at length in "A Modern Utopia," "New Worlds for Old," "First and Last Things," "God the Invisible King," etc. Their proposals for reconstruction have included from time to time most of the forms of social tyranny contemplated by the Socialists. But their spontaneous impulses, like those of Mr. Wells himself, are romantic and egotistic, as he has acknowledged. The instinctive aspiration of each is to be an aristocrat, a prince, an autocrat, or, as Benham in his megalomania puts it, an "uncrowned king of the world," or a kind of mortal God. Benham, as I have said, may be compared with Dr. Moreau because his research is into the plasticity of human nature: he is trying to make himself over in accordance with an ideal, which obliges him to cut out of his nature three of the most elemental and deep-seated passions: fear, desire, and jealousy.
What does Mr. Wells actually think to-day about the possibility of making men like gods by the excision of jealousy, desire, fear? You may find what he thought from week to week throughout 1924 by reading the fifty-five articles in "A Year of Prophesying." If you will turn to the fifty-fourth article, entitled "The Creative Passion," you will come upon this brief statement of his present attitude:
Do men and women generally want a better world than this?
Do they want a world free from war, general economic security, a higher level of general health, long life, freedom and hope for everyone, beauty as the common quality of their daily lives?
The conventional answer to that question, especially if you put it to a public meeting with the appropriate gestures, is "Of course they do."
But the true answer is, "Not much!"
