Olaf Stapledon was an English philosopher teaching at Liverpool University and communicating his spiritual philosophy through many books, considered as seminal works of science fiction. They are here scholarly and penetratingly analysed by the Head of the same department in which Stapledon worked. Through the author's erudite review, many readers may again be attracted to Stapledon's philosophy.
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References
1.
CrossleyR.(ed.): ‘Talking across the world: the love letters of Olaf Stapledon and Agnes Miller, 1913-19', 1987, Hanover and London, University Press of New England.
2.
AldissB.: 'Review of L. A. Fiedler's ‘Olaf Stapledon: a man divided”. Times Literary Suppl., 23 September1983, 1007; Aldiss rightly criticises many of Fiedler's mistakes, but is hardly better informed about Stapledon's life and reputation.
3.
London Mercury, 1937; reprinted in Perry Rhodan, 1976, 86, 133 ff. H. G. Wells’ book has a theme not unlike Stapledon's own ‘A man divided’, and his ‘Last men in London’, but the two writers had quite different notions of what a real awakening would be.
4.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London'283; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin; first published in 1930 and 1932.
5.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 213; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
6.
ArmstrongA. H.(ed.): ‘Plotinus’ in ‘Cambridge history of Later Greek and Early Mediaeval philosophy', 195–271, 260; 1970, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; after plotinus: ‘Ennead’ V. 3,17.
7.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 379; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
8.
See especiallyStapledonO.: 'Philosophy and living'1939, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
9.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 199; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
10.
StapledonO.: 'The meaning of spirit’, in ‘Here and now’, (ed. AlberyP. and ReadS.), 72; 1949, London, Falcon Press.
11.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 571; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
12.
Cited inSpeaightR.: 'Teilhard de Chardin: a biography'233; 1967, London, Collins.
13.
HaldaneJ. B. S.: 'Possible worlds'303; 1930, London, Chatto and Windus; first published 1927.
14.
AldissB.: 'Billion year spree'235; 1973, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson; and in B. Aldiss: ‘Review of L. A. Fiedler's ‘Olaf Stapledon: a man divided”, Times Literary Suppl., 23 September 1983; ‘Odd John is a worthwhile contribution in the poor little Superman line'.
15.
StapledonO.: 'Saints and revolutionaries', 98; 1939, London, Heinemann.
16.
As Aldiss suggests: B. Aldiss: ‘Review of L. A. Fiedler's ‘Olaf Stapledon: a man divided”, Times Literary Suppl, 23 September 1983, 1008; it is a matter of record that he had captured as much attention as Aldous and Julian Huxley, Joad or Lawrence: see, for example, CoatesJ. B.: 'Ten modern prophets'; 1944, London, Muller.
17.
Addressing the New York conference in 1949: cited byFiedlerL. A.: 'Olaf Stapledon: a man divided'24; 1983, New York, Oxford University Press. Fiedler's attempt to psychoanalyse Stapledon is, to me, wholly unconvincing: proof, indeed, that Stapledon was right to think that our grasp of truth is conditioned by our own spiritual condition.
18.
StapledonO.: 'Saints and revolutionaries', 38; 1939, London, Heinemann; that they had already proved this was apparently not something that Stapledon quite realised.
19.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 212; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin; these beings Stapledon depicts as devoid of any instinctive responses save curiosity and constructiveness, operating ‘a very accurate behavioristic psychology’, but with no inner understanding of their subjects (civil and experimental).
20.
StapledonO.: 'Darkness and light', 1942, London, Methuen; the better future is brought about by Tibetan missionaries, the worse by a romantic sadomasochism.
21.
BennettJ. and RemnantP.(eds.): ‘New essays on human understanding', 490, 4. 17. 16;1981, Cambridge University Press.
22.
StapledonCompare O.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 343; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin; and P. Mccarthy: ‘Olaf Stapledon’, 32; 1982, Boston, Twayne; a much better book than Fiedler's. See also O. Stapledon: ‘Starmaker’, 86, 204; 1937, London, Methuen; where the greatest of galactic intelligences watch the rise and fall of civilisations as ‘might we ourselves look down into some rock-pool where lowly creatures repeat with naive zest dramas learned by their ancestors aeons ago'.
23.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 344; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
24.
StapledonO.: 'Saints and revolutionaries', 85; 1939, London, Heinemann.
25.
StapledonO.: 'Morality, scepticism and theism’, Proc. Aristot. Soc., 1944, 39.
26.
StapledonO.: 'Death into life', 1946, London, Methuen.
27.
StapledonO.: 'Saints and revolutionaries', 88; 1939, London, Heinemann.
28.
StapledonO.: 'Starmaker', 86, 333; 1937, London, Methuen; see also R. Crossley (ed.): ‘Talking across the world: the love letters of Olaf Stapledon and Agnes Miller, 1913–19’, 1987, Hanover and London, University Press of New England.
29.
LessingD.: 'Archives re: Colonized Planet 5: Shikasta', 1979, London, Cape; the third novel of the sequence ‘The Sirian Experiments’, 1981, London, Cape; describes one of the ‘mad empires'; the fourth, ‘The making of the representative for Planet 8'; 1982, London, Cape; well captures Stapledon's image of the Spirit's triumph at world's end.
An idea perhaps echoed from Leibniz, who suggested that every animate being had existed forever in seminal form, only roused to moral life occasionally.
32.
StapledonO.: 'The flames', 61; 1947, London, Secker & Warburg.
33.
He offers a typically pompous justification of his ‘mental vivisection' (StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 391; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin), that it was a necessary part of a very lofty task to which Paul would have agreed ‘in his best moments’. Stapledon's Neptunian, and the eventual cosmic Spirit, eventually realise that they themselves are being treated to an identical torment.
34.
StapledonO.: 'The flames', 79; 1947, London, Secker & Warburg; the same ‘discovery’ is imagined in O. Stapledon: ‘Darkness and the light’, 1942, London, Methuen; that we are no more than snowflakes by the feet of battling Titans.
35.
StapledonO.: 'The flames', 37; 1947, London, Secker & Warburg.
36.
StapledonO.: 'The flames', 60; 1947, London, Secker & Warburg.
StapledonO.: 'The opening of the eyes’, (ed. StapledonAgnes), 8; 1954, London, Methuen.
45.
StapledonO.: 'Saints and revolutionaries', 101; 1939, London, Heinemann; though this reliance on utilitarian reasoning is not in fact a satisfactory answer to the violent revolutionary.
46.
StapledonO.: 'Saints and revolutionaries', 46; 1939, London, Heinemann.
47.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 393; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
48.
LewisC. S.: 'Of other worlds', 59; 1966, London, Bles. Lewismakes clear (p. 77) that his villainous scientist, Weston, was inspired by Haldane's writings, not Stapledon's, despite Aldiss's wholly inaccurate observation that ‘this pillorying represents about the peak of Stapledon's fame'; B. Aldiss: ‘Review of L. A. Fielder's ‘Olaf Stapledon: a man divided”, Times Literary Suppl., 23 September 1983, 1008.
49.
Machiavelli to Vettori, 10 December 1513: cited byHillmanJ.: 'Re-visioning psychology'199; 1975, New York, Harper & Row.
50.
ReissH.(ed.): ‘Kant's political writings', 107; 1970, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
51.
Plotinus: ‘Ennead’, VI.7.36, 17–19.
52.
StapledonO.: 'The meaning of spirit’, in ‘Here and now’, (ed. AlbergP. and ReedS.), 79; 1949, London, Falcon Press.
53.
StapledonO.: 'Starmaker', 333; 1937, London, Methuen; it is perhaps also significant that the Neptunian narrator of humankind's story is left at last beside his lover, an astronomer: ‘We have ranged in our work very far apart. … But now we will remain together till the end. There is nothing more for us to do but to remember, to tolerate, to find strength together, to keep the spirit clear so long as may be…’ O. Stapledon: ‘Last and first men; Last men in London’, 604: 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
54.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 382; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
55.
StapledonO.: 'The flames', 28; 1947, London, Secker & Warburg.
56.
StapledonO.: 'Last and first men; Last men in London', 605; 1972, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
57.
StapledonO.: 'Sirius', 187; 1964, Harmondsworth, Penguin; first published 1944. Sirius is an intelligent, language using dog: far more intelligent, and open minded, than most of the scientists, priests and politicians who pontificate about him.
