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In April 1897, while Wells was writing The War of the Worlds, the English newspaper Social-Democrat published a story marked with the same biting irony, the same rebellious pessimism. The piece was called “Bloody Niggers.”
Why did God create man? Was it out of carelessness or ill will? We don’t know. But in all events, man exists, black, white, red, and yellow.

Wells had studied biology and paleontology under Thomas Huxley, and his popular science articles demonstrate a special interest in extinction. “On Extinction” (1893), for example, deals with the “saddest chapter” in biological science, describing the slow and inexorable extinction of struggling life.

The leading philosopher of the day was Herbert Spencer. As a child, he had been very strictly brought up. The principle of this upbringing became for Spencer the innermost secret of life. All living things are forced to progress through punishment. Nature appears to be an immense reformatory in which ignorance and incompetence are punished with poverty, illness, and death.

You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions.