Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional notes will be found near the end of this ebook. MR. BELLOC STILL OBJECTS MR. BELLOC STILL OBJECTS TO MR. WELLS’S “OUTLINE OF HISTORY” BY HILAIRE BELLOC [Illustration: ECCLESIASTICAL * SUPPLY * ASSOCIATION E * S * A PUBLISHERS AND IMPORTERS] 328–330 STOCKTON ST. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 1927 Made and Printed in Great Britain at _The Mayflower Press_, _Plymouth_. William Brendon & Son, Ltd. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION vii I. MR. WELLS’S GENERAL GRIEVANCES 1 II. MR. WELLS AS BIOLOGIST 12 III. MR. WELLS’S IGNORANCE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 22 IV. MY ERRORS 28 V. MR. WELLS SHIRKS 36 VI. THE GREAT ROSY DAWN 40 INTRODUCTION Mr. H. G. Wells brought out some time ago an _Outline of History_, the object of which was to deny the Christian religion. I examined this production for the benefit of my co-religionists in the columns of certain Catholic papers. I did full justice to Mr. Wells’s talents as a writer, but I exposed his ill acquaintance with modern work on Biology, with early Christian writing and tradition, with Christian doctrine itself: and, in general, his incompetence. Stung by this exposure, Mr. Wells has just brought out against me a small pamphlet, under the title of _Mr. Belloc Objects to the “Outline of History.”_ It is an excited, popular, crude attack, full of personal insult and brawling, and ample proof that he is hit. But it is singularly weak in argument, confused in reply, and, as I shall show in a moment, shirks nine-tenths of the very damaging criticism which I directed against his book. That book denies a creative God. There is no God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. The Incarnation is a myth; the Resurrection a falsehood; the Eucharist a mummery. Probably Mr. Wells is thus infuriated, not only at being exposed, but also because he cannot understand how such an assault upon religious truth should possibly provoke resentment; yet I think I can explain the thing to him by a parable. Supposing (it is mere hypothesis) that a man were to attack the Royal Family, and His Majesty in particular, jeering at the functions which monarchy performs for the State and holding up the King of England to contempt.