It is not quite clear why Mr. Wells should accept so large a part of the Christian ethic and yet refuse to identify his Invisible King with Christ. One would have supposed it quite as easy to divest the Christ-figure of any inconvenient attributes as to eliminate omniscience and omnipotence from the God-idea. Mr. Wells constantly allows his thoughts to run into the stereotype moulds of biblical phraseology. We have seen how he talks of "the still small voice," of "the light of the world," "taking the sting from death" and of God coming "in his own time" and bringing "not rest but a sword." To those instances may be added such phrases as "death will be swallowed up in victory" (p. 39), "by the grace of the true God" (p. 44), "God is Love" (p. 65), "the Son of Man" (p. 86), "I become my brother's keeper" (p. 97), "he it is who can deliver us 'from the body of this death'" (p. 99). But the clearest indication of Christian influence is to be found in Mr. Wells's unhesitating and emphatic adoption of the idea that "Salvation is indeed to lose oneself" (p. 73). "The difference," he says, "between ... the unbeliever and the servant of the true God is this ... that the latter has experienced a complete turning away from self. This only difference is all the difference in the world" (p. 84). It is curious what a fascination this turn of phrase has exercised upon many and diverse intelligences. Mr. Bernard Shaw, for instance, adopts it with enthusiasm. Henrik Ibsen--if it is ever possible to tie a true dramatist down to a doctrine--preaches in _Peer Gynt_ that "to be thyself is to slay thyself." Mr. Wells has a cloud of witnesses to back him up; and yet it is very doubtful whether the turn of phrase is a really helpful one--whether it does not rather get in the way of the natural man in his quest for a sound rule of life.