Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter One Unmixed English Gentry
- Chapter Two A Genuine Pagan (1890–97)
- Chapter Three Black Woods and Unfathomed Caves (1898–1902)
- Chapter Four What of Unknown Africa? (1902–1908)
- Chapter Five Barbarian and Alien (1908–14)
- Chapter Six A Renewed Will to Live (1914–17)
- Chapter Seven Feverish and Incessant Scribbling (1917–19)
- Chapter Eight Cynical Materialist (1919–21)
- Chapter Nine The High Tide of My Life (1921–22)
- Chapter Ten For My Own Amusement (1923–24)
- Chapter Eleven Ball and Chain (1924)
- Chapter Twelve Moriturus Te Saluto (1925–26)
- Chapter Thirteen Paradise Regain'd (1926)
- Chapter Fourteen Cosmic Outsideness (1927–28)
- Chapter Fifteen Fanlights and Georgian Steeples (1928–30)
- Chapter Sixteen Non-supernatural Cosmic Art (1930–31)
- Chapter Seventeen Mental Greed (1931–33)
- Chapter Eighteen In My Own Handwriting (1933–35)
- Chapter Nineteen Caring about the Civilization (1929–37)
- Chapter Twenty The End of One's Life (1935–37)
- Epilogue: Thou Art Not Gone
- Notes
- Index
Chapter Sixteen - Non-supernatural Cosmic Art (1930–31)
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Chapter One Unmixed English Gentry
- Chapter Two A Genuine Pagan (1890–97)
- Chapter Three Black Woods and Unfathomed Caves (1898–1902)
- Chapter Four What of Unknown Africa? (1902–1908)
- Chapter Five Barbarian and Alien (1908–14)
- Chapter Six A Renewed Will to Live (1914–17)
- Chapter Seven Feverish and Incessant Scribbling (1917–19)
- Chapter Eight Cynical Materialist (1919–21)
- Chapter Nine The High Tide of My Life (1921–22)
- Chapter Ten For My Own Amusement (1923–24)
- Chapter Eleven Ball and Chain (1924)
- Chapter Twelve Moriturus Te Saluto (1925–26)
- Chapter Thirteen Paradise Regain'd (1926)
- Chapter Fourteen Cosmic Outsideness (1927–28)
- Chapter Fifteen Fanlights and Georgian Steeples (1928–30)
- Chapter Sixteen Non-supernatural Cosmic Art (1930–31)
- Chapter Seventeen Mental Greed (1931–33)
- Chapter Eighteen In My Own Handwriting (1933–35)
- Chapter Nineteen Caring about the Civilization (1929–37)
- Chapter Twenty The End of One's Life (1935–37)
- Epilogue: Thou Art Not Gone
- Notes
- Index
Summary
By the early 1930s Lovecraft had resolved many of the philosophical issues that had concerned him in prior years; in particular, he had come to terms with the Einstein theory and managed to incorporate it into what was still a dominantly materialistic system. In so doing, he evolved a system of thought not unlike that of his later philosophical mentors, Bertrand Russell and George Santayana.
It appears that Lovecraft first read both these thinkers between 1927 and 1929. He clearly found Russell's reliance on science and his secular ethics to his liking, although Russell was not exactly an atheist. In 1927 Russell encapsulated his philosophical outlook in terms Lovecraft would have welcomed:
I still believe that the major processes of the universe proceed according to the laws of physics; that they have no reference to our wishes, and are likely to involve the extinction of life on this planet; that there is no good reason for expecting life after death; and that good and evil are ideas which throw no light upon the nonhuman world.
What Lovecraft had come to realize about the Einstein theory— in particular, its bearing on the three principles of materialism emphasized by Hugh Elliot (the uniformity of law, the denial of teleology, and the denial of substances not envisaged by physics and chemistry)—is that Newtonian laws of physics still work entirely adequately in the immediate universe around us: ‘The given area isn't big enough to let relativity get in its major effects— hence we can rely on the never-failing laws of earth to give absolutely reliable results in the nearer heavens.’. This allows Lovecraft to preserve at least the first of Elliot's principles. As for the second:
All we can say of [the cosmos], is that it contains no visible central principle so like the physical brains of terrestrial mammals that we may reasonably attribute to it the purely terrestrial and biological phaenomenon call'd conscious purpose; and that we form, even allowing for the most radical conceptions of the relativist, so insignificant and temporary a part of it … that all notions of special relationships and names and destinities expressed in human conduct must necessarily be vestigial myths.
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- Information
- A Dreamer and a VisionaryH P Lovecraft in His Time, pp. 293 - 312Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2001