Abstract

The essay is an attempt to interpret Herbert George Wells’s novel The Island of Doctor Moreau in the context of contemporary then and very popular at the time eugenic thought, whose father was Francis Galton. Interpreted from this perspective, Wells’s dystopia becomes a warning against possible consequences of accelerating development of science in the second half of the 19th century. Medicine, if treated as the field of an experiment, with principles of ethics suspended – warns Wells – can turn against a man and become a source of suffering instead of guaranteeing him a comfortable and long life.