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Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946

"First and Last Things"


Moreover, hate must be in its nature a good thing. We individuals exist
as such, I believe, for the purpose in things, and our separations and
antagonisms serve that purpose. We play against each other like hammer
and anvil. But the synthesis of a collective will in humanity, which is
I believe our human and terrestrial share in that purpose, is an idea
that carries with it a conception of a secular alteration in the scope
and method of both love and hate. Both widen and change with man's
widening and developing apprehension of the purpose he serves. The
savage man loves in gusts a fellow creature or so about him, and fears
and hates all other people. Every expansion of his scope and ideas
widens either circle. The common man of our civilized world loves not
only many of his friends and associates systematically and enduringly,
but dimly he loves also his city and his country, his creed and his
race; he loves it may be less intensely but over a far wider field and
much more steadily. But he hates also more widely if less passionately
and vehemently than a savage, and since love makes rather harmony and
peace and hate rather conflict and events, one may easily be led to
suppose that hate is the ruling motive in human affairs.


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