Professional Documents
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Wells
Author(s): JOHN S. PARTINGTON
Source: Utopian Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2002), pp. 57-68
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20718409
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The TimeMachine and Modern Utopia:
The Static andKinetic Utopias
of theEarly H.G.Weils*
JOHNS. PARTINGTON
thought of theworld. Those were all perfect and static States, a balance of hap
piness won for ever against the forces of unrest and disorder that inhere in
. . But theModern
things. [. ] Utopia must be not static but kinetic, must shape
not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading to a long ascent of
stages. (5)
Whilst mocking his tranquil predecessors, such as Thomas More and the
anachronistic William Morris, in this passage, Wells was also providing a
reason for the failure of one of his own earlier utopias, The Time Machine.
As will be demonstrated, the kinetic utopia of A Modern Utopia developed
out of the static society of The Time Machine. From as early as 1895 Wells
was critiquing the concept of static utopia and in doing so he was laying the
foundations for the development of his own brand of utopianism. The pur
pose of this article will be to show how Wells mediates inA Modern Utopia
on the failure of utopia inThe Time Machine and how his addressing of that
failure helps form his Utopian philosophy.
Frank McConnell has declared that"Whatever else it is?and it ismany
things?The Time Machine is certainly an exercise in that curious literary
subtype called Utopian fiction" (71). However, the novella, written ten years
before A Modern Utopia, did not, of course, end as a utopia (or rather, to
use Lyman Tower Sargent's word, a "eutopia" [14 . 1]), but only appears
as a utopia to theTime Traveller when he first arrives in the year 802,701.
Following theTime Traveller's early belief that he has arrived at a pastoral
communism, his many discoveries about that future age reveal his initial
supposition to be entirelywrong. Inwhat follows Iwill explain how society
in The Time Machine turned into a dystopian nightmare and how Wells
believed his A Modern Utopia to contain a Utopian methodology which
would ensure that the society on "that parallel planet beyond Sirius" (16)
would not end up the same way.
The first point to be made about The Time Machine is its contempo
raneity.Krishan Kumar acknowledges as much when he writes that "Wells's
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58 UTOPIAN STUDIES
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Utopias of theEarly H.G. Wells 59
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60 UTOPIAN STUDIES
Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had used all its
abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came
the reaction to the altered conditions,,, (80). As "'Strength is the outcome of
need'" and "'security sets a premium on feebleness'" (77), theEloi degener
ated physically and mentally. As they never needed towork to provide for
themselves, and as theMorlocks' subterranean habitats meant they had no
choice but to labour automatically for theEloi or face suffocation or starva
tion, theEloi no longer required intelligence or strength and thus, following
Darwinian logic, they adapted to their new conditions and grew mentally
and physically weak. As theTime Traveller puts it, '"For countless years I
judged therehad been no danger of war or solitary violence, no danger from
violent beasts, no wasting disease to require strength of constitution, no
need of toil. For such a life, what we should call the weak are as well
equipped as the strong, are indeed no longerweak'" (80). Itwas just such a
sustained spell of security which led theVictorian middle class to devolve
into the Eloi of 802,701. As theTime Traveller notes, under conditions of
perfect security, such a devolved species is '"no longer weak'". However,
as theTime Traveller ultimately discovers, the privileged status of theEloi
as the automatic rulers of the earth contained a fatal flaw: '"that perfect
state had lacked one thing even formechanical perfection?absolute perma
nency'" (153-54). Had the Eloi guaranteed for all time that theMorlocks
were provided for, their feebleness need not have affected their ruling status.
However, theTime Traveller believes that '"Clearly at some time in theLong
Ago of human decay theMorlocks' food had run short'" (129) '"And when
other meat failed them, they turned towhat old habit had hitherto forbid
den'" (154). The threatof starvation forced theMorlocks to break the taboo
of cannibalism and turned to their over-world masters formeat. The Eloi
that the Time Traveller encounters in 802,701 '"were mere fatted cattle,
which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed upon?probably saw to
thebreeding of" (130).
This final speculation, that theMorlocks '"probably saw to thebreeding
of" theEloi, suggests the use of positive eugenics, both by theEloi when
maintaining themselves as a class apart and afterwards by theMorlocks
when farming theEloi for food, which is supported by stereotyped imagery
throughout the story. Indeed, theTime Traveller believes thatmiddle-class
inbreeding was fundamental to the split in humanity thatproduced the Eloi
and theMorlocks, with the '"widening gulf" between classes being a result
of '"that promotion by intermarriagewhich at present retards the splitting of
our species along lines of social stratification'" (106) becoming '"less and
less frequent'" (106-07). Wells's Eloi all appear identical. As was pointed
out earlier, the children are but miniatures of the adults and differences of
gender are difficult to recognise. Indeed, although theTime Traveller refers
to his companion of the future,Weena, as '"she"' throughout the story, he
expresses uncertainty about her gender, referring to her at one stage as '"my
littlewoman, as I believe itwas'" (94). The Eloi's general appearance is
uniform. Thus, '"Their hair, which was uniformly curly, came to a sharp
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Utopias of theEarly H.G. Wells 61
end at the neck and cheek, therewas not the faintest suggestion of it on the
face, and their ears were singularly minute. The mouths were small, with
ran to a point. The eyes were
bright red, rather thin lips, and the little chins
large and mild'" (64). And again theTime Traveller notes that "T perceived
that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless visage, and the
same girlish rotundity of limb'" (73-74). Although positive eugenics is not
directly referred to in The Time Machine, the vulnerability of the seemingly
eugenically created Eloi begs the question whether Wells was taking a pot
shot at those social Darwinists who advocated selective breeding of humans
to create a healthier race of people. Wells consistently rejected positive eugen
ics throughout his life, overtly for the first time inMankind in theMaking in
1903 in a chapter entitled "The Problem of theBirth Supply" (34-73). If the
hypothesis here is correct, it is possible to dateWells's rejection of positive
eugenics eight years earlier, to the publication of The Time Machine.
If theEloi's degeneration and ultimate vulnerability can been seen as a
consequence of an epoch of security, itmust next be asked how theMorlocks
gained the impetus to throw off theEloian yoke and avenge the centuries of
exploitation by the upper-worlders. As has already been pointed out, at
some stage in theirpast theMorlocks' food supply must have run short and
they turned to cannibalism tomaintain their existence. But what prevented
theMorlocks from degenerating in a likemanner to theEloi? What allowed
them to assert themselves when faced with the problem of survival?
When considering the Eloi's adaptation to a life of toil-less pleasure,
the Time Traveller several times invokes theDarwinian law of evolution.
Thus, he declares, when considering their lack of intelligence, "'An animal
perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature
never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no
intelligence where there is no change and no need of change'" (153).
Clearly over the centuries theEloi had adapted so well to their environment
that life had become instinctual once again. However, when considering the
Morlocks, the opposite must be the case. As theTime Traveller points out,
'"It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the com
. .
pensation for change, danger, and trouble. [. ]Only those animals partake
of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers'"
(153). While the Eloi lived in unchanging leisure, theMorlocks required
some intelligence both to provide for thewellbeing of the upper-worlders
and to ensure theirown survival, especially once their food supply had run
scarce. Although it is safe to presume that theMorlocks' round of duties,
when providing for the Eloi, was more or less the same throughout time,
simply manufacturing theirclothes, maintaining theirhabitats and providing
their food, theTime Traveller notes that '"The under-world being in contact
with machinery, which, however perfect, still needs some little thought out
side habit, had probably retained perforce rathermore initiative, if less of
every other human character, than the upper'" (154). Towards the end of the
storywe get an inkling of theMorlocks still active curiosity?in contrast to
the '"lack of interest'" (70) often demonstrated by theEloi?when theTime
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62 UTOPIAN STUDIES
"
Traveller observes, on reacquiring his timemachine, that was surprised
to find it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected since that
theMorlocks had even partially taken it to pieces while trying in their dim
way to grasp itspurpose"' (154).
It is this curiosity and initiative, associated in several ofWells's works
with technicians and engineers (e.g., Wells 1902; Wells 1933; Wells 1935),
which allow theMorlocks to react against their subjection by the Eloi and
their imminent starvation, and continue to adapt long after theEloi have lost
their ability to do so.While theEloi settled for a society of leisure and rest,
theMorlocks pursued adaptation and change out of necessity and eventually
threw off the dominance of the Eloi. Again, theTime Traveller uses Dar
winian logic to spell this out: "'What, unless biological science is a mass of
errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom:
conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and theweaker
go to thewall; conditions thatput a premium upon the loyal alliance of capa
ble men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision'" (79). Itwas through
cooperative effort and the application of old skills to new problems that the
Morlocks ended theEloi's exploitation. But in The Time Machine, theMor
locks success comes too late.As Robert M. Philmus points out, "by 802,701
no species has the intelligence any more to set limits on the struggle for exis
tence, inwhich the defenseless Eloi fall victim to the carnivorous Morlocks"
(75). Furthermore, theMorlocks are unable to dwell upon the surface of the
earth due to theirblindness in daylight and theirnew role as exploiters of the
upper-world Eloi simply reverses the old equation rather than changes its
nature. Thus the story ends with general biological devolution and the death
of theplanet as witnessed by theTime Traveller inhis "FurtherVision" (157).
Nonetheless, the adaptability of theMorlocks is the key theme in The
Time Machine in relation toWells's Utopian model. In The Time Machine
Wells wished to demonstrate the evils of a static society rather than the ben
efits of a kinetic one and thus his story inevitably ended in doom. However,
inA Modern Utopia Wells takes theMorlockian curiosity and initiative and
imagines a society founded upon it. InA Modern Utopia curiosity and ini
tiative are not weapons to be used by one class against another, but are tools
used by the human race to direct its own evolution through educational, cul
tural and biological competition on itsown terms.2
Wells's attitude towards evolution was not thathumankind should con
trol it (he recognised this as impossible), but that it should direct it.As he
admits inA Modern Utopia, "We are to shape our state in a world of uncer
tain seasons, sudden catastrophes, antagonistic diseases, and inimical beasts
and vermin, out of men and women with like passions, like uncertainties of
mood and desire to our own" (6). InA Modern Utopia, utopia has not been
created through a miraculous event3 but has come about through central
planning using the natural and human resources available on earth in 1905.
Passions, temperaments and even levels of intelligence are the same in
utopia as upon earth, only they are channelled towards the creation of a
planetary utopia rather than towards international competition and conflict.
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Utopias of theEarly H.G. Wells 63
Kumar argues thatWells sought "a necessary and creative tension between
individual strivings and collective needs" (192), and thus the degree of suc
cess of A Modern Utopia must be measured by how well individual liberty
and state intervention are balanced, the sum of which must ensure continu
ous human diversity as well as sustainable material development.
The role of the state inWells's utopia is crucial in two fields. Firstly, it
provides a regulatory framework for society which prevents the exploitation
of individuals or groups by other individuals or groups. Although Wells per
mits a degree of private enterprise in utopia and people are able to grow rich
through their own endeavours, employment is carefully regulated to ensure
thatno person receives an inhumanely low wage and it is illegal for one to
profit from simply buying and selling a commodity without adding anything
to it or changing its nature. Similarly, the various insurances, life, health,
accident, old-age, etc., are organised by the state so as to prevent gain
through financial speculation.
And secondly, the role of the state is to provide a basic minimum stan
dard of life throughwelfare, education, health, housing and legal reform.
This aspect of the state's activities ismost important for this discussion as it
affects directlyWells's ambition to balance individual libertywith the col
lective wellbeing of society.
Wells's vision for the legal system is one of prohibition rather than
command. He justifies this by stating that "a general prohibition in a state
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64 UTOPIAN STUDIES
may increase the sum of liberty,and a general permission may diminish it,"
and he rejects the notion that "a man ismore freewhere there is least law
and more restrictedwhere there ismost law," declaring that "A socialism or
a communism is not necessarily a slavery, and there is no freedom under
Anarchy" (21). He furthersupports prohibitionist laws by pointing out that
"Prohibition takes one definite thing from the individual libertyof man, but
it still leaves him an unbounded choice of actions. [. . . ] But compulsion
destroys freedom altogether" (22). Where the collective wellbeing is under
threat, the statewill declare a prohibition against the individual, but beyond
that the law will make no insistence on the citizen. Indeed, even inwork,
"The modern Utopia will [. . . ] exercise theminimum of compulsions to
toil" (91). Rather than insist that all must work, the Utopian state "will offer
some acutely desirable prizes" (91) for exertion. Legal prohibitions to deter
crime and "prizes" to encourage effort are central to the functioning of
Wells's utopia and he goes into detail about what he aims to achieve by
offering state-sponsored incentives to exertion to all the citizens of utopia:
The aim of all these devices, theminimum wage, the standard of life, provision
for all the feeble and unemployed and so forth, is not to rob life of incentives
but to change their nature, to make life not less energetic, but less panic
stricken and violent and base, to shift the incidence of the struggle for existence
from our lower to our higher emotions, so to anticipate and neutralise the
motives of the cowardly and bestial, that the ambitious and energetic imagina
tion which is man's finest quality may become the incentive and determining
factor in survival. (91)
Or, as he puts it elsewhere in the book, "The State is for individuals, the law
is for freedoms, theworld is for experiment, experience, and change: these
are the fundamental beliefs upon which a modern Utopia must go" (53-54).
As Wells's legal philosophy shows, they are also the "fundamental beliefs"
upon which all the laws are made and the state-sponsored incentives offered.
Tied inwith Wells's legal philosophy is his proposal to provide a basic
minimum standard of life, the "prizes" offered by the Utopian state as referred
to earlier. More than simply being prizes, however, Wells's basic minimum
aims to provide a minimum economic, educational and health platform from
which all citizens of utopia may compete for success in employment, par
enthood, government and all other areas of life.Wells's minimum standard
is not intended to create a eugenically perfect citizenry, as "In a modern
Utopia therewill, indeed, be no perfection; in Utopia theremust also be
friction, conflicts and waste, but thewaste will be enormously less than in
our world" (155). Wells aims, through his minimum standard, to eliminate
struggle for the basics of life; housing, food, clothing and amenities such as
heating and fresh,warm water. However, beyond these fundamentals,Wells
wishes to encourage competition and striving for success. InWells's com
petition of life, however, therewill be few losers and no winners, as human
success must always be built upon. For, as initial goals are achieved, a
whole new set of objectives will be aimed for.As he declares, "Nothing
endures, nothing is precise and certain [...], perfection is themere repudi
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Utopias of theEarly H.G. Wells 65
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66 UTOPIAN STUDIES
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Utopias of theEarly H.G. Wells 67
NOTES
This essay was originally presented in a slightly different form at the Utopia 2001 confer
ence inNew Lanark 28-30 June 2001.
1. For examples of other critics who consider The Time Machine to be more concerned with
Wells's present thanwith the future of 802,701, see Sommerville, and McConnell, 81-82.
2. Interestingly, Peter Beilharz has identified Wells's insistence on cultural competition inA
Modern Utopia and elsewhere as the possible model for Leon Trotsky's conception of compe
tition in a socialist society as laid out in his Literature and Revolution of 1924. Beilharz
writes of Trotsky's theory, "competition will not disappear under socialism, itwill be subli
mated into culture. To the extent that political struggles will be eliminated under socialism,
the liberated passions will be canalised into technique, into construction and into art. Art will
only then become more general and mature, only thenwill itbecome themost perfect method
of the progressive building of life in every field" (32-33). Beilharz goes on to point out that
"Clearly this is not the utopia of Marx or Lenin. Rather its constituent terms are reminiscent
of H.G. Wells' Utopian science fiction, with the difference thatwe are spared the fictional
form?for this utopia of Trotsky is a real fantasy, neither a literary device nor an intellectual
goad but the symbol of a real imagined future" (33). I, of course, would argue thatWells's A
Modern Utopia is equally "the symbol of a real imagined future."
3. Contrast the coming of the Utopian age inWells's In the Days of the Comet of 1906 in
which a passing comet miraculously changes human nature for the better, ends war, and
sparks major societal reconstruction and an age of free love.
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68 UTOPIAN STUDIES
4. Wells again quotes Heraclitus, "There is no Being but Becoming", in The Future inAmer
ica (2) in a chapter entitled "The Prophetic Habit of Mind" (1-14) inwhich he explains that "I
am curiously not interested in things, and curiously interested in the consequences of things"
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