"The fertilising conflict of individualities": H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, and the Victorian tradition of liberalism.

Publication: Papers on Language & Literature

Publication Date: 22-MAR-07

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For all the humanity he wins to, through his dramatic device of



dialogue, I doubt if anyone has ever been warmed to desire himself a citizen in the Republic of Plato; I doubt if anyone could stand a month of the relentless publicity of virtue planned by More.... No one wants to live in any community of intercourse really, save for the sake of the individualities he would meet there. The fertilising conflict of individualities is the ultimate meaning of the personal life, and all our Utopias no more than schemes for bettering that interplay. At least, that is how life shapes itself more and more to modern perceptions. Until you bring in individualities, nothing comes into being, and a Universe ceases when you shiver the mirror of the least of individual minds. --H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1)

In "The Latest Apocalypse of the End of the World," a review of The War of the Worlds (1898) published in the Review of Reviews, W. T. Stead begins by noting how H. G. Wells's conception of Martians who invade the earth in an attempt to escape their own dying planet makes original use of the theory of entropy that had earlier had a profound influence on John Stuart Mill: "I remember long ago hearing Mr. Morley tell of the effect which was produced on his master, philosopher and friend, John Stuart Mill, by the sudden realisation of the probable extinction of the human race by the gradual cooling of the planet" (389).

The shared consideration of the implications of entropy for the human race noted by Stead is indicative of more substantial parallels between Wells and Mill. Both were involved in politics and social reform. In distinctive fields the names of Wells and Mill have each become synonymous with a particular movement, even though the association often understates the complexity of the authors' work. Hence Wells is often considered to have been the only committed utopian writer of the twentieth century, despite the fact he never wrote a major unequivocal novel (Parrinder 96). (2) Similarly, as early as the 1900s Mill's "name acted symbolically to conjure up certain associations [to individualism especially] rather than to denote any very precise principles or policies" (Collini, Public Moralists 332).

Although he died in 1873, Mill continued to be an influential and widely discussed figure in the late-nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century. (3) This explains why Wells, writing some thirty years after Mill's death, might have been prompted to appropriate the philosopher's principles as--having secured his name with such early "scientific romances" as The Time Machine (1895) and The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), as well as The War of the Worlds--he abandoned his adherence to entropic and degenerative theory and turned his attention to social reform after 1900.

Wells's proposed vehicle for social reform was the formation of a world state, a concept that would increasingly preoccupy him throughout the remainder of his life. (4) One of his most ambitious early attempts at portraying a world state was A Modern Utopia (1905). (5) Intended as a hybrid between sociological discussion and novelistic endeavor, (6) A Modern Utopia concerns two protagonists, the narrator and his botanist travelling companion, who are transported by an instantaneous act of the imagination to a world beyond Sirius identical to our own in terms of population and physical constitution. Each person alive thus possesses a utopian double. Utopia possesses a different history to our own planet, however, and has established a world state of the sort that Wells would spend much of his life campaigning toward. As they journey through utopia, the protagonists discuss the ways in which this new world illuminates contemporary earthly problems. Yet the protagonists also interact with utopia, which often illuminates their sociological discussions in ways in which they are not fully aware.

Once the importance of a frequently overlooked facet of A Modern Utopia is acknowledged, a substantial intellectual parallel between Wells and Mill emerges. Wells points out that, unlike the classical utopias of Plato and More, A Modern Utopia cannot portray a progression of "entirely similar generations" (7). Elsewhere in A Modern Utopia he identifies "individuality and the individual difference as the significance of life" (20). Although the social policies Wells outlines in A Modern Utopia have been examined, (7) this emphasis on individuality and individual difference aligns Wells with the tradition of Victorian liberalism exemplified in the work of Mill. Written at the dawn of the twentieth century, Wells's A Modern Utopia continues the liberal tradition encapsulated by the publication of On Liberty (1859) in the mid-nineteenth century.

While he is working within the tradition of classic Victorian liberalism in his theorising of individuality--and indeed within the wider debate between individualism and collectivism--Wells reveals fundamental differences from Mill emerging from the role of the state and emphasis on global culture in A Modern Utopia. At the time of writing Anticipations (1901), his first sociological work that extrapolates from contemporary trends in order to construct a vision of the world in the year 2000, Wells had specifically disavowed liberalism, stating that "Liberalism is a thing of the past, it is no longer a doctrine but a faction" (251). A comment from Edmund Gosse, however, appears to have been instrumental in reminding Wells of the value of individual freedom. Responding to a copy of "The Discovery of the Future" (1902) sent to him by Wells, Gosse replied, "I am sure the weak spot in all Utopias is the insufficient consideration of Man's intense instinctive determination to be happy. You prophets of the future are so occupied with the useful that you forget that it is only in individualism that we can be happy" (qtd. in MacKenzie 167-68). It is not too fanciful to suppose that after reading Gosse's remarks Wells, ever sensitive to criticism, took steps to ensure that his utopia would not neglect individualism as an essential ingredient of happiness.

Victorian liberalism was a complex phenomenon encompassing more than a method of government. "It had," according to Elie Halevy in his stimulating A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century,

in addition, a positive content, namely, certain reforms which had been effected under the influence of Bentham and Ricardo, amelioration of the penal code, a guarantee for every citizen against the greed or injustice of the professional judges and free trade, [and] the right of every man to buy in any market and from any vendor. (409)

According to Halevy, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had lead to a progressive increase of liberty in Britain. Unlike the Continental nations of the nineteenth century, liberty among the British had resulted without the violence of revolution (410). Halevy emphasizes the exclusivity of Victorian liberalism, however. Liberty did not extend to the violent infantile nations of Europe or indeed to the "Savage" races. Nor indeed did it extend to the entire British population: "We are content to point out that it [liberalism] was the accepted view, and that, to justify it, facts which contradicted it flatly, such as the labour legislation [...] were glossed over or it was argued that liberty must necessarily be restricted, for by definition it was a progressive achievement to be won by degrees" (412). Mill's On Liberty provides the exemplary account of Victorian Liberalism as it applied to individual conduct.

In its emphasis on personal freedom, A Modern...

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