tell them that twice two is four.

Mr. H. G. Wells exists at present in a gay and exhilarating progress of
conservativism. He is finding out more and more that conventions,
though silent, are alive. As good an example as any of this humility
and sanity of his may be found in his change of view on the subject of
science and marriage. He once held, I believe, the opinion which some
singular sociologists still hold, that human creatures could
successfully be paired and bred after the manner of dogs or horses. He
no longer holds that view. Not only does he no longer hold that view,
but he has written about it in "Mankind in the Making" with such
smashing sense and humour, that I find it difficult to believe that
anybody else can hold it either. It is true that his chief objection to
the proposal is that it is physically impossible, which seems to me a
very slight objection, and almost negligible compared with the others.
The one objection to scientific marriage which is worthy of final
attention is simply that such a thing could only be imposed on
unthinkable slaves and cowards. I do not know whether the scientific
marriage-mongers are right (as they say) or wrong (as Mr. Wells says)
in saying that medical supervision would produce strong and healthy
men. I am only certain that if it did, the first act of the strong and
healthy men would be to smash the medical supervision.

The mistake of all that medical talk lies in the very fact that it
connects the idea of health with the idea of care. What has health to
do with care? Health has to do with carelessness. In special and
abnormal cases it is necessary to have care. When we are peculiarly
unhealthy it may be necessary to be careful in order to be healthy. But
even then we are only trying to be healthy in order to be careless. If
we are doctors we are speaking to exceptionally sick men, and they
ought to be told to be careful. But when we are sociologists we are
addressing the normal man, we are addressing humanity. And humanity
ought to be told to be recklessness itself. For all the fundamental
functions of a healthy man ought emphatically to be performed with
pleasure and for pleasure; they emphatically ought not to be performed
with precaution or for precaution. A man ought to eat because he has a
good appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to
sustain. A man ought to take exercise not because he is too fat, but
because he loves foils