First and Last Things

Abstract

Throughout his life Wells was fascinated by questions of belief. As a biology student, a teacher, a novelist and popular educator he was deeply exercised by the riddle of life and a search for the underlying meaning of existence. Though fundamentally agnostic on all matters of belief — ‘it is just as possible as not there are intelligent beings above me capable of watching my mental proceedings’⁷⁰ — the diversity of his writings bear witness to his continuing interest in matters of life and death. In many of his stories — for example, ‘A Vision of Judgment’, ‘Under the Knife’, ‘The Plattner Story’ and ‘The Stolen Body’ — there is an evident fascination with alien worlds, with the possibility of different planes of existence lying beyond everyday realities. In such stories as ‘Answer to Prayer’ and ‘The Story of the Last Trump’ his main purpose seems to be to challenge or question accepted notions of belief, whilst in ‘The Door in the Wall’, ‘The Country of the Blind’ and ‘A Dream of Armageddon’ he compels the reader to re-examine fundamental attitudes to life and behaviour.

Philosophically I am quite prepared to admit that there is no plot nor scheme nor drama nor pattern in the flow of events as they are apprehended by human minds, but my disposition is diametrically opposed to my philosophy.

H. G. Wells, The World of William Clissold