The Way of Evolution

Dating from 1981, this collection of nine essays is thematically more homogeneous than anything previously written by John O Loughlin in the genre and reflects a more optimistic outlook on evolutionary progress, as something that should culminate in a future paradise having nothing whatsoever to do with the cosmic inception of life. Art, literature, music, sex, gender, history, technology and religion are the principal themes under consideration here, and they re generally treated in relation to his philosophy of evolution, which owes not a little, in its origins, to the estimable likes of Nietzsche, Spengler, and Theilhard de Chardin. As usual for Mr O Loughlin s work of this period, The Way of Evolution ends with a series of maxims, which both summarize and encapsulate its overall philosophy. - A Centretruths editorial.