FIRST AND LAST THINGS

H.G. WELLS

Recently I set myself to put down what I believe. I did this with no idea of making a book, but at the suggestion of a friend and to interest a number of friends with whom I was associated. We were all, we found, extremely uncertain in our outlook upon life, about our religious feelings and in our ideas of right and wrong. And yet we reckoned ourselves people of the educated class and some of us talk and lecture and write with considerable confidence. We thought it would be of very great interest to ourselves and each other if we made some sort of frank mutual confession. We arranged to hold a series of meetings in which first one and then another explained the faith, so far as he understood it, that was in him. We astonished ourselves and our hearers by the irregular and fragmentary nature of the creeds we produced, clotted at one point, inconsecutive at another, inconsistent and unconvincing to a quite unexpected degree. It would not be difficult to caricature one of those meetings; the lecturer floundering about with an air of exquisite illumination, the audience attentive with an expression of thwarted edification upon its various brows.

Table of contents

• INTRODUCTION.
• BOOK THE FIRST. METAPHYSICS.
• 1.1. THE NECESSITY FOR METAPHYSICS.
• 1.2. THE RESUMPTION OF METAPHYSICAL ENQUIRY.
• 1.3. THE WORLD OF FACT.
• 1.4. SCEPTICISM OF THE INSTRUMENT.
• 1.5. THE CLASSIFICATORY ASSUMPTION.
• 1.6. EMPTY TERMS.
• 1.7. NEGATIVE TERMS.
• 1.8. LOGIC STATIC AND LIFE KINETIC.
• 1.9. PLANES AND DIALECTS OF THOUGHT.
• 1.10. PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS FROM THESE CONSIDERATIONS.
• 1.11. BELIEFS.
• 1.12. SUMMARY.
• BOOK THE SECOND OF BELIEFS
• 2.1. MY PRIMARY ACT OF FAITH.
• 2.2. ON USING THE NAME OF GOD.
• 2.3. FREE WILL AND PREDESTINATION.
• 2.4. A PICTURE OF THE WORLD OF MEN.
• 2.5. THE PROBLEM OF MOTIVES THE REAL PROBLEM OF LIFE.
• 2.6. A REVIEW OF MOTIVES.
• 2.7. THE SYNTHETIC MOTIVE.
• 2.8. THE BEING OF MANKIND.
• 2.9. INDIVIDUALITY AN INTERLUDE.
• 2.10. THE MYSTIC ELEMENT.
• 2.11. THE SYNTHESIS.
• 2.12. OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY.
• 2.13. A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY.
• 2.14. OF OTHER RELIGIONS.
• 2.15.
• BOOK THE THIRD OF GENERAL CONDUCT
• 3.1. CONDUCT FOLLOWS FROM BELIEF.
• 3.2. WHAT IS GOOD?
• 3.3. SOCIALISM.
• 3.4. A CRITICISM OF CERTAIN FORMS OF SOCIALISM.
• 3.5.HATE AND LOVE.
• 3.6. THE PRELIMINARY SOCIAL DUTY.
• 3.7. WRONG WAYS OF LIVING.
• 3.8. SOCIAL PARASITISM AND CONTEMPORARY INJUSTICES.
• 3.9. THE CASE OF THE WIFE AND MOTHER.
• 3.10. ASSOCIATIONS.
• 3.11. OF AN ORGANIZED BROTHERHOOD.
• 3.12. CONCERNING NEW STARTS AND NEW RELIGIONS.
• 3.13. THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH.
• 3.14. OF SECESSION.
• 3.15. A DILEMMA.
• 3.16. A COMMENT. The preceding section has been criticized by a friend who writes:—
• 3.17. WAR.
• 3.18. WAR AND COMPETITION.
• 3.19. MODERN WAR.
• 3.20. OF ABSTINENCES AND DISCIPLINES.
• 3.21. ON FORGETTING, AND THE NEED OF PRAYER, READING, DISCUSSION AND WORSHIP.
• 3.22. DEMOCRACY AND ARISTOCRACY.
• 3.23. ON DEBTS OF HONOUR.
• 3.24. THE IDEA OF JUSTICE.
• 3.25. OF LOVE AND JUSTICE.
• 3.26. THE WEAKNESS OF IMMATURITY.
• 3.27. POSSIBILITY OF A NEW ETIQUETTE.
• 3.28. SEX.
• 3.29. THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE.
• 3.30. CONDUCT IN RELATION TO THE THING THAT IS.
• 3.31. CONDUCT TOWARDS TRANSGRESSORS.
• BOOK THE FOURTH SOME PERSONAL THINGS.
• 4.1. PERSONAL LOVE AND LIFE.
• 4.2. THE NATURE OF LOVE.
• 4.3. THE WILL TO LOVE.
• 4.4. LOVE AND DEATH.
• 4.5. THE CONSOLATION OF FAILURE.
• 4.6. THE LAST CONFESSION.