FOREWORD
by MAX H.
BÉGOUËN.
The extracts which follow comprise
the first Cahier of the Association of Friends of Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin. The gravity of the present times
induces us to make these extracts known immediately, pending
the full publication at a later date of the whole corpus of
his writings on the Future of Man and on Human
Energy.
That luminous scientific mind and
that great heart, warm enough to encompass the whole world,
gave him the power, as long ago as 1937, to discern the
rising tide of destructive forces which would threaten our
planet, and led him to, call upon all mankind to unite in
building their universal Citadel.
The peoples of the Earth, "the
natural units of humanity" must, he said, achieve
terrestrial Harmony through the variety of their racial
characteristics--characteristics which reciprocally enrich
each other. He gave each of them this watchword: "Remain on
your own line, but move ever upwards towards greater
consciousness and greater love. At the summit you will find
yourselves united with all those who, from every direction,
have made the same ascent. For everything that
rises must converge."
Just as the various cells and
members of the body grow and develop to form a single living
being and find their ultimate perfection only by
constituting that being, so the constant goal of individual
and national development should be the unity of mankind,
which individuals and nations are called upon to achieve if
they are to live to the full.
In all countries a new ferment is
working towards this end, still largely unperceived. May the
countries be delivered from the fatal temptation of building
for themselves alone; for the sap which is rising in them is
destined for the total achievement :
"The Age of Nations is past. The
task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the
Earth."
May there be an end to the hostile
factions which whip up the forces of destruction to a
frenzy, and may there be mani-fested instead a spirit of
universal co-operation inspired by the passion to construct
a World worthy of Man. The value of a Vision of the Future
is demonstrated by the dynamic force which it engenders; it
does not need the atom bomb in order to convince. Teilhard
de Chardin knew that above all the moribund ideologies there
was one incomparably vast and powerful Ideal. To this Ideal
he devoted himself with all his heart and he sweeps us along
with him in his train.
A social or ethnic group which
could find no better answer to the tragic circumstances
which hem us in than to increase its own selfish demands,
would prove its moral bankruptcy; Love, the supreme form of
Energy, does not make demands; it strives and progresses. It
realises what the condition of mankind should be, and,
sweeping all obstacles aside, leads us onward to purify,
elevate and fulfil the Earth.
The substance of the new world is
being born, despite the rending of internal oppositions, in
the very flesh of the peo-ples. We must realise this
miraculous expectation; we must concentrate our spiritual
forces in peace; we must, in every country, prepare the men
who, at first in the circle around them, and then at the
head of nations, will preside over the true destiny of
Mankind.
We must be the Vanguard of this
Crusade for Human Advancement, the call to which is
sounded in thefollowing pages by one who, front the summit
he so heroically reached, caught a glimpse of the
magnificence which might be the Earth of Man.
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THE
SPIRIT OF EARTH
The phrase, "Sense of Earth" should
be understood to mean the passionate sense of common destiny
which draws the thinking part of Life ever further onwards.
In principle there is no feeling which has a firmer
foundation in nature, or greater power. But in fact there is
also no feeling which awakens so belatedly, since it can
only become explicit when our consciousness has expanded
beyond the broadening, but still far too restricted, circles
of family, country and race, and has finally discovered that
the only truly natural and real human Unity is the
Spirit of Earth.
Stimulated by consecutive
discoveries, which in the space of a hundred years, have
successively revealed to our generation, first the
profundities and significance of duration, then the
limitless spiritual resources of Matter, and lastly the
power of living beings acting in association, it seems that
our psy-chology is in the process of changing. A conquering
passion begins to show itself, which will sweep away or
transform what has hitherto been the immaturity of the
Earth. And its salutary action comes just at the right
moment to "control", awaken, or order the emancipated forces
of Love, the dormant forces of human Unity, and the hesitant
forces of Research.
a) Love.
Love is the most, universal,
formidable and mysterious of cosmic energies.
From the point of view of spiritual
Evolution, it seems that we might be able to give a name and
a value to this strange energy of Love. Could it not be, in
essence, quite simply that very attraction which is
exercised upon each conscious element by the Centre of the
Universe? The call towards the great Union, whose
realisation is the only Business now afoot in Nature... - On
this hypothesis, under which (in conformity with the
findings of psycho-analysis) Love is the primitive and
universal psychic energy, does not everything around us
become clear to the intelligence and obvious in
action?
It is really the Universe which,
through Woman, is advancing towards Man.
If Man fails to recognise the true
nature and the true object of his love, the disorder which
follows is profound and irre-mediable. Desperately striving
to appease upon something too small a passion which is
addressed to All, he inevitably tries to cure a fundamental
disequilibrium by constantly increasing the number of his
experiences, or making them more material in character. Vain
attempts, and, in the eyes of anyone who partly perceives
the inestimable value of the "spiritual quantum" of mankind,
a frightening waste.
Look quite coldly, as a biologist
or an engineer, at the red-dening sky over a great city at
night. There, and indeed eve-rywhere else, the Earth is
continuously dissipating, in pure loss, its most miraculous
power. The Earth is burning "in free air". How much energy
do you think is lost to the Spirit of Earth in one
night?...
Man must, instead, perceive the
universal Reality which shines spiritually through the
flesh. He will then discover the reason which has so far
frustrated and perverted his power to love. Woman is put
before him as the attraction and the symbol of the World. He
can only unite with her by enlarging himself in turn to the
scale of the World. And because the World is always larger,
and always unfinished and always in advance of us, Man finds
himself embarked, in order to achieve his love, upon a
limitless conquest of the Universe. In this sense, Man can
only reach Woman through the consummation of theuniversal
Union.
-Love is a sacred reserve of
energy, and the very bloodstream of spiritual Evolution;
that is the first discovery we make from the Sense of
Earth.
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b) Human Unity.
In singular opposition to the
irresistible attraction manifested in Love is the
instinctive repulsion which, as a general rule, drives the
human molecules away from each other. This repulsion can in
fact result only from the timidity or cowardice of an
individual in face of an effort of expansion which would
ensure his liberation.
What an increase there is in his
powers when, in research or in battle, Man catches the
breath of affection or comradeship; what fulfilment when, in
the instant of danger or enthusiasm, he finds in a flash
that he has attained the marvels of a common soul. These
faint brief glimmerings should make us realise what a
formidable power of joy and action still slumbers in the
human layer. In isolation, men suffer and stagnate without
fully realising it; they have need of a higher impulse from
without to force them from the immobility o their dead point
and bring them on to the beam of their profound affinity.
The Sense of Earth is the irresistible pressure which will
come at the right moment to unite them in a common
passion.
The love of interaction, above the
love of attraction-elements which merge, to undergo Union.
Who can speak of the still almost unknown fulfilment of
quality, the immense exhilaration of fraternal love which,
in the Noosphere, would accompany the conquest of its
residue of internal multiplicity, that is to, say the
achievement of ultimate consciousness of human Unity for
advancement?
c) Research.
The Spirit of Earth comes to
explain to Men the reason for their superfluity of love, and
the way in which it might be put to use. By the same stroke,
it reveals itself as the force which is destined to set
under way and organise the overwhelming mass of human
production and discovery.
Is the World condemned, in growing,
to perish, automatically stifled by the excess of its own
weight?
By no means; but it is in the
process of gathering the elements of a new and better body.
The whole question, in this crisis of birth, is the rapid
emergence of the soul which by its appearance will organise,
lighten and vitalise this mass stagnant and confused
material. This soul can only be a "conspiracy" of
individuals associated in order to add another storey
to the edifice of Life. The resources now available to us,
the powers we have unleashed, cannot be ab-sorbed into the
narrow system of individual and national com-partments which
has so far served the architects of the human earth. The
Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would
not perish, is to shake of our ancient prejudices, and to
build the Earth.
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The more I look at the World as a
scientist the less I see any other possible biological
issue except the active consciousness of its unity. Life
can only progress on our planet in future (and nothing
will prevent it from progressing, not even its own
internal servitudes) by throwing down the barriers which
still wall off human activity, and by giving itself up
without hesitation to Faith in the Future.
We must put in the forefront
of our concrete preoccupations the systematic
arrangement and exploration of our Universe, understood as
the true country of Mankind. Then material energy will
circulate, and, more important still, spiritual energy,
corrupted by the petty jealousies of modern society,will
find its natural outlet in the attack launched against the
mysteries of the World. The time has come to realise that
Research is the highest human function, embracing the spirit
of War and bright with the splendour of Religion. To keep up
a constant pressure on the surface of the Real, is not that
the supreme gesture of faith in Being, and therefore of
adora-tion? All that is ours, if we understand how to avoid
stifling within us the Spirit of Earth.
Whoever wishes to bc part of this
spirit must die and bc born again, for others and for
himself. In order to reach this higher plane of humanity lie
must bring about a complete transformation in his whole
sense of values and his whole action.
Yet a little while and the Spirit
of Earth will emerge with its specific individuality and its
own character and physiognomy. And then, on the surface of
the Noosphere, gradually sublimated in thought and passion,
ever striving to solve more lofty problems, to possess
greater objects, the tension towards being will be at its
maximum.
What will happen at this critical
stage in the maturation of terrestrial Life? Shall we bc
able at that moment to link up with other centres of cosmic
life, to continue the labour of universal synthesis on a
higher scale? More probably, something else will happen,
something which can only be glimpsed when the influence of
God is brought into the reckoning.
It would be nursing a great
illusion if the Man of our times were to think that, having
attained a fuller understanding of himself and of the World,
lie had no further need of Religion. There has been a
multiplication of systems in which the exis-tence of
religion has been interpreted as a psychological phenomenon
associated with the childhood of Mankind. At its maximum
when Civilisation is beginning, it should gradually fade
away, giving place to more positive constructions, from
which God (particularly a personal and transcendent God)
would be found to be excluded. In reality, for anyone who
has eyes, the great conflict from which we shall have
emerged will merely have consolidated in the World the need
to believe. Having reached a higher degree of self-mastery,
the Spirit of Earth will experience an increasingly vital
need to adore; out of universal evolution God emerges
in our consciousness as greater and more necessary than
ever.
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The only possible Motive Power of a
life which bas reached the stage of Reflection is an
Absolute, or in other words a Divine, Term. Religion has
sometimes been understood as a mere antidote to our evils,
an "opiate". Its true Purpose is to sustain and spur on
the progress of life. It is the profound need of an
Absolute, sought from the start through every pro-gressive
form of religion. Once this starting point is realised, it
becomes evident that the "religious function" born of
Hominisation and linked thereto is bound to grow
continuously with Man himself. The more Man is Man, the more
he will feel the need to devote himself to something which
is bigger than he is. Is it not that which we can ascertain
around us? At what moment in the Noosphere bas there been a
more urgent need to find a Faith, a Hope to give meaning and
soul to the immense organism we are building?
By the capital event of
Hominisation the most "advanced" part of the Cosmos
found itself personalised. This simple change in a
variable introduced for the future a two-fold condition of
existence which cannot be escaped.
Since everything in the
Universe, starting from Man, takes place in the
personalised being, the ultimate Term of the uni-versal
Convergence must also possess (in a supreme degree) the
quality of a Person. To super-animate, without
destroying, a Universe made up of personal elements, lie
must himself be a special Centre. Thus re-appears, no longer
instinctive, but closely linked with contemporary ideas on
evolution, the tra-ditional conception of a God exerting an
intellectual influence upon immortal monads, distinct from
himself be a special Centre. Thus re-appears, no longer
instinctive, but closely linked with contemporary ideas on
evolution, the traditional conception of a God exerting an
intellectual influence upon immortal monads, distinct from
himself.
The current which raises Matter
should be conceived less as a simple internal impulse than
as a tide. The Multiple rises, attracted and incorporated by
the "Already One".
In the first phase -before Man- the
attraction was vitally, but blindly, felt by the World.
Since Man, if is awakened, at least partially, in reflective
liberty, and it sustains Religion. Religion, which is not an
option, or a strictly individual intuition, but represents
the long unfolding, through the collective experience of all
Mankind, of the existence of God -God reflecting himself
personally on the organised sum of thinking monads, to
guarantee a sure issue, and to lay down exact laws for their
hesitant activities.
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ON THE
POSSIBLE BASIS OF A COMMON CREDO
0nce the rerality of a Noogenesis
is admitted (the concentration and collective march forward
of human Thought) the believer in the World finds himself
obliged, to give a growing place in his thoughts on the
future to the values of personality and transcendence. Of
personality, since a Universe on the road of psychic
concentration is identically a Universe- which is becoming
personalised. And of transcendence, because a last pole of
"cosmic" personalisation, if it is to be supremely
consistent and unifying, can hardly be conceived except as
emerging from elements which it super-personalises by
uniting them.
Still in the same perspective,
assuming it is admitted that here is a cosmic genesis of the
spirit, the believer in Heaven realises that the mystic
transformation of which he dreams presupposes and confirms
all the tangible realities and laborious conditions of human
Progress. To be super-spiritualised in God, must not Mankind
first be born and grow in conformity with Me whole system of
what we call evolution ?
The sense of Earth opening and
flowering upwards in the sense of God, and the sense of God
rooted and nourished from below in the sense of Earth. The
transcendent personal God and the Universe in evolution, no
longer forming two antago-nistic poles of attraction, but
entering into a hierarchic conjunction to uplift the human
mass in a single tide. Such is the notable transformation
which the idea of the spiritual evolution of the Universe
implies in theory and which is beginning to come about in
practice in a growing number of minds, free-thinkers as well
as believers. The very transfor-mation we are
searching.
The new spirit for a new
world.
To unify the vital human forces, so
lamentably disunited at this moment, the direct and
effective way would simply bc to sound the alarm and to form
a block of all those who either on the right or the left,
believe that the great affair for modern Mankind is to break
its way out by forcing some threshold of greater
consciousness. Whether Christians or not, the men who are
animated by this conviction form a homogeneous category.
Although in the march of Mankind they take their stations on
opposing wings, they can advance hand in hand, because their
attitudes, far from being exclusive, virtually prolong each
other, and ask only to be completed. What are they waiting
for, in order to set up the common front of all those who
believe that the Universe is moving forward, and that it is
our task to make it move forward? Would not this be the
solid nucleus around which to-morrow's unanimity must
develop?
In spite of the wave of scepticism
which seems to have swept away the hopes (over-simplified
and over-materialist) upon which the nineteenth century
lived, faith in the future is not dead in our hearts. Better
still, it is this hope, deepened and purified, which seems
bound to save us. It is not only that the idea of a possible
awakening of our consciousness to a super-consciousness
becomes daily scientifically better based on experience and
psychologically more necessary to keep alive in man the zest
for action; in addition, pushed to its logical conclusion,
this very idea seems the only one capable of making ready
for the great event which we are awaiting; the discovery of
a synthetic act of adoration in which are allied and
mutually exalted the passionate desire to conquer the World,
and the passionate desire to unite ourselves with God; the
vital act, specifically new, corresponding to a new age of
the Earth*.
Peking, 30th March
1941
*These thoughts, written on the
occasion of the New York Congress on Science and Religion,
were designed to map out the ground on which all men who
desired progress might begin to understand and help each
other to attain the highest truth which full co-operation
would bring within their reach.
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