Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/251

Rh like the fires in an engine.” He invented a saying for Dr. Martineau that the Man in us to-day was still the old man of Palæolithic times, with his will, his wrath against the universe increased rather than diminished. If to-day he ceases to crack his brother’s bones and rape and bully his womenkind, it is because he has grown up to a greater game and means to crack this world and feed upon its marrow and wrench their secrets from the stars.

And furthermore it would seem that the prophet Martineau had declared that in this New Age that was presently to dawn for mankind, jealousy was to be disciplined even as we had disciplined lust and anger; instead of ruling our law it was to be ruled by law and custom. No longer were the jealousy of strange peoples, the jealousy of ownership and the jealousy of sex to determine the framework of human life. There was to be one peace and law throughout the world, one economic scheme and a universal freedom for men and women to possess and give themselves.

“And how many generations yet must there be before we reach that Utopia?” Miss Grammont asked.

“I wouldn’t put it at a very great distance.”

“But think of all the confusions of the world!”

“Confusions merely. The world is just a muddle of states and religions and theories and stupidities. There are great lumps of disorderly