Question

What two concepts does H. G. Wells connect in this excerpt from The Time machine?

At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position. No doubt it will seem grotesque enough to you—and wildly incredible!—and yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way. There is a tendency to utilize underground space for the less ornamental purposes of civilization; there is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for instance, there are new electric railways, there are subways, there are underground workrooms and restaurants, and they increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought, this tendency had increased till Industry had gradually lost its birthright in the sky. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories, spending a still-increasing amount of its time therein, till, in the end—! Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth?
A.) present and future social conditions
B.) rich employers and poor laborers
C.) the Eloi and the Morlocks
D.) primitive and modern technology

Answer 1

The correct answer present and future social conditions. The two concepts that H. G. Wells connect in this excerpt from The Time machine are the present and future social conditions. The present and the future social conditions have a lot of differences in which they are usually far from each other.

Answer 2

A.) present and future social conditions

The manner in which H. G. Wells connects the conditions of future and present is by comparing them and indicating how things don’t really change. For instance, for the present, he states, “There is a tendency to utilize underground space for the less ornamental purposes of civilizations…” What he means by this is that things that are not good looking, not pleasant to look at, or otherwise ugly tend to find their way underground such as subways and workrooms. This is what happened to the Morlocks and is why they are subterranean while the Eloi remain above ground. Additionally, Wells states that what he thought was a temporary increasing divide between Capitalist and Labourer turned out, in fact, to be long lasting as this divide is the reason/basis for the separation between the Eloi and Morlocks. Thus, there is a definite connection between conditions of the present and conditions of the future.