[5] In undertaking The Science of Life, H. G. Wells, who had published The Outline of History a decade earlier, selling over two million copies, desired the same sort of treatment for biology.

He thought of his readership as "the intelligent lower middle classes ... [not] idiots, half-wits ... greenhorns, religious fanatics ... smart women or men who know all that there is to be known".

It was a great success, though the stock market crash and subsequent depression held back sales, in part because of declining memberships in book clubs.

[14] It has been said of Book Four (The How and Why of Development and Evolution) that it "offers perhaps the clearest, most readable, succinct and informative popular account of the subject ever penned.

[17] Toward the end The Science of Life strays from the scientific to the moral realm and devotes a chapter (Book Eight, Ch.

"[18] In its last pages, Wells emphasises the lack of "credibility" of personal immortality, and advocates "realization of [one's] participation in a greater being with which he identifies himself", whether this be "the Deity" or "Man".

[20] It was first issued in one volume by Cassell in 1931, and reprinted in 1934 and 1937; a popular edition, fully revised, with a new preface by H. G. Wells, appeared in 1938.

Three of the Cassell spin-off books were also published by Doubleday in 1932: Evolution, fact and theory; The human mind and the behaviour of Man; Reproduction, genetics and the development of sex.

As late as 1960 the work was still being used in college classes in the US[22] Of historic interest is Book Three – The Incontrovertible Fact of Evolution,[23] comprising five chapters; I.

Book Four concentrates on the controversies about evolution concluding that "the broad positions of Darwinism emerge from a scrutiny of the most exacting sort, essentially unchanged".