direct rebuttal that the arguments only prove how much we are in need of Utopia. Of Mr Wells' Utopias it may always be said that they are not small private revenges, and I say this not from knowledge of him or of his private life, but from knowledge of his books. It is part of his pleasure in living to believe in perfectability through science; his displeasure with monarchism, competition, and the Soviets of Russia never for a moment alters his good humour. He thinks life can be fine, must be made fine; he is more or less in love with the material and has profound confidence in the machine which is to transform it.
Why then is there a sort of blight over this new statement of his belief? Why is it so lifeless! I confess that I share none of the beliefs I ascribe to him, none I derive from his work; yet I am susceptible to his talents, to his almost ungovernable intensity and his actual creative gift. Why doesn't this Utopia even exasperate me? Is it possibly because Mr Wells doesn't care so much for it himself and has only written it to add another illusion to the world which (Anatole France has said) without illusion would perish of boredom; or is it that something has knocked the whole idea of Utopia, as well as all the special Utopias, into a cocked hat, and that that particular direction of human thought and emotion has no longer any bearing upon actual human existence?
