The change of scale, however, so long as it was changing, presents in
another metaphor the old contrasts. The young giants, the Cossars and
Redwood, looking down on common humanity from a vantage-point some
thirty to forty feet higher than the "little people," are critical by
force of circumstances; and they are at the same time handicapped by
an inability to comprehend the thing criticised. They are too
differentiated; and for the purpose of the fable none of them is
gifted with the power to study these insects with the sympathy of a
Henri Fabre. We may find some quality of blundering stupidity in the
Cossars and in young Redwood, they were too prejudiced by their
physical scale; but the simple Caddles, born of peasant parents,
uneducated and set to work in a chalk quarry, is the true enquirer. He
walked up to London to solve his problem, and his fundamental
question: "What's it all _for_?" remained unanswered. The "little
people" could not exchange ideas with him, and he never met his
brother giants. It is, however, exceedingly doubtful whether they
could have offered him any satisfactory explanation of the purpose of
the universe. Their only ambition seemed to be reconstruction on a
larger scale.

I think the partial failure of _The Food of the Gods_ to furnish any
ethical satisfaction is due to the fact that in this romance Mr Wells
has identified himself too closely with the giants; a fault that
indicates a slight departure from normality. The inevitable contrast
between great and little lacks a sympathy and appreciation we find
elsewhere. "Endless conflict. Endless misunderstanding. All life is
that. Great and little cannot understand one another" is the true text
of the book; and it implies a weakness in the great not less than in
the little; a weakness that is hardly exonerated by the closing
sentence: "But in every child born of man lurks some seed of