Olaf Stapledon: “Striving to Hear the Music of the Spheres”

Parva Scaena (Brief Scenes); Set Fifteen

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.”
― Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men

Calendar: May 10

A Year: Day to Day Men: 10th of May

The Lava Field

Olaf Stapledon, the British science fiction writer, was born on May 10, 1886.

Olaf Stapledon was educted at Abbotsholme School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a BA degree in Modern History in 1909 and an MA degree in 1913. He was award a PhD degree in Philosophy from the University of Liverpool in 1925 and used his doctoral thesis as the basis for his first published prose book “A Modern Theory of Ethics” published in 1929. He, however, soon turned to fiction in the hope of presenting his ideas to a wider public.

In 1930, Stapledon wrote a future-history novel entitled “Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future”. It was a work of unprecedented scale in the science fiction genre, describing the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years, involving eighteen distinct human species, of which ours was the first.

Stapledon’s conception of history is based on the Hegelian Dialectic, following a repetitive cycle with many varied civilizations rising from and descending back into savagery over millions of years, but overall progressing, as the later civilizations rise to far greater heights than the first. The book anticipates the science of genetic engineering, and is an early example of the fictional supermind; a consciousness composed of many telepathically-linked individuals.

Stapledon followed that epic work with a sequel, the far less acclaimed “Last Men in London” published in 1932. The 1937 novel “Star Maker” could also be considered a sequel to “Last and First Men”, briefly mentioning man’s evolution on Neptune; but this novel is more ambitious in scope, being a history of the entire universe. He followed up these novels with many more books of fiction and philosophy.

After 1945, Stapledon travelled on lecture tours, and in 1949 spoke in Poland at the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace. He attended the Conference for World Peace held in New York City in 1949. In 1950, he was actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement. After a week of lectures in Paris In August 1950, he cancelled a projected trip to Yugoslavia and returned to his home in Caldy, England, where he died very suddenly of a heart attack in early September.

Stapledon’s writings directly influenced Arthur C. Clark, Brian Aldis, Betrand Russell, John Maynard Smith and indirectly many others, contributing many ideas to the world of science fiction writing. None of Olaf Stapledon’s novels, however, have been presented as films.

Man Himself is Music

Photograper Unknown, (Man Himself is Music)

“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.”
― Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men

Olaf Stapledon: “Man Himself, At the Very Least, Is Music”

Photographer Unknown, (Hands Clasped)

“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.”
― Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future