THE TIME MACHINE

Back Forward Menu

'I thought of the physical slightness of the people, their lack of
intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my
belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes
Quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had
used all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which
it lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions.

'Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that
restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness.
Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary
to survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and
the love of battle, for instance, are no great help--may even be
hindrances--to a civilized man. And in a state of physical balance
and security, power, intellectual as well as physical, would be out
of place. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of
war or solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts, no wasting
disease to require strength of constitution, no need of toil. For