In other words, the disadvantages of Mr. Wells, in all the prehistoric part of his work, flow from exactly the same mental defects as warped his ancestors in religion. Just as his spiritual forbears, the Puritans (who lasted on to our own time), could not believe anything outside the family Bible, could only understand the literal interpretations of its English printed word, and were inhibited by their isolation from a wide philosophy; so, in their newer form, the Bible Christians and Puritans in revolt still demand the infallibility of a document (in Mr. Wells’s case, the popular scientific textbooks of his youth), and reject without reasoning any facts which militate against an accepted theology which they have been taught in youth. Just as the old-fashioned Bible Christians, from whom he (and his audience) derive, could construct no general philosophy of the world, so he, or, rather, the people from whom he has learned these things, reject any general philosophy, and are not afraid of perpetual self-contradiction. Just as the religious enthusiasts of the sects from whom he (and his audience) derive replaced reason by violent emotion, so does he. All that is bad enough, but one must end by summarizing his many and remarkable qualities for the task he attempted. All his work so far (that is, down to the end of the Pre-history) shows to the full those qualities I praise in my first article. He is devoid of charlatanry. He always gives the name of the book he is quoting from. He is free from envy. He advertises the works from which he draws. The narrative is vivid, the power of presenting the writer’s mental image to the reader is quite exceptionally strong. Indeed, Mr. Wells is here unique in his generation. As this gift is one of the principal things to be admired in my own trade of writing, and one which I cannot pretend to have myself, I feel a special respect for it. Anyone reading a passage in this book has a mental image of the brightest kind called up before him. He can almost see and smell the apish “Old Man”—though he is as imaginary as the Giant Blunderbore. He can assist as an agonized witness at the barbarous slaughter at Stonehenge—which is as imaginary as the beheading of Puss in Boots. Mr. Wells is also, as I have said, limpid, sincere, accepting all his simple, uncoordinated beliefs with a candour which is morally admirable, though intellectually deplorable. Best of all, he can put into the briefest and clearest form the main statements upon which his story depends. And here I am so much his inferior that I would like to take this opportunity of saluting his superiority. I would give worlds myself to be able to put true things in History as tersely and as sharply as he puts unsubstantial things, and to be able to strike a true outline as firm and as strong as his fantastic one.