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

Page 9

  THE ALCHEMIST ------------------ Page	9
ward the ends of our own good. According to the author, we, the First Men have about two thousand years of life left to us as a civilized race. And
in that time, step by step we rise further in the scale of physical and material evolution, step by step we degrade ourselves spiritually to the level of beasts, a process halted only now and again by heroes and heroic acts at acute and critical periods of our short reign to come. 
    Finally, our base passions destroy us utterly. 
     From a small remnant arises a succeeding civilization and finally the Second Men, each culture besot with its own problems and difficulties
described minutely and incisively by the author.
Accelerating and accelerating, the story throws the human race from planet to planet, hurls disaster upon various civilizations of our descendents, threatens the disruption of the solar system and ends upon a note of tragic triumph as the last race,
the Eighteenth Men are murdered by an exploding
sun, bereft at the end of all their power and their
humanity, going down to the final dark as ignorantly as we, their blind ancestors.
      A dominating note throughout the hook is the
idea that no matter what happens, whether it he joy
and tragedy, mundane or cosmical, it is all a part
of the WHOLE and must he accepted as such, that joy
without sadness is as incomplete as ham and eggs
without salt and pepper and vice versa# Stapledon
develops this idea by ceding to the highest developed races of men the ability to perceive themselves and their fellows and their relationships and the intricate complex of play and counter play as definite and necessary parts of the whole, together with the accompaniment of tragedy and triumph. Simultaneously he subtly disconnects this idea from naked Kismet. The possibilities of incisive thought resulting from the exploitation of

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THE ALCHEMIST ------------------ Page 9 ward the ends of our own good. According to the author, we, the First Men have about two thousand years of life left to us as a civilized race. And in that time, step by step we rise further in the scale of physical and material evolution, step by step we degrade ourselves spiritually to the level of beasts, a process halted only now and again by heroes and heroic acts at acute and critical periods of our short reign to come. Finally, our base passions destroy us utterly. From a small remnant arises a succeeding civilization and finally the Second Men, each culture besot with its own problems and difficulties described minutely and incisively by the author. Accelerating and accelerating, the story throws the human race from planet to planet, hurls disaster upon various civilizations of our descendents, threatens the disruption of the solar system and ends upon a note of tragic triumph as the last race, the Eighteenth Men are murdered by an exploding sun, bereft at the end of all their power and their humanity, going down to the final dark as ignorantly as we, their blind ancestors. A dominating note throughout the hook is the idea that no matter what happens, whether it he joy and tragedy, mundane or cosmical, it is all a part of the WHOLE and must he accepted as such, that joy without sadness is as incomplete as ham and eggs without salt and pepper and vice versa# Stapledon develops this idea by ceding to the highest developed races of men the ability to perceive themselves and their fellows and their relationships and the intricate complex of play and counter play as definite and necessary parts of the whole, together with the accompaniment of tragedy and triumph. Simultaneously he subtly disconnects this idea from naked Kismet. The possibilities of incisive thought resulting from the exploitation of