The nature of man exposed in the island of Dr Moreau and the Lord of the FliesThroughout natural history of humanity, the human race has always had a notion of its predominance over all other creations of nature. Man has long believed that he is morally superior to all other creatures, motivated by a higher source than his basic instincts. However, the history of humanity is marked by an endless series of events that seem to contradict this theory: war, genocide, segregation, repression, tyranny, the list is long. It only takes a cursory glance at the history of man to conclude that man is at least as cruel and savage as the beasts he strives to surpass. HG Wells in The Island of Dr. Moreau and William Golding in Lord of the Flies each attack in depth the artificial superiority of man. Both men believed that the beast itself resided within the soul of man, sometimes surfacing to produce the evil of which man is capable. Yet men have approached this concept in two distinct ways, leading to differences on a number of key aspects of their respective theories, differences that could weigh heavily on the future of the human race. When HG Wells was asked what his motivation was for writing Moreau, he replied: "This story was only the response of an imaginative mind to the reminder that humanity is but a roughly hewn animal to a reasonable form and in perpetual conflict between instinct and injunction... It was written just to give the greatest possible vividness to this conception of man as carved, confused and tormented beasts” (Batchelor 17 ). Inspired by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, Wells's island tale of Dr. Moreau and his wild beasts has a much deeper purpose than a simple survival story... middle of paper... " Critical Essays on William Golding. GK Hall & Co.: Boston, 1988. 22-29. Batchelor, John. “The Romances of the 1890s,” HG Wells. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1985. 17-21. Boyd, SJ “The Nature of the Beast: Lord of the Flies” (1954). Harvester Wheatsheaf: New York, 1990. 1-23. Costa, Richard Hauer. “Scientific Romances.” HG Wells. Twayne Publishers: Boston, 1987. 35-39. Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. Berkley Publishing Group: New York, 1954. Hynes, Samuel "[The Lord of the Flies by William Golding]." Critical Essays on William Golding. : Boston, 1988. 13-21. McConnell, Frank. “Evolutionary Fables”. The Science Fiction of HG Wells Oxford University Press: New York, 1981. Wells, Herbert George. Bantam Books: New York, 1994.