An Englishman Looks at the World by H. G. Wells
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AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD
Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters
By
H.G. WELLS
1914
Bleriot arrives and sets him thinking. (1)
He flies, (2)
And deduces certain consequences of cheap travel. (3)
He considers the King, and speculates on the New Epoch; (4)
He thinks Imperially, (5)
And then, coming to details, about Labour, (6)
Socialism, (7)
And Modern Warfare, (8)
He discourses on the Modern Novel, (9)
And the Public Library; (10)
Criticises Chesterton, Belloc, (11)
And Sir Thomas More, (12)
And deals with the London Traffic Problem as a Socialist should. (13)
He doubts the existence of Sociology, (14)
Discusses Divorce, (15)
Schoolmasters, (16)
Motherhood, (17)
Doctors, (18)
And Specialisation; (19)
Questions if there is a People, (20)
And diagnoses the Political Disease of our Times. (21)
He then speculates upon the future of the American Population, (22)
Considers a possible set-back to civilisation, (23)
The Ideal Citizen, (24)
The still undeveloped possibilities of Science, (25), and--in the broadest spirit--
The Human Adventure. (26)
CONTENTS
1. The Coming of Bleriot
2. My First Flight
3. Off the Chain
4. Of the New Reign
5. Will the Empire Live?
6. The Labour Unrest
7. The Great State
8. The Common Sense of Warfare
9. The Contemporary Novel
10. The Philosopher's Public Library
11. About Chesterton and Belloc
12. About Sir Thomas More
13. Traffic and Rebuilding
14. The So-called Science of Sociology
15. Divorce
16. The Schoolmaster and the Empire
17. The Endowment of Motherhood
18. Doctors
19. An Age of Specialisation
20. Is there a People?
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: An Englishman Looks at the World by H. G. Wells
- 2: The bicycle and its vibrations developed the pneumatic tyre
- 3: And returning securely to Calais for another similar parcel
- 4: Bleriot means a panic resort to conscription
- 5: In the days of Langley and Lilienthal
- 6: And as for the giddiness of looking down
- 7: The waterplane was out in the surf
- 8: And it is still true that landing an aeroplane
- 9: Motor buses and motor cars are just the bright
- 10: Already one can note remarkable developments of migration
- 11: The most stately of all recorded British Coronations is past
- 12: Sincerely and gravely patriotic
- 13: Have we English those qualities
- 14: They seem vulnerable from the air above and the deep below
- 15: But the Legion of Frontiersmen is equipped for war
- 16: What will hold such an Empire as the British together
- 17: You may build a fiscal wall across the continent
- 18: Now Japan in Welt Politik is our ally
- 19: That wherever the imperial posts reach
- 20: Its consolidation is a new problem
- 21: Against the fundamental conditions of labour
- 22: We have to meet the challenge of this distrust
- 23: Is resignation to the Social Democracy
- 24: The legal profession is the political profession
- 25: The elimination and cure of this disease of statecraft
- 26: It isn't becoming so to use our forensic advantages
- 27: It is a new phase when the toilers begin to ask
- 28: To stresses and disorder culminating in revolution
- 29: The phase of affluence is over
- 30: We have come to a serious condition of our affairs
- 31: Upon which social order ultimately rests
- 32: And the conflicts and muddles before us will be world wide
- 33: Continuous income for the worker
- 34: Deference to our official leaders is absurd
- 35: We so called self governing people
- 36: With large constituencies returning each many members
- 37: And altered vigorously and soon
- 38: Our situation is an intricate one
- 39: No doubt our educational resources
- 40: Which is offered under the attractive label of Syndicalism
- 41: A guaranteed minimum of wages
- 42: That we are in an age of specialisation
- 43: If I was sentenced to hew a thousand tons of coal
- 44: This complete civilised system without a specialised
- 45: The temple is devoted to a local god or a localised saint
- 46: To centralisation of government
- 47: But they may even oust it and replace it altogether
- 48: Traditional and essentially unchanging
- 49: Criticisms of the methods of logic
- 50: Belloc at least have the courage of their opinions
- 51: In common with the Individualist and Marxist
- 52: A non Constructor like Karl Marx
- 53: And their associates of the London Fabian Society
- 54: But only at the socialisation of the poor
- 55: Or aviation would have been in the year 1850
- 56: Employing wholesale machinery and involving great economies
- 57: An economic method without any specific labour class
- 58: Administration and officialdom
- 59: His earning is his own surplus
- 60: A mutual alliance in the place of a subjugation
- 61: An Englishman Looks at the World by H. G. Wells
- 62: If we chose to determine they shall be
- 63: And that is victorious conflict
- 64: And the waterplane the waterplane most of all
- 65: Staggered up to the conception of a Dreadnought
- 66: Expenditure upon preparation for war falls
- 67: Eastward and southward bristle the Slavs
- 68: That is the Weary Giant theory of the novel
- 69: About the proper length for a novel
- 70: And now in Clayhanger and its promised collaterals
- 71: That is a criticism of Thackeray
- 72: The novel has inseparable moral consequences
- 73: Chadband and it was bad and outcast if Mr
- 74: It is the conflict of organisation against initiative
- 75: But Bumble stands almost alone
- 76: And more particularly autobiography
- 77: Discuss conduct analyse conduct
- 78: So he would go either to wholesale booksellers
- 79: Our philosopher would stipulate that
- 80: Belloc I admire beyond measure
- 81: If Belloc and Chesterton are not Socialists
- 82: What are Chesterton and Belloc doing
- 83: But in his Utopia he ventures to contemplate
- 84: It is no paradox to say that Utopia
- 85: He will talk rapidly about congestion
- 86: And interesting tunnellings and clearances
- 87: The proper way of thinking sociologically
- 88: Demanding a synthetic science
- 89: As an element of inexactness running through all things
- 90: It is true that Herbert Spencer
- 91: And he concludes Sociology ought
- 92: In the light of one dramatic sequence
- 93: Sociologists cannot help making Utopias
- 94: Divorce is a sequel to marriage
- 95: If marriage is not so absolutely sacred a bond
- 96: The Shaw esque divorce at the instance of either party
- 97: These are not magic and unlimited things
- 98: Having once admitted the principle of divorce
- 99: And it has come to the mind of Kappa as a discovery
- 100: The dullness of the scholastic atmosphere the grey
- 101: It is an entirely inconclusive paper
- 102: A certain ideal of what a schoolmaster must be
- 103: The infectious trick of the nice evasion
- 104: But to do intelligent things to minimise that discouragement
- 105: That concisely is the idea of the Endowment of Motherhood
- 106: He were a member of a sanely organised public machine
- 107: Cancer is being particularly well attended to
- 108: Gramophones thinly disguised as bishops
- 109: But he needs far less specialised skill
- 110: Or botanist from pathologist have long since gone
- 111: And it was that still more typical American
- 112: Inevitably to the American instance
- 113: Our panacea for all discontents was the franchise
- 114: But being limited and specialised
- 115: Give every voter one single vote
- 116: Whose peculiar views upon vaccination
- 117: For twenty five years I have been a voter
- 118: Nothing so cripples it as unreality
- 119: Is this an incurable state of things
- 120: The independent candidate does
- 121: Admit this of Proportional Representation
- 122: The case of the armed Unionist rebel in Ulster
- 123: Ramsay Macdonald is exclusively a parliamentary man
- 124: Waiting to go through that wicket
- 125: And a peasant population rooted to the land
- 126: It began neither serf nor lord
- 127: One universal simple democratic car
- 128: If there is any traditional national costume
- 129: Unconditional and irresponsible
- 130: Concurrently with its gift of splendid and monstrous growth
- 131: Packing cloth into bleaching vats
- 132: This ingredient is the Colonial British
- 133: Brisbane is a very distinguished man
- 134: Then shall we strive for power
- 135: There is a smaller bale dealing with sport
- 136: Property will not be abolished
- 137: Will the growing American Socialist movement
- 138: And one is noisy and glaringly coloured
- 139: The phase of economic liberty ends itself
- 140: New and extremely generous plutocratic endowments appeared
- 141: Whatever social tradition their fathers had
- 142: For construction and reconciliation
- 143: Released from tradition and education
- 144: In spite of a colossal immigration
- 145: Vary Socialism to fit John Smith
- 146: The inevitable futility of John Smithism
- 147: I perceive that the value of these shares oscillates
- 148: Previous civilisations have collapsed
- 149: Everyone feels that this is not enough
- 150: Most of our ancestors were serfs or slaves
- 151: Secretiveness and secret planning are vulgarity
- 152: Medical research is under endowed and stupidly endowed
- 153: Compared with the sciences of matter
- 154: A phase of serene intellectual activity
- 155: The way of free and fearless thinking
- 156: It would lie in wait in sheltered places
- 157: Knowing oneself for Man on his planet