THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY
Mr. WELLS has also written the following novels:
LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM
KIPPS
MR. POLLY
THE WHEELS OF CHANCE
THE NEW MACHIAVELLI
ANN VERONICA
TONO BUNGAY
MARRIAGE
BEALBY
THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS
THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN
THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT
MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH
THE SOUL OF A BISHOP
JOAN AND PETER
THE UNDYING FIRE
¶ The following fantastic and imaginative romances:
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
THE TIME MACHINE
THE WONDERFUL VISIT
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU
THE SEA LADY
THE SLEEPER AWAKES
THE FOOD OF THE GODS
THE WAR IN THE AIR
THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON
IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET
THE WORLD SET FREE
And numerous Short Stories now collected in One Volume under the
title of
THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND
¶ A Series of books on Social, Religious, and Political questions:
ANTICIPATIONS (1900)
MANKIND IN THE MAKING
FIRST AND LAST THINGS
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD
A MODERN UTOPIA
THE FUTURE IN AMERICA
AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE
WORLD
WHAT IS COMING?
WAR AND THE FUTURE
IN THE FOURTH YEAR
GOD THE INVISIBLE KING
¶ And two little books about children’s play, called
FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS
THE OUTLINE OF
HISTORY
Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind
BY
H. G. WELLS
WRITTEN WITH THE ADVICE AND EDITORIAL HELP OF
MR. ERNEST BARKER,
SIR H. H. JOHNSTON, SIR E. RAY LANKESTER
AND PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY
AND ILLUSTRATED BY
J. F. HORRABIN
VOLUME I
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY H. G. WELLS.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1920.
NORWOOD PRESS
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
INTRODUCTION
“_A philosophy of the history of the human race, worthy of its name,
must begin with the heavens and descend to the earth, must be charged
with the conviction that all existence is one--a single conception
sustained from beginning to end upon one identical law._”--FRIEDRICH
RATZEL.
This _Outline of History_ is an attempt to tell, truly and clearly, in
one continuous narrative, the whole story of life and mankind so far as
it is known to-day. It is written plainly for the general reader, but
its aim goes beyond its use as merely interesting reading matter. There
is a feeling abroad that the teaching of history considered as a part of
general education is in an unsatisfactory condition, and particularly
that the ordinary treatment of this “subject” by the class and teacher
and examiner is too partial and narrow. But the desire to extend the
general range of historical ideas is confronted by the argument that the
available time for instruction is already consumed by that partial and
narrow treatment, and that therefore, however desirable this extension
of range may be, it is in practice impossible. If an Englishman, for
example, has found the history of England quite enough for his powers of
assimilation, then it seems hopeless to expect his sons and daughters to
master universal history, if that is to consist of the history of
England, plus the history of France, plus the history of Germany, plus
the history of Russia, and so on. To which the only possible answer is
that universal history is at once something more and something less than
the aggregate of the national histories to which we are accustomed, that
it must be approached in a different spirit and dealt with in a
different manner. This book seeks to justify that answer. It has been
written primarily to show that _history as one whole_ is amenable to a
more broad and comprehensive handling than is the history of special
nations and periods, a broader handling that will bring it within the
normal limitations of time and energy set to the reading and education
of an ordinary citizen. This outline deals with ages and races and
nations, where the ordinary history deals with reigns and pedigrees and
campaigns; but it will not be found to be more crowded with names and
dates, nor more difficult to follow and understand. History is no
exception amongst the sciences; as the gaps fill in, the outline
simplifies; as the outlook broadens, the clustering multitude of details
dissolves into general laws. And many topics of quite primary interest
to mankind, the first appearance and the growth of scientific knowledge
for example, and its effects upon human life, the elaboration of the
ideas of money and credit, or the story of the origins and spread and
influence of Christianity, which must be treated fragmentarily or by
elaborate digressions in any partial history, arise and flow completely
and naturally in one general record of the world in which we live.
The need for a common knowledge of the general facts of human history
throughout the world has become very evident during the tragic
happenings of the last few years. Swifter means of communication have
brought all men closer to one another for good or for evil. War becomes
a universal disaster, blind and monstrously destructive; it bombs the
baby in its cradle and sinks the food-ships that cater for the
non-combatant and the neutral. There can be no peace now, we realize,
but a common peace in all the world; no prosperity but a general
prosperity. But _there can be no common peace and prosperity without
common historical ideas_. Without such ideas to hold them together in
harmonious co-operation, with nothing but narrow, selfish, and
conflicting nationalist traditions, races and peoples are bound to drift
towards conflict and destruction. This truth, which was apparent to that
great philosopher Kant a century or more ago--it is the gist of his
tract upon universal peace--is now plain to the man in the street. Our
internal policies and our economic and social ideas are profoundly
vitiated at present by wrong and fantastic ideas of the origin and
historical relationship of social classes. A sense of history as the
common adventure of all mankind is as necessary for peace within as it
is for peace between the nations.
Such are the views of history that this _Outline_ seeks to realize. It
is an attempt to tell how our present state of affairs, this distressed
and multifarious human life about us, arose in the course of vast ages
and out of the inanimate clash of matter, and to estimate the quality
and amount and range of the hopes with which it now faces its destiny.
It is one experimental contribution to a great and urgently necessary
educational reformation, which must ultimately restore universal
history, revised, corrected, and brought up to date, to its proper place
and use as the backbone of a general education. We say “restore,”
because all the great cultures of the world hitherto, Judaism and
Christianity in the Bible, Islam in the Koran, have used some sort of
cosmogony and world history as a basis. It may indeed be argued that
without such a basis any really binding culture of men is inconceivable.
Without it we are a chaos.
Remarkably few sketches of universal history by one single author have
been written. One book that has influenced the writer very strongly is
Winwood Reade’s _Martyrdom of Man_. This _dates_, as people say,
nowadays, and it has a fine gloom of its own, but it is still an
extraordinarily inspiring presentation of human history as one
consistent process. Mr. F. S. Marvin’s _Living Past_ is also an
admirable summary of human progress. There is a good _General History of
the World_ in one volume by Mr. Oscar Browning. America has recently
produced two well-illustrated and up-to-date class books, Breasted’s
_Ancient Times_ and Robinson’s _Medieval and Modern Times_, which
together give a very good idea of the story of mankind since the
beginning of human societies. There are, moreover, quite a number of
nominally Universal Histories in existence, but they are really not
histories at all, they are encyclopædias of history; they lack the unity
of presentation attainable only when the whole subject has been passed
through one single mind. These universal histories are compilations,
assemblies of separate national or regional histories by different
hands, the parts being necessarily unequal in merit and authority and
disproportionate one to another. Several such universal histories in
thirty or forty volumes or so, adorned with allegorical title pages and
illustrated by folding maps and plans of Noah’s Ark, Solomon’s Temple,
and the Tower of Babel, were produced for the libraries of gentlemen in
the eighteenth century. Helmolt’s _World History_, in eight massive
volumes, is a modern compilation of the same sort, very useful for
reference and richly illustrated, but far better in its parts than as a
whole. Another such collection is the _Historians’ History of the World_
in 25 volumes. _The Encyclopædia Britannica_ contains, of course, a
complete encyclopædia of history within itself, and is the most modern
of all such collections.[1] F. Ratzel’s _History of Mankind_, in spite
of the promise of its title, is mainly a natural history of man, though
it is rich with suggestions upon the nature and development of
civilization. That publication and Miss Ellen Churchill Semple’s
_Influence of Geographical Environment_, based on Ratzel’s work, are
quoted in this _Outline_, and have had considerable influence upon its
plan. F. Ratzel would indeed have been the ideal author for such a book
as our present one. Unfortunately neither he nor any other ideal author
was available.[2]
The writer will offer no apology for making this experiment. His
disqualifications are manifest. But such work needs to be done by as
many people as possible, he was free to make his contribution, and he
was greatly attracted by the task. He has read sedulously and made the
utmost use of all the help he could obtain. There is not a chapter that
has not been examined by some more competent person than himself and
very carefully revised. He has particularly to thank his friends Sir E.
Ray Lankester, Sir H. H. Johnston, Professor Gilbert Murray, and Mr.
Ernest Barker for much counsel and direction and editorial help. Mr.
Philip Guedalla has toiled most efficiently and kindly through all the
proofs. Mr. A. Allison, Professor T. W. Arnold, Mr. Arnold Bennett, the
Rev. A. H. Trevor Benson, Mr. Aodh de Blacam, Mr. Laurence Binyon, the
Rev. G. W. Broomfield, Sir William Bull, Mr. L. Cranmer Byng, Mr. A. J.
D. Campbell, Mr. A. Y. Campbell, Mr. L. Y. Chen, Mr. A. R. Cowan, Mr. O.
G. S. Crawford, Dr. W. S. Culbertson, Mr. R. Langton Cole, Mr. B. G.
Collins, Mr. J. J. L. Duyvendak, Mr. O. W. Ellis, Mr. G. S. Ferrier,
Mr. David Freeman, Mr. S. N. Fu, Mr. G. B. Gloyne, Sir Richard Gregory,
Mr. F. H. Hayward, Mr. Sydney Herbert, Dr. Fr. Krupicka, Mr. H. Lang
Jones, Mr. C. H. B. Laughton, Mr. B. I. Macalpin, Mr. G. H. Mair, Mr. F.
S. Marvin, Mr. J. S. Mayhew, Mr. B. Stafford Morse, Professor J. L.
Myres, the Hon. W. Ormsby-Gore, Sir Sydney Olivier, Mr. R. I. Pocock,
Mr. J. Pringle, Mr. W. H. R. Rivers, Sir Denison Ross, Dr. E. J.
Russell, Dr. Charles Singer, Mr. A. St. George Sanford, Dr. C. O.
Stallybrass, Mr. G. H. Walsh, Mr. G. P. Wells, Miss Rebecca West, and
Mr. George Whale have all to be thanked for help, either by reading
parts of the MS. or by pointing out errors in the published parts,
making suggestions, answering questions, or giving advice. The amount of
friendly and sympathetic assistance the writer has received, often from
very busy people, has been a quite extraordinary experience. He has met
with scarcely a single instance of irritation or impatience on the part
of specialists whose domains he has invaded and traversed in what must
have seemed to many of them an exasperatingly impudent and superficial
way. Numerous other helpful correspondents have pointed out printer’s
errors and minor slips in the serial publication which preceded this
book edition, and they have added many useful items of information, and
to those writers also the warmest thanks are due. But of course none of
these generous helpers are to be held responsible for the judgments,
tone, arrangement, or writing of this _Outline_. In the relative
importance of the parts, in the moral and political implications of the
story, the final decision has necessarily fallen to the writer. The
problem of illustrations was a very difficult one for him, for he had
had no previous experience in the production of an illustrated book. In
Mr. J. F. Horrabin he has had the good fortune to find not only an
illustrator but a collaborator. Mr. Horrabin has spared no pains to make
this work informative and exact. His maps and drawings are a part of the
text, the most vital and decorative part. Some of them, the hypothetical
maps, for example, of the western world at the end of the last glacial
age, during the “pluvial age” and 12,000 years ago, and the migration
map of the Barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire, represent the reading
and inquiry of many laborious days.
The index to this edition is the work of Mr. Strickland Gibson of
Oxford. Several correspondents have asked for a pronouncing index and
accordingly this has been provided.
The writer owes a word of thanks to that living index of printed books,
Mr. J. F. Cox of the London Library. He would also like to acknowledge
here the help he has received from Mrs. Wells. Without her labour in
typing and re-typing the drafts of the various chapters as they have
been revised and amended, in checking references, finding suitable
quotations, hunting up illustrations, and keeping in order the whole
mass of material for this history, and without her constant help and
watchful criticism, its completion would have been impossible.
[Illustration: H. G. Wells]
SCHEME OF CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE MAKING OF OUR WORLD
PAGE
CHAPTER I. THE EARTH IN SPACE AND TIME 3
CHAPTER II. THE RECORD OF THE ROCKS
§ 1. The first living things 7
§ 2. How old is the world? 13
CHAPTER III. NATURAL SELECTION AND THE CHANGES OF SPECIES 16
CHAPTER IV. THE INVASION OF THE DRY LAND BY LIFE
§ 1. Life and water 23
§ 2. The earliest animals 25
CHAPTER V. CHANGES IN THE WORLD’S CLIMATE
§ 1. Why life must change continually 29
§ 2. The sun a steadfast star 34
§ 3. Changes from within the earth 35
§ 4. Life may control change 36
CHAPTER VI. THE AGE OF REPTILES
§ 1. The age of lowland life 38
§ 2. Flying dragons 43
§ 3. The first birds 43
§ 4. An age of hardship and death 44
§ 5. The first appearance of fur and feathers 47
CHAPTER VII. THE AGE OF MAMMALS
§ 1. A new age of life 51
§ 2. Tradition comes into the world 52
§ 3. An age of brain growth 56
§ 4. The world grows hard again 57
§ 5. Chronology of the Ice Age 59
BOOK II
THE MAKING OF MEN