According to Dictionary.com, Karma is defined as “the cosmic principle by which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation depending on his or her actions in the previous incarnation; destiny; destiny;" therefore, a person's actions, whether positive or negative, will result in a reward or punishment in the future. Nonetheless, the characters in Voltaire's and H. G. Wells' novels undoubtedly believe that they are capable of conducting an experiment that will alter the future, not knowing that something akin to what many call “karma” will come to haunt their actions In Candide an “auto-da-fe,” or “leap of faith,” is performed in which the individuals who have committed some crime against the Roman Catholic Church are publicly punished. In hopes of preventing future earthquakes in Lisbon, the Portuguese exposed several people to suffer, only to cause the earth to shake later that day by Dr. Moreau, Dr. Moreau himself experiments with vivisection, or the live dissection of an animal without drugs, however, to his dismay, the newly configured “humans” rapidly deteriorate back to their animal state. Ultimately, as can be gleaned from the novels Candide and The Island of Doctor Moreau, the deformation of living bodies is used as a means to alter the future; however, stock expectations prove counterproductive. Whether you view the decision as idiotic or logical, one Portuguese university found that the best way to avoid future environmental risks was through harming living bodies. Nowadays, scientists understand that the occurrence of earthquakes is natural and will occur regardless of human interference; however, this science is almost a recent d...... middle of paper ......and living bodies that inflict damage and destroy the body in order for a higher power to achieve a specific future goal. In Portugal, bodies were publicly wounded as a theoretical punishment to prevent any damage to the city in the future. Likewise, Dr. Moreau tampered with and deformed various species of animals through vivisection to create a permanent human figure and a new discovery in the scientific world. Ultimately, however, both actions performed in each novel produced similar counterproductive results: later that same day, an earthquake occurred in Portugal, and Moreau's vivisected animal-human species quickly reverted to their animalistic being. So, as the famous saying goes, “what goes around comes around”; perhaps our best bet for a better perspective on the future would be to consider this abstract idea of ​​karma and the consequences of our actions.