In his first novel, The Time Machine, HG Wells criticizes the Victorians' fears of evolution. Charles Darwin's theories were cutting edge in Wells' time and terrified many in the upper class. What if humans transformed to the point where class roles were reversed? What if our final triumph over nature results in a dulling of human intelligence? And worst of all: what would happen if humanity became extinct? These and other questions tormented the Victorians, providing HG Wells with material for his first novel. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Victorian scientists took Darwin's theory of evolution and created their own theory of devolution. The fear was that if evolution was possible, then humans still had to evolve. What could this mean for the future? Wells answered this question with his theory of safety-consequent degeneracy. In his prediction of the future he shows us the Victorian upper class, which continues on its path of idleness and transforms into small, weak and defenseless creatures like the Eloi. "The too perfect security of the inhabitants of the upper world had led them to a slow movement of degeneration and a general diminution of size, strength and intelligence" (57). The lower class, after centuries of living in darkness and with an aptitude for hard work and machinery, became the nocturnal, ugly creatures represented by the Morlocks. "Even now, does not an East-end worker live in conditions so artificial that he is practically cut off from the natural surface of the earth?" (56), the Time Traveler explains to his friends. As an avid supporter of Karl Marx, Wells comes to the conclusion that if the exploitation of the Victorian underclass continued, they might eventually gain class consciousness. This in turn could cause a rebellion and perhaps a reversal of power between the classes, as demonstrated by the Eloi and the Morlocks. However, Wells goes further: when the Morlocks' food supplies run out, they have nothing left to eat except the Eloi themselves. This could be seen as the ultimate act of class rebellion: cannibalism. “These Eloi were mere fattening cattle, which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed upon—probably engaged in the herding of” (72). The shocking part is that Wells wasn't far from his time. The Victorian underclass substantially outnumbered the upper class, and if exploitation had continued, the upper class might have faced a revolution. The Time Traveler's theory is that, striving for modernity and fulfillment as the English were in the 19th century, humans could actually tame nature. “One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now simple dreams have become projects deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw” (35). The English, with all their technological progress, could have a cure for every disease, a triumph over every adversity, to the point that there was nothing left to afflict them. With this lack of adversity, the upper class humans had begun to degenerate into the weak and stupid creatures that the Time Traveler now sees as Eloi. “There is no intelligence where there is no change and where there is no need for change” (91). All the wonderful inventions and technologies of the industrial revolution, all the efforts to create the best of all possible worlds had led to nothing in the future, set aside for the easy life of the.