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1"They seemed distressed to find me, my arm against the overturned pillar, peering down the well. Apparently it was
2considered bad form to remark these apertures; for when I pointed to this one, and tried to frame a question about it in
3their tongue, they were still more visibly distressed and turned away. But they were interested by my matches, and I
4struck some to amuse them. I tried them again about the well, and again I failed. So presently I left them, meaning to
5go back to Weena, and see what I could get from her. But my mind was already in revolution; my guesses and impressions
6were slipping and sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a clue to the import of these wells, to the ventilating towers,
7to the mystery of the ghosts; to say nothing of a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and the fate of the Time
8Machine! And very vaguely there came a suggestion towards the solution of the economic problem that had puzzled me.
9"Here was the new view. Plainly, this second species of Man was subterranean. There were three circumstances in
10particular which made me think that its rare emergence above ground was the outcome of a long-continued underground
11habit. In the first place, there was the bleached look common in most animals that live largely in the dark--the white
12fish of the Kentucky caves, for instance. Then, those large eyes, with that capacity for reflecting light, are common
13features of nocturnal things--witness the owl and the cat. And last of all, that evident confusion in the sunshine, that
14hasty yet fumbling awkward flight towards dark shadow, and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light--all
15reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the retina. "Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be tunnelled
16enormously, and these tunnellings were the habitat of the New Race. The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along
17the hill slopes--everywhere, in fact, except along the river valley--showed how universal were its ramifications. What
18so natural, then, as to assume that it was in this artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort
19of the daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it, and went on to assume the how of
20this splitting of the human species. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory; though, for myself, I very
21soon felt that it fell far short of the truth. "At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear
22as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist
23and the Labourer was the key to the whole position. No doubt it will seem grotesque enough to you--and wildly
24incredible!--and yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way. There is a tendency to utilise
25underground space for the less ornamental purposes of civilisation; there is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for
26instance, there are new electric railways, there are subways, there are underground workrooms and restaurants, and they
27increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought, this tendency had increased till Industry had gradually lost its birthright
28in the sky. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories, spending a
29still-increasing amount of its time therein, till, in the end--! Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such
30artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth? "Again, the exclusive tendency
31of richer people--due, no doubt, to the increasing refinement of their education, and the widening gulf between them and
32the rude violence of the poor--is already leading to the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the
33surface of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is shut in against intrusion. And
34this same widening gulf--which is due to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the increased
35facilities for and temptations towards refined habits on the part of the rich--will make that exchange between class and
36class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of our species along lines of social
37stratification, less and less frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and
38comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their
39labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their
40caverns; and if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as to
41be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well
42adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Overworld people were to theirs. As it
43seemed to me, the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough. "The great triumph of Humanity I
44had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and general
45co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and working to a
46logical conclusion the industrial system of today. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over Nature, but a triumph
47over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in the
48pattern of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think it is the most plausible one. But
49even on this supposition the balanced civilisation that was at last attained must have long since passed its zenith, and
50was now far fallen into decay. The too-perfect security of the Overworlders had led them to a slow movement of
51degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. That I could see clearly enough already. What
52had happened to the Undergrounders I did not yet suspect; but, from what I had seen of the Morlocks--that, by the bye,
53was the name by which these creatures were called--I could imagine that the modification of the human type was even far
54more profound than among the 'Eloi,' the beautiful race that I already knew. "Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the
55Morlocks taken my Time Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the Eloi were masters, could
56they not restore the machine to me? And why were they so terribly afraid of the dark? I proceeded, as I have said, to
57question Weena about this Underworld, but here again I was disappointed. At first she would not understand my questions,
58and presently she refused to answer them. She shivered as though the topic was unendurable. And when I pressed her,
59perhaps a little harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my own, I ever saw in that Golden Age.
60When I saw them I ceased abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs of her
61human inheritance from Weena's eyes. And very soon she was smiling and clapping her hands, while I solemnly burnt a
62match.
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