New Worlds for Old is quite definitely a book of suggestions with regard to certain aspects of socialism.  It is the most practical of all the sociological books, and makes so strong an appeal to the buried common-sense of even prejudiced readers, that a devoted Primrose Leaguer to whom I lent my copy was quite seriously disturbed in mind for nearly a week after he had read it.  Fortunately for his own peace, he found an answer that permitted him comfortably to avoid the perpetual burden of an active responsibility.  He thought that “Socialism would be all right in a perfect world,” or words to that effect; and it was quite evident to him that the effort to make some small contribution towards raising the standard of human idealism was no part of his duty.  In any case he greatly preferred the solid assurance of the Primrose League.  And, speaking generally, as I have tried to do throughout, I find that New Worlds for Old presents a clearer indication to the possible path for the idealist than any of the other sociological essays. Mankind in the Making dealt very largely with education directed to a particular end, but in the book I am now considering may be found certain outlets for the expression of the less consistently strenuous.  Education, whether of individual children in the home or regarded as a function of the State, offers continual perplexities that only the most resolute can confront day by day with renewed zeal; the problems of collective ownership are less confused by psychology, and the broad principles may be adopted and the energy of the young believer directed towards the accomplishment of minor detail.  He may, for example, find good reason for the nationalising of the milk supply without committing himself to any broader theory of expropriation.

Finally I come to the collection of various papers issued in 1914 under the title An Englishman Looks at the World—­a book that I may pass with the comment that it exhibits Mr Wells in his more captious moods, deliberately more captious in some instances, no doubt, inasmuch as the various papers were written for serial publication—­and that Confession of Faith and Rule of Life, published in 1907 as First and Last Things.  The opening is unnecessarily complicated by the exposition of a metaphysic that is quite uncharacteristic and has little to do with the personal exposition that follows; and, indeed, I feel with regard to the whole work that it attempts to define the indefinable.  I deprecate the note of finality implied in the title.  “It is as it stands now,” I read in the Introduction, “the frank confession of what one man of the early Twentieth Century has found in life and himself,” but that man has found much since then, and will continue to find much as he grows continually richer in experience.  So that while no student of Wells’ writings can afford to overlook First and Last Things, I would warn him against the