Literature and Evolution: perspectives of Darwin and Wells on Human Progress

Abstract

This article examines perspectives on evolution and human progress in the works of Charles Darwin and Herbert George Wells. It argues that evolution has neither a purpose nor a predetermined direction but is instead a contingent and random process. In The Time Machine, Wells depicts a dystopian future in which humanity has split into two species: the Eloi, hedonistic and fragile, and the Morlocks, brutal and subterranean. This portrayal challenges the belief in linear and positive progress, linking Darwinian natural selection with Wells's critique of the ideal of progress.