in itself desirable. We should probably all agree with him, but the proposition is not a scientific one, nor can it be demonstrated by the scientific method, and some have held that the species Homo Sapiens sh.)uld make way for the superman.

It is a pity that Mr. Wells has never understood what reli- gion is all about. If he had he 'would have avoided the super- ficial account of the origin of Christianity which is offered us here and we might have missed the startling information that John Keble's hymn " Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear," was " addressed originally to the hawk-sun-god Horus." From the standpoint of sociology, religion is the basis of the com- plex of value-judgements which give unity and coherence to a society. The tragedy of our time is that there are no gener- ally accepted judgements of value in our civilisation. We are living at a crisis in religious development and any solution will be a religious solution.

Mr. Wells is filled with a passion for humanity which is wholly admirable, and his indignation against the obstacles which prevent progress towards peace is righteous. His diagnosis of the disease, as it seems to me, is in error on two points. Christianity is more realist when it insists on the fact of sin, and it is more logical when it relates the fellow- ship of humanity with belief in God. Biology does not teach brotherhood. It teaches that the struggle for existence goes on not only for the species as a whole but for groups within the species. There would be nothing contrary to biological principles if the nations engaged in a war of extermination— it would be a large-scale exemplification of biological laws. It becomes a tragedy and a crime when we view humanity sub quadam specie aeternitatis, and regard all the members of the race as not only specimens of Homo Sapiens but as children of God.