The Time Machine
An Introduction and Study Guide
H. G. Wells was a prolific fellow with a vivid imagination. Some of his books have enchanted the minds of the masses for more than 100 years now! Known to be a bit eccentric, a trait perhaps best seen in his book A Short History of the World, he was also undeniably brilliant. He, like some of his peers in the business of Science Fiction,1 seemed to have the ability to predict, if not influence, what would come about in the future through scientific discovery and invention. Just as Jules Verne wrote about submarines (before there were submarines) in his book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and just like Isaac Asimov wrote about the rise of Artificial Intelligence and advancements in robotics in his I, Robot (such as what we now are seeing take place before our very eyes), Wells, too, was a futurist.
But Wells was not an optimistic futurist. He, in fact, offered a fairly bleak picture of what may lie ahead. A convinced Darwinist, Wells believed only in a distant and finite idea of a god that was certainly not the God of the Christian Scriptures or even that of the kind of “classical theism” offered by pagan thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. Wells was a practical atheist, we might say, and he saw the future as being in the hands of flawed mortal men. He was pretty sure we wouldn’t get it right. What’s more, even if we did get it right, it wouldn’t matter in the long run. Why? Because eventually all things will cease when the sun no longer gives its light.
Well’s attitude was similar to the “brave nihilism” (shall we call it that?) espoused by Dylan Thomas’ famous poem which concluded,
“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Wells’ work seems to tell us, ‘Though infinite nothingness lies ahead, though all purpose and meaning that man tries to cling to is ultimately futile and illusory, we might as well keep our heads high as we march on toward the utter nothingness.’ Nowhere is this Wellsian sentiment better observed than in his book, The Time Machine. If I were to offer an alternate title to The Time Machine I might suggest we called it, A Nihilistic Eschatology. In other words, we should see the book as “The end times according to those who have no hope.”
In one sense a person could read The Time Machine as a kind of warning to mankind. One might read the book and say, “Wells is warning us to beware of a possible future if we don’t make better choices.” This perspective, however, is far too Dickensian as it harkens to the spirit of A Christmas Carol and its healing balm which calls back souls in peril from careening off the cliff while there is still time. Dickens, was known for writing books full of staggering tragedy, with characters who faced circumstances that would bring anyone to their knees, but he was also known for offering bright rays of hope, redemption, forgiveness, and the possibility of elevation above the pain and sorrow of this world.
Wells is not Dickens.
Wells is not warning humanity as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future warned Scrooge. Wells is simply telling the world of the fate that he believes inevitably awaits us. He speaks of the fate which is, well, fated. No one will be able to pull the stick back on the plummeting plane of humanity. The ground draws ever nearer! ‘But we might as well meet the end like men, eh?’ But, hold on, “will there be men in the end?” That is one of the questions posited by The Time Machine which is not to be ignored.
This story envisions a future in the evolution of man where man as we know him is no more. In his stead there are two new races, the Eloi and the Morlocks, who have split from the tree of humanity. The Eloi are what is left of sensual humanity, enjoying the simple pleasures of food, sex, and lying about in the sun. The Morlocks are what is left of the purely rational humanity, the inventors and machine makers, the purely pragmatic and powerful. The Time Traveler’s interaction with these new kinds of “men” I will leave alone so that you might experience them, as you ought, in the story itself. For now I will only offer you an interesting connection with another great book.
C. S. Lewis was definitely a reader of H. G. Wells. Many have noted that the first book of his Ransom Trilogy (or Space Trilogy as some call it), known as Out of the Silent Planet is particularly “Wellsian” in its style. The influence on his style may be obvious, but so is the completely opposite worldview espoused by the two men. While a critical comparison of Lewis’ Science Fiction with Wells’ would be fascinating in its own right, I want to make a connection with a different kind of Lewis book.
In what is perhaps Lewis’ most important work (and I don’t make that claim lightly), The Abolition of Man, we find a curious agreement between Lewis and Wells. Lewis, in this work, takes to task a couple of schoolmen who wrote a book (which he simply called “the Green Book”) that purports to be about English grammar, but which is actually a book of bad philosophy. In that book these men, according to Lewis, knowingly or unknowingly, are stealing away the very heart of young boys and girls by teaching them that any claim about objective beauty or goodness is merely opinion. The Green Book’s doctrine tells children that all such sentiment is purely subjective and ultimately meaningless. No such statements as “this waterfall is sublime” or “it is sweet and seemly to die for one’s country” can possibly be true other than as a mere emotive expression of one’s own feelings.
Such a doctrine, that there are no true or just sentiments about goodness and beauty concerning the objective external world, rips the soul away from man. It takes his heart from him and incapacitates him from being what God made him, namely, man. As Lewis wrote,
“The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.”2
The ability to express just sentiment, correct judgment of moral and aesthetic truth about the world and its actors (in addition to propositional truth), is part and parcel with being truly human. Lewis tells us that it is such sentiment which moderates between the intellect and the appetites. Without it we are simply “men without chests” and are doomed to be ruled either by pure intellect (cold rationalism) or by pure appetite (sensuality). If we lose the middle ground, we lose ourselves.
It is on that very point that Wells and Lewis seem to concur. The difference is that Lewis’s had an eschatology of hope, rooted in the coming reign of Christ on earth, whereas Wells had no hope. Where Lewis believed man would inevitably be raised to a higher form mannishness, Wells believed man would devolve (rather than evolve) into exactly what Lewis warned about. Instead of one kind of man without chests, however, Wells gave us two new kinds of men, but neither with just sentiment. Neither with the ability to evaluate rightly the way the world ought to be.
Wells gives us an end-times story which portrays the antithesis of the Christian story. He does so in an engaging way and offers us much that is worth thinking about even if much of it is ultimately to be rejected. It has been said that the mark of a well educated mind is to be able to entertain an idea and then set it back down. The Time Machine is worth picking up, it is worth pondering, but ultimately its message is worth setting back down and rejecting. The book is not to be rejected as a great piece of literature (for it is that), nor to be rejected because it lacks imagination or ideas worth discussing (such as his theory of time travel!), but it is to be rejected as offering a lie of despair where there should be hope. That certain hope was purchased for us by Christ more than two-thousand years ago when the King of Kings defeated the grave and promised to restore all of creation.
The exercise of picking up a book like this and setting it down again is by no means a waste of our time. Don’t think so for a minute! For having once considered and rejected a false idea we will find the truth planted more firmly in our chests than ever before. We will find ourselves better guarded in the future against such unjust sentiments as nihilism.
Below you will find links to each section of the study guide for H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine as they become available. If you would like to pick up a copy of the book to join in the study you may do so by clicking HERE. To see a list of other Great Books study guides already available, in development, or planned for the future you can click HERE.
Lesson 5: Chapter Five (First Half)
Lesson 6: Chapter Five (Second Half)
Lesson 11: Chapter Ten & Eleven
Lesson 12: Chapter Twelve & Epilogue
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Or “scientifiction” as it was formerly called in days gone by. Now it is often bastardized all the way down to merely “Sci-fi” or, even worse, “Syfy.”
Lewis, C. S.. The Abolition of Man (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis) (p. 11). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Today is the anniversary of the War of the World's broadcast.
"Nihilistic eschatology" is a good one! But I'd argue against 'brave nihilism' here: 'defiant,' maybe?