: Mr. Belloc still objects to Mr. Wells's Outline of history by Belloc Hilaire - Wells H. G. (Herbert George) 1866-1946. Outline of history; Wells H. G. (Herbert George) 1866-1946. Mr. Belloc objects to The outline of history

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PAGE INTRODUCTION vii

INTRODUCTION

I examined this production for the benefit of my co-religionists in the columns of certain Catholic papers. I did full justice to Mr. Wells's talents as a writer, but I exposed his ill acquaintance with modern work on Biology, with early Christian writing and tradition, with Christian doctrine itself: and, in general, his incompetence.

That book denies a creative God. There is no God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. The Incarnation is a myth; the Resurrection a falsehood; the Eucharist a mummery.

Probably Mr. Wells is thus infuriated, not only at being exposed, but also because he cannot understand how such an assault upon religious truth should possibly provoke resentment; yet I think I can explain the thing to him by a parable.

Supposing that a man were to attack the Royal Family, and His Majesty in particular, jeering at the functions which monarchy performs for the State and holding up the King of England to contempt.

Mr. Wells would be the first to admit that a man so misbehaving himself would receive very hard knocks indeed. He would be called severely to account on all sides. It would be said that his spite arose from some personal grievance against the Great; that he thus relieved his soreness at feeling himself socially neglected, and so on. He might justify himself as a martyr in the cause of political duty, but he would be a fool if he did not look out for squalls.

I should, no doubt, greatly increase the circulation of this little pamphlet of mine were I to season it with those offensive references to personal habits and appearance which are now fashionable between contemporaries. But I do not aim at any large circulation, beyond that reasonable amount which will secure my being heard by the people whose attention is worth having.

Invective such as Mr. Wells substitutes for argument is wholly irrelevant. When you are discussing the competence of a man to write history, it is utterly meaningless to throw about the jeers of the gutter on his dress, accent or any other private detail concerning him. If you discover a man pretending to write about Roman antiquity and yet wholly blind to the effect of Latin literature, you rightly point out his ignorance. But it is not to the purpose to accuse him of having a round face or a thin voice. Indeed, were invective my object , I should rather have answered in verse as being the more incisive and enduring form.

If it be a test of literary victory over an opponent to make him foam at the mouth, then I have won hands down; but I do not regard Mr. Wells as my opponent, nor am I seeking any victory. I am simply taking a book which proposes to destroy the Faith of Christian men by the recital of pretended history, and showing that the history is bad. While praising many qualities in the book, I point out with chapter and verse that the history is uninformed. That is my point and my only point.

Now that I have made it, I hope, quite clear that I am neither interested in Mr. Wells's personalities nor intend to go one better upon them, but to deal strictly with things capable of argument and intelligent examination, let us cut the cackle and come to the horses.

Mr. Wells's pamphlet against me, to which I am here replying, is a web of six elements. These are not put in any regular order, and the author himself would probably not be capable of analysing them; but a competent critic has no difficulty in separating them one from the other.

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