name, because we do not perceive the vital operations, are all, in a measure, possessed of life and consciousness. The cosmos is, as it were, composed of cycles of minds within cycles, the less within the greater, and all within the Divine Spirit, unto which all things, on their dissolution, return.[1]
From the preceding sketch, it will be evident that, in its important features, "Eureka" is a prevision of the modern doctrine of evolution. In the statements that the universe is in a perpetual flux, that it is now evolving and will in the future dissolve, that it has developed from a condition of homogeneity, and that our own system sprang from a nebula, Poe is in accord with the Spencerian philosophy and very probably with the actual facts; while in the assertions that the earth has, during successive geological ages, produced a higher and higher organic life characterized by an ascending development of mind, hand in hand with an increasing complexity of the physical organization, he is stating what are now known to be simple scientific facts. Erroneous, of course, the details of his conceptions very frequently are;[2] but this is common to him with the pioneers of every great idea. Only in the course of time does the germ of truth they discover attain its full growth and reveal its time character. To criticize "Eureka" from a contemporary standpoint would be as beside the mark as to treat the "Naturphilosophie" of Schelling or of Hegel in the same way.[3] 'It was a remark of John P. Kennedy, Poe's old friend, that the latter "wrote like an old Greek philosopher" and any one who reads the fragments of the Greek thinkers before Aristotle can easily verify for himself the truth and aptness of the statement. The merits of Poe, in common, more or less, with the other pre-Spencerian evolutionists lie in how far and how truly his genius enabled him to divine the mode of development of the universe.
Owing to the causes pointed out at the beginning of this paper, it is improbable that "Eureka" had any influence in preparing the way for the reception of evolutionary ideas, a little later; at the most such influence must have been of the slightest, for though this work was early translated into foreign languages, the failure to find fitting recognition of its true character, and the general obscurity in which it has lain, seem to preclude any such likelihood. Its interest lies in the light it throws on its author and in the honorable place to which it assigns him in that long line of thinkers from Thales to Darwin.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 134 ad fin. lib.
- ↑ It may be added that 'Eureka' contains some implicit contradictions also, due apparently, to an advance in the author's thought.
- ↑ Nor is it any exaggeration to say that Spencer's "First Principles" is far from immune from heavy critical attacks (as witness J. Ward's "Naturalism and Agnosticism") and that it is literally true that the scientific eminence of Spencer's work over "Eureka" lies more in its form than in its contents.
