Books: Inexhaustible Wells

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THE WORK, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS OF MANKIND—H. G. Wells—Doubleday, Dor an (2 vol.: $7.50).

Francis Bacon took all knowledge to be his province, but though his ambition was large his achievement was a little provincial. Herbert George Wells, in spite of all temptations to remain an English novelist, has gone Bacon one better. Wells's syllabus of knowledge, begun with The Outline of History, continued in The Science of Life, is now concluded (he says) in The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind. Disagreeing with Poet Keats.† Wells considers that all you need to know will be found under the heads of history, biology, economics.

Modest, Educator Wells does not regard his one-man encyclopedia as definitive. He says: "As soon as they can be replaced by fuller and more lucid versions of what they have to tell, their usefulness will cease." In 16 chapters, two volumes, 924 pages, he takes a quick, keen look at the economic world-scene, comes to the melioristic conclusion that "this adventure may continue and our race survive." Some of the chapter-headings : The Conquest of Distance; of Hunger; of Climate; How Goods are Bought and Sold; Why People Work; How-Work is Paid for and Wealth Accumulated ; The Governments of Mankind and Their Economic and Military Warfare. Up-to-date, Mr. Wells has included a section on The Suspension of the Gold Standard by Great Britain in 1931.