The Colour Out of Space

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1927

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Lovecraft’s Philosophy of Cosmicism

“The Colour Out of Space” may be the purest example of cosmicism in Lovecraft’s body of work. His literary friends coined it after Lovecraft’s death. It describes the universal worldview that Lovecraft expressed in a great deal of his fiction. He rejected the assumption accepted by most religions that the universe was created for the benefit of humankind. He held that the universe is both infinite and indifferent; there is no benevolent God and no purpose to human life other than what the individual gives it.

Lovecraft’s cosmicism has been a pervasive influence on the evolution of science fiction and horror. His own circle of literary acquaintances, with his encouragement, often picked up and expanded on themes and details from Lovecraft’s work (and vice versa). His influence persists into the 21st century and, if anything, has grown, contributing to scores of movies, the game Dungeons and Dragons, and to the inspiration of innumerable writers, including Stephen King, Brian Lumley, and Guillermo Del Toro.

Although Lovecraft often peopled his fictional universes with entities called “gods,” these entities weren’t supernatural. They are extraterrestrial or extradimensional creatures whose existence is governed by natural laws so alien to humans that they seem like magic. In some of his stories, such as “The Mountains of Madness” or “The Call of Cthulhu,” Lovecraft created aliens of flesh and bone and ichor. They have physical bodies, although some aren’t entirely in the three-dimensional world as we know it. In “The Colour Out of Space,” Lovecraft stretched his imagination to create something as utterly alien as he could conceive. The result is a sentient or semi-sentient radiation with a vaguely insectoid lifecycle. In keeping with the idea of an indifferent universe, the entity has no malice toward humans. Indeed, even if it has intelligence of its own, it might not recognize humans as intelligent.

Cosmicism also incorporates the idea of forbidden knowledge. Over and over in his stories, Lovecraft shows that tampering with the unknown and unknowable leads to disaster. There are things that humans with their limited faculties cannot—and should not—understand. Characters addicted to the search for arcane knowledge find their minds “bent.” In “The Colour Out of Space,” the narrator remarks that old Ammi Pierce was probably protected from “madness” by his lack of imagination—he couldn’t stretch his mind to explore the implications and ramifications of the entity in the well.

At least Ammi had the good sense to recognize his limitations and exercise caution. The arrogant scientists, with their cavalier handling of the meteorite, show a similar lack of interest in the strange and outré, but in their case, they are responsible for the fact that the blight continues to grow. Apparently, while it’s unwise to study too deeply, it is equally unwise to treat the unknown without respect. In the end, maybe all humankind can do is keep out of the way and handle with care.

Humanity’s Place in an Indifferent Cosmos

Lovecraft objected to idea that the universe came into being—or was created—to produce humankind. For Lovecraft, placing humanity at the center of the universe spoke to a monumental vanity, not to mention a failure of imagination.

The scientists’ failure of humility and imagination in “The Colour Out of Space” leads to the continued expansion of the harmful entity. The scientists assume they know enough about how the universe works that they can afford to be cavalier about an alien artifact. They dismiss Nahum’s claim that the meteorite is behaving in a way they consider to be impossible. They experiment carelessly with the aerolite. Perhaps most damningly, when they fail to immediately understand it, they give up on the mystery. Humility might have moved them to embrace new knowledge. Imagination might have inspired them to discover the unknown. Instead, arrogance and complacency make them drop the whole thing as uninteresting even when the mutations on the Gardner farm offer them another opportunity to learn.

Lovecraft’s view of the universe influences the way his characters cope with their circumstances. The effects of the meteorite are so far beyond their experience and understanding that the characters don’t even resist them. When Ammi tells Nahum he thinks the well has been poisoned, Nahum does nothing to free himself or his wife and children. Nor does Ammi ever take direct action to help the family or call the attention of authorities more effective than college professors and newspapermen. All the characters, including Ammi and the scientists, when confronted with something from the great cosmos, become paralyzed.

In the story, Nahum attributes his apathy to the effect of the meteorite, but in the wider context of Lovecraft’s philosophy, there is nothing he can do. He can’t get the scientists to help them. Newspapers won’t print his story. The veterinarian who examines the dying animals doesn’t call the Department of Agriculture. Nahum has no weapons to fight with and nowhere to flee. In Lovecraft’s cosmos, when human beings are confronted with something so far outside their understanding, their minds are overwhelmed, leaving “madness” as their only escape.

Cosmicism and Religion

Lovecraft was an atheist and saw religion as powerless against the overwhelming indifference of the cosmos. In “The Colour Out of Space,” he never explicitly sets religion against science. However, the theme of religion lingers in the subtext.

Twice, Lovecraft describes the meteorite as a message or messenger. In a theistic worldview, this would be a message from God (or a god) meant to communicate something specific for the benefit of humankind. In the context of the story, the cryptic message is from outside, where things don’t work as they do in God’s world. The implication—which Nahum may not consciously recognize as he makes the statement—is that there is a universe infinitely beyond God. The message of the meteorite is that we are alone and utterly insignificant. Later, the narrator observes that only God can know what the entity from the meteor is, although from what other characters have said, it seems likely that the nature of the entity is outside even God’s understanding—if there is truly a God at all.

“The Colour Out of Space” inverts Christian imagery, such as the birth of Jesus. Three wise men—the professors, from the University—follow the fallen star not bearing gifts but coming to take from it and not to witness a birth but to abort one in the shape of the glassy little egg. Wherever they appear in the story, they exhibit their profound unwisdom.

Lovecraft scatters other biblical allusions throughout the text. He describes the “unhallowed” light that gathers around the branches of the trees in “the godless calm” as being akin to the light that falls on the heads of the apostles at Pentecost (42). There is an implied desecration of the sacred.

A similar desecration appears earlier: “The bad fruit of the fall was freely mentioned, and it went from mouth to mouth that there was poison in Nahum’s ground” (31).

Yes, fruit is typically harvested in the fall, but “fruit of the fall” also evokes Genesis and the garden, the fall of man. The meteorite represents everything that is the antithesis of conventional religious belief. “It” at first appears to refer to the fruit. Only reaching the end of the line does the reader realize that “it” refers to the rumor that Nahum’s ground is poisoned. Initially, the line reads as, “the bad fruit went from mouth to mouth” (31). Then the reader encounters the word poison, and the image is of poison passing from mouth to mouth as the apple was passed from Eve’s mouth to Adam’s.

The most poignant reference is when Nahum Gardner says that the meteorite and its effects must be a curse sent by God to punish him for some unknown sin. Maybe Nahum takes some comfort in the idea that at least his God cares enough to curse him. He might then be able to make some kind of atonement. At least he would know there was something he could have done; if only he had been more righteous.

In Lovecraft’s view, perhaps religion affords the individual a sense of control over his environment. If he cannot control it himself, he might petition or appease a greater power. In Lovecraft’s other works, humans ally themselves to outer gods and powerful aliens in the hope of having some control over their fates. In this case, Nahum’s imaginary (in Lovecraft’s view) God has no power over the toxic entity, and no other entity that humans might interpret as a God would care enough to hear, much less answer Nahum’s tiny prayers. While his philosophy was anathema to theists, Lovecraft considered it neither good nor bad, optimistic nor pessimistic. It was reality. He gained more satisfaction from reality than he derived from what he considered false belief.