The nature of man exposed in The Island of Doctor Moreau and Lord of the Flies Throughout the natural history of humanity, the human race has always had a notion of its dominance over all other creations of nature. Man has long believed that he is somehow morally superior to all other creatures, motivated by a higher source than basic instincts. Yet, human history is marked by an endless series of events that would seem to contradict that theory: wars, genocides, segregation, repression, tyranny, and the list goes on and on. Only a cursory look at the history of man is needed to come to the conclusion that man is at least as cruel and savage as the beasts he strives to overcome. HG Wells in The Island of Doctor Moreau and William Golding in Lord of the Flies extensively attack man's artificial superiority. Both men believed that the beast itself resided in man's soul, occasionally emerging to produce the evil of which man is capable. However, humans approached this concept in two distinct ways, leading to differences in a number of key aspects of their respective theories, differences that could weigh heavily on the future of the human race. When H. G. Wells was asked what his motivation was for writing Moreau, he replied: "This story was nothing but the response of an imaginative mind to the reminder that humanity is but an animal hewn into a reasonable form and in perpetual conflict between instinct and injunction… It was written only to give as much vividness as possible to that conception of man as a cut-off, confused, tormented beast” (Batchelor 17). Inspired by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, Wells' Island tale of Doctor Moreau and his wild beasts has a much deeper purpose than just a story of survival... middle of paper...." Critical Essays on William Golding.: Boston, 1988. 22-29. “The Romances of the 1890s.” Nature of the Beast: Lord of the Flies (1954)." The Novels of William Golding. Harvester Wheatsheaf: New York, 1990. 1-23. Costa, Richard Hauer. "The Scientific Romances." HG Wells. Twayne Publishers: Boston , 1987. 35-39.Golding, William.Lord of the Flies.: Boston, 1988. 13-21.McConnell , Frank. “Evolutionary Fables.” H. G. Wells. Oxford University Press: New York, 1994.