see,
then, what other method there can be of dealing with the heathen,
except the method of the ballot-box--of course with proportional
representation. When there are no more heathen--when the whole world
can read the will of God by direct intuition, as though it were
written in letters of fire across the firmament--then, indeed, the
ballot-box may join the throne, sceptre and crown in the historical
museum. But even the robust optimism of the _gottestrunken_ Mr. Wells
can scarcely conceive this millennium to be at hand. So that in the
meantime it seems unwise to speak slightingly of democracy, lest we
thereby help the Powers, both here and elsewhere, which are fighting
for something very much worse. For I take it that the worst enemy of
the Wellsian God is the Superman, who has quite a sporting chance of
coming out on top, if not actually in this War, at least in the welter
that will succeed it.

But seriously, is any conceivable sort of theocracy a desirable ideal?
Or, to put the same question in more general terms, is it wise of Mr.
Wells to make such play with the word "God"? He himself admits that
"God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and bad associations:
his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange preferences,
his vindictive Old Testament past" (p. 8)--and, it may fairly be
added, his blood-boltered, Kultur-stained present. Is it possible to
deodorize a word which comes to us redolent of "good, thick stupefying
incense-smoke," mingled with the reek of the auto-da-fe? Can we beat
into a ploughshare the sword of St. Bartholomew, and a thousand other
deeds of horror? God has been by far the most tragic word in the whole
vocabulary of the race--a spell to conjure up all the worst fiends in
human nature: arrogance and abjectness, fanaticism, hatred and
atrocity. Religious reformers--with Jesus at their head--have time and
again tried to divest it of some, at least, of its terrors, but they
have invariably failed. Will Mr. Wells succeed any better? Is it not
apparent in the foregoing discussion that, even if the word had no
other demerits, it leads us into regions in which the mind can find no
firm foothold? I have done my best to accept Mr. Wells's definitions,
but I am sure he feels that I have constantly slipped from the strait
and narrow path. Has he himself always kept to it? I think not. And,
waiving that point, is it at all likely that people in general will be
more successful than I have b