There is a glancing allusion to George Bernard Shaw : Weston's speech on Malacandra, like Back to Methuselah, ends with the words "It is enough for me that there is a Beyond", and Weston shares Shaw's (and Henri Bergson 's) belief in the Life Force. Another possible influence is that of Nietzsche's, the goal of whose philosophy was the advent of the overman. He may also be based on influential eugenicist J. B. S. Haldane.