Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future
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Yet it has used him. And now it uses his destruction. Great, and terrible, and very beautiful is the Whole; and for man the best is that the Whole should use him.
But does it really use him? Is the beauty of the Whole really enhanced by our agony? And is the Whole really beautiful? And what is beauty? Throughout all his existence man has been striving to hear the music of the spheres, and has seemed to himself once and again to catch some phrase of it, or even a hint of the whole form of it. Yet he can never be sure that he has truly heard it, nor even that there is any such perfect music at all to be heard. Inevitably so, for if it exists, it is not for him in his littleness.
But one thing is certain. Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars. Man himself in his degree is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things. It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that is man.
About the Author
English philosopher and novelist who signs his works Olaf Stapledon, writes: "I was born in the Wirral, across the water from Liverpool. The Wirral has nearly always been my headquarters. I now live at the opposite comer of the peninsula, across the water from Wales. Most of my childhood, however, was spent on the Suez Canal, which in a way still seems my home. Subsequently I was educated at Abbotsholme School and Balliol College, Oxford. Then, for a year, with much nerve strain and little success, I taught at the Manchester Grammar School. Next I entered a shipping office in Liverpool, to deal ineffectively with manifestoes and bills of lading. A short period in a shipping agency at Port Said concluded my business career. I then lectured to tutorial classes for the Workers' Educational Association, under the University of Liverpool, imparting my vague knowledge of history and English literature to a few of the workers of Northwestern England. For the three last years of the first great war I was with the Friends' Ambulance Unit, in a motor convoy attached to a division of the French Army. After the war I married Agnes Miller, an Australian. Thus was sealed an intermittent romance of twelve years' standing. We have a daughter and a son.
"Having returned to Workers' Educational Association work, I also began to study philosophy and psychology at Liverpool, and took a Ph.D. Henceforth these were my lecturing subjects, both outside the university and for a short time within. I wrote a technical philosophical book, and purposed an academic career. But I also wrote my Last and First Men, which was a success. I therefore, relying on unearned increment, rashly gave up my university post, determining to pull my weight by writing. Well, well! I have written mostly fantastic fiction of a semi-philosophical kind, and occasionally I have ventured into sociological fields.
“I find it difficult to summarize the main interests and influences in my life. Philosophy, in spite of a late attack, has always taken a high place. Formerly English literature dominated. Science, though I lacked scientific training, was first a sort of gospel and later something the fundamental principles of which must be carefully criticized. It took me long to realize both its true value and its mischief. In politics I accept the label Socialist, though all labels are misleading. My chief recreations have been foreign travel, and rough walking with a very small spot of rock climbing. I am addicted to swimming, and I like the arduous and brainless side of gardening."
* * *
Mr. Stapledon writes occasionally on ethics and philosophy for the technical and scholarly reviews. He is primarily not a novelist but a philosopher, and his style is sometimes cumbersome and crude, but the originality and brilliance of his thought outweighs these disadvantages. Elmer Davis, though he acknowledged that "fiction is a tool he uses awkwardly," said of Mr. Stapledon's first and most successful novel that it is "perhaps the boldest and most intelligently imaginative book of our times." Stapledon himself considers Star Maker "by far the best" of his novels. He is striking in appearance, with thick dark hair, deep-set eyes, and a lined, brooding face.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: Novels-- Last and First Men, 1931; The Last Men in London, 1932; Waking World, 1934; Odd John, 1935; Star Maker, 1937. Non-Fiction-- A Modern Theory of Ethics, 1929; Philosophy and Living, 1938; Saints and Revolutionaries, 1939; New Hope for Britain, 1939.
Table of Contents
LAST AND FIRST MEN
Enter the SF Gateway
Foreword
Contents
Preface
Introduction by One of the Last Men
Chapter I. - BALKAN EUROPE
1. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND AFTER
2. THE ANGLO-FRENCH WAR
3. EUROPE AFTER THE ANGLO-FRENCH WAR
4. THE RUSSO-GERMAN WAR
Chapter II - EUROPE’S DOWNFALL
1. EUROPE AND AMERICA
2. THE ORIGINS OF A MYSTERY
3. EUROPE MURDERED
Chapter III - AMERICA AND CHINA
1. THE RIVALS
2. THE CONFLICT
3. ON AN ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC
CHAPTER IV - AN AMERICANIZED PLANET
1. THE FOUNDATION OF THE FIRST WORLD STATE
2. THE DOMINANCE OF SCIENCE
3. MATERIAL ACHIEVEMENT
4. THE CULTURE OF THE FIRST WORLD STATE
5. DOWNFALL
CHAPTER V - THE FALL OF THE FIRST MEN
I. THE FIRST DARK AGE
2. THE RISE OF PATAGONIA
3. THE CULT OF YOUTH
4. THE CATASTROPHE
CHAPTER VI - TRANSITION
I. THE FIRST MEN AT BAY
2. THE SECOND DARK AGE
CHAPTER VII - THE RISE OF THE SECOND MEN
1. THE APPEARANCE OF A NEW SPECIES
2. THE INTERCOURSE OF THREE SPECIES
3. THE ZENITH OF THE SECOND MEN
CHAPTER VIII - THE MARTIANS
I. THE FIRST MARTIAN INVASION
2. LIFE ON MARS
3. THE MARTIAN MIND
4. DELUSIONS OF THE MARTIANS
CHAPTER IX - EARTH AND MARS
I. THE SECOND MEN AT BAY
2. THE RUIN OF TWO WORLDS
3. THE THIRD DARK AGE
CHAPTER X - THE THIRD MEN IN THE WILDERNESS
I. THE THIRD HUMAN SPECIES
2. DIGRESSIONS OF THE THIRD MEN
3. THE VITAL ART
4. CONFLICTING POLICIES
CHAPTER XI - MAN REMAKES HIMSELF
I. THE FIRST OF THE GREAT BRAINS
2. THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOURTH MEN
3. THE FIFTH MEN
4. THE CULTURE OF THE FTFTH MEN
CHAPTER XII - THE LAST TERRESTRIALS
I. THE CULT OF EVANESCENCE
2. EXPLORATION OF TIME
3. VOYAGING IN SPACE
4. PREPARING A NEW WORLD
CHAPTER XIII - HUMANITY ON VENUS
I. TAKING ROOT AGAIN
2. THE FLYING MEN
3. A MINOR ASTRONOMICAL EVENT
CHAPTER XIV - NEPTUNE
I. BIRD’S-EYE VIEW
2. DA CAPO
3. SLOW CONQUEST
CHAPTER XV - THE LAST MEN
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE LAST HUMAN SPECIES
2. CHILDHOOD AND MATURITY
3. A RACIAL AWAKENING
4. COSMOLOGY
CHAPTER XVI - THE LAST OF MAN
I. SENTENCE OF DEATH
2. BEHAVIOUR OF THE CONDEMNED
3. EPILOGUE
About the Author
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