Eureka: A Cosmological Inquiry

Overlooked for 160 years, Eureka is It is nothing less than a model for intuitive thinking, a brilliant demonstration of how pure intuitive thought can penetrate and solve the mysteries of life. Eureka describes the development of the universe as an emanation of the divine volition, which, once it fulfills the goals set by God s original intent, begins to shrink back on itself. In describing this emanation, Poe creates a matrix for understanding gravitation and the laws of physics. His conclusions are eerily similar to those of the Big Bang theory, black holes, and the curvature of space but predate those discoveries by more than 100 years. He also explains how the principles of simplicity and consistency are to be found throughout the whole process of creation, and how his conception relates the life of the individual human to spirit. To quote the essay: The body and soul walk hand in hand. Near the end of this brilliant treatise, Poe suggests: In this view alone the existence of Evil becomes intelligible; but in this view it becomes more it becomes endurable. Our souls no longer rebel at a Sorrow which we ourselves have imposed upon ourselves, in furtherance of our own purposes with a view if even with a futile view to the extension of our own Joy.