22 FEBRUARY 1902, Page 27

The Discovery of the Future. By H. G. Wells. (T.

Fisher Unwin. 2s.)—We feel disposed to be content with saying that this "Discourse Delivered to the Royal Institution" some three weeks ago is worth reading, as indeed is all that Mr. Wells chooses to write. To estimate its value is quite another matter. Those who hold that there is an independent unchangeable moral standard, or who believe in a divine government of the world, conditioned, in a way that no one can profess to understand, by human free-will, must find themselves on a quite different plane of thought from that on which Mr. Wells stands. The two have, indeed, no common terms to use. For all that, it may be a very useful and enlightening thing for one thinker to put himself in the other's place.