Famous Author H. G. Wells Despaired at End of Life

Herbert George (H. G.) Wells (1866–1946) was one of the most brilliant yet tragically racist minds produced in late nineteenth century Britain. Wells came of age during the early years of the promotion of Darwin’s theory of evolution and he was profoundly influenced by Darwinism.

Most of us are familiar with the name H. G. Wells in association with his famous book Outline of History (1920) which is still in print. He was also one of the earliest science fiction writers and some say he largely invented the genre. His books, The Time Machine (1895), The invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds(1898) are classics.

Wells was born into a poor family in Bromley, Kent, England. Despite his humble background he was able to obtain a college education. He studied under Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) who destroyed Wells’ Christian faith. Thomas Huxley was known as Darwin’s bulldog because of his work in spreading Darwin’s theory of evolution through writings and lectures.

Wells began writing science fiction but soon ventured into more sinister venues. He began to apply Darwinistic principles to social problems and wrote books advocating extreme policy measures to solve humankind’s problems. His science fiction acumen equipped him to look to the future and to try to predict the future. His book Anticipations (1902) was his first nonfiction best seller and had an enormous impact on the thinking of European intellectuals.

In Anticipations, Wells outlined a brutal and merciless program of eugenics to eliminate the weak, deformed and mentally disabled. He advocated ‘mercy killing’ on a wide scale. His version of eugenics did not end with those who were merely weak but extended to “those swarms of blacks, and brown, and dirty white, and yellow people.”

Wells advocated applying Darwinistic principles such as survival of the fittest and natural selection to eliminate the weak and ‘inferior’ from the human gene pool. Eugenicists, at the time, disdained Christians who were regarded as working against natural selection by feeding the starving masses of weak, inferior people who would otherwise die off.

Anticipations was reprinted in 1999. One wonders what kind of people would go to the trouble to republish such a racist book.

Wells advocated not only killing but also extensive use of sterilization and birth control to reduce the population of those he considered inferior. He was by no means the only evolutionist to advocate such policies. Wells stood out because of the eloquence of his promotion of eugenics.

Wells greatly influenced Margaret Sanger, foundress of Planned Parenthood. Sanger also became openly racist in her advocacy of eugenics according to African American activist Angela Davis and other writers. As a side note let me mention that one of Sanger’s sons and his family lived in a large house down the street (Croton Lake Road) from where I grew up in Katonah New York. He and his wife had six children. I wonder if they planned to have that many.

Wells advocated eugenics throughout his adult life though he later modified his views by dropping advocacy of mass killings and settled for the ‘soft eugenics’ policy of mass sterilization and birth control. Wells also became a firm believer in socialism and embraced Soviet Communism though he later rejected it.

One of his last books was A Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945) in which he expressed a very bleak pessimism regarding humankind’s future. He regarded humankind’s future as not salvation but extinction. This was a product of the extreme despair into which he lapsed toward the end of his life. Indeed his life is a tragic picture of a brilliant mind that turned away from God and embraced evolution with its implicit atheism. Atheistic evolution caused him to abandon the concept of the sanctity of life. By extension he also denied the dignity, purpose and eternal destiny of human beings. Evolutionist atheists regard humans as descendants of apes with no souls and no conscious existence after death.

Many people are rejecting the despair of atheistic evolution and are taking a fresh look at Christianity. Jesus Christ came in fulfillment of over three hundred Old Testament Bible prophecies. Christ worked miracles in front of eyewitnesses. Miracles still occur today in Christian meetings around the world. The fulfillment of prophecies in the life of Christ and the miracles serve to prove that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who was sent into the world to redeem humankind.

The Old Testament prophecies foretold that Christ would come to die for our sins. “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). Christ took the penalty of our sins upon Himself when He suffered and died. Christ rose from the dead to offer forgiveness of sins to all who turn to Him in repentance. I invite you to turn to Christ today to receive forgiveness of sins!

My source for much of the above is from the article H. G. Wells: Darwin’s disciple and eugenicist extroardinaire by Dr. Jerry Bergman available at answersingenesis.org.

Steps to salvation:

Jesus said “Ye must be born again.” (John 3:7)

1) Believe that God loves you and sent the Messiah (Messiah is Hebrew for Christ) to redeem you.
2) Believe that Jesus Christ came to die for you, to take upon Himself the penalty of your sins (Isaiah 53:5–6, John 6:29, Romans 4:5, First Peter 3:18).
3) Repent of your sins and call on the name of Jesus to ask for forgiveness of sins (Romans 10:13).
4) Receive Jesus as Savior and experience the new birth (John 1:12, Acts 2:38).
5) Follow Jesus Christ as Lord (John 14:15).

Prayer to receive salvation:

To receive the salvation which Jesus purchased for us at the terrible cost of His suffering and death on our behalf I invite you to pray this simple prayer:

“Dear heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus, the promised Messiah, to die for my sins. I admit that I’m a sinner. I repent of my sins and I ask you to forgive me on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I ask you to fill me with your Holy Spirit to empower me to serve you under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

If you prayed this prayer in the humble sincerity of your heart, then you have received everlasting life, which includes power to live right in this life and entrance into heaven in the afterlife!

Bill Nugent, Overcomer Ministries of Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA www.bnugent.org

© 2020 William P. Nugent, permission granted to email or republish for Christian outreach.

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