Please use this thread to discuss the above referenced chapters.

Now we begin to get into the real book. After some preliminaries meant to help us visualize what traveling through time might be like (things around him change, faster as he moves faster through time) the narrator comes back (so far no clues as to how he chooses a relatively precise time, though presumably he could slow down as he approaches) and begins the tale of his visit to the future.

Through chapters 5 and 6 all we have is a relatively shallow view of the small, weak, friendly and frivolous people who inhabit the decaying monuments of some past time. Wells puts together a fairly plausible story of how this might come about: as humanity solves all the problems which make people insecure, then there is no pressure (presumably Darwinian) in favor of strength, effort, energy and glory. All the problems have been solved, and people just wanna have fun. Nice flowers is his key image for this.

It made we want to see if he was a eugenicist. Wikipedia mentions no such thing, and in fact he was a Socialist and warned of the impending air war before WWII.

Since I know by reputation what else is coming, I will refrain from spoilers or from speculating. I only want to observe that he has made an interesting, but not compelling, inference about what may come about in the distant future.

A question for others, reading or just checking out the thread: do you think the challenges in life make us better people?

You'd have to define "better."

More determined, more courageous, more energetic, more intelligent, more insightful, more patient, more thoughtful, in short, more resourceful. Following Wells, I would say "better" is more of just about everything good except "niceness," the willingness to defer to others in the interest of avoiding conflict.

I think anecdotes would be more interesting on this than philosophizing, but I am open to either (because I am nice).