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Title: God and Mr. Wells
A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King'

Author: William Archer

Release Date: January 7, 2010 [EBook #30882]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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GOD AND MR. WELLS

A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF
"GOD THE INVISIBLE KING"

GOD AND MR. WELLS

A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF
"GOD THE INVISIBLE KING"

By WILLIAM ARCHER

NEW YORK . ALFRED A. KNOPF . 1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF
_Published, September, 1917_

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOREWORD

As I look through the proofs of this little treatise, a twinge of
compunction comes upon me. That humane philosopher Mr. Dooley has
somewhere a saying to this effect: "When an astronomer tells me that
he has discovered a new planet, I would be the last man to brush the
fly off the end of his telescope." Would not this have been a good
occasion for a similar exercise of urbanity? Nay, may it not be said
that my criticism of _God the Invisible King_ is a breach of
discipline, like duelling in the face of the enemy? I am proud to
think that Mr. Wells and I are soldiers in the same army; ought we not
at all costs to maintain a united front? On the destructive side
(which I have barely touched upon) his book is brilliantly effective;
on the constructive side, if unconvincing, it is thoughtful,
imaginative, stimulating, a thing on the whole to be grateful for.
Ought one not rather to hold one's peace than to afford the common
enemy the encouragement of witnessing a squabble in the ranks?

But we must not yield to the obsession of military metaphor. It is not
what the enemy thinks or what Mr. Wells or I think that matters--it is
what the men of the future ought to think, as being consonant with
their own nature and with the nature of things. Ideas, like organisms,
must abide the struggle for existence, and if the Invisible Kin