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The Alchemist, v.1, issue 3, Summer 1940

Page 8

Page 8	  THE	ALCHEMIST --------

the opinions of the few professionals, such as Roger Pippett and J. P. Fletcher, who have commented on the books. As nay he seen from their works they are men of ordinary literary capacities,
occupied mostly in commercial work on mundane subjects and this fact alone prevents them from contributing useful criteria on the subject. No, there is one type of mind and one type of mind alone that can see what Stapledon has done and that is a mind free of the Earth, free of its restrictions, soaring
through space at will, cognizant of the wholeness of
the whole, daring, bold, seeking.
      "Last and First Men", the first of the trilogy (0dd John  being an incidental work) is barefacedly a history of the next two billions of years, a
close-studied examination of the rise and fall of eighteen separate races of mankind. Briefly it is a masterpiece, both as a work of writing and as wealth of detail. Stapledon not only sets down a record of events as they happen but gives us a complete biological, psychological and cultural analysis, both of races and times he depicts and the
overlapping of the stream of history on successive races. Beneath it all and developing slowly through the narrative, the author works out the basis of his prime philosophical conclusion, that the philosophy of man in conflict with man must fade and die to be replaced by an infinitely greater philosophy, the conflict of man with the universe and of the universe with man, of an earthly stage
displaced by the all—embracing stage of eternity,
of brute and elemental forces subjugated and overshadowed by the play of delicate, personal forces of more gigantic a stature.
    The greater part of the book is devoted to the history of our own race, the First Men. Mercilessly we are torn to shreds. In Stapledon's facile hands, our every achievement is reduced to an ash by our incapacity to utilize our knowledge and power to

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Page 8 THE ALCHEMIST -------- the opinions of the few professionals, such as Roger Pippett and J. P. Fletcher, who have commented on the books. As nay he seen from their works they are men of ordinary literary capacities, occupied mostly in commercial work on mundane subjects and this fact alone prevents them from contributing useful criteria on the subject. No, there is one type of mind and one type of mind alone that can see what Stapledon has done and that is a mind free of the Earth, free of its restrictions, soaring through space at will, cognizant of the wholeness of the whole, daring, bold, seeking. "Last and First Men", the first of the trilogy (0dd John being an incidental work) is barefacedly a history of the next two billions of years, a close-studied examination of the rise and fall of eighteen separate races of mankind. Briefly it is a masterpiece, both as a work of writing and as wealth of detail. Stapledon not only sets down a record of events as they happen but gives us a complete biological, psychological and cultural analysis, both of races and times he depicts and the overlapping of the stream of history on successive races. Beneath it all and developing slowly through the narrative, the author works out the basis of his prime philosophical conclusion, that the philosophy of man in conflict with man must fade and die to be replaced by an infinitely greater philosophy, the conflict of man with the universe and of the universe with man, of an earthly stage displaced by the all—embracing stage of eternity, of brute and elemental forces subjugated and overshadowed by the play of delicate, personal forces of more gigantic a stature. The greater part of the book is devoted to the history of our own race, the First Men. Mercilessly we are torn to shreds. In Stapledon's facile hands, our every achievement is reduced to an ash by our incapacity to utilize our knowledge and power to