So much for the first of Mr. Wells’s ventures into Theology, where it regards the relation of God to man. He and his like often profess to regard such things as of no importance. They are the most important things in the world. Indeed, they are the only important things; and the proof of their importance is to be found in the fact that the materialists can never leave them alone. The materialists are always loudly protesting that they “do not meddle with Theology,” that they “have nothing to do with Theology.” They deal with nothing else. Their whole object is Theological—though they do not know it. Mr. Wells himself protests that he is not concerned with Theology in his _Outline_. It is his one preoccupation—though he may not realize it. The only criticism that really moves him is theological criticism. The only opponent he seriously challenges is a theological opponent; and the moment he attempts to _reason_ upon his subject, Theology at once and inevitably appears. I have neither the space nor the inclination to deal with minor blemishes in this part of the work. I do not even insist on Mr. Wells’s failure to perceive (though he honestly quotes the facts) the implications of those perpetually recurring anomalies in our few shreds of evidence—e.g. more human teeth with less human craniums and vice versa. For though he misses the lesson of these unceasing breakdowns of each new “scientific” dogma upon the origin of man’s body (which lesson is, that Hypothesis should never be taught as Science), he shirks none of the things he knows, and, when he _is_ abreast of modern knowledge, he states it clearly and well. For instance, he is acquainted with the exploding of the last dogma but two (still popular with most of his readers, I fear), the arboreal ancestry of Man. He knows it has broken down, and he admits it quite freely. Such a confession is greatly to his credit. It is ascertained fact that many human and some very few doubtfully human remains of various types have been found under conditions which suggest high antiquity. It is ascertained fact that presumably older fragments are those of animals resembling men, in some cases, perhaps, even more closely than any known monkey of to-day—though the resemblance of monkeys to men has been a commonplace throughout History. Nor is it any surprise to learn, as we recently have done (though Mr. Wells makes no allusion to them), that in sundry other tests less striking (the make up of blood, for instance) the animals most like us in structure and gesture have common qualities with us. It is only what was to have been expected. But none of these things—though of curious interest—is on the same plane as the theological discussions upon which Mr. Wells embarks and makes shipwreck. That is why I have concentrated here upon the nature and doctrine of the Fall.