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About
the
Author
Pierre Teilhard de Chakdin (1881-1955) was born
and ordained
a Jesuit priest in 1911.
Trained as
in
France
a paleontologist,
Teilhard did research
at
Musee National d'Histoire Naturelle
and fieldwork
in
China, where
in Paris
the celebrated "Peking
Man"
to reconcile his spiritual
vision of
man
fossils.
and
in
1929 he codiscovered
In his writings, he sought
scientific beliefs,
theological positions
were
at
him from publishing
France
a bestseller in
a
odds with Catholic doctrine and
led to a strained relationship with Jesuit leaders,
became
producing
as evolving toward the divine. His unorthodox
his writings.
when
it
who
forbade
The Phenomenon of Man
was posthumously published
in
1955.
Sir Julian
Huxley
(1887-1975) was one of the twentieth
century's leading evolutionary biologists. distinctions,
Huxley was
Nations Educational,
(UNESCO) and
the
first
Scientific,
Among
his
numerous
director general of the United
and Cultural Organization
cofounder of the World Wildlife Fund.
Pierre Teilhard
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
De Chardin
f
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SIR JULIAN HUXLEY
HARPERPERENNIAL N[W VOftK
•
l.ONOQN
*
TORONTO
•
SVONCV
V) MOOERNTHOUCHT *
ML*'
OtLHI
•
A0C.Kl.AH0
Contents
INTRODUCTION BY
SIR
JULIAN HUXLEY
page ir
PREFACE
foreword*.
Seeing
3i
BOOK ONE: BEFORE chapter
i
.
2.
40
A.
Plurality
b.
Unity
4*
c.
Energy
42
40
TOTAL MATTER B.
c.
3.
39
ELHMENTAL MATTER
a.
11.
CAME
The Stuff of the Universe 1.
chapter
LIFE
43
The System The Totum The Quantum
43
44 45
THE EVOLUTION OF MATTER A, The Appearance b. The Numerical Laws
46 47 50
The Within of Things
53
1.
EXISTENCE
54
2.
THE QUALITATIVE LAWS OP GROWTH a. First
3.
Observation
58
58
B.
Second Observation
59
C
Third Observation
60
SPIRITUAL ENERGY A.
The Problem of the Two
b.
A
Line of Solution
62 Energies
63
64
CONTENTS
CONTENTS chapter
in.
The Earth 1.
in its
67
Early Stages
THE WITHOUT A. b.
2.
The
chapter
World The Polymerising World
68
Crystallising
70
THE WITHIN
I.
The Advent 1.
2.
81
b.
A
83
c.
The
Forgotten Era
D.
I.
Number Number Origin of The Inter-re Utionship
chapter
11.
THE SEASON OF
a
chapter
11.
2.
94
96
LIFE
j.
Reproduction
104
Multiplication
104
c.
Renovation
105
d.
Conjugation
106
e.
Association
106
f.
Controlled Additivity
108
chapter
Terrestrial
Planet:
180
184
hi. The Modern Earth
191
lifb
The Flourishing of Maturity
219
c.
The
2.
the problem of action A. Modern Disquiet B. The Requirements of the Future c The Dilemma and the Choice
137
in Duration
216
221
Illumination
226
226
229 232
BOOK FOUR: SURVIVAL
119
The Evidence
213
The Envelopment
116
133
206
b.
"3
122
203
216
112
122
197
200
A.
109
THE TREE OF LIFB A. The Main lines Âť. The Dimensions
191
the discovery of evolution The Perception of Space-time
1.
THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE LIVING MASS A. Aggregate* of Growth
c.
5.
104
b.
of Distance
4.
103
A.
b.
174 the
THE RAMIFYING PHASE OF THE PRE-HOMIN1DS THE GROUP OF THE NBANDBRTHALOIDS the Homo Sapiens complex the neolithic metamorphosis the prolongations OF the neolithic age and the rise of thb west
2.
THE ELEMENTAL MOVEMENTS OF LIFE
c. Effects
The Threshold of The Noosphere
The Deployment oj the Noosphere 1.
92
and Shape
corollary: the ways of
c.
the Hominisa-
91
The Expansion of Life 1.
The Threshold of the Phylum:
THE ORIGINAL FORMS
2.
164
164
b.
tion of the Species
3. 3.
163
THE THRESHOLD OF REFLECTION A. The Threshold of the Element: the Hominisation of the Individual
90 90
Milieu
i47
The Birth of Thought
86
Cellular Revolution
THE INITIAL MANIFESTATIONS OF LIFE
c.
152
79
Micro-organiiiro and Mega-molecules
Smallnett and
THE APPROACH OF TIME
77
A.
The
3.
BOOK THREE: THOUGHT
LIFE
oj Life
b.
2.
1.
THE TRANSIT TO LIFE
A.
142
71
BOOK TWO;
j^i
ariadne's thread the rise of consciousness
1.
68
chapter
chapter
in. Demeter
chapter
i.
The
237
Collective Issue
1.
the confluence
of
thought
239
A.
Forced Coalescence
239
b.
Mega-Synthesis
243
1
CONTENTS THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH a. Mankind
2.
chapter
11.
245
b.
Science
248
c.
Unanimity
251
Beyond the 1.
245
the Hyper-Person*!
Collective:
A. B.
The The
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
254
THE CONVERGENCE OF THE PERSON AND THE OMEGA POINT
257
Perhaps a word may be permitted about some of the blems involved in the translation of this book.
Personal Universe
257
The
Personalising Universe
260
words
264
when he
'
2. 3.
chapter
LOVB AS ENERGY THE ATTRIBUTES OP THE OMEGA POINT
Hi. The Ultimate Earth 1.
2.
PROGNOSTICS TO BE SET ASIDE THE APPROACHES The Organisation of Research b. The Discovery of the Human Object c.
all his
—own.
noosphere
'
In
some
instances he coins
horninisation', for instance, or
'
—and in others he adapts words to his own ends,
as
268 273
terms.
276 278
280
The Conjunction of Science and Religion
is
pro-
of the within and the without of things. His meaning, however, should become apparent as his thought unfolds, and I have dispensed with cumbrous efforts at defining his
274.
a.
author's style
to express his thought
lesser
283
talks
'
'
'
'
As far as possible I have dispensed with italics for his neologisms—they are repeated too often to stand italicisation in a work already thickly sprinkled with italics for emphasis. I have also, in obedience to the conventions of typography in England, elirninatcd the author's initial capitals for all abstract nouns such thought \ and also for world \ universe \ as 'science \ life \ man and other such key-words of his work. There were disadvantages in this decision, but at least the printed page looks more normal to the English reader. A number of people nave contributed to the translation, some by substantial paper work, others by suggestions and the out'
4
'
'
1
*
THE ULTIMATB
285
Christian Phenomenon
291
3.
epilogue: The
AXES OF BELIEF
292
2.
EXISTENCE-VALUB
294
3.
POWER OF GROWTH
296
I.
;
postscript: The
Essence of the Phenomenon of
WORLD
Man
2.
THE FIRST APPEARANCE OP
3.
THE SOCIAL PHENOMENON
in
Evolution
300
INVOLUTION
A
APPENDIX: Some Remarks
INDEX
IN
1.
on the PIau
amd
30O
MAN
Part of Evil in a
}QZ
304
come
Outstanding among participants arc Mr. Geoffrey Sainsbury, Dr. A. Tindell Hopwood, is
in a sense a joint effort.
Professor D. M. MacKinnon and Mr. Noel Lindsay. At times versions or suggestions have been conflicting and I have had Co take it on myself to make an editorial decision. The translators*
notes appear in square brackets.
without version.
whom
it
Finally,
inadequacies that
I
should like to thank
my
wife,
would have been impossible to produce I must take on myself responsibility for
this
the
still persist.
BERNARD WALL
World 31
314
Introduction by Sir Julian The Phenomenon of remarkable
human
Man
is
being.
Huxley
a very remarkable
work by
Pire Teilhard de Chardin
a very
was
at the
same time a Jesuit Father and a distinguished palaeontologist. In The Phenomenon of Man he has effected a threefold synthesis of the material and physical world with the world of mind and and of variety with unity, of the past with the future spirit the many with the one. He achieves this by examining every fact and every subject of his investigation sub specie evolutionis, with reference to its development in time and to its evolutionary position. Conversely, he is able to envisage the whole of knowable reality not as a static mechanism but as a process. In conse-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
;
quence, he
is
to the trends
driven to search for
human
significance in relation
of that enduring and comprehensive process
measure of his stature
is
the
;
that he so largely succeeded in the search.
would like to introduce The Phenomenon of Man to English by attempting a summary of its general thesis, and of what appear to me to be its more important conclusions. I make no excuse for this personal approach. As I discovered when I first met PÂŁre Teilhard in Paris in 1946, he and I were on the same quest, and had been pursuing parallel roads ever since we were young men in our twenties. Thus, to mention a few signposts which I independently found along my road, already I
readers
in 1913 as
two
I
had envisaged human evolution and biological evolution of a single process, but separated by a critical *
phases
point \ after which
underwent
my in
Uniqueness of
showing
the properties
radical change.
the
Man
,
of
This thesis
1
the evolving
material
developed years
later in
adding that man's evolution was unique
dominance of convergence over divergence 11
:
in
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
on Scientific Humanism (a in which Neo-Humanism) close approximation to PÂŁre Teilhard's I independently anticipated the tide of Pere Teilhard's great book by describing humanity as a phenomenon, to be studied and the same
volume
published an essay
I
f
by
analysed
methods. Soon after the
scientific
in Essays of a Biologist,
made my
I
first
first
attempt
at
World War, defining and
evaluating evolutionary progress. In
my Romanes
Lecture on Evolutionary Ethics,
made an
I
was inadequate, but was at least a relate the development of moral to direction) step in the right in 1942, codes and religions to the general trends of evolution in my Evolution^ the Modern Synthesis, I essayed the first comprehensive post-Mendelian analysis of biological evolution as a
attempt (which
I
now
see
;
and just before meeting Pere Teilhard had written a pamphlet entitled Unesco : its Purpose and Philosophy, where I stressed that such a philosophy must be a global, scientific and evolutionary humanism. In this, I was searching to establish an ideological basis for man s further cultural evolution, and to process
:
of the individual human personality in the process a search in which I was later much aided by PÂŁre Teilhard's writings, and by our conversations and correspondence. The Phenomenon of Man is certainly the most important of define the position
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Pire Teilhard's published works. Of the rest, some, including the essays in La Vision du Passi, reveal earlier developments or later elaborations
VApparition de
%
l
of
his general
Homme,
Pire Teilhard
starts
thought
are rather
from
more
;
while others, like
technical
the position that
mankind
phenomenon to be described and analysed like phenomenon it and all its manifestations, including :
human history and human values, are proper objects for scientific study.
His second and perhaps most fundamental point is the absolute necessity of adopting an evolutionary point of view.
Though
for certain limited purposes
of phenomena fact
never
as isolated statically in
static
:
it
may be
useful to think
time, they are in point
of
they are always processes or parts of processes. 12
branches of science combine to demonstrate that
different
the universe in cess, a
its
entirety
must be regarded
process of becoming, of attaining
as
new
one
gigantic pro-
levels
of existence
and organisation, which can properly be called a genesis or an evolution. For this reason, he uses words like noogenesis, to mean the gradual evolution of mind or mental properties, and repeatedly stresses that we should no longer speak of a cosmology but of a Similarly,
cosmogenesis.
he
likes to
hominisation to denote the process
human
stock
use a pregnant
by which the
term
like
original proto-
became (and is still becoming) more truly human, which potential man realised more and more of his Indeed, he extends this evolutionary terminology by
the process by possibilities.
employing terms like ultra-hominisation to denote the deducible future stage of the process in which man will have so far transcended himself as to
With
this
demand some new
approach he
is
rightly
appellation.
and indeed inevitably driven
phenomena (of course man) are processes, they
to the conclusion that, since evolutionary
including the
phenomenon known
as
can never be evaluated or even adequately described solely or they must be defined by their mainly in terms of their origins :
direction, their inherent possibilities (including
their limitations),
and
of course
their deducible future trends.
He
also
quotes
with approval Nietzsche's view that man is unfinished and must and proceeds to deduce the steps be surpassed or completed ;
needed for
his
completion.
was keenly aware of the importance of vivid Thus in 1925 he coined the term noosphere to denote the sphere of mind, as opposed to, or rather superposed on, the biosphere or sphere of life, and acting as a transforming agency promoting hominisation (or as I would Pere Teilhard
in its
totality is a
any other
The
and
arresting terminology.
put it, progressive psychosocial evolution). He may perhaps be criticised for not defining the term more explicidy. By noosphere did he intend simply the total pattern of thinking organisms
(i.e.
human
beings)
patterns of their interrelations
and :
their activity, including the
or did he intend the special
environment of man, the systems of organised thought and 13
its
INTRODUCTION products in which
men move and have
INTRODUCTION
their being, as fish
swim
and reproduce in rivers and the sea ?* Perhaps it might have been better to restrict noosphere to the first-named sense, and to use something like noosystem for the second. But certainly noosphere
is
during
its
and thought-provoking word.
a valuable
He usually
uses convergence to denote the
evolution, to superpose
tendency of mankind,
centripetal
on centrifugal
trends, so as to prevent centrifugal differentiation
from leading
to fragmentation, and eventually to incorporate the results of differentiation in an organised and unified pattern. Human con-
vergence was
Homo
after
first
manifested
on
the genetic or biological level
:
sapiens
began to
differentiate into distinct races (or
more
scientific
terminology) migration and inter-
subspecies, in
marriage prevented, the pioneers from going further, and led to increasing interbreeding between
man
is
the only successful type
all
human
variants.
As
which has remained
a result,
as a single
about 8,500
separated assemblages (like the birds, with
species, or the insects
with over half a million).
Cultural differentiation set in later, producing a
number of
psychosocial units with different cultures. However, these
thinking groups \
as
one writer has
sharply separated as are biological species process
known
'
inter-
called them, are never so
and with time, the
;
to anthropologists as cultural diffusion, facilitated
by migration and improved communications,
a single self-developing
framework of thought
assemblages of molecules, and then to individuals, to cephalised
showed himself aware of
In
If Phinomenc Humain
or membrane on the earth's
201) he refers to the noosphere as a
surface, a
layer of the biosphere and the
But
(p.
lifeless
*
thinking layer superposed '
layer
in his earlier formulation of 1925, in
1
tine sphere de la inflexion,
de
I'
new
on the
envisages the world-stuff as being
upon
itself,
is
material, the Uthosphere.
PasU
Vision du
He
man,
speaks of complexi-
both locally and in
its
*
entirety,
*
corpuscular
'
or by an
He
thus
up or folded in and adds that the pro-
rolled
'
accompanied by an increase of energetic
structions layer
La
brains, to primitive
parts in an enroulement organique sur soi-meme %
its
cess
of inorganic
self-replicating
to multicellular
alternative metaphor, as a reploiement sur soi-meme.
the
living
or
cells,
fication as an all-pervading tendency, involving the universe in
the resultant 1
metazoa with
and now to civilised societies. But it involves something more.
(or noosystem).
In parenthesis, Pire Teilhard
the genesis
cules, thence to the first subcellular living units
all
group based on
tendency might destroy the valuable results o
of increasingly elaborate organisation during cosmogenesis, as manifested in the passage from subatomic units to atoms, from atoms to inorganic and later to organic moleit,
led to an accelerat-
ing counter-process of cultural convergence, and so towards the union of the whole human species into a single interthinking
this
and lead to drab uniformity instead o* to a rich and potent pattern of variety-in-unity. Howevei. perhaps because he was (rightly) so deeply concerned with establishing a global unification of human awareness as a necessar) prerequisite for any real future progress of mankind, and perhap: also because he was by nature and inclination more interested in rational and scientific thought than in the arts, he did not discuss the evolutionary value of cultural variety in any detail, but contented himself by maintaining that East and West are culturally complementary, and that both are needed for the further synthesis and unification of world thought. Before passing to the full implications of human convergence, I must deal with Pire Teilhard's valuable but rather difficult concept of complexijication. This concept includes, as 1 understand
interbreeding group or species, and has not radiated out into a
number of biologically
danger that
cultural diversification,
'
*
tension
'
in
organisations, or individualised con-
of increased organisational complexity. For want of a
better English phrase,
the operation
1
shall use convergent integration to define
of this process of self-complexification,
calls it
Pire Teilhard also maintains that complexification by con-
invention consricnte, de l'union sentie des
vergent integration leads to the intensification of mental subjective
imes\
(p. 92),
he
activity
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;in other words to the evolution of progressively more
14
15
INTRODUCTION Thus he
conscious mind.
man)
in
is
states that full consciousness (as
to be defined as
complexity \
INTRODUCTION
'
the specific effect
seen
of organised
But, he continues, comparative study makes
clear that higher animals
have minds of a
sort,
it
and evolutionary
and logic demand that minds should have evolved gradually well as bodies and that accordingly mind-like (or mentoid \
fact
'
as
employ a barbarous word
to
of
am
driven to coin because
human
phase to the
biological to the inorganic.
And
according to Pere Teilhard,
envisage the intensification of mind, the raising of
mental potential,
as
being the necessary
consequence of com-
by the convergent integration of increascomplex units of organisation. The sweep of his thought goes even further. He seeks to link the evolution of mind with the concept of energy. If understand him aright, he envisages two forms of energy, or perhaps two modes in which it is manifested energy in the physicists* plexification, operating
manifestation.
Indeed an
an isolated human individual. is
by
generated
I would prefer to say that mind complex organisations of living matter,
or in
capable of receiving information of
many
qualities or modalities
about events both in the outer world and in itself, of synthesising and processing that information in various organised forms, and
muscles.
by backward extrabiological, and from the
material systems,
all
its
piece of biological nonsense, as meaningless as
by higher animals with
properties
in
polation from the
we must
I
is a
mind
universe. potential
that
a necessary organ for
it is
must be present throughout the Thus, in any case, we must infer the presence of
usefulness)
its
though
isolated brain
of utilising
only
it
to direct present and future action
—
words,
in other
their sense-organs, nerves, brains,
arise in evolution
when
their construction enables
them to
incorporate and interiorise varied external information tainly
no
anything In
and
Perhaps, indeed, organisations of such complexity can
non-living,
like this
human
non-sentient
organisation has
cer-
:
reached
degree of elaboration.
or psychosocial evolution, convergence has cer-
ingly
tainly led to increased complexity.
sense,
increase of human numbers combined with the improvement of human communications has fused all the parts of the noosphere together, has increased the tension within it, and has caused it upon itself, and therefore more highly to become infolded of convergence and coalescence, what the process In organised.
I
—
measurable or calculable by physical methods, and
*
psychic
which increases with the complexity of organised 1 This view admittedly involves speculation of great intelunits. lectual boldness, but the speculation is extrapolated from a massive array of fact, and is disciplined by logic. It is, if you like, visionary but it is the product of a comprehensive and energy
'
:
coherent vision. It
Some
better to say that complexity
of
a
sort
biologists,
indeed,
would claim
that
mind
generated solely by the complexification of certain types organisation,
me 1
namely
brains.
narrow. The brain alone Sec, e.g., C.
certainly need
would
Cuenot,
we may
'
metaphorically describe
as
the psychosocial temperature
more intense, more complex, and more integrated mental activity, which can guide the human species up the path of progress to higher levels
rises.
Mankind
as a
whole
will accordingly achieve
of hominisation. Pere Teilhard was a strong visualiser.
might have been
a necessary prerequisite for mental evolution rather than its
is
cause.
*
In Pere Teilhard's view, the
However, such is
some new terms
He
saw with
the banal fact of the earth's roundness
sphericity of man's
environment
—was
bound
to
'
his
—the
cause
this
intensification of psychosocial activity. In an unlimited environ-
of
ment, man's thought and his resultant psychosocial activity would it would extend over a greater area, simply diffuse outwards but would remain thinly spread. But when it is confined to
not responsible for mind, even
in this field:
*
is
logic appears to
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Paris, 1958, p. 430.
mind's eye that
We
perhaps neumgy and psychergy
:
spreading out over the surface of a sphere, idea will encounter idea,
and
the result will
be an organised
web of thought,
a noetic
system operating under high tension, a piece of evolutionary
serve.
16
17
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION machinery capable of generating high psychosocial energy.
truly a microcosm,
When
both
I
web of
read his discussion of the subject,
I
visualised this selective
living thought as the
bounding structure of evolving man, marking him off from the rest of the universe and yet playing the same sort of role in facilitating exchange with it human unit of evolution and yet encouraging the delimiting the complexification of its contents, as does the cell-membrane for :
the animal
when
at the
between the cyclotron generating immense
intensities
energy in the inwardly accelerating spiral orbits of
of physical
of and the entire noosphere with its fields of thought curved round upon themselves to generate new levels of psychical energy '- 1 How his imagination would have kindled at the sight its fields
force,
'
of the circular torus of Zeta, within whose bounding curves are generated the highest physical energies ever
man
produced by
Pere Teilhard, will be
achieved a
Pere Teilhard, extrapolating from the past into the future,
human convergence as tending to a called point Omega \ as opposed to the
envisaged the process of final state,
1
which he
*
Alpha of elementary material understand
him
aright,
particles
and
their energies.
If
I
he considers that two factors are co-operat-
The
other
of our
is
the universe at large,
societies
general
the increase of psychosocial pressure
on
the surface
The result of the one is that the noosphere incorever more facts of the cosmos, including the facts of its direction and its trends in time, so as to become more
1
En
2
Presumably,
regardant un cyclotron in
:
in
Reckachcs
designating this state as
truly final condition.
It
ct
dibatst Paris, April 1953, p.123.
Omega, he
though perhaps the strange
the
facts
human
ultimate
state.
18
it
as a
was a novel
imagination cannot
of extra-sensory perception
unearthed by the infant science of parapsychology
more
believed that
might have been better to think of it merely
mode of organization, beyond which
at present pierce,
possible
and individuals.
planet.
porates
state or
human
may
give us a clue to a
is
result,
according
attainment of point
the
Omega,
organisation.
'
not fully clear to me. Sometimes he seems
future hyperpersonal
psychosocial organisation
variety in this find
it
at
:
as a Christogenesis
seems to envisage
;
merging of individual human Though many scientists may, as I do, follow him all the way in his gallant attempt
as desirable the
new
unity.
impossible to
to reconcile the supernatural elements in Christianity
and implications of evolution,
this in
no way
with the
detracts
from
the positive value of his naturalistic general approach.
mode of organisaTeilhard's conviction Pere from of the supreme tion sprang In any case the concept of a hyperpersonal
importance of personality. A developed human being, as he rightly pointed out, is not merely a more highly individualised
He has crossed the threshold of self-consciousness to mode of thought, and as a result has achieved some new
a
knowledge about
galaxies and stars to
is
of the other
result
one place, for instance, he speaks and elsewhere he appears not to be guarding himself sufficiendy against the dangers of personifying the non-personal elements of reality. Sometimes, too, he
One
the increase of
hyperpersonal
this
of the trend
individual.
is
The
be intensely unified and will have
will
with an emergent Divinity
ing to promote this further complexification of the noosphere.
from the
'
his thought
to equate
facts
!
incorporated knowledge)
human thought. The combined
where the noosphere
cell.
later,
(like all
the increased unification and the increased intensity of the
system of to
which
mirror and a directive agency.
Here
University of California in 1952, imagination vivid led Pere Teilhard to draw a parallel this same
Years
is
a
degree of conscious integration outer world of
elements of the
men and
self
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; integration of the
self with the of the separate a person, an organism
nature, integration
with each other.
He
is
which has transcended individuality in personality. This attainment of personality was an essential element in man's past and present evolutionary success
must be an
essential
aim for
:
accordingly
his
its
fuller
achievement
evolutionary future.
This belief in the pre-eminent importance of the personality
scheme of things was for him a matter of faith, bu of and scientific knowledge It prevented him frorh diluting his concept of the divine principle
in the
faith supported by rational inquiry
19
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION inherent in reality, in
apprehension of the entire process of
as his
of
vague and meaningless pantheism,
a
interrelations,
and of mankind
him from
that process, saved
reality as a
as actively
way
losing his
just
system
participating in in the deserts of
He
human
of
realised that the appearance
personality was
culmination of two major evolutionary trends
for
to equip
it
with the mech-
proper fulfilment of
the
extensive interrelation and co-operation
—
the trend
persons are individuals
:
transcend their merely organic individuality in conscious
co-ordinating central nervous system with dominant brain
unit
of evolution
His understanding of the method by which organisms become
—
its
conversion,
on
the
Once he had
grasped and faced the fact of
from
this
spearhead of evolution on earth, and to follow out the implica-
many
perhaps consider that in The Phenomenon of
—the
insufficient attention to genetics
as
the dominant guiding region
and containing the main sense-
directed,
organs providing information about the outer world and also the
main organ of co-ordination or
With
process of evolution
becoming sisted
of
a
on
earth
is
itself
now
in the process of
Before the appearance of man,
cephalised.
pattern of ecological interaction.
development of mankind into noosystem or
a single
common
The
con-
to
incipient
psychosocial unit, with
pool of thought,
is
the evolutionary process with the rudiments of a head. for our descendants
life
of separate branches, linked only by an
vast array
unorganised
a single
brain.
has genius for fruitful analogy, he points out that the
of evolution on earth more
mankind
to
It
remains
more
understand the process
fully and to direct
it
more
adequately.
I had independently expressed something of the same sort, by saying that in modern scientific man, evolution was at last becoming conscious of itself a phrase which I found delighted Pere Teilhard. His formulation, however, is more profound and more seminal it implies that we should consider interthinking humanity as a new type of organism, whose destiny it is to realise new possibilities for evolving life on this planet,
—
:
20
as
fields as possible.
and the
The
biologist
Man
he paid
possibilities
and
limita-
of natural selection, 1 the theologian that his treatment of the problems of sin and suffering was inadequate or at least unorthodox, the social scientist that he failed to take sufficient account of the facts of political and social history. But he saw that what was needed at the moment was a broad sweep and a comprehensive treatment. This was what he essayed in The Phenomenon ofMan. In my view he achieved a remarkable success, and opened up vast territories of thought to further exploration and detailed mapping. tions
providing
organise this global noosystem
adequately, so as to enable
an evolu-
It
may
number of
a
as
a new and remained to draw the central concept of man as the
comprehensive system of thought.
valuable insights. Basically, the process depends on cephalisation
of the body, forwardly
and
way was open towards
tionary phenomenon, the
conclusions
man
of this approach in
head
;
human new level of co-operative
tions
him
individualised and then personalised gave
differentiation of a
— the
interthinking, into the equivalent of a person.
fullest
participation.
first
task
its
psychosocial equivalents of sense-organs, effector organs, and a
towards more extreme individuation, and that towards more
who
we should endeavour
our aim should be the gradual personalisation of the
individualism and existentialism.
tlpe
Accordingly,
anisms necessary
The facts of Pere Teilhard's ment of his thought. His Auvergne,
a
life
help to illuminate the develop-
father
gentleman farmer
was
who was
a small
landowner in
also an archivist, with
was born in 1881, the fourth in a family of eleven. At the age of ten he went as a boarder to a Jesuit College where, besides doing well in all prescribed subjects of study, he became devoted to field geology and a taste for natural history.
mineralogy.
When
Pierre
eighteen years old, he decided to become
Jesuit, and entered their order. At the age of twenty-four, 1
Though
in his Institute for
Human
Eugenics.
21
a
after
Studies he envisaged a section of
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
an interlude in Jersey mainly studying philosophy, he was sent to teach physics
and chemistry
in a Jesuit
College at Cairo. In
the course of his three years in Egypt, and a further four studying
theology
in Sussex,
palaeontology
;
he acquired real competence in geology and
and before being ordained
of Bergson's Evolution profound
Criatrice
had helped to inspire
interest in the general facts
Returning to
Paris,
he pursued
priest in 1912, a reading
his
in
him
a
and theories of evolution.
geological studies and started
working under Marcellin Boule, the leading prehistorian and archaeologist of France, in his Institute of Human Palaeontology at the Museum of Natural History. It was here that he met his lifelong friend and colleague in the study of prehistory, the Abbe* Breuil, and that his interests were first directed to the subject on which his life's work was centred the evolution of man. In 191 3 he visited the site where the famous (and now notorious) Piltdown skull had recently been unearthed, in company with its
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Dawson and the leading English palaeontologist Arthur Smith Woodward, This was his first introduction
to try to reconcile Christian
to the excitements of palaeontological discovery
and
scientific
controversy.
During the
first
World War he
receiving the Military
served
Medal and the Legion of Honour, and
learnt a great deal about his fellow
nature.
and
in
as a stretcher-bearer,
men
and about
lus
own
The war strengthened his sense of religious vocation, 1918 he made a triple vow of poverty, chastity and
obedience.
By
1919 the major goals of his
life were clearly indicated. embark on a geological career, with special emphasis on palaeontology. As a thinker, he had reached a point where the entire phenomenal universe, including man, was revealed as a process of evolution, and he found himself impelled to build up a generalised theory or philosophy of evolutionary process which would take account of human history and human personality as well as of biology, and from which one could draw conclusions as to the future evolution of man
Professionally, he
on
earth.
And
had decided
as a
to
dedicated Christian priest, he
22
felt it
imperative
this
evolutionary
natural science.
Returning to the Sorbonne, he took his Doctorate in 1922. already become Professor of Geology at the Catholic Institute of Paris, where his lectures attracted great attention
He had
among
the students (three of
whom
are
now
teaching in the
In 1923, however, he went to China for on behalf of the Museum, on a palaeontological mission directed by another Jesuit, Pere Licent. His Lettres de Voyage reveal the impression made on him by the voyage through the tropics, and by his first experience of geological research in the desert remoteness of Mongolia and north-western China. This expedition inspired La Messe sur k Monde, a remarkable and truly poetical essay which was at one and the same time mystical and
University of Paris).
a year
realistic, religious
A
discoverer Dr. Sir
theology with
philosophy, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of
ideas
and philosophical.
shock awaited
him
Some of the about original sin
after Ins return to France.
which he had expressed
in his lectures
were regarded as unorthodox by his religious superiors, and he was forbidden to continue teaching. In 1926 he returned to work with Pere Licent in China, where he was destined to stay, with brief returns to France and excursions to the United States, to Abyssinia, India, Burma and Java, for twenty years. Here, as scientific adviser to the Geological Survey of China, centred first at Tientsin and later at Peking, he met and worked with outstanding palaeontologists of many nations, and took part in a number of expeditions, including the Citroen Croisiere Jaune under Haardt, and Davidson Black's expedition which unearthed the skull of Peking man. In 1938 he was appointed Director of the Laboratory of Advanced Studies in Geology and Palaeontology in Paris, but and
its
relation to evolution,
the outbreak of war prevented his return to France.
His enforced
China during the six war years, painful and depressing though it often was, undoubtedly helped his inner spiritual development (as the isolation of imprisonment helped to mature the thought and character of Nehru and many other Indians).
isolation in
23
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION It
encouraged ample reading and
full
reflection,
It
was
a nice stroke
of Pere Teilhard's from teaching in France
that the action
barring him
because of his ideas on
human
evolution, should have led
him
to
China and brought him into intimate association with one of the most important discoveries in that field, and driven him to enlarge and consolidate his dangerous thoughts \ During the whole of this period he was writing essays and books on various aspects and implications of evolution, culminating in 1938 in the manuscript of Le Phenomene Humain. But '
he never succeeded in obtaining permission to publish any of his controversial or major works. This caused him much distress, but he faithfully was conscious of a prophetic mission observed his vow of obedience. Professionally too he was extremely active throughout this period. He contributed a great for he
:
deal to our
knowledge of
neighbouring
and to
areas,
geology of the Far geology
led
him
an
of the world's continents
made
its
also did
own
China and the general understanding of the
palaeolithic cultures in
This preoccupation with large-scale
East.
to take
interest in the geological :
development
each continent, he considered, had
special contribution to biological evolution.
He
important palaeontological work on the evolution of
mammalian groups. The wide range of his vision made him impatient of overspecialisation, and of the timidity which refuses to pass from detailed study to broad synthesis. With his conception of manvarious
as at the same time an unfinished product of past evolution and an agency of distinctive evolution to come, he was par-
kind
ticularly impatient
anthropologists
of what he
who
deal with the entire biological success in
felt
as the
narrowness of those
limited themselves to a study of physical
structure and the details
in France in 1946, Pere Teilhard
plunged eagerly into
but in 1947 he had a serious heart European attack, and was compelled to spend several months convalescing intellectual life,
of irony
superiors in
religious
Back
and stimulated the
elaboration of his thought.
o( primitive
social
human phenomenon,
life.
as a
He wanted
to
transcendence of
by psychosocial evolution. And he had considerable redirecting along these lines die institutions with which
he was connected.
in the country.
On
his return to Paris, he
superiors not to write any
more on
:
his
and
1948 he was forbidden to put forward his candidature for a Professorship in the College de France in succession to the AbbÂŁ
in
it was known that this, the highest academic which he could aspire, was open to him. But perhaps the heaviest blow awaited him in 1950, when his application for permission to publish Le Groupe Zoologique Humain (a recasting of Le Phe'nomene Humain) was refused in Rome. By way of compensation he was awarded the signal honour of being elected Membre de flnstitut, as well as having previously become a Corresponding Member of the Acadimie des Sciences, an officer
Breuil,
though
position to
of the Legion d'Honneur, and National de
Already
la
a director
of research in the Centre
Recherche Scientifique.
in
where he made
1948 he had been invited to
visit
the
U.S.A.,
with the Wenner-Gren Foundation (or Viking Foundation as it was then called), in whose friendly shelter he spent the last four years of his life. The his first contacts
Wermer-Gren Foundation Africa,
where he was able
discoveries
of
Broom
that near-ancestor of
also sponsored his
to study at
and
first
two
visits
to South
hand the remarkable
Dart concerning Australopithecus,
man, and
to lay
down
a plan for the future
co-ordination of palaeontological and archaeological
work in
this
hominid evolution. position in France became increasingly difficult, and His
area, so
important
as a
centre of
in
moved his headquarters to New York. Here, at the Wenner-Gren Foundation, he played an important role in 1951 he
framing anthropological policy, and made valuable contribuAnd tions to the international symposia which it organised. I had the privilege of working with him in one of the remarkable discussion groups set up as part of the Columbia Bicentennial celebrations. Just before this, he had returned to
here, in 1954,
France for a brief but stimulating 24
was enjoined by
philosophical subjects
25
month of discussion.
INTRODUCTION Throughout ideas, la
and had
Matihe
y
this period,
INTRODUCTION
he had been actively developing his autobiography, Le Cceur de
the semi- technical Le
abstractions of generalities.
Groupe Zoologique Humaitt,
He was
prevailed
on
to leave his
manuscripts to
a
friend.
therefore could be published after his death, since per-
mission to publish
The
is
only required for the
work of
a
living
prospect of eventual publication must have been
a great solace to him, for he certainly regarded his general and
of
philosophical writings as the keystone felt it his
It
was
of man's present situation, though set against and he the more general realities of long-term evolution always endeavoured to think concretely, in terms of actual their development, their mode of patterns of organisation operation and their effects. As a result, he has helped us to define more adequately both our own nature, the general evolutionary process, and our place and role in it. Thus clarified, the evolution of life becomes a comprehensible phenomenon. It is an anti-cntropic process, running counter to the second law of thermodynamics with its degradation of energy and its tendency to uniformity. With the aid of the sun's energy, biological evolution marches uphill, pro;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
rHomme.
writer.
supreme duty
my
his life's
to proclaim the fruits
privilege to have been a friend
work, and
of his labour.
and correspondent
ducing increased variety and higher degrees of organisation.
and it is my privilege of Pere Teilhard for nearly ten years now to introduce this, his most notable work, to English-
organised
speaking readers.
awareness (or
It
;
is bound to be imscientific knowledge wide portant. Through his combination of with deep religious feeling and a rigorous sense of values, he has forced theologians to view their ideas in the new perspective of evolution, and scientists to see the spiritual implications of their knowledge. He has both clarified and unified our vision of reality. In the light of that new comprehension, it is no longer possible to maintain that science and religion must operate in thought-tight compartments or concern separate sectors of life
His influence on the world's thinking
;
they are both relevant to the whole of human existence. The religiously-minded can no longer turn their backs upon the natural world, or seek escape from its imperfections in a supernor can the materialistically-minded deny natural world ;
importance to spiritual experience and religious feeling. Like him, resolutely,
and
and
we must avail
phenomena. If ourselves of the help which
we
face the
spiritual travail has provided,
basis for
He
not take refuge in
always took account of the
specific realities
and various technical and general articles later included in the collections entitled La Vision du Passe and l! Apparition de
They
we must
But, like him,
tionary advance.
written his spiritual
our thought and
a
more 26
wc
face
more
produces more varied, more intense and more highly
mental activity or awareness. if
you prefer,
them
assured
certain direction for our cvolu-
During evolution,
the mental properties of living matter)
becomes increasingly important to organisms, until in mankind becomes the most important characteristic of life, and gives the human type its dominant position. After this critical point has been passed, evolution takes on it becomes primarily a psychosocial process, a new character based on the cumulative transmission of experience and its results, and working through an organised system of awareness, a combined operation of knowing, feeling and willing. In man, at least during the historical and proto-historical periods, evolution has been characterised more by cultural than by genetic or it
:
biological change.
On
this
leads to
new
new
psychosocial level,
viduals
new
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;co-operation
patterns
new knowledge
new
;
of organisation.
On
of co-operation among
the
indi-
for practical control, for enjoyment, for
education, and notably in the
thought,
the evolutionary process
types and higher degrees
one hand there arc
his intellectual
shall find a
also
last
few
centuries, for obtaining
and on the other there are
organisations
of awareness and 27
its
new
patterns
products.
of
INTRODUCTION As a result, new and often wholly unexpected possibilities have been realised, the variety and degree of human fulfilment has been increased. PÂŁre Teilhard enables us to see which possibilities are in
the long run desirable.
What is more,
he has helped
which will to define the conditions of advance, the conditions of increase an prevent and permit an increase of fulfilment unity global frustration. The conditions of advance are these
Prefcace
:
of mankind's noetic organisation or system of awareness, but a love, with goodwill high degree of variety within that unity ;
and
full
mony
;
co-operation
personal integration and internal har-
;
and increasing knowledge.
Knowledge
is
basic.
It is
;
knowledge which enables us
to
understand the world and ourselves, and to exercise some control with or guidance. It sets us in a fruitful and significant relation the enduring processes possibilities
of the universe. And, by revealing
of fulfilment
that axe
still
open,
it
the
provides an over-
contain the possibilities of the earth's immense future, and can realise more and more of them on condition that we increase our knowledge and our love. That, it seems to
We, mankind,
is
the world, but only an introduction to such an explanation. Put
the distillation of The Phenomenon of Man,
;
order between antecedents and consequents.
have chosen
I
man
establish a coherent I
have not tried to
discover a system of ontological and causal relations between the
elements of the universe, but only an experimental law of recurrence which would express their successive appearance in time.
London, December ig$S
I have tried to do is this around him I have tried to
quite simply, what as the centre, and
riding incentive.
me,
book is to be properly understood, it must be read not as a work on metaphysics, still less as a sort of theological essay, but purely and simply as a scientific treatise. The title itself indicates that. This book deals with man solely as a phenomenon but it also deals with the whole phenomenon of man. In the first place, it deals with man solely as a phenomenon. The pages which follow do not attempt to give an explanation of If this
Beyond
obviously
these first purely scientific reflections,
room
ample
for
farther-reaching
the philosopher and the theologian.
Of set
times carefully avoided venturing into that being. 1
have
At most identified
am confident
I
that,
on
purpose, field
there
speculations I
have
is
of
at all
of the essence of
the plane of experience,
with some accuracy the combined movement
towards unity, and have marked the places where philosophical and religious thinkers,
in
entitled, for reasons
of
pursuing the matter further, would be
of a higher order, to look for breaches
continuity. 1
But this book also deals with the whole phenomenon of manWithout contradicting what I have just said (however much it may appear to do so) it is this aspect which might possibly make my suggestions look like a philosophy. During the last fifty years 1
28
Sec, for example, the footnotes
on
pp. 169,
29
i8<5,
298.
PREFACE or so, the investigations of science have proved beyond
all
doubt
no fact which exists in pure isolation, but that every experience, however objective it may seem, inevitably becomes enveloped in a complex of assumptions as soon as the scientist
that there
is
attempts to express
it
jective interpretation
in a formula.
may remain
But while
aura of sub-
this
imperceptible where the
Foreword
field
of observation is limited, it is bound to become practically dominant as soon as the field of vision extends to the whole. Like the meridians as they approach the poles, science, philosophy and religion are I
converge
*
say
bound '
to converge as they
draw nearer
advisedly, but without merging,
ceasing, to the very end, to assail the real
from
to the whole.
and without
different angles
and on different planes. Take any book about the universe written
by one of the great modern scientists, such as Poincare, Einstein or Jeans, and you will see that it is impossible to attempt a general scientific interpretation of the universe without giving the impression of trying to explain it through and through. But look a little
more
closely
and you
will see that this
*
hyperphysics
'
is still
not
of every
effort
of
this
kind to give
a scientific
of the whole, it is natural that certain basic assumptions, on which the whole further structure rests, should make their
description
influence felt to the fullest possible extent. In the specific instance
of the present Essay, I think it important to point out that two go hand in hand to support and govern every
basic assumptions
development of the theme. The first is the primacy accorded to the psychic and to thought in the stuff of the universe, and the second is
the
*
biological
'
value attributed to the social fact around
The pre-eminent
significance
organic nature of mankind
may
start
by trying
how
these are
to reject, but
not
see
the
phenomenon of man.
it is
;
of
man
in
nature,
two assumptions
one
that
without accepting them,
possible to give a full
us.
and the
I
do
and coherent account of
Paris,
March 1947
work may
This
be
summed up
others see
what happens
upon
when
us,
he
is
as
an attempt
single out Seeing. if
man
as
such
is
our object
the point
:
and
to
make
are forced
we
in particular should
at least essentially.
lies
Fuller being
the kernel and conclusion of this book.
sciousness, that
see
?
We might say that the whole of life
not ultimately,
to
man, and what conclusions
placed fairly and squarely within the frame-
is
But
in that
verbâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
closer union let us
:
empha-
union increases only through an increase in conis
to say in vision.
And
that, doubtless,
is
why
the
history of the living world can be
summarised as the elaboration of ever more perfect eyes within a cosmos in which there is always something more to be seen. After all, do we not judge the perfection of an animal, or the supremacy of a thinking being, by the penetration and synthetic power of their gaze ? To try to see more and better is not a matter of whim or curiosity or selfindulgence. To see or to perish is the very condition laid upon everything that makes up the universe, by reason of the mysterious gift of existence. And this, in superior measure, is man's condition. But if it is true that it is so vital and so blessed to know, let us ask again
why we
are turning our attention particularly to man. Has man not been adequately described already, and is he not a tedious subject ? Is it not precisely one of the attractions of science that it rests our eyes by turning them away from man ?
Man
has a double
title, as
impose himself on our 30
to
work of phenomenon and appearance. Why should we want to see, and why
sise
a metaphysic. In the course
SEEING
the twofold centre of the world, to
effort to see, as the
3i
key to the
universe.
FOREWORD
FOREWORD Subjectively,
first
perspective of our
of
own
all,
we
are inevitably the centre
observation.
In
its
of
early, naive stage,
perhaps inevitably, imagined that we could observe phenomena in themselves, as they would take place in our
science,
absence.
Instinctively physicists
and
went to work as great height upon a world
naturalists
though they could look down from a which their consciousness could penetrate without being subrealise mitted to it or changing it. They are now beginning to that even the
most objective of
their observations are steeped in
forms or the conventions they adopted at the outset and by growth of the of course habits of thought developed in the they analyses so that, when they reach the end of their research with any certainty whether the structure they have tell cannot ;
the reached is the essence of the matter they are studying, or they time same die at And reflection of their own thought.
of their discoveries, they are caught body and soul to the network of relationships they thought to cast
realise that as the result
upon
things
from
outside
:
in fact they are caught in their
own
words metamorphism and A geologist would net. endoniorphism. Object and subject marry and mutually transand from now on form each other in the act of knowledge man willy-nilly fmds his own image stamped on all he looks at. use the
;
indeed a form of bondage, for which, however, a unique and assured grandeur provides immediate compensation. die observer to be thus It is tiresome and even humbling for This
is
be obliged to carry with him everywhere the centre of the landscape he is crossing. But what happens when chance intersecting directs his steps to a point of vantage (a cross-roads, or
fettered, to
valleys)
radiate ?
the its
way
from which, not only
his vision,
but things themselves
In that event the subjective viewpoint coincides with things are distributed objectively, and perception reaches
The
apogee.
landscape lights up and yields
its
secrets.
He
sees.
be the privilege of man's knowledge. to be a man to perceive surrounding things necessary not It is \ All the animals have reached this point round and forces in the
That seems
to
*
as well as us.
But
it is
peculiar to
3^
man
to
occupy a position in
nature at which the convergent lines are not only visual but structural.
analyse this
The following pages will do no more than verify and phenomenon. By virtue of the quality and the bio-
we
logical properties of thought,
find ourselves situated at a
which commands the whole fraction that is of the cosmos at present within reach of our experience. Man, the centre of perspective, is at the same time the centre of construction of the universe. And by expediency no less than by necessity, all science must be referred back to him. If to see is
singular point, at a ganglion
really to
become more,
should look closely at
if vision is really fuller
man
being, then
our capacity
in order to increase
we to
live.
But
do
to
From
the
this we must focus our eyes dawn of his existence, man
correctly.
has been held up as a
spectacle to himself. Indeed for tens of centuries
he
has looked at
nothing but himself. Yet he has only just begun to take
view of his own
need to be surprised at
this
slow awakening.
It
that
what
The
child has to learn to separate out the images
stares us in the face
newly-opened measure, a whole the
retina. series
gradual acquisition, as
whole history of the
A
a scientific
There is no often happens
significance in the physical world.
For
of
we
*
is
man
senses
shall
struggles
the
most
difficult to perceive.
man
to discover *
which
assail
and take
his
have been necessary, whose
show, covers and punctuates the
of the mind
:
sense of spatial immensity, in greatness and smallness, dis-
articulating and spacing out, within a sphere of indefinite radius, the orbits
A series
ness
of the
objects
which
round
us
;
sense of depth, pushing back laboriously
through
and measureless distances of time, which
sort of sluggish-
of mind tends continually
of the past
A
press
a
endless
to condense for us in a thin layer
;
number, discovering and grasping unflinchingly of material or living elements involved in the slightest change in the universe A sense of proportion, realising as best we can the difference of physical scale which separates, both in rhythm and dimension, sense of
the bewildering multitude
;
33
FOREWORD
FOREWORD
atom from the nebula, the infinitesimal from the immense sense of quality, or of novelty, enabling us to distinguish in
the
these pages,
nature certain absolute stages of perfection and growth, without upsetting the physical unity of the world
A
the irresistible
sinuating itself into the heart of the
same things
A
repetition of the
of the organic, discovering physical
links
and
collectivities.
man
will
us— whatever is done to make us see an erratic object in a what he still represents to so many minds disjointed world. Conversely, we have only to rid our vision of
remain indefinitely for
:
the threefold illusion
man
of smallness, plurality and immobility, for
effortlessly to take the central position
we
prophesied
momentary summit of an anthropogenesis which crown of a cosmogenesis.
is
— the
itself
the
Man
is
unable to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind,
neither
is
he able to see mankind unrelated to
life,
nor
life
un-
related to the universe.
Thence stems Thought
of
the basic plan
this
work
:
Pre-Life
:
Life
:
—three events sketching in the past and determining for
of the phenomenon of man. This phrase
is
not chosen
First to assert that least partially)
of science
man,
at
I
I
am
projecting.
in nature,
is
reasons.
make plain that of all the facts offered to our knowledge, none is more extraordinary or more illuminating ;
I
am
them
I
world before
do not
forget that
cosmic contradiction in imagining a
a
they really were, but rather as
as
ourselves so that the world
What
man
as
may
we must
them to moment.
picture
be true for us at
this
must appear to an observer standing on the advanced peak where evolution has placed us. It is a safe and modest method and yet, as we shall see, it suffices, through symmetry, to bring out ahead of us surprising visions of the future. Even reduced to these humble proportions, the views 1 am attempting to put forward here arc, of course, largely tentative and personal. Yet inasmuch as they arc based on arduous investigation and sustained reflection, they give an idea, by means of one example, of the way in which the problem of man presents I
depict
not the past
is
in itself,
but as
it
itself in science today.
When
studied narrowly in himself
man
nature
and
its
up
is
tiny,
a
even
by anthropologists or
shrinking, creature.
a
into pieces and to forget both
measureless horizons
pre-
to consider his
His over-
man
as
And
we
:
it is this
its
deep inter-relations is bad in
incline to all that
that
still
leads scientists to refuse
an object of scientific scrutiny except through
body.
The time universe
34
try to picture the
or life in the Palaeozoic era,
anthropocentrism.
;
Secondly, to
Thirdly, to stress the special character of the Essay
I
want any misunderstanding
I
accord to the different parts of
;
a genuine fact falling (at
within the scope of the requirements and methods
senting,
When
I
pronounced individuality conceals from our eyes the whole to which he belongs as we look at him our minds incline to break
stress this.
random, but for three
a
of those phases which ran their course before the appearance of thought on earth. I do not pretend to describe
jurists,
—
only vantage-ground in
to say, to try to develop
spectator
the future [Survival) a single and continuing trajectory, the curve
The phenomenon of man
is
explanation of things here, nor
final
about the degree of reality which
dawn of life, there would be
under the superficial juxtaposition of successions
these qualities to illuminate our vision,
that
;
metaphysical system. Neither do
the
sense, lastly,
Without
a
the film
;
structural unity
and
monotonous
my
only aim, and
So please do not expect a
—
developments hidden in extreme slowness extreme agitation the entirely new inconcealed beneath a veil of immobility
—
my
to try to see
is
homogeneous and coherent perspective of our general extended experience of man. A whole which unfolds.
;
movement, capable of perceiving
sense of
repeat that
I
;
A
has
—even
a
come
to realise that an interpretation
positivist
one
—remains
35
of
the
unsatisfying unless
it
FOREWORD covers the interior as well as matter.
The
as
true physics
of things mind as well which will, one day, achieve
the exterior is
that
;
the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the
world.
hope I shall persuade the reader that such an attempt is and that the preservation of courage and the joy of action in those of us who wish, and know how, to plumb the depths of things, depend on it. In fact I doubt whether there is a more decisive moment for a thinking being than when the scales fall from his eyes and he I
possible,
discovers that he
and
is
not an isolated unit
realises that a universal will to live
lost in the
cosmic solitudes,
converges and is hominised
in him. In such a vision
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
man
is
seen not as a static centre of the world
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;but
as he for long believed himself to be
leading shoot of evolution,
which
3<5
is
as the axis
something much
finer.
and
BOOK ONE
BEFORE
LIFE
CAME
CHAPTER ONH
THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE To it
push anything back into the past
to
its
is
equivalent to reducing
simplest elements. Traced as far as possible in the direction
of their origins, the
view and
last fibres
merged
are
in
of the
human
aggregate are lost to
our eyes with the very stuff of the
universe.
As for ever
the stuff
of
more advanced
the universe
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
analyses of science
ultimate residue of the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
I
have not cultivated
which would enable me to do it justice, that contact which comes from experiment and not from reading and makes all the difference. Besides, I know the danger of trying to construct a lasting edifice with hypotheses which are only expected to last for a day, even in the minds of that direct and familiar contact
with
it
who originate them. To a considerable extent, the representation of the atom accepted at this moment is nothing more than a simple means, those
graphic even while subject to revision, enabling the scientist to
show
put together and
to
various
manifested by matter
*
effects
over, have
As
I
am
still
a
avoid dealing
'
of the ever more
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; many of which,
no recognisable prolongation
in
at
length with or placing undue reliance
the other hand,
more-
man.
naturalist rather than a physicist, obviously
complicated and fragile
On
the non-contradiction
I
upon
shall
these
edifices.
among
the variety
of overlapping
theories,
a certain number of characteristics emerge which are inevitable in any suggested explanation of the universe. It is of these imposed factors that it is not unbecoming for a naturalist to speak when engaged on a general study of the phenomenon of man. In fact, '
'
39
THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN inasmuch
they express the conditions belonging to
as
change, even biological, he
is
bound
to take
them
all
When we probe beyond a certain degree of depth and dilution,
natural
the familiar properties of our
point of
as his
bodies— light, colour, warmth,
impenetrability, etc.— lose their meaning.
departure.
Indeed our sensory experience turns out to be a floating conswarm of the undefinable. Bewildering in its
densation on a
ELEMENTAL MATTER
i.
multiplicity and
universe
Observed from its
this special angle,
elemental state (by which
I
and considered at the outset in mean at any moment, at any
is
its
minuteness, the substratum of the tangible
in an unending state
of disintegration as
it
goes
down-
ward.
point, and in any volume), the stuff of tangible things reveals itself
with increasing insistence
tially related,
and
lastly,
Plurality, unity,
as
radically particulate yet essen-
b.
energy
:
the three faces
On
of matter.
the other hand the
artificially, the
In A.
its
'
atomic
'*
character of the universe
is
visible in
everyday experience, in raindrops and grains of sand, in the hosts
of the
living,
dead.
Man
and the multitude of stars
;
even in the ashes of the
has needed neither microscope nor electronic analysis
in order to suspect that he lives surrounded
by and
resting
on
dust.
But to count the grains and describe them, all the patient craft of modern science was necessary. The atoms of Epicurus were mert and
indivisible.
And
the infinitesimal worlds
of Pascal could
Today we have gone
thing yet this
more
progressive
finely granulated.
at
each
new
step in
approach to the infinitely small the whole
configuration of the world
is
for a
renewed. 1
And
far
moment
levels.
It is
split
and pulverise matter its fundamental unity.
astonishing similarity
Molecules, atoms, electrons
almost
Thus the should find
of
this
the elements
—
of which all stuff is made were some simple and unique kind of substance.
as if the stuff
To the cosmic corpuscles we natural to attribute an individual radius of action
unity of homogeneity.
it
We
limited as their dimensions. find, on the contrary, that each of them can only be defined by virtue of its influence on all as
around it. Whatever space we suppose it to be in, each cosmic element radiates in it and entirely fills it. However narrowly the heart ofan atom may be circumscribed, its realm is co-extensive, '
'
at least potentially,
property
We
blurred and then
with that of every other atom. This strange again, even in the human molecule.
we will come across
add collective unity. The innumerable foci which share given volume of matter are not therefore independent of each
other.
40
itself in the
reducible in the end to
a
[Atomkitf.]
more we
insistently it proclaims
whatever the name, whatever the scale—these minute units (at any rate when viewed from our distance) manifest a perfect identity of mass and of behaviour. In their dimensions and actions they seem astonishingly calibrated— and monotonous. It is almost as if all that surface play which charms our lives tends to disappear at deeper
still
beyond such certainty in and precision. instinctive or inspired guesswork both The scaling down is unlimited. Like die tiny diatom shells whose markings, however magnified, change almost indefinitely into new patterns, so each particle of matter, ever smaller and smaller, under the physicist's analysis tends to reduce itself into somepossess their animalcules.
more
most imperfect form, but the simplest to imagine,
unity reveals
Plurality
met with.
The profoundly
Unity
prodigiously active.
:
Something holds them together. Far from behaving 41
as a
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE
mere inert receptacle, the space filled by their multitude operates upon it like an active centre of direction and transmission in which their plurality is organised. We do not get what we call matter as a result of the simple aggregation and juxtaposition of atoms. For that, a mysterious identity must absorb and cement them, an influence at which our mind rebels in bewilderment at first but which in the end it must perforce accept.
We
mean the sphere above the centres and enveloping them. Throughout these pages, in each new phase of anthropogenesis,
wc
shall find ourselves faced
of collective bonds, and without ceasing until true nature. all
Here
we
we
shall
by the unimaginable
in the beginning
namely
and
final
unity
end of its decomposition.
It
would
be
Let us keep the discoveries and indisputable measurements of physics. But let us not become bound and fettered to the per-
of final equilibrium that they seem to suggest. A more complete study of the movements of the world will oblige us,
spective
little
by
to turn
little,
it
upside
down
;
in other words, to discover
hold and hold together,
that if things
it
is
only by reason of
complexity, from above.
reality
have to struggle with them
it is
sufficient to include
2,
TOTAL MATTER
them
common
energy.
Up
to
now we
according to
have been looking at matter as such, qualities and in any given volume
Energy
procedure
is
that
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
its
were permissible for us sample apart from the c.
at the
held together from below.
succeed in recognising and defining their
under the empirical name given by science to their
initial principle,
stability
to
as
is
to say
though
it
break off a fragment and study
this
time to point out that
this
rest.
It
is
merely an intellectual dodge.
Considered
in
its
of the universe cannot divide atom \ it forms in its totality
physical, concrete reality, the stuff
Under this name, which conveys the experience of effort with which we arc familiar in ourselves, physics has introduced die precise formulation of a capacity for action or, more exactly, for interaction. Energy is the measure of that which passes from one atom to another in the course of their transformations. A unifying power, then, but also, because the atom appears to become
itself but, as a
(apart
kind of gigantic
from thought on which
'
it is
centred and concentrated at
The history of consciousworld remain incomprehensible to anyone of all that the cosmos in which man finds
the other end) the only real indivisible. ness
and
who
its
place in the
has not seen
first
himself caught up constitutes, by reason of the unimpeachable
enriched or exhausted in the course of the exchange, the expression
wholeness of its whole,
of structure.
by
its
all
three within a boundless contour.
From
the aspect of energy,
renewed by radio-active pheno-
mena, material corpuscles may reservoirs
of
now
be treated
as
transient
of concentrated power. Though never found in
purity, but always
more
or
less
plurality, a
Let us try to
make
Hence we
our minds instinctively tending
to represent energy as a kind of
homogeneous, primordial flux world is but a series of fleeting
in '
which
vortices
all '.
that has shape in the
From
this
point of view, the universe 42
totum and a quantum
unity, a
quantum by
:
its
a system
energy
;
this clear.
granulated (even in light)
find
stuff.
its
a state
energy nowadays represents for science the most primitive form
of universal
a system, a
totum by
would
find
its
A.
The System
The existence of system in the world is at once obvious to every observer of nature, no matter whom. The arrangement of the parts of the universe has always been '
'
43
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN men. But
a source of amazement to
THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE proves
this disposition
itself
able to
more and more astonishing as, every day, our science make a more precise and penetrating study of the facts. The farther and more deeply we penetrate into matter, by means of increasingly powerful methods, the more we are confounded by is
Each element of the cosmos is from beneath itself by the positively woven from all the others composition of \ which makes it phenomenon mysterious whole; and from organised an of apex the subsistent through higher order which of a unities above through the influence of
the interdependence of
its parts.
:
'
incorporate and dominate It is
it
for their
own
ends.
once again. This
is
only an
other. First
we
have a vague
without it becoming frayed and unravelled at all its edges. All around us, as far as the eye can see, the universe holds together, and only one way of considering it is really possible, that is, to take it as a whole, in one piece.
The envelopes composing
circle
of electrons and other inferior
which the elements are distributed as periodic functions of the atom of hydrogen farther on another circle, of inexhaustible molecular and lastly, jumping or recoiling from the infinicombinations infinite, a circle of stars and galaxies. These multiple tesimal to the
units
then
;
a better-defined circle
of simple bodies
in
;
;
zones of the cosmos envelop without imitating each other in such
way
we cannot
from one to another by a simple no repetition of the same theme on The scale. order and the design do not appear except different a in the whole. The mesh of the universe is the universe itself. Thus it is not enough merely to assert that matter forms a a
that
pass
change of coefficients. Here
impossible to cut into this network, to isolate a portion
illusion.
matter are thoroughly heterogeneous the one with regard to the
is
block or whole.
The
stuff of the universe,
woven
in a single piece according
1
one and the same system, but never repeating
to
itself
from one
point to another, represents a single figure. Structurally, b.
The Totum
a
whole more attentively, we quickly see other than a mere entanglement of quite something that it is articulated inter-connections. If one says fabric or network, one
Now,
forms
if we consider this
homogeneous plexus of
thinks of a
similar units
which
it
may
indeed be impossible to section, but of which it is sufficient to have recognised the basic unit and to have defined the law to be able to understand the
whose laws
whole by
repetition
:
are valid for whatever space
it fills,
but which
nothing in
Now, with
if the natural unity
the totality of space
with reference to space This leads us to
is
The
first
is
two
as
of concrete space indeed coincides
itself,
we must
try to re-define energy
a whole.
conclusions.
that the radius
of action proper to each cosmic
element must be prolonged in theory to the utmost limits of the is
common.
world
itself.
As we
different orders
systems superimposed, the one on the other, and grading from the infinitely small to the infinitely big
44
:
Pascal's
two
abysses
and
since,
space
is
atom which it
above, since the
said
co-extensive with the whole of the space in
of magnitude, matter never repeats its different combinations. For expedience and simplicity we sometimes like to imagine the world as being a series of planetary its
The Quantum
C.
a crystal or arabesque
wholly contained in a single mesh. Between such a structure and the structure of matter there In
it
Whole.
on the other hand, we have
the only space there
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;we are
naturally
is
is
situated
just seen that a universal
bound
to
admit
that this
immensity represents the sphere of action common to all atoms. The volume of each of them is the volume of the universe. The 1
Which we shall
call later
on
'
the
Law of Consciousness and Complexity \ 45
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE
the microscopic, closed world wc may have imagined to ourselves. It is the infinitesimal centre of the world
atom
no longer
is
itself.
Now,
on the other hand,
let us
turn our attention to the
which share the universal their number may though sphere among themselves. which has precise be, they constitute in their multitude a group must express itself in a effects. For the whole, because it exists,
how our this new
views about matter are enlarged by the introduction of
In essence, the change wrought in our experience
appearance of what
we
everything that up to then
tinued forwards)
behaves to our senses, either as a prowhich vanishes without a environment gressively attenuated gradation, or as a decreasing limital surface in an infinitely curved and closed space within which all the lines of our experiit
we
call
space-time
is
regarded and treated
as
by
the
this, that
points in
our cosmological constructions became instantaneous sections of
conceive a dynamic standard of the world. True the world lias apparently limitless contours.
varying metaphors:
soon
shall
indefinite temporal fibres.
use
quite
ask ourselves
dimension.
resultant in global capacity for action of which we find the partial envisage and to on led ourselves find each one of us. Thus we
To
by the
consciousness brought about
modern discovery of duration. Here we need only
entirety of the infinitesimal centres
Indefinite
human
revolution in
of things
is
To
our opened eyes each element
henceforth extended backwards (and tends to be con-
entire spatial
as far as
immensity
is
the eye can see in such a
no more than
way
that the '
a section
*
at the
time
t
of a trunk whose roots plunge down into the abyss of an unfathomable past, and whose branches rise up somewhere to a first sight, has no limit. In this new perspective the world appears like a mass in process of transformation. The universal totum and quantum tend to express and defme them-
future that, at
only ence turn back upon themselves, in which case matter it. from emerge cannot we because us appears boundless to This is no reason for refusing it a quantum of energy, which
selves in cosmogenesis.
a position to the physicists, incidentally, already think they are in
the rules
What
at this
moment
are the appearance
assumed from the point of view of the physicists and followed (quantitative) by this evolution of matter ?
(qualitative)
measure.
But
this
quantum only
try to define
that
is
it
with
takes
on
its full
when we movementâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
significance
regard to a concrete natural
A.
The Appearance
to say, in duration.
3.
THE EVOLUTION OF MATTER
As seen in its central portion, which is the most distinct, the evolution of matter, in current theory, comes back to the gradual building up by growing complication of the various elements recognised by physical chemistry.
Physics fixity
was born,
in the last century, under the double sign of
and geometry.
Its ideal,
in
its
youth, was to find a mathe-
bottom
there
is
a
still
and not to be defined in terms of
world imagined as a system of stable matical explanation of elements in a closed equilibrium. Then, following all science of
To
begin with,
at
the very
unresolved simplicity, luminous in nature
Then, suddenly(?) 1
figures.
a
the real,
ing
it
was inevitably drawn by its own progress into becomToday, positive knowledge of things is identified
a history.
with the study of their development. Farther on, in the chapter on Thought, we shall have to describe and interpret the vital
46
1
Some
years ago this
sudden condensation or
stuff",
reasons,
first
birth of the corpuscles
(as in a saturated
was imagined rather
environment) of
diffused throughout limitless space.
Nowadays,
a
as a
primordial substance
for various
convergent
notably Relativity combined with the centrifugal retreat of the
galaxies, physicists prefer to turn to the idea
primitive quasi-atora within which space-time
47
of an explosion pulverising
would be strangulated
a
(in a
'
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN came
a
swarming of elementary
THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE
corpuscles, both positive and
negative (protons, neutrons, electrons, photons)
Then
:
the
in-
list
harmonic series of simple bodies, strung out from hydrogen to uranium on the notes of the atomic scale. Next follows the immense variety of compound bodies in which the molecular weights go on increasing up to a certain critical value above which, as we shall see, we pass on to life.
creases incessantly.
There
is
not one term in
the
this
long
from sound experimental proofs,
as
but must be regarded,
series
being composed of nuclei and
This fundamental discovery that
electrons.
all
bodies
owe
origin to arrangements of a single initial corpuscular type
their is
the
of the universe to our eyes. In its own way, matter has obeyed from the beginning that great law of biology to which we shall have to recur time and time again, 1 the law of complexification \ beacon that
lights the history
the present time
still
say in
its
ignorant First
own way because, at the stage of the atom, we of many points in the history of the world.
of aU, must
all
the elements
mount each
are
us here, that itself
kind of onto- or phylo-genesis in order to series
of simple bodies
Or do
?
the atomic
rhythmic
1
of the very
rare English
verb
*
—
form
its
us to distinguish
most
two of the
of
some
natural absolute zero) at only
milliards of
yean behind
us.
For
understanding the following pages, the two hypotheses arc equivalent, in the sense that they put us, the
one
just as
corpuscular multitude from which
round about nor behind a singular point
we
much
as
at least
First
from
48
distant formulations
than
')
we
matter reveals
—
becoming this genesis allowing aspects most characteristic of it in its
of all,
to
begin with a critical phase, that
the molecular level, of going
Everything docs not happen continuously
on additively by
a
at
any one moment
Neither does everything happen everywhere
in the universe. it.
So we may summarise
in a
few
about the
lines the ideas
formations of matter accepted by science today
trans-
but only by con-
:
putting
the stuffof the universe goes
any point in space? Not at all, know, but only in the heart and on the surface of the
of molecules as
we
Stan.
all
Is it
?
indifferently at
From having
considered the infinitely small elements
compelled to
(cf.
in
any
direction;
neither
Part 4, chapter 2) through
raise
we
our eyes to infinitely great
sidereal masses.
behave
like
.
.
atoms, but
enormous and
—
in
Perhaps the day will will
.
Our science is at the same time which
colossal unities,
whose
constitution
troubled
some ways
in
baffles
us
by
its
—irregular
complexity.
come when some arrangement
or periodicity
appearance only
become apparent
their composition
of interiorisauon.
the disintegration
process of growing complexity.
the other, in the midst of a
cannot escape
— but possibly forwards
*
of granulation, which abruptly and once and for all gave birth to the constituents of the atom and perhaps to the atom itself. Next,
and fascinated by these sort
say
of genesis or
The sidereal masses
make complex.]
to
do not
them anywhere within the cosmic expanse. Historically, on becoming concentrated into ever more organised forms of matter. But where, then, do these metamorphoses take place, beginning, let us say, with the framework
taken over here as the substantival
complexify
from
in a state
are abruptly
'
them. At
well informed about the ascending
sidering the latter in their temporal succession, and without as yet
?
[Complexification in the original:
(I
less
themselves in the
raise
series
order, after the lighter ones
are
numbers only represent
of states of equilibrium, sets of pigeon-holes, as it were, into which nuclei and electrons fall in rough assemblages ? Moreover, in the one instance as in the other, must we regard the various combinations of nuclei as being equally possible at any one time ? Or, on the other hand, must we suppose that on the whole, statistically, the heavy atoms only appear in a determinate a
to us
subsequent stages.
in
a
present able to give
at
is
are about the pre-living and living molecules. It is none the less true, and this is the only point of real importance that concerns
successive rung
of the ladder from the most simple to the most complicated by
we
evolution of atoms
'
I
does not appear that science
It
definitive answers to these questions, or to others like
?
in the stellar distribution
and their position. 49
Do
not a
both *
as regards
stratigraphy
THE STUFF OP THE UNIVERSE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN and
chemistry
'
a
the atoms
We
of the heavens inevitably extend the story of
'
?
have not to entangle ourselves in these
still
misty per-
spectives. No matter how fascinating they may be, they surround man rather than lead up to him. On the other hand, because of its
consequences even up to the genesis of the
intellect,
we must
notice and record the definite connection which, genetically, associates the
atom with
the star. For a long time yet physics
hesitate over the structure to
be assigned to the
astral
may
immensities.
meantime one thing is certain and is enough to guide our along the ways of anthropogenesis. That is that the making
In the steps
of greater material complexes can only take place under cover of a previous concentration of the stufr of the universe in nebulae and suns.
Whatever
the overall figure of the worlds
may
be, the
chemical function ot each one of them already has a definable
meaning for us. The stars of matter proceeds in the
are laboratories in
which the evolution
direction ot large molecules, and that
according to determinate quantitative rules which
we must now
discuss.
B.
First Principle. During changes of a physico-chemical type we do not detect any measurable emergence of new energy. Every synthesis costs something. That is a fundamental condition of things which persists, as we know, even into the spiritual zones of being. In every domain, the achievement of progress requires an excess of effort and therefore of force. Now whence
In the abstract, one
ancient thought half perceived and imagined as a natural
in the precision
science has grasped and realised
of formulae dependent on measurement. Indeed,
we owe our knowledge of structure of the
universe
measurements than
far
more
increasingly
to
to direct observations.
bolder measurements that have revealed
And, again,
This
is
it calls
not the place for
me
to
the
seem
things
expanding needs of evolution but, in fact, happen otherwise. In no case does the energy
to the
to
;
required for synthesis appear to be provided by an influx of fresh capital,
but by expenditure.
the other.
Nothing
is
What
is
gained on one side
is
lost
on
constructed except at the price of an
equivalent destruction.
Experimentally and universe in
its
at
when we consider
sight,
first
mechanical functions,
the
does not reveal itself to
it
open quantum capable of containing an ever greater reality within its embrace, but as a closed quantum, within which nothing progresses except by exchange of that which was given us as an
ever
is
subject
appearance.
is a first
Second
thermodynamics, ably
'
entropised
less it is
In every physico-chemical
Principle.
a fraction
',
lost,
that
of the is
available
to say, in the
change, adds
energy
is
irrecover-
form of heat. Doubt-
possible to retain this degraded fraction symbolically in
equations, so as to express that in the operations of matter nothing is lost
any more than anything
mathematical
trick.
is
created, but that
As a matter of fact, from the
standpoint, something
is
finally
burned
in the
real
is
merely
a
evolutionary
course of every
may be simply summarised.
The more the energyquantum of the world comes into play, the more it is consumed. Within the scope of our experience, the material concrete universe seems to be unable to continue on its way indefinitely in
broadly speaking, chey
a closed cycle, but traces out irreversibly a curve of obviously
this biological aspect,
a critical discussion is
indispensable and
reduced to the two following principles 50
growth of
synthesis in order to pay for that synthesis.
embark on
accessible to every world-historian
may be
it is
into play.
of the laws of energy. That part of them that Considered from
accurate
us the calculable
to
conditions to which every transformation of matter
according to the force
micro-
macro-structure and
the
internal
in the beginning.
The Numerical Laws
harmony of numbers, modern
?
might assume an
world's resources, an absolute increase in mechanical wealth
corresponding
That
What
come
does this increase
limited development. :
And
thus
5i
it
is
that this universe difFer-
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN entiates itself
from purely
abstract
magnitudes and places
itself
among the realities which are bom, which grow, and which die. and finally escapes from From rime it passes into duration ;
geometry
dramatically to become, in
object of history.
its
totality as in
its
parts,
an
CHAPTER TWO
1
Let us translate into images the natural significance of these
two
principles of the Conservation
We
said
above
that
reveals itself to us, hie et nunc, as a process during stituents
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
and Dissipation of Energy.
qualitatively the evolution
of matter
which the con-
of the atom are inter-combined and ultra-condensed.
Quantitatively, this transformation
but costly, operation
which an
original
to us as a definite,
impetus slowly becomes
Laboriously, step by step, the atomic and molecular
exhausted. structures
in
now appears
become higher and more complex, but
upward same wearing away that the
on the way. Moreover, the the cosmos in its totality is at work witlun consuming gradually is the terms of the synthesis, and the higher the terms the quicker force
lost
is
this action takes place.
Little
by
little,
die improbable combinations
become broken down again into more simple components, which fall back and are disaggregated in the shape-
On
the
scientific plane, the quarrel
determinists, side
remains
still
A
current
So
wake of time's arrow, that only bursts bosom of a descending
rocket rising in the
to be extinguished
;
an eddy rising on the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;such then must be our picture of the
says science
:
and
I
believe in science
science ever troubled to look at the
:
world. but up to
now
has
world other than from
endures.
materialists
reasons for remaining
So
far as
I
less
on the
it
seems to
difficulty that the
and gives
its
adversaries solid
I
have found
me that its prolongation depends human mind finds in reconciling
certain apparent contradictions in nature liberty, or death
and
there.
understand the struggle, in which
myself involved,
and the
finalists
After a century of disputation each
in its original position
that they represent
lessness of'probable distributions.
between
upholders of a spiritual interpretation, between
and immortality
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;such
as
mechanism and
as in the difficulty
experienced
by two schools of thought in finding a common ground. On the one hand the materialists insist on talking about objects as though they only consisted of external actions in transient relationships. On the other hand the upholders of a spiritual interpretation are obstinately determined not to go outside a kind of solitary introspection in which things are only looked upon as being shut immanent workings. Both fight in upon themselves in their each only sees half the on different planes and do not meet *
'
without
?
;
problem. I am convinced that the two points of view require to be brought into union, and that they soon will unite in a kind of
phenomenology
or generalised
phasic in which the
1
|cf.
concluding sections of R. G. Collingwood
:
Idea oj Nature
(O.U.P.
1944).]
52
internal
of the world will be taken into account. Otherwise, so it seems to me, it is impossible to cover the totality of the cosmic phenomenon by one coherent explanation such as science must try to construct, aspect of things as well as the external aspect
53
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE WITHIN OP THINGS
We have just described the without of matter in and
its
measurable dimensions.
farther in the direction
Now,
its
in order to
of man, we must extend
connections
advance
the bases
still
of our
future edifices into the within of that same matter.
Things have their within
and
;
their
might
say
;
appears to stand in definite qualitative or quantitative
this
connections with the developments that science recognises in the
some connections are
are the basis
with them,
I
or at a different intensity, there will
phenomenon
this
new
is
chapter.
To
deal '
me
to overlap
*
Before Life
its
own
least
up to now, except
made manifest by
is
still
the without
their
outward
of plants.
It
tends to
of
The same
things.
permissible in the bacteriologist,
from some laboratory reagents. But it
EXISTENCE
whole
In the eyes of the physicist, nothing exists legitimately,
cultures (apart
i.
parti cular tonality to the
determinisms.
lectual attitude
?
some
visible
soon appear, objects in the realm of
physico-chemistry arc only
*
'
become
veiled
is
a different
picture.
a reason that will
that there
modified
that spreads over the horizon, blots out the other
and gives
distinctions,
is
movement
slowed down. But on
For
must, obliges
beginnings
sufficiently
qualitative, that others are quantitative]
'
its
immobility when
the same with the within of things.
[i.e.,
and somewhat to anticipate Life and Thought '. However, is not the peculiar difficulty of every synthesis that its end is already implicit in
of a new dimension. Every mass
Every body radiates. Every
It is
of the three sections of
as here
velocity.
a within,
cosmic energy. These three statements that
in
its
scale,
reserve \ one
*
absolute appearance
by
at
intel-
whose
substantial difficulties) are treated as is
become
more difficult in the realm gamble in the case of a biologist
already a
studying the behaviour of insects or coclcnterates. If there latest
is
one thing that has been clearly brought out by the
advances in physics,
it
is
that in
our experience there are
1
spheres
'
or
*
levels
'
of
different kinds in the unity
of nature,
each of them distinguished by the dominance of certain factors
which arc imperceptible or negligible in a neighbouring sphere or on an adjacent level. On the middle scale of our organisms and of our constructions velocity does not seem to change the
None the less, we now know that at the extreme by atomic movements it profoundly modifies the mass of bodies. Among normal chemical elements, stability and longevity appear to be the rule but that illusion has been destroyed by the discovery of radio-active substances. By the standards of our human existence, the mountains and stars are a model of majestic changelessness. Now we discover that, nature of matter. values reached
'
'
:
observed over
a
sufficiently great
crust changes ceaselessly us along in a cyclone
In
all
under our
duration of time, the earth's feet,
while the heavens sweep
of stars.
It seems merely with regard to the vertebrates. Finally, it breaks down completely with man, in whom the existence of a within can
futile
no longer be evaded, because it is the object of a direct intuition and the substance of all knowledge. The apparent restriction of the phenomenon of consciousness to the higher forms of life has long served science as an excuse for
from its models of the universe. A queer exception, epiphcnonienon thought was classed under one or other of these heads in order to get rid of it. But what would have happened to modem physics if radium had been abnormal substance without further ado ? classified as an Clearly, the activity of radium had not been neglected, and could
eliminating
54
is
no
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
an aberrant function, an
*
'
not be neglected, because, being measurable, into the external to
web of matter
be integrated into
of the existence of a universe.
these instances, and in others like to them, there
it
in
both
it
forced
its
way
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;whereas consciousness, in order
a world-system, necessitates consideration
new
aspect or dimension in the stuff of the
We shrink from the attempt,
cases see an identical
but which of us does not problem facing research workers, 55
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
which have to be solved by the same method, namely,
to
discover
the universal hidden beneath the exceptional ?
Latterly
we
have experienced
it
too often to admit of any
further doubt: an irregularity in nature
attenuated to the uttermost, but yet
is
consciousness 1
only the sharp exacer-
is
layer that
bation, to the point of perceptible disclosure, of a property of
things diffused throughout the universe, in a state which eludes
our recognition of its presence. Properly observed, even if only phenomenon necessarily has an omnipresent value
in one spot, a
and then spontaneity
—three
In a coherent perspective of the world '
pre-life 'for as far back before
— and
it
:
inevitably assumes a
life
as the eye can see}
human
nature
is
for a
mechanistic science of matter to be
'
Consciousness
tempted
'
to say,
is
'
?
man we
completely evident only in
therefore
are
'
an isolated instance of no interest
it is
to science.' '
'
ing ourselves,
is
evident in man,'
we must continue, one
therefore, half-seen in this
a cosmic extension, and as such
is
flash
correct-
of light,
it
has
and temporal extensions.' The conclusion is pregnant with consequences, and yet I cannot see how, by sound analogy with all the rest of science, we can escape from
'
interior
'
'
should obtrude
*
all
structure, that is to
same way,
Without, there
its
it is
itself,
is
that, in
it
one degree or another,
itself as existing
there
it is
is
spirituality
everywhere in
:
—in
co-extensive with their
a Within to things.
picture of the
in fact the only
— if
basically living, or at least pre-living,
material-
everything
how
is it
in
possible
up and to
built
?
—
'
where
your solution The answer to this
1
is
?
difficulty
is
already implicit in
Here, and throughout this book, the term
*
consciousness
'
is
what we taken
in its
widest sense to indicate every kind of psychism, from the most rudimentary forms of interior perception imaginable to the human phenomenon of reflec-
world daunts our imagination,
we put is
ourselves at the beginning
we must 56
at
something more than the
particulate swarming so marvellously analysed
mechanical layer
2
These pages had been written for some time when I was surprised to find some masterly lines recently written by B. S. Haldane
their substance in 4
We do not find
and
we
J.
obvious evidence of life or mind
naturally study
manifested
;
but
if
them most
easily
find them, at least in rudimentary forms,
And he goes on when I come
recall
perspective of the 4
Now,
if
'
where they
die scientific point of view
to add these
alJ
is
:
in so-called inert matter,
arc
correct,
most completely
we
by modern
physics. *
think of a
'
biological
shall ultimately
through the universe.'
words which my readers would do well to all due reservations and corrections) the
to unveil (with
Omega
Point
the co-operation of
'
;
some thousands of
millions
brain can produce our consciousness, the idea becomes vastly
one acceptable to our reason. Taken
lowest point, exactly where
this
come from
alike
Determinate without, and free within would the two aspects of things be irreducible and incommensurable ? If so,
necessarily a double aspect to
granular
of these pages, primitive matter Beneath
were seen through
say in every region of space and time
for instance, as
The consequent but
deep within ourselves, an
time. Since the stuff of the universe has an inner
aspect at one point of
the
that,
enough to ensure
is
interior
nature from
its
deny
appears at the heart of beings, as
a rent. This this
the objection will
of
upholders
tive thought.
it.
impossible to
is
and
triumph
surrounded by an aura of
indefinite spatial
It
In that case
'
Consciousness
within,
for the
same thing. It is no more legitimate for us experimentally to fix an absolute beginning to these three expressions of one and the same thing than to any other lines of the universe.
ists
self-knowledge
absolutely
The
expressions
and roots by reason of the fundamental unity of the world. Whither does this rule lead us if we apply it to the instance of *
is
necessary to explain the cosmos in succeeding ages.
of
cells in
more
our
plausible
humanity, or some sections of it, may determine what Comte calls a Great Being.' (Essay on Science and Ethics in The Inequality of Man, Chatto, 1932, p. 113.) that the co-operation of
What
I
say
is
thus not absurd.
Moreover, any metaphysician must
rejoice
to discover that even in the eyes of physics the idea of absolutely brute matter (that
is
to say,
of a pure
*
transient
') is
only a
our experience.
57
first
very rough approximation of
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN have
said
above about the
diversity of
spheres of experience
*
superposed in the interior of the world.
when we have
clearly
in their
growth and
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
It
'
more
will appear
discerned the qualitative laws that govern
variation the manifestations of what
we
have
just called the within of things.
Soon we back
as
have to return to
shall
we began
them,
to descry
themselves to our experience molecules, both in
and
size
in
kinds of
as
number:
Which means
of microscopic nuclei.
As
this essential point.
*
mega-
far
things reveal
the first living
'
or
'
'
ultra-
a bewildering multitude
that for reasons of
homo-
geneity and continuity, the pre-living can be divined, below the
horizon, as an object sharing in the corpuscular structure and pro2.
THE QUALITATIVE LAWS OF
To harmonise
GROWTH presuming to
objects in time and space, without
determine the conditions that can rule their deepest being
union to
of
ontological
explainâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; this,
causality
'
;
to
to
in other words, and not
see,
not be forgotten,
let it
:
of succession in nature, not a
establish an experimental chain
is
the sole aim of the
present study.
From
this
phenomenal point of view (which
is
the scientific
point of view) can one go beyond the position where our analysis of the stuff of the universe has just stopped ? In this last we have recognised the existence of a conscious inner face that everywhere duplicates the
'
material
'
according to which
external face,
Can we go
considered by science. this
hidden, suddenly shows
second
itself,
which alone
it
commonly
further and define the rules
face, for the
and then
as
from
without, the stuff
alike
among
themselves
great distance)
cosmic realm
;
(iii)
;
least if
(at
among
mysteriously connected
finally,
by
aspects,
external and internal, correspond point
much
global energy.
a
is this
so that one
sole condition that
of the
'
partial centres
b
consciousness
'.
Atomicity
a
is
may
pass
two So other on the
by
from the one to the
mechanical interaction
'
point.
in the definition
of the universe given above
common
themselves,
In these depths the world's
is
replaced
by
property oj the Within and the Without of
things.
most part entirely B.
?
Second Observation
seems, and even quite easily, provided there are
homogeneous among themselves
placed one after the other three observations that each one of us
Virtually
could have made, but which do not take on their true value until
elements of consciousness, exactly
we
they are observed from a
each co-extensive with the whole of the
(ii)
suddenly bursts through
into certain other regions of our experience
Yes, so
is
of the world. Looked at from within, as well as observed of the universe thus tends likewise to be resolved backwardly into a dust of particles that are (i) perfectly perties
think of linking them together.
as
in the
beginning, the
the elements of matter
which they subtend, complicate and differentiate their nature, by little, with the passage of duration. From this point of view and considered solely from the experimental aspect, consciousness reveals itself as a cosmic property of variable size subject to a global transformation. Taken on the ascent, this huge little
A. First Observation
Considered in reality
its
pre-vital state,
the within of things,
even in the nascent forms of matter
we
must not be thought of as forming a continuous assuming the same granulation as matter itself. 58
whose
have just admitted, film, but as
phenomenon that wc shall have to follow all along the development of life right up to the appearance of thought, has ended by appearing commonplace. Followed in the opposite direction, leads us, as
wc have
already seen, to the 59
less
familiar idea
it
of
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN well defined and, as inferior states that are ever less
1 and the same phenomenon.
tended.
And now we have
of the problem posed for us. We are seeking a qualitative law of development that from sphere to sphere should be capable of explaining, first of all the invisibility, then the appearance, and then the gradual dominance of the within in comparison to the without of things. This law reveals itself once the universe is thought of as passing from State A, characterised by a very large
course oj evolution, consciousness Refracted rearwards along the spectrum of shifting shades whose lower itself qualitatively as a
displays
terms are
lost in the night.
C.
Finally, let us take
two
particles
Third Observation
from two
different regions
of
this
number
spectrum
at unlike stages of
of consciousness that are
As
form the
of
arrived, ipso facto, at the solution
very simple material elements (that
very poor within), to State
evolu-
very complex groupings
them, by have seen, there corresponds to each of they which of material grouping construction, a certain definite groupings Let us compare these two external
tion.
complexity) are hut the two aspects or connected parts of one
thesis (or
were, dis-
it
we
B
is
to say, with a
defined by a smaller
(that
is
to say, with a
number of
much
richer
within).
A, the centres of consciousness, because they are
In State
within.
extremely numerous and extremely loose
at
the
same time, only
ask ourselves how they are arranged the one with the other and regard to the portion ot with regard to each other and with
reveal themselves by overall cftects which are subject to the laws
consciousness that each of them encloses. The answer comes at once.
matics.
Whatever
instance
we may
think of,
we may
of
'
parameter For thanks to it we possess a tangible tilms of external the and allowing us to connect both the internal also, as but (point by point), the world, not only in their position '
decisive.
We can doing
:
it
Spiritual perfection {or conscious
60
*
centreity
')
they obey the laws of mathe-
and material syn-
begin to see them and follow them one by one, and
we have
access to the
itself.
in so
world of biology.
In sum, all the rest of this essay will be nothing but the story of the struggle in the universe between the unified multiple and the application throughout of the the unorganised multitude a law that itself implies great Law of complexity and consciousness :
:
a psychically convergent structure and curvature of the world.
But we must not go too quickly, and
consciousness varies in
material compound Lined by inverse ratio to the simplicity of the perfected a consciousness is that much more it Or again material edifice. lines a richer and better organised
according as
is,
the proper field of physico-chemistry.
non-measurable spontaneity to break through and reveal
1
a
is
on the other hand, these less numerous 2 and at the same time more highly individualised elements gradually escape from the slavery of large numbers. They allow their basic
shall verify later on, in their motion.
The degree of concentration of
This
In State B,
be sure that
organised structure will correspond every time a richer and better consciousness. to the more developed of protoplasm is already a substance of form The simplest increases in geometrical unheard-of complexity. This complexity higher and higher up protozoon progression as we pass from the the rest always and all it is for the scale of the metazoa. And so obvious that we everywhere. Here again, the phenomenon is so it. Yet its importance is have long since ceased to be astonished by
we
Collectively, that
statistics.
is
From
this
aspect one
the 2
and
same As
we
are
still
con-
might say that, on the phenomenal plane, each being on two conjugate ioci 2 focus of materia] organi-
constructed like an ellipse
sation
since
:
a focus ot psychic centering
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the two loci varying solidarity and
in
sense.
wq
shall see, this
is
despite the specifically
cation.
61
vital
mechanism of
multipli-
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN cerned with pre-life qualitative
only keep in mind
let us
viewpoint, there
that, from the no kind of contradiction involved
is
*
liberties
'
—
provided that the
contained in a sufficiently fine
state
liberties are therein
of division and imperfection.
Since the inner face of the world
human
we
have only got
the
whole description of the universe
no need
to take
spirit
difficulties
and matter
we
of its still
Nowhere
physical and the moral
To
—
if
activities to be
either
is
trying to hold together
the
nowhere more need more urgent of
two banks of our
we
the question, and
existence
wish the material and
— the
spiritual
would be very convenient
same. Unfortunately, or fortunately, caught up the logic of a system
or even
where the
more value than
culty head on.
It is
for us to as
we
do the
are here in
within of things has just as
their without,
wc
collide
with the
impossible to avoid the clash
:
diffi-
we must
my
is
—
of all, the dependence. This
cently obvious.
look
To
think,
is
of
the
problem of
spiritual
energy.
merely to show by means of one example what, in
opinion, an integral science of nature should adopt
of research, and the kind of interpretation 62
it
is
we must
whole economy, and
expresses a
we
'
depressingly and magnifi-
eat.'
reveals,
That blunt statement according to the way
of matter or its spiritual power. The loftiest speculation, the most burning love are, as we know only too well, accompanied and paid for by an expenditure of at
either the tyranny
it,
Sometimes we need bread, sometimes wine, a hormone injection, sometimes die stimulacolour, sometimes the magic of a sound which goes in
sometimes tion at
of
a
our ears
a
drug or
as a
vibration and reaches our brains in the
as its line
should follow.
form of
inspiration.
Without
the slightest
doubt
there
is
something through which
material and spiritual energy hold together and
mentary. In
last analysis,
somehow
energy operating in the world.
Naturally the following considerations do not pretend to be
Their aim
do
perfectly well
—
much
advance.
a truly satisfactory solution
would
physical energy.
mutually enlivened.
science has provisionally decided to ignore it
it
makes the crux and an irritating one at that of the problem of spiritual energy for our reason is the heightened sense that we bear without ceasing in ourselves that our action seems at once to depend on, and yet to be independent of, material forces. First
in
connect the two energies, of the body and the soul, in a
coherent manner:
We are
reality.
encounter
building a bridge between the
of our
mechanical terms has had
in a reasonable perspective are
harshly revealed.
sides
so intangible that
account of it, but has been successfully completed
in deliberate disregard
The
in
is
itself,
one of the most difficult of all things. aware in our concrete actions that the two opposite forces combine. The motor works, but we cannot make out the method, which seems to be contradictory. What In fact so to
is
power
upon
look at ourselves in order to
understand the dynamic relationships existing between the within at a given point in the universe.
SPIRITUAL ENERGY
other hand, the nature of this inner
to
and the without of things
no concept more familiar to us than that of spiritual there is none that is more opaque scientifically. On yet energy, the one hand the objective reality of psychical effort and work is so well established that the whole of ethics rests on it and, on the
There
manifest deep within our
is
consciousness, and there reflects
seem that
3.
Energies
may
in admitting that a universe of mechanistic appearance
be built up of
Two
The Problem of the
A.
us
is
that the
*
or other, there
And
the
first
are
comple-
must be a
single
idea that occurs to
must be as it were a focal point of transformafrom all the points of nature, the forces of bodies become intcriorised and sublimated in beauty and soul
'
tion at which,
converge, to truth.
Yet, seductive though
it
be, the idea
6l
of the
direct
transforma-
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN two
tion of one of these
glimpsed than
energies into the other
is
As soon
has to be abandoned.
it
THE WITHIN OF THINGS as
energy
we
(that is to say,
try to
couple them together, their mutual independence becomes
as
Once again
we
thoughts
:
To
think,
we must eat.' But what
get out of one slice of bread
!
Like the
a variety
letters
of
of the
which can equally well be assembled into nonsense as poem, the same calories seem as indifferent
alphabet,
element with all others of the same order same complexity and the same centricity) and a radial energy which draws it to wards as itself in the universe ever greater complexity and centricity in other words forwards. 1 From this initial state, and supposing that it disposes of a certain free tangential energy, the particle thus constituted must obviously be in a position to increase its internal complexity in links the
of
the
;
—
clear as their interrelation. '
which
no sooner
into the most beautiful
association with neighbouring particles, and thereupon (since
as they are necessary to the spiritual values they nourish.
centricity
The two
energies
—of mind and matter —spread respectively
through the two layers of the world (the within and the without) have, taken as a whole, much the same demeanour. They are
some way
The
is
automatically increased) to
then be able to react in
latter will
new arrangement In this view,
whereby
as such, as generally
without of things, the interdependence of energy
A above.
pass into each other.
'
'
;
'
'
—
*
'
But
it
can in
all
probability only be expressed
bolism in which terms of
a different
by
is
incontestable.
a
complex sym-
order are employed.
tangential energy represents
of Solution
the laws
of thermo-dynamics. As regards
the
following
a.
First
and
scientific,
of the
stuff
at the
same time to safeguard
the natural complexity
of the universe, I accordingly propose the following all that is to emerge later.
as a basis for
We nature
energy
shall ;
assume
that, essentially, all
energy
but add that in each particular element is
divided into
two
distinct
64
is
this
components
:
psychic in
fundamental a tangential
is
this
we may remark
:
of all, since the variation of radial energy in function of is effected, according to our hypothesis, by the
intervention of an arrangement ,
of the
first
small
it
follows that as
may be linked with as
for a highly perfected
little as
you
much
like
as
you
like
of the second
arrangement may only require an extremely fits in with the facts noted in section
amount of work. This
Moreover, in the system here proposed, we are paradoxically admit that cosmic energy is constantly increasing, not only
b.
led to its
1
avoid a fundamental dualism, at once impossible and anti-
'
tangential energy
Let
radial form,
but
—which
it
—
much more
is
serious
between elements
be noted in passing that the
less
an clement
is
in
its
increases with centred
'
'
(i.e.
the
more will its tangential energy reveal itself in powerful mechanical effects. Between strongly centred particles (i.e. of high radial energy) the tangential seems to become interiorised and to disap-
feebler
To
energy
'
understood by science, the only difficulty
tangential one (for the tension
A Line
form of a
so on.
to explain the interplay of tangential arrangements in terms of
in
B.
And
its
radial energy.
turn in the
its
in the tangential field.
But it seems impossible to establish a simple correspondence between On the one hand, only a minute fraction of their curves. physical energy is used up in the highest exercise of spiritual on the other, this minute fraction, once absorbed, results energy on the internal scale in the most extraordinary oscillations. A quantitative disproportion of this kind is enough to make us reject the naive notion of change of form (or direct transand hence all hope of discovering a mechanical formation) for will or thought. Between the within and the equivalent constantly associated and in
augment its
its
radial energy) the
*
'
*
*
from the physicist's view. Probably we have here an auxiliary principle which could help to explain the apparent conservation of energy in the universe (see para. b. below). We probably ought to recognise two sorts of tangential energy, one of radiation (at its maximum with the lowest radial pear
values, as in the atom), the other of arrangement (only appreciable
highest radial values, as in living creatures,
65
man
in particular).
with the
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN This would seem to be in direct contra-
their ccntricity itself).
diction with the law of conservation of energy.
It
must be noted,
however,
that this increase of the tangential of the second kind
(the only
one troublesome for physics) only becomes appreciable
with very high radial values
(as in
tensions). Below number of initial particles
and
this level,
man, for
for an
instance, and social
approximately constant
in the universe, the
CHAPTER THREE
sum of the cosmic
tangential energies remains practically and statistically invariable
And
in the course of transformations.
this
is
THE EARTH
that science
all
IN ITS
EARLY STAGES
requires. c.
gressive its
according to our reading, the entire edifice of
Lastly, since
the universe '
is
constantly supported
centration
'
by
at
every phase of
primary arrangements,
its
pro-
its
plain that
it is
achievement will be conditioned up to the highest stages by a
certain primordial
gradually exhaust
Looked
at as a
quantum of free itself,
tangential energy,
which
will
following the principle of entropy.
whole,
this picture satisfies the
requirements of
reality.
itself along its
main
axis in the less probable direction
forms of complexity and centricity b.
Is
to the
sum
of the
total
Is this final
of the higher
?
there a definite limit and end to the
transformation c.
radial energies
'
elemental
*
value and
developed in the course of
?
a
upheaval ?) a fragment of matter composed of particularly stable atoms was detached from the surface of the sun. Without breaking the bonds attaching it to the rest, and just at the right
from the mother-star to receive a moderate radiation, fragment began to condense, to roll itself up, to take shape. 1 Containing within its globe and orbit the future of man, another heavenly bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a planet this time had been born. So far our eyes have been straying over the unlimited layers in which the stuff of the universe is deployed. From now on let us concentrate our attention on this diminu-
Is it
destined
one day
indefinitely into pre-living
and
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
fall
back
is
of the
free tangential
energy
contained in the successive envelopes of the universe from which
obscure, but fascinating object which had just appeared.
the only place in the
world
the evolution of matter in
which we
in
its
It
are so far able to study
ultimate phases, and as far as our-
selves.
lower centres, by the exhaus-
still
tion and gradual levelling-down
it
to start disinte-
grating so as to satisfy the principle of entropy, and
emerged ? To be answered
this
tive,
and resultant form of radial energies, supposing
exists, subject to reversal ?
it
not, it would appear, regular process of astral evolution, but as the result of some unbelievable accident (a brush with another star? an internal
by
distance
Three questions remain still unanswered, however By virtue of what special energy does the universe propagate :
a.
Some thousands of millions of years ago,
Let us have
a
look at the earth in
charged with latent powers, as
its early stages, so fresh yet balances in the chasms of the
it
past.
has
await
a
much
us to the
satisfactorily,
later chapter,
concept of
when
a superior
point.
these
three
the study of
questions
man
must
will have led
pole to the world
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
1
the
omega
Once again astronomers seem by the
cept of the birth of planets
to be returning to a effect
cosmic dust originally floating round each
66
67
more Laplaccan con-
of knots and bulges star.
in the cloud
of
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE WITHOUT
i.
What it
THE EARTH IN
—new-born, — the
cosmic mass
a stroke of chance in the
is
presence of composite chemical bodies not to be observed any-
where
else.
1
At
the extreme temperature occurring in the stars,
matter can only survive in
its
most
dissociated states.
bodies exist on these incandescent
stars.
On
Only simple
the earth this sim-
more
plicity
of the elements
or
ionised gases of the atmosphere and the stratosphere and,
less
still
scheme progressively further, the result is the rich variety of the mineral world '. The mineral world is a much more supple and mobile world than could be imagined by the science of the ancients. Vaguely analogous to the metamorphoses of living creatures, there occurs in the most solid rocks, as we now know, perpetual transformation of a mineral species. But it is a world relatively poor in compounds, because of the narrow limit to the internal architecture of its elements. According to latest estimates, we have found only a few hundred silicates '
arouses the physicist's interest in this globe
would seem, by
EARLY STAGES
ITS
obtains at the periphery, in the
in nature.
l
probably, far below, in the metals of the
between
these
substances,
out \
two extremes comes
harboured and produced only by
Arranged
start the
long
a
series
stars that
'.
have 'gone
in successive zones, they demonstrate
powers of synthesis contained
siliceous zone,
But of complex
bary sphere
in the universe.
from the First the
preparing the solid crust of the planet.
Next
and carbonic acid, enclosing the silicates in an unstable, mobile and penetrating envelope. In other words we have the barysphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and stratosphere. This fundamental composition may have varied and become
the zone of water
elaborated in detail, but lished itself
by and
large
it
can be said to have estab-
from the beginning. And
it
is
from
that
it
geo-
chemistry develops progressively in two different directions.
Looking at them biologically we may say it is the characteristic of minerals (as of so many other organisms that have become incurably fixed) to have chosen a road which closed them prematurely in upon themselves. By their innate structure the mole*
cules are unfitted for
they have in a
way
'
growth.
To
develop beyond a certain
size
of themselves, to have recourse to a trick of purely external association, whereby the atoms are linked together without true combination or union. Sometimes to get out
we find them in strings and sometimes in In this way,
sometimes in planes quincunx as in garnet.
as in jade,
a solid
as
by simple juxtaposition of atoms or
in mica,
relatively
simple atomic groups in geometrical patterns, regular aggregates may be produced whose level of composition is often very high, but they correspond to no properly centred units ; they are an indefinitely extended mosaic
of small elements— such
as
we know now
to be the structure of a crystal, which, thanks to X-rays, can A.
In one direction,
The
much
the
Crystallising
World
more common,
be photographed.
terrestrial
energy has
tended from the outset to be given off and liberated. water, carbon dioxide
— these
essential
Silicates,
oxides were formed
by
burning up and neutralising (alone or in association with other simple bodies) the 1
affinities
of
their elements.
And such is
the organisation, simple and stable,
which the condensed matter around adopted from its origins.
Considered in the mass, the earth back as we can see. It crystallises.
But not completely.
Carrying the
Except, though very fugitively, in the atmosphere of the planets nearest
to our
own.
68
us has
69
is
by and
veiled in
large perforce
geometry
as far
— THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE EARTH IN inclined to relegate
b.
The Polymerising World
EARLY STAGES
minor position of geochemistry—
to a
it
ammonia and
the
like
ITS
oxides that surround
the lightning's
flash.
we wish
of and by virtue of the initial advance of the elements on earth towards the crystalline state, energy was constantly released and liberated (just as, today, it is released by mankind as a result of machinery). This was constantly augmented by energy furnished by the atomic decomposition of radio-active substances and by that given off by solar rays. Where could this surplus energy, available on the surface of the earth in its early stages, go to ? Was it merely to be lost around the globe in obscure emana-
Whatever the quantitative disproportion of the masses they respectively involve, inorganic and organic chemistry are only
tions
are back at the refrain that runs
In the course
?
Another much more probable hypothesis occurs to we look at the world today. When it became too weak incandescence, the free energy of the
in
capable of reacting on itself in a today,
when
to escape
new-born earth became
work of
synthesis.
Thus,
as
passed with the absorption of heat into building up
it
certain carbonates, hydrates or hydrites,
which astonish complexity and
instability
polymerisation, 1
in
by
us
their
power
and
nitrates like those
to increase indefinitely the
of their elements. This
which
die
particles
'
endless network.
way
as to
Only,
this
time
it
is
is
the realm of
group
concatenate \
themselves and exchange positions, as in crystals, in
such a
us
a theoretically
molecules with tnoleculcs
form on each occasion {by closed
in
or at all events limited
combination) an ever larger and more complex molecule.
compounds is ours. We live among diem and are made of them. So intimately do we see it as connected with the phenomena of life that we have got into the habit This world
of considering
of
it
organic
only in direct association with
Moreover, despite
stituted.
far surpasses the variety a tiny part
'
its
life
of mineral compounds,
we
it
and
its
seniority
*
phenomenon
and can only be two inseparable telluric operation.
1
this
tion
crust
term
I
shall
be forgiven
(as later in the case
in so generalised a sense,
of the chemists) the
i.e.
of
"
And
the second,
regarded as already under
entire process of
*
way
it
seems to
physiognomy
facets
of one and the same
no
than the
less
first,
must be
in the infancy of the earth. all
the
way through
this
We
book.
the different
thresholds successively traversed by evolution {however critical they be) which has not already existed in an obscure and primordial way. If
the organic had not existed on earth from the
which
first
moment
was possible, it would never have begun later. There is good reason to think that around our nascent
at
it
planet,
in addition to the inchoation of a metallic barysphere, a siliceous lithospherc, a hydrosphere and an atmosphere, there was the out-
of a
we might say, of the first of polymerisation, in which water, ammonia and carbon dioxide were already floating in the rays of the sun. To ignore that tenuous film would be to deprive the infant earth of its most essential adornment. For, as we shall see, it is in this that the within of the earth was soon to be gradually concentrated (if we hold to what I have already said). line
four
special envelope, the antithesis,
the temperate zone
:
'
'
2.
THE WITHIN
concerns such
are instinctively
When
I
speak of the within *
'
of the
orthogenesis
')
for using
additive complexiiication
'
pro-
—
a
earth, I do not of course mean few miles beneath our feet
one of the most vexatious mysteries of science the chemical nature and the exact physical condition of the internal regions of the globe. The within is used here, as in the preceding lurks
:
'
*
70
true
In the world, nothing could ever burst forth as final across
which
to include (as well as the strict polymerisa-
ducing large molecules.
its
'.
those material depths in which 1
of man in nature,
later to fix the place
essential to restore to this
already con-
incredible wealth of forms,
of the substance of the earth that
If
me
71
THE EARTH IN
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN chapter, to denote the
psychic
'
face of that portion of the stuff
'
of the cosmos enclosed from the beginning of time within the
narrow scope of the early earth. In that fragment of sidereal matter which has just been isolated, as in every other part of the universe, the exterior world must inevitably be lined at every point with an interior one. This we have shown already. Only here the conditions have changed. Matter no longer spreads out beneath our eyes in diffuse and undefinable layers. It coils up
round
itself
in a closed
How
vohme.
will
its
*
inner
'
layer react to
If
we
ITS
EARLY STAGES
wc
put these two propositions side by side
see that they
interweave and shed light upon each other without ambiguity.
With one accord
they
us that prc-life
tell
in the nascent earth than
it
appeared to have been condemned by
now
hitherto dormant, are
activities,
no sooner enclosed
is
emerges from the torpor to which diffusion in space.
its
set in
motion
it
Its
pari passu
with the awakening of the forces of synthesis enclosed in matter.
And
at
one and the same stroke, over the whole surface of the globe, the tension of internal freedoms begins to
new-formed rise.
such involution? First let it
be noted
that,
by
the
tion of our planet, a certain mass of elementary consciousness was originally emprisoned in the matter of earth. Some scientists have felt
some
obliged to invest
interstellar
germs with the power of
This hypothesis disfigures, without of life, with its noble phenomenon wonderful explaining, the fecundating cooling
corollary, the
initial
phenomenon of man.
earthâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; which
is
to
It
look for
is
in fact quite useless.
a
fecundating principle
incomprehensible in any case
chemical composition, the early earth
is itself,
By
?
and
all
its
To form to
first
compare, stage by
phases of this evolution
stage,
will be
it
on the one hand the general
we have felt able to lay down for the development of spiritual energy, and on the other the physico-chemical conditions we
laws
have just acknowledged
in the nascent earth.
We have
For
a
its
positively, absolutely,
very nature, increases in
and without determinable
radial
'
value,
limits, in step
with the increasing chemical complexity of the elements of which it represents the inner lining. But the chemical complexity of the earth increases in conformity with the laws of thermo-dynamicj in the particular, superficial zone in
7*
which its elements polymerise.
is
the extremely small
the particles
of which
thickness of some miles, in water, in air, in
deposits, ultra-microscopic grains
over the surface of the earth.
it
muddy
of protein are thickly strewn
Our
imaginations boggle 3it the mere thought of counting the flakes of this snow. Yet if we take it that pre-life has already emerged in the atom, are not these myriads of large molecules just what we ought to expect?
But
there
is
another point to consider.
more remarkable than their multitude (and as keep in nund for future developments) is the solid-
In a sense
important to arity
due to
very genesis which unites the specks of this
their
primordial dust of consciousness. That which permits the growth synthesis of
is,
essentially,
the molecules they subtend.
I
repeat,
And
let
the
me
growing
also repeat
would never take place if the globe as a whole did not enfold within a closed surface the layers of its
that this synthesis itself
substance.
Thus, wherever we look on earth, the growth of the
said that
L
by
mysterious surface.
and the extremely great number of
of elementary freedoms
an idea of the
spiritual energy,
at this
character to be noted at the outset
consists.
the incredibly
the rest has emerged.
enough
size
in its
complex germ we are seeking. Congenitally, if I may use the word, it already carried pre-life within question is to it, and this, moreover, in definite quantity, The whole quantum, elastic essentially and primitive this from how, define totality,
A
stars.
Why should we turn to space for the
Let us look more attentively
very fact of the individualisa-
only takes place thanks to
of the molecule upon itself.
1
The
terrestrial 1
initial
world
is
' *
within
the coiling up up of the planet upon
a double related involution,
itself
and
the coiling
quantum of
consciousness contained in our
not formed merely of an aggregate of particles
Precisely the conditions
wc
presiding over the genesis of the
find later on, at the other *
rtoosphere
73
'.
end of evolution,
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN caught fortuitously in the same net.
mass of infinitesimal centres
represents a correlated
It
bound together by
structurally
the
conditions of their origin and development.
Here again, but in a better defined field and on a higher level, we find the fundamental condition characteristic of primordial matter the unity of plurality. The earth was probably born by
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
accident
immediately made
By
directed.
had
scarcely
evolution,
c
the
one of the most general laws of accident happened than it was
but, in accordance with
;
the very
and
recast into
mechanism of its
something naturally
which
birth, the film in
of the earth was concentrated and deepened emerges
'
within
this
use of
under our eyes in the form of an organic whole in which no
ment can any longer be Another '
'
indivisible
indivisible
And
'
this
which is
'
is
has
the universe.
In truth, a pre-biosphcrc.
the envelope which, taken in
be our sole preoccupation from
now
its
entirety,
its
is
to
on.
As wc continue peering into the abysses of the sec
ele-
from those surrounding it. appeared at the heart of the great
separated
past,
wc
can
colour changing.
From age to burst
to age
it
increases in intensity.
Something
out upon the early earth, and this diing
74
is
Life.
is
going
BOOK TWO
LIFE
CHAPTER ONB
THE ADVENT OF After
what wc
LIFE
have said about the latent germinal powers of
might be thought that nothing had been left in which could pin-point the beginning of life, and that therefore my chapter heading is inappropriate. The mineral world and the world of life seem two antithetical creations when viewed by a summary glance in their extreme forms and on the intermediary the early earth,
it
nature
scale
of our human organisms
force our
way
right
down
the infinitesimal, or
;
when we
but to a deeper study,
to the microscopic level and
(which comes
to the
beyond
same thing)
along the scale of time, they seem quite otherwise
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to
far
back
a single
mass
on itself. At such depths all differences seem to become tenuous. For a long time we have known how impossible it is to draw a clear line between animal and plant on the unicellular level. Nor can we draw one (as we shall see later) between living protoplasm dead proteins on the level of the very big molecular and for these latter accumulations. We still use the word dead have not substances, but we already unclassified come to the conclusion that they would be incomprehensible if they did not possess already, deep down in themselves, some sort of rudigradually melting in
*
*
'
'
'
mentary psyche
'
?
we can no more
an absolute zero in time (as was once supposed) for the advent of life than for that of any So, in a sense,
other experimental reality.
fix
On the experimental and phenomeno-
logical plane, a given universe
and each of its parts can only have is no backward limit.
one and the same duration, to which there
77
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE ADVENT OF LIFE
Thus each thing extends itself and pushes its roots into the past, ever farther back, by that which makes it most itself. Everything, in some extremely attenuated extension of itself, has existed from the very first. Nothing can be done in a direct way to counter condition or our knowledge.
this basic
But
to
invalidates the reality of In every
ment,
it
that each
all
its historic birth.
its
measure-
a certain
aspect, condition or nature.
The
curve doubles back, the surface contracts to a point, the solid disintegrates, the liquid boils,
the
suddenly bursts on the piled up
facts
reached, rungs
of
all
on the
germ .
.
.
cell divides,
Critical points
struct the process in the laboratory,
shall
able to recon-
is
probably never
find
from the
intuition
of development.
Henceforward
this
is
One
prc-living.
morphosis of
this sort
By
thing
certain,
is
however
—
meta-
a
could not be the result of a simple con-
analogy with
we
have learnt from the comparative study of natural developments, we must postulate at this particular ity, a
new
all
moment of terrestrial evolution a coming
threshold, a crisis
of the
matur-
to
magnitude, the beginning of a
first
order.
We
shall
now
try to
determine what must have been on the
one hand the nature, on the other the spatial and temporal and find an explanation that modalities of this transformation will fit in both with what we presume to have been the conditions ;
the only
But
way
in
which
science can speak of a
'
first
instant
'.
none the less a true way. new and more complicated sense even after (precisely what we have said about pre-life our task, now, is to
it is
— —
In this after)
on
die early earth and with those of the earth as
consider and define a beginning of life.
Through but
tomorrow
we
any material vestige of this emergence of the microscopic from
have been
change of state—jumps
ladder, involving a
sorts in the course
historical research will ever reveal the details
Unless the science of
tinuous process.
domain, when anything exceeds
suddenly changes
amount of
this story.
the molecular, of the organic from the chemical, of the living
have realised and accepted once and for
being has and must have a cosmic embryogenesis in no way
new
No of
know
a
duration to which
we can
1.
THE TRANSIT TO
immense, the earth, cool enough now to allow on its surface of the chains of molecules of the carwas probably covered by a layer of water from which to be
Seen from outside and materially, the best
moment
bon type, emerged the first traces of future continents. To an observer equipped with even the most modern instruments of research, our earth would probably have seemed an inanimate desert. Its waters would have left no trace of mobile particles even upon the
century science has concentrated
of our
filters,
and the most powerful microscope would
only have detected inert aggregates.
Then
at a
given moment, after
is
we
and structurally ultra-complex
its
unit,
attention
on
of time, those
For a
it
continues
do so the more evident it becomes that in it lies the secret of which we have as yet no more than an inkling the secret of the connection between the two worlds of physics and biology. The cell is the natural granule of life in the same way as the atom is
—
the measure of the transit to life and determine
matted complexity came to form the
last
are insufficient to contain
one) of the envelopes of our planet
the biosphere.
:
at the
to
we must
(or rather the last but
cell.
tins chemically
and the longer
tbe natural granule of simple, elemental matter.
a sufficient lapse
can say
that life properly speaking begins with the
same waters here and there must unquestionably have begun writhing with minute creatures. And from that initial proliferation stemmed the amazing profusion of organic matter whose
7«
LIFE
give no definite measure
the formation
finest
today.
it is
try to
understand the
If its
we
are to take
precise nature,
cell.
But to understand it, how are we to regard it ? Volumes have been written about the cell. Whole concerning
its
texture,
all
the
that has
functions of
79
libraries
been meticulously observed its
'
cytoplasm
'
and
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN nucleus, the
way it
in
itself, it is still a
as
though, once
we
tion,
we
still
have reached
enigmatic
ever.
as
It
seems
A. Micro-organisms and Mega-molecules
depth in our explana-
marking time in front of an
First
histological
we
and physiological methods
them and that, our approach must be made from another
to get any farther,
all
could expect of
angle.
almost exclusively biological oudook.
proceeded with an
far
The
cell
interpreted in relation to
moon
its
highest forms and associations.
problem in the dark. Like has been illumined only on
in its first quarter, the cclJ
the the
beginning of life in relation to
consequents,
we
at
its
once notice some-
thing which, strangely enough, had never struck us before. It is by means of the cell that the molecular world appears in '
*
(if
I
may
so express myself), touching, passing into, and
disappearing in the higher constructions of life.
has been viewed
this attitude has left half our
at the
its
in and
Perhaps a word of explanation
micro-organism, or an example of proto-life, that must be
But
the preparatory process.
antecedents rather than
person
For obvious reasons, cytology has so
as a
of all
When we try to look
have given us
analysis
as
a certain
fortress.
might seem that the
It
LIFE
connection with heredity. Yet,
its
find ourselves reduced to
impregnable
of
divides, and
closed book,
THE ADVENT OF
When we
look at bacteria,
it is
is
needed.
always against a background
of the higher plants and animals, and this blinds our vision. What we should do is start from another angle, shutting our eyes to all the more advanced forms in living nature and even to most of the
side that looks
towards the highest forms of life, leaving the other
protozoa because, in
side (the layers
we
That
tiated as metazoa. In the latter, moreover, let us ignore the highly
specialised and often very large cells of the nervous, muscular and
is
most
have called
pre-life) floating in darkness.
likely the reason scientifically
why
its
mystery
seems to us in
its
isolation
speaking
has been so unduly prolonged.
Marvellous
among
as it
is,
as
it
of matter, the
world, cannot be understood
coherent system of the universe) unless tionary line between deal
on
of attention
its
must its
to
origins, that
now
a
its
is
development and
on
cell,
(i.e.
we
past and a future.
to say
like everything
incorporated in
situate it
on an evolu-
We have turned a its
good
differentiations.
It is
roots in the inorganic, that
its
we want
focus our researches if
a
we
to grasp the essence of
novelty.
Despite what experience has taught us in every other
have
let
ourselves
become too much accustomed
we
at
one and the same time both the
and
treat
it (as
yet profoundly original, that
is
we
what happens
we
if
it
field,
to thinking of
the cell as an object without antecedents. Let us see
regard
main
lines,
they are almost as differen-
reproductive systems. In other words
marvellous
the other constructions
else in the
their
certainly should) as something outcome of long preparation and to say, as a thing that
is
born.
the
more
or
less
let us
confine ourselves to
independent elements, externally amorphous or
polymorphous, such as abound in natural ferments, are present in our blood and accumulate in our organs in the form of connective tissue, in other words let us confine ourselves to what appear the simplest and the most primitive cells in nature today. This done, let us look at this corpuscular mass in relation to the matter beneath it. Can we fail for a moment to see the obvious relationship, in both composition and appearance, between the proto-living world on the one hand and the physico-chemical one on the other? When we consider the simplicity of the cellular form, the structural symmetry, the infinitesimal size, the outer uniformity in character and behaviour in the mass or multitude,
do we
not find the unmistakable characteristics and habits of the granular formations ? In other words, we are still on that first rung of life, if not at the heart of matter \ at least fully on its border. *
Without exaggeration
it
may
be said that just as man, seen in
terms of palaeontology, merges anatomically with the mass of 80
81
THE ADVENT OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
we
sec the cell
mammals
that preceded
him,
merging
qualitatively
and quantitatively with the world of
so, probing backwards,
chemical structures. Followed in a backward direction,
it
visibly
of intermediate states between the microscopic living world and the ultra-microscopic inanimate one has now passed existence
So from now on we
This
is
a simple intellectual
are justified
few years ago what
a
have just
I
said
concerning the '
4
gradual conversion of the
'
granule
'
of matter into
granule
the
cular to the micro-organic both in the sequence
ance and in their present existence.
Lamarck on evolution. But things are now changing. Since the days of Darwin and Lamarck, numerous discoveries have established the existence of the transitional forms postulated by the
better understanding
theory of evolution. At the same time the
latest
proportions the gaping void hitherto supposed to exist between protoplasm and mineral matter. If certain calculations (admittedly indirect) are accepted as correct, the
molecular weights of some
of the natural proteinous substances (such as the viruses so mysteriously associated with the zymotic diseases in plants and
may
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;so
particles
well be
in
no
small in fact that
forming
these
Much
terms of millions.
chemistry.
It is fruitful
none the
substances are
cells,
some of
to note that if
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
colossal
less
dealt with in organic
we
cannot yet consider
of definitely foreshadow
their properties (particularly their faculty
multiplying in contact with living those of proper organic beings.
Thanks
smaller than any
can retain them
filter
compared with the molecules normally
them
to the discovery
tissue)
And
this
tion
Since the viruses have
1
of the preparations
of the electron microscope
at their
two
in the
visible
them among
bacteria rather than
under the powerful magnifica-
form of fine rods asymmetrically active
extremities, the opinion has gained
among
'
ground
molecules \
that
we
82
should include
But then,
study of enzymes and other complex chemical substances reveal that molecules have a/omi and even a great variety
for,
a
and hence the origins
of, life.
A
b.
I
Forgotten Era
am not enough
of a mathematician to be able
is
surely, the
beginning to
of forms.
to judge either the
well-foundedness or the limits of relativity in physics. But, as naturalist, I am obliged to recognise that the assumption of
a a
which space and time are organically combined is the only way we have found to explain the distribution around us of animate and inanimate substances. Indeed the further we advance in our knowledge of the natural history of the world, dimensional milieu
in
clearly we realise that the distribution of objects and any given moment can only be explained by a process whose duration in time varies directly with the spatial (or morpho-
the
more
forms
at
logical) dispersion of the objects in question.
Every distance
in
space, every morphological deviation, presupposes and expresses a
duration.
Let us take the very simple case of existing vertebrates. the
of these giant corpuscles the foreseen
now become
of their appear-
preliminary finding takes us another step towards
In
time of Linnaeus the classification of these animals had advanced
sufficiently for
them
to be arranged in a definite structure of
orders, families, genera 1
state that,
advances in bio-
chemistry are beginning to establish the reality of molecular aggregates which really do appear to reduce to measurable
bacteria
intellectual
when we
accordance with our theoretical anticipation of the reality of a pre-life, some natural function really does link the mega-mole-
of life might have been thought of as being as suggestive, but at the same time as unfounded, as the first dissertations of Darwin or
animals)
not only by our
need of continuity but by positive indications in
intuition.
Only
'
*
into the field of direct experimentation.
converges towards the molecule. already somediing more than
LIFE
unable to provide any
know now
that
the
etc.
Yet the naturalists of the day were
scientific
explanation of this system.
Wc
system of Linnaeus merely represents
a
present-day cross-section of a diverging bundle of phyla 1 emerging 1
[Throughout
this
work, the author
sense for a zoological branch regardless
83
uses the
word phylum
of dimension.]
in
its
looser
THE ADVENT OP
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN one
other through the centuries. 1
after the
Accordingly the
separation of living creatures into different types and measures in each case a difference in age. In the constellation of species, everything which exists and the place
zoological reveals
which
it
occupies implies a certain past, a certain genesis.
particular every time the zoologist meets a
than those he the result
is
is
more
In
primitive type
familiar with (take the amphioxus, for example)
not merely to extend by one more unit the range of
animal forms: another stage,
no, a discovery of that sort ipso
verticil,
or ring
on
the tree-trunk
facto
implies
of evolution. For
amphioxus we can only find a place in the present animal kingdom by supposing a whole proto-vertcbrate stage of life in the past, coming somewhere beneath the fishes. In the biologist's space-time, the introduction of a new morphothe
'
'
logical
end-form or stage needs immediately
correlative prolongation
Keeping
of
be
to
translated
by a
mind,
let
us return to these astonish-
ing giant molecules detected by recent science. It is
form
though
possible,
in nature
restricted
unlikely, that these
enormous
But however
rare they
may
be, and
modified by secondary association with the living batten on parasitically, as monstrosities
particles
today no more than an exceptional and relatively
group.
we
have no right whatever to
or aberrant forms.
On
however
tissue
treat
they
them
the contrary* everything
points to their being representative forms, even if only as a
surviving residue of
some
particular stage in the construction
Thus, between our cellular zone and our molecular zone, hitherto supposed adjacent, another, the mega-molecular zone,
has now insinuated itself. And at the same time, because of the close relation we have established between space and duration, an additional period must accordingly be inserted at some point far behind us in the history of the earth. Another circle on the trunk of the tree means another interval of time in the life of the
forms of matter; era (an era
it
obliges us to interpolate a hitherto forgotten
of sub-life)
in the series of ages that measure the past
of our planet. Accordingly, working once again in
a clearly
I
have to say on
down from
incipient
life,
this subject in the
we
find
defined terminal form that phase and that
aspect of the early earth which we were led to suppose earlier on when we were climbing the ladder of multiple elements. Naturally we are not yet in a position to say anything definite
concerning the length of time required for the establishment of the mega-molecular world. But though we cannot put it into
some considerations form an idea of its order of magnitude. Here are
figures, there are nevertheless
among
to help us to three reasons
others for believing the process to have been one of the
In the first place, its appearance and development must have been narrowly dependent on the transformation of the general conditions, chemical and thermal, prevailing on the surface of the planet.
In contrast to
life,
which seems
to
have spread with an
inherent speed in practically stable material surroundings, the
mega-moleculcs must have developed according to the rhythm, i.e. incredibly slowly.
next chapter, section
3,
The
earth's
sidereal
Secondly, the transformation, once begun, must have extended mass of matter sufficiently important and sufficiently large
to a
to constitute a zone or envelope
too,
of
telluric
must have taken
a
dimensions before life.
it
That,
very long time.
Thirdly, mega-molecules seem to
show
traces
of a long
history.
How could we possibly imagine them forming suddenly,
like the
simpler corpuscles, and remaining so once and for
Their complication and their
both suggest
a
instability, rather like those
long process of gradual accretions over
all ?
of life,
a series
of
generations.
For these three reasons, Sec what
other similar elements not
could form the necessary basis for the emergence of
of terrestrial matter.
1
The discovery of viruses and
only adds another and important term to our series of states and
utmost slowness.
the axis of duration.
this principle in
universe.
LIFE
we may now
hazard the guess that the
duration required for the formation of proteins on the surface of
Tree of Life.
84
85
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE ADVENT OF
was as long as, perhaps longer than, the whole of geological time from the Cambrian period to the present day. And so the abyss of the past is deepened by yet another level and though our incurable intellectual weakness enor layer
First
the earth
scientific analysis *
it
into an ever thinner slice of duration,
constantly forcing us to enlarge
is
we need
metallic
it.
plasm \
long period for maturing no profound change can
catalysis
for the views
a
take place in nature.
On
the other hand, granted such a period,
inevitable that
more than
that
is
something
quite
involved, namely the requirement of a critical
point which concludes and closes
we need
Which
it.
is
exactly
to justify the idea that an evolutionary break
order must have taken place with the appearance of the
But
what way can we envisage
in
what
of the
first
first cells.
the nature of this break
?
'
have reached an advanced
it
new should be produced. A terrestrial era of the mega-molecule is not merely a supplementary period added to our schedule of durations. For something much
is
compounds) these albuminoids constitute a protoa sponge made up of innumerable particles in which
come appreciably into play the forces of viscosity, osmosis, and which characterise matter when molecular groupings
follow.
Without
cellular
is
which
This gives us the sort of basis
Chemistry teaches us that the
the complexity.
based on albuminoids, nitrogenous organic substances (amino acids) of enormous molecular weight (up to 10,000 and over). In combination with fats, water, phosphorus, and all sorts of mineral salts (potassium, sodium, magnesium, and various edifice
;
courages us to compress
LIFE
of this agglomeration
And
stage.
that
is
not
all.
In the centre
chromosomes may generally be seen against the background of the surrounding 'cytoplasm \ perhaps itself composed of fine rods or filaments (' mitochondria '). With the increased powers of the microscope a
nucleus containing
*
'
in the use of stains, new structural elements continue appear in the complex (whether in height or depth). find
and advances to a
We
triumph of multiplicity organically contained within a mini-
mum
of space.
Next the
fixity.
As we have already pointed
out, indefinite
modulations of the fundamental theme, inare the various forms it assumes in nature, the cell
as are the possible
a.
exhaustible as
The Cellular Revolution
c.
External Revolution.
From an
external point of view,
which
is
the ordinary biological one, the essential originality of the cell
seems to have been the discovery of a ting a larger
amount of matter
was doubtless prepared over
new method
in a single unit.
of agglomeraThis discovery
long period by the tentative
a
gropings in the course of which the mega-molecules gradually
emerged
;
but for
all
that
it
was
sufficiently
sudden and revolu-
tionary to have immediately enjoyed prodigious success in the
remains in
all
hesitate to
compare
Looking at it, we world of the animates or that of the inanimates \ Yet cells still seem to resemble one another more as molecules do than as animals do. We are right to look on them as the first of living fornix. But are we not equally entitled to view diem as the representatives of another state of matter, something as original in its way as the
We
are
itself.
still
of
it
itself.
to anything either in the
'
'
'
electronic, the atomic, the crystalline, or the
new
type of material for a
new
stage
of
polymerous
the universe
?
As
a
?
In this cell (at the same time so single, so uniform and so
natural world.
principle
cases essentially true to
a
long
way from
cellular organisation,
complex) what
though
appearing once again with
it is
probably clariry
We have, however, learnt enough to be able to estimate the
extraordinary complexity of
its
structure
ordinary fixity of its fundamental type.
86
we have
being able to define the basic
and the no
less
extra-
it
is
really the stuff
of the universe
all its characteristics
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; only
this
re-
time
has reached a higher rung of complexity and thus, by the same
stroke
(if
our hypothesis be well founded), advanced
in interiority,
i.e.
in consciousness.
87
still
further
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Internal Revolution.
b.
assume psychic
to
life
ance of organised
It
begin
'
in the world with the
'
in other
life,
THE ADVENT OF
words, of the
cell.
I
first
But one in it is
since
have admitted
fact) to
the
incumbent on energy
('
radial
('
tangential
already
')
first
me is
endowed
much
a
a
to have
earlier origin (a
primordial
immanence within matter, what specific way the internal
lineaments of
to explain in
modified to correspond with the external
of the cellular
constitution
')
assume
of evolution.
this particular stage
I
I
of consciousness on earth
decisive step in the progress
appear-
am thus at one
with current views and ways of stating them when taken place at
we must
generally accepted that
is
If
unit.
we
have
the long chain of atoms, then molecules, then
mega-molecules, with the obscure and remote sources of a rudi-
mentary
free activity,
it is
not by
a totally
new beginning but by a
metamorphosis that the cellular revolution should express
But how
psychically.
(how
are
wc even
itself
How arc we to envisage the change-over
?
to find
room
from the
for a change-over)
pre-
consciousness inherent in pre-life to the consciousness, however
elementary, of the
ways
It is
not easy,
I
true living creature
first
for a creature to
have
Are
?
there several
a within ?
must confess,
to be clear
on
this point.
in the case of thought, a psychical definition of the critical
point
*
will
Later on, '
human
emerge almost at once, because the threshold itself something definitive and also because
of reflection bears in
we
have only to consult our
own
deeper selves to measure
it.
If,
on the other hand, we wish to compare the cell with its predecessors, introspection can only help us through repeated and remote analogies. What do we know of the souls of animals,
Even
if
we
LIFE
accept that a sort of rudimentary consciousness
precedes the emergence of life, especially if we accept it, such an awakening or jump (i) could, or, better, (ii) was bound to, happen, and hence (iii) we have a partial explanation for one of the most extraordinary renewals which the face of the earth has undergone historically. In the first place
over between
two
it is
quite conceivable that an essential change-
forms of consciousness, even on the return to and change round in its very terms the doubt formulated above, I would say there were a
lower
levels,
states or
To
can happen.
good many ways
for a being to
have
irregular at
may become
centred.
a
'
within
A
'.
A closed surface,
can augment its order of symmetry and become a sphere. Either by arrangement of the parts or by the acquisition of another dimension, the degree of interioriry of a cosmic element can undoubtedly vary to the point at which it rises suddenly on to another level. first,
circle
'
Now that precisely such a psychic mutation must have accompanied the discovery of cellular combination follows directly from the law accepted above as regulating the mutual relations of the within and the without of things. The increase of the synthetic state of matter involves, we said, a corresponding increase of consciousness for the milieu synthesiscd. To which we should
now
add: the
critical
of the elements induces
change
ipso facto a
in the intimate
change of nature
arrangement in the state
of
consciousness of the particles of the universe.
And now,
in the light
of
these principles, let us look
once
again at the astounding spectacle displayed by the definitive
'
'
even of those nearest to ourselves
and backward
we must
At such
?
distances
resign ourselves to being
downward
vague in our
speculations.
At
grips
with
this obscurity
are nevertheless able to
which
are
of the
cellular
enough to
make
and marginal approximation,
at least three possible
fix in a useful
awakening in the
we
observations
and coherent way the position of psychical transformations
series
preparing the advent on earth of the
phenomenon of man.
budding of
life
on
the surface of the early earth
forward in spontaneity
;
at the luxuriant
;
at the thrust
unleashing of fanciful
creations
at the unbridled expansion and the leap into the im; probable. Surely the explosion of internal energy consequent upon
and proportioned
to a
fundamental super-organisation of matter
is
which our theory could have led us to expect. Such an external realisation of an essentially new type of
precisely the event
corpuscular
grouping, allowing the more supple and better centred organisation of an unlimited number of substances at all
88 89
— THE ADVENT OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN and, simultaneously, the internal onset of a activity and determination
this
:
new
type of conscious
double and radical metamor-
phosis allows us reasonably to define, in regard to fically original in cell
— the
it,
the critical passage
from
what
is
speci-
the molecule to the
transit to life.
Before considering the subsequent evolutionary consequences of this transit, we must look a little closer into the conditions of secondly in time. its historical realisation— firstly in space, and
That
is
the object of the
two
sections
which follow.
are far
LIFE
from being agreed upon what our planet looked
that distant period.
ocean (of which the Pacific
in a shoreless
like at
am inclined myself to picture it as enveloped
I
perhaps
is
a vestige)
few isolated points, protuberances of future continents had begun to emerge by volcanic eruption. Those waters were doubtless warmer than our seas today and also more fraught with free valencies that succeeding ages were gradually to absorb and stabilise. It was in such a liquid, heavy and active at all events it was inevitably in a liquid environment through which,
at a
—
that the first cells
must have formed. Let us
try to distinguish
them. 2.
THE INITIAL MANIFESTATIONS OF LIFE
At
tins distance
mised.
Because the apparition of the cell was an event which took place on the frontiers of the infinitesimal, and because the elements involved were delicate in the extreme, now absorbed in sediments transformed long ago, there is no chance, as I have said already, of our ever finding traces of it. Thus at the outset we come up against that fundamental condition to which experience is subject,
by virtue of which the beginnings of all things tend to be materially out of our grasp. This is a law running right through history which we shall later be calling the automatic suppression of
By
of time their form can only be vaguely sur-
we must assume to be we can do is to imagine
analogy with what
their least
this primof granules of protoplasm, with or without an individually differentiated nucleus. But if the outline and individual structure remain inscrutable, certain characteristics of another order stand out sharply and lose none of their value
altered traces today, the best
ordial generation in terms
because they are quantitative.
and
smallness
I
am
referring to their incredible
—natural consequence — their bewildering number.
'
b.
evolutionary peduncles \ Fortunately there are a
minds can reach
we
reality.
so
What
escapes the intuition
can encircle and define approximately by a
our disposal
by
in
of our senses
series
of indirect
this
stages in the following
Stnatlness
and Number
which our
more roundabout method, the only one when we try to picture new-born life. We can do
attacks. Let us follow at
number of different ways
manner.
Having reached those
look
'
this
efforts to see
at the
real effort
point '
that
we must force I
ourselves to
my
mentioned in
make one of
Wc can
Foreword.
night sky year in year out without ever once making a
to apprehend the distances and thus the vast size of the
sidereal masses.
of vision of
a
Similarly our eyes
may be
familiar with the field
microscope without our ever
'
realising
'
the dis-
concerting dimensional hiatus which separates the world of a.
The Milieu
kind from that of a drop of water.
We
about creatures measurable in hundredths of
Wc must start by going back perhaps a thousand million years and wipe out the greater part of those material superstructures which form the features of the earth's surface today. Geologists 90
have
on
we ever
their
spective
own is
man-
can speak with accuracy a
millimetre, but
attempted to transplant them mentally seeing them scale in
our framework
indispensable if
we
wish 91
to
?
Yet
this effort at
per-
probe the secrets or even
THE ADVENT OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN the
*
space
'
of nascent
than a granular
That
is
else
life.
first cells
That the
which can of course be nothing
life
were
infinitesimal there can be
no doubt.
mega-molecules. determined by their originating out of visually when we examine the simplest forms
It is also
of a millimetre long. natural And there seems positively to be in the universe a are they because Either number. and relationship between size for compensate to else or space faced with a relatively greater smaller the of individual action, their reduced effective radius Measurable only in terms swarm. they more creatures are the numbered by the myriad. been have must the first cells of microns,
we
as
get as near as
we
can to the threshold of
life, it
microscopic and innumerable. manifests itself to us simultaneously as should surprise us. Surely it is is nothing in this which
There
natural that
life,
as it just
emerges from matter, should be
'
drip-
ping with molecularity \
What we need now
is
to understand
how
the organic world
of that ladder works and what is its future. On the bottom rung to picture we find number, an immense number. How are we native this of structure evolutive the historical modalities and the multiplicity
?
c.
The Origin of Number
widespread. Just
started than
it
standpoint
it
may
be said that
life
no sooner
Was
make clear the nature of this multiplicity from of thought very beginning of animate evolution, two lines
To the
explain and
Was
this
First
the
advance
first
first
of
all
we
can assume
that,
though
instance at a single point or a small
cells
they only occurred in
number of points,
the
multiplied almost instantaneouslyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as crystallisation
92
'
monophyletic
'
or
in the first instance simple
polyphyletic
'
*
?
and narrow but
broadening outwards with extreme rapidity, or on the contrary broad and complex from the
and subsequently spreading more slowly ? Which is the most suitable way of imagining the beginnings of the bundle of living beings ? All through the story of the organisms, at the start of each zoological group, we meet the same problem single thread or relatively
first
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
multiple strand
And
?
just because the beginnings are always
we constantly face the same of choosing between two hypotheses which are almost equally plausible. This hesitation worries and irritates us. But do we really need to choose here at any rate ? However beyond
the reach of direct vision,
difficulty
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
we may suppose it, the initial peduncle of terrestrial life must have contained an appreciable number of fibres rooted in the enormity of the molecular world. Conversely* however broad we imagine its section, it must, like all nascent physical realities, have enjoyed an exceptional aptitude to branch out into new slender
forms.
Fundamentally the two perspectives
relative
importance attributed to one or other of the two factors complexity and
'
Both, moreover, imply a
expansiveness
')
differ
only in the
present in both cases.
of an evolutive kind on the early earth. So, ignoring their secondary conflicts, let us concentrate on the essential fact on which they both cast light. This, in my opinion, may be the
first
close relationship
living objects
expressed as follows
suggest themselves.
the case of mankind, great discoveries are
the origin of cells
between
swarmed.
as, in
often simultaneous.
(initial
From our remote
For surely the early earth
was in a state of biological super-tension. Or, on the other hand, we can equally well suppose that the passage from mega-molecule to cell took place simultaneously at a great many points, the requisite conditions of instability being
established
the world. When we finally of life that we can find still today in more than one five-thousandth lose sight of bacteria they are no
Hence
spreads in a super-saturated solution.
LIFE
:
we look at it, the nascent cellular world shows itself to be already infinitely complex. Either on account of its multiple origin, or because of its rapid variegation from a From whatever
angle
93
THE ADVENT OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN very few points of emergence, or again,
we must
add, because of
presiding over the birth and equilibrium of the
regional differences (climatic or chemical) in the earth's watery
substances
on the protocellular level as an enormous bundle of polymorphous fibres. Already and even at these depths the phenomenon of life cannot be really understood except as an organic problem of masses in movement.
too,
envelope,
An
are led to envisage
life
problem of large numbers
:
what does
that difference
on
the surface of the early earth.
much more advanced
to the
marked
which unite
first
A
polymerised,
simple prelude
evolutionary solidarity, so
whose existence obliges us to admit the strictly organic nature of the links them in a single whole at the heart of the biosphere.
in the higher
increasingly
Secondly (and
organic problem of masses or multitudes and not a simple
statistical
imply
we
LIFE
forms of
this
life,
more
is
innumerable
the
surprising)
elements composing at the outset the living film of the earth do
not seem to have been taken or collected exhaustively and hap-
?
Their admission into
hazard*
this
primordial envelope gives
Once more, but now on
of having been mysteriously guided by a previous selection or dichotomy. Biologists have noted that, according to the chemical group to which they belong, the mole-
frontier
cules incorporated into living matter are
Inter-relationship
D.
rather the impression
and Shape
the collective scale, we arc faced with the between the physical and the biological worlds. As long as wc were dealing with churning atoms or molecules we could be content with the numerical laws of probability when
working out the behaviour of matter. But from
when of a
the
monad acquires the dimensions and
the
moment
superior spontaneity
and tends to be individualised at the heart of a pleiad, a
cell,
all asymmetrical in the same way, that is to say if a pencil of polarised light is passed through them they all turn the plane of the beam in the same
direction
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
either they are
all
right-rotating or
all
More remarkable
according to the group taken.
left-rotating
still, all
living
from the humblest bacteria to man, contain exactly the same complicated types of vitamins and enzymes, notwithstand-
creatures,
more complicated pattern appears in the stuff of the universe. On two counts at least it would be inadequate and false to imagine life, even taken in its granular stage, as a fortuitous and amorphous
ing the great range of chemical forms possible; just as the higher
proliferation.
footed.
Firstly the initial
mass of the
cells
must from
the start
have
mammals
are
all
*
tritubercular
'
and walking vertebrates
been inwardly subjected to a sort of inter-dependence which went
beyond a mere mechanical adjustment, and was already symbiosis or hfe-in-common.
single ancestral
'
a
begin-
'
However tenuous
it
was, the
first veil
of organised matter
spread over the earth could neither have established nor maintained itself without
which made cellular
it a
some network of influences and exchanges
biologically cohesive whole.
From
nebula necessarily represented, despite
plicity, a sort
of
diffuse super-organism.
its
internal multi-
A
a foam of simple re-
more advanced form and on a higher much older conditions which we have already seen
appearance, after
of those
origin, the
Not merely
Hues but, to a certain extent, itself a living film.
level
its
all,
in
94
four-
which do not seem necessary suggests an early choice or sorting.
This chemical uniformity of protoplasm
ning of
all
Surely such similarity of living substance in dispositions
been taken
at
accidental points has
proof that
all existing organisms descend from a group (the case of the crystal falling in the supersaturated solution). Without going as far as that, we may say
that all
it
as
establishes
is
a certain initial cleavage (between right-
rotating and left-rotating examples, for instance, whichever
may
be) in the
enormous mass of carbon matter
of life (instance of the discovery it is
tion the living world assumes the
re-formed from
been the complexity of
a partial its
it
the threshold
In any event, on cither assump-
in n points at once).
not important. The interesting thing
totality
at
is
that
same curious appearance of a group whatever may have :
original impetus,
9$
it
exhausts only a
— THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Taken
part of what might have been.
would thus represent only progressive or
less
surely this
amounts
less
a
And
fortunate proliferations of pre-life.
appearthe same problems as do the
to saying that, considered globally, the
of each of those
already begun to
had
whole, the biosphere
as a
simple branch within and above other
ance of the first cells gives rise to origins
THE ADVENT OF
later
stems
ramify and
we
it
4
call
phyla \ The universe
doubtless goes on ramifying
indefinitely, even below the tree of life. Seen from afar, elementary life looks like
tude of microscopic elements,
a
a variegated
multi-
multitude great enough to envelop
same time sufficiently interrelated and solidarity. selected to form a structural whole of genetic These remarks, let it be said again, are only valid for the
the earth, yet at
the
and characters taken as a whole. That is what expected and we must be resigned to it. Followbeen should have perspective ing all the dimensions of the universe one same law of of the past abysses the vision, inevitably blurs, in the field of our general features
and
the distant
small loses
its
what is very far and very backgrounds of space probe further into the phenomena :
outline. For us to
accompanying
its
where or other on the our
is
would be necessary for life— someearth— to be still generating today under
origin,
it
eyes.
That chance— and here is my last point under 1 precisely the one we are not given.
3.
THE SEASON OF
this
heading
not yet stopped heaving and plunging under our feet. Mountain ranges are still being thrust up on the horizon. Granites are still growing under the continental masses. Nor has the organic world ceased to produce new buds at the tips of its countless branches. If movement can be concealed by extreme slowness, why should not extreme smallness have the same effect ? Indeed crust has
there
is
nothing inherently impossible about the continued birth
today of living substance on an infinitesimal scale. In fact, however, nothing indicates this to be the
would be quite conceivable
formation of mega-molecules into cells, accomplished millions of years ago, might still, unnoticed, be going on around us at the extreme limits of the microscopic and the infinitesimal. There are many forces in nature that we have supposed exhausted only to
'
.
appears in a eliminated,
medium from which it
would be
a
1
the
on
closer analysis, that they are
Unless of course (and
phenomenon
who
can
tell?)
in the laboratory.
still
nourishing.
manner of general evidence)
germs have previously been
that the
(in
the face of
The
earth's
chemists succeed in reproducing
all
phenomenon may not have
happened under other conditions in other ages. Pasteur's experiments could not and cannot now in any way disprove the birth of cells on our planet in the
past.
But
their success,
proved over sterilisa-
tion,
seems to have really established one thing: that within the
field
and limits of what
ideas
we
at
is
no
substances of the earth. 1
the outset to revise certain over-absolute
our sciences of explanations 1
can investigate, protoplasm
from the inorganic
we may have harboured
Against Pasteur's experiments
'
concerning the use and value in
in
it
terms of present causes \
may
be objected that sterilisation
is
so
be capable of destroying not only the living germs, whose elimination is desired, but also those pre-living germs from which alone Life might emerge. However that may be, the most convincing proof to me that life was brutal as to
'
produced once and once only on earth unity of the tree of
96
all
mistake to deduce
'
find,
the
know of the famous controversy of nearly a hundred between the partisans and the adversaries of spontaneous generation \ It would appear that too much was made at the time of the results of the battle, as though Pouchet's defeat closed the door on any scientific hope of giving an evolutionary explanation to the first origins of life. But today we are all agreed on one point. From the fact that, in the laboratory, life never
longer jormed directly
mysterious trans-
On
We all
years ago
and over again by the universal adoption of methods of
LIFE
a priori that the
case.
contrary, everything points the other way.
This obliges us It
LIFE
life (see
is
below).
97
furnished by the profound structural
THE ADVENT OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN reminded the reader that many terrestrial transformations which we could have sworn had stopped, and stopped ages ago, are still going on in the world around us. Under
A moment
ago
I
the influence of this unexpected observation
which pampers our
natural preference for palpable and manageable forms of experience, our
are inclined to slide gently into die belief that
minds
in the past or will be in the future anything
was
there never
And
new
would only be one step farther to limit Fundafull and real knowledge to the events of the present. present, mere confrom the apart everything, mentally, is not
under the sun.
it
'
jecture
'
at all costs resist this instinctive limitation
must
and scope of science. No. The world would not
of the
actuality
biology
—
if
—
unaware of all save sorts
ephemeral
which
before man was there
it
them. Long before the awakening of thought on earth,
manifestations of cosmic energy must have been produced
have no
mena class
parallel
facts to
be considered
—
is
on
direct observation
brought to
light
by
discovery of the past. its
With in
is
that, let
And,
to judge by
our repeated
One
is
us advance
for
it,
the
*
physics \ the
failures to find
first
apparition of
one of the most sensational of
which something can
of seeing.
—
very authentic branch of
a
clearly
most important those which depend
nor experiment, but can only be
equivalent around us or to reproduce
living bodies
for science a particular
specifically the
because the rarest and most significant neither
it
which
Thus, besides the group of pheno-
today.
subject to direct observation, there
of
are
the present that, for this reason alone,
of things must have happened in
to witness
insects
So vast are the dimensions
their brief season.
by
imposed
the great world of mechanics and
lost in it like
of the universe disclosed all
fully satisfy the conditions
would not be
it
we were
a step.
fail to
to
either
In
unique
which of
experimental
(as
we
meet
There are two
these events.
possible
coincide, in time, with our
happen
at
ways
power
such distant intervals that the
whole of our existence can run its course between two successive occurrences. The other, by which we miss it still more inevitably, In other is for it to have happened once and never be repeated. 98
so often in
astronomy) or one
with Socrates or Augustus
these *
phenomenon of very infrequent
recurrent
a
two
'
inexperi mental
we
categories do
find
it
'
most
in
human
or rather
history). *
praeter-
suitable, in the light
of Pasteur's discoveries, to put the birth of life, the
initial formaof cells from matter ? There is no lack of facts to support the idea that organised matter might germinate periodically on the earth. Later on,
tion
when
come
I
to outline the
'
of life \ I shall be world of
tree
the coexistence in
to
the living
calling atten-
certain
aggregates (protozoa, plants, hydrozoa, insects, vertebrates) lack of basic relationship
rights
by
strictly
tion
?
We
words,
periodicity (such as
LIFE
might be
fairly satisfactorily
large
whose
explained
of heterogenous origins. Something like those successive intrusions going back to different ages originating from the same magma, whose interlacing veins form the eruptive complex the hypothesis of independent of a single identical mountain
in terms
.
vital
pulsations
.
.
would conveniently account
for
the
morpho-
of the principal sub-kingdoms recognised by systematic biology. Moreover, there is no difficulty on the chronological side. In any case the length of rime separating the logical diversity
historical origins
of two successive sub-kingdoms
than the age of mankind. So
it is
is
much greater we should
not astonisliing that
nothing happens any more. Matter seems But could not the next pulsation be slowly preparing
live in the illusion that
dead.
around I
us ?
feel
bound
to point out and even, to a certain extent, to
defend the conception of a spasmodic genesis of life. Yet actually adopt
idea
of
a
it.
For there
number of
earth's surface
is
different, successive, vital thrusts
—namely
the
I
cannot
one decisive objection against the
on the
fundamental similarity of all organic
beings.
We have already called attention in this chapter to the curious fact that all
molecules of living substances are asymmetrical
same way, and contain precisely the same vitamins.
more complex organisms become, 99
die
in the
Now,
the
more evident becomes
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; THE PHENOMENON OF MAN their inherent kinship.
THE ADVENT OF
manifests itself in the absolute and
It
universal uniformity of the basic cellular pattern, and itself,
it
particularly in animals, in the identical solutions
radio-active
manifests
on die
found for
flow
various problems of perception, nutrition and reproduction
we
*
together
collecting
for
and
socialised \
finally
it
(
ontogenesis
in
itself
to
advantages, yet
*
phylogenesis
')
many
or the other of these
'
terrestrial conditions,
were only one solution
problem of
on
life
'.
earth, that general solution
does not seem thinkable that they
twice in the ties
same way.
And
it is
necessarily
of existing phyla
?),
the category
of absolutely unique events
of their importance (are
life
on earth belongs to
that,
once happened, are
This is a much more credible hypothesis than would appear at first sight, if we succeed in forming a tenable idea of what is hidden in the history of our planet. It is fashionable nowadays in geology and geophysics to attach a preponderant importance to periodical phenomena. Seas advance and recede continental platforms rise and sink
never repeated.
;
mountains are
lifted
;
and levelled
;
ioo
to
acknowledge the
is
after
all
we
can measure
of these
scientific quality
something more than a sort of huge it rises and falls, but more important
must have begun
passing through
has
all
a birth,
it
at a certain
moment
;
that
it is
tending
it
moving equilibria towards some final state.
consecutive series of
probability
;
a development, and presumably a death ahead.
around
all
a
us,
deeper than any pulsation that could be we must suppose there to be a total
which is not of a periodic character defining the total evolution of the planet; something more complicated chemically and deeper within matter than the cooling of which we used yet something both continuous and irreto hear so much '
combined with a progressive and naturalists are becoming more
and more convinced that the genesis of
and both Whatever repeats and can be made
in causes,
precise rational needs.
process
even those belong-
they not simply effects of perspective isolation
'
expressed in geological eras,
ing to very different groups. Accordingly the contrasts presented
much
actual
cannot help thinking that an exclusive analysis
the fact that
It
precisely in these ancillary modali-
today by zoological phyla lose
I
is
Thus
would have been decided
that living creatures resemble each other,
'
provides a scale on which
It
first
is
and that in
and particular questions, and
leave undecided a host of accidental it
would
the
For the earth
main physical and physiological
to the
rhythmic in events goes hand
breathing body. Admittedly
it
'
by
ebb and
of the earth.
geology.
pre-living
would nevertheless seem impossible to regard their unified complex as the result Even if there of a simple parallelism or a simple convergence under identical
vicissitudes
*
of the oscillations recorded by the earth's crust or the movements of life would omit from the inquiry what is the principal aim of
analogies might be
explained by the adjustment of one and the same '
am
I
is
then overflows
this majestic
events potentially, observable,
which give
and
upthrust.
magma
all
time.
the living world, considered as a whole, the coherence of a single
Though one
at
is,
subject to a law.
of
'
with the
a preference for the
alike are explained
becoming
and
hand with
in the depths
hear of nothing save
in treatises dealing
'
shines clearly in the general laws
(
development
organisms
higher
in
We
surface.
This predilection for what
find vascular and nervous systems,
everywhere and everywhere everywhere gonads blood, of eyes. form some It continues in the similarity of the methods employed by units
everywhere
warmth accumulates
LIFE
glaciadons advance and retire;
'
;
An
ever-ascending curve, the points of transformation of which are never repeated a constantly rising tide below the
versible.
;
rhythmic
tides
of
the ages
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
it is
on
this essential curve, it
relation to this advancing level of the waters, that the
of life,
is
in
phenomenon
must be situated. If life, one day, was able to 'isolate* itself in the primitive ocean, it was no doubt because the complexity of die earth's elements and their distribution had reached the general privileged condition which permitted and favoured the building of protoplasms (which is what we mean by the earth being young '). as I sec things,
*
And
if thereafter life has
never again been formed directly 101
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN from
the elements of the lithosphere or hydrosphere, this
is
apparently because the very emergence of a biosphere so dis-
chemism of
turbed, impoverished and relaxed the primordial
our fragment of the universe that the phenomenon can never be repeated (unless perhaps artificially).
From the
*
point of view
this
it
seems to
me
the right
CHAPTER TWO
one
would now be seen as a critical singular moment on the curve of telluric evolution,
cellular revolution
point, an unparalleled
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and
'
THE EXPANSION OF
LIFE
the point of germination. Protoplasm was formed once and once
only on earth, just as nuclei and electrons were formed once and
When
once only in the cosmos. This hypothesis has the advantage of providing a reason for
which stamps all living creatures from same time it explains why we never At the mankind. bacteria to at any point find the formation of the least living thing which is not there as the result of generation. And that was the problem. the deep organic likeness
But
this
hypothesis has
two other notable consequences
reduces the vibrating
by separating the phenomenon of
life
from
of
directions
living layer of our planet as developing
of closed
*
quantum \
defined
by
from and within
the amplitude
is
way.
is
of this primordial
emission.
was born and propagates
itself
on the earth
as a solitary
pulsation.
the propagation
follow, right
up
to
of
that
man and
unique wave that
if possible
we must now
beyond him.
It
he
main
and generalises the
elasticity,
He thus movement
Then
he
characteristics and
results
found in the
phenomenon It
this
to order
without
first
for
advance
in
life
its
equally
is
is
trying to
of describing the ascent of
impossible to reduce
covered by isolation.
faces the task
obliged to follow a similar method in his
life,
own
the
special
enormous and complex
analysing the processes dis-
each of
its
elements taken
impossible to distinguish
in
the general
behaviour adopted by the
total multitude of individual prowithout gressions choosing the most expressive and luminous
features of their resultant effect. In the
pages that follow
I
intend to develop a simplified but
structural representation of life evolving
on earth
;
a vision so
homogeneous and coherent that its truth is irresistible. I provide no minor details and no arguments, but only a perspective that the reader
may
sec
and accept
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;or not
see.
The gist of what I mean conies under these three headings i. The elemental movements of life, 2. The spontaneous ramification of the living mass, 3. The tree of life. All this will
102
its
of the whole he
biologist
a sort
to
close as possible to the
the
hypothesis inclines us to think of the energy contained in the
medium
obtains an overall picture as
determine.
numerous other periodical and secondary events on earth, and by making it one of the principal landmarks (or parameters) of the sidereal evolution of the globe, it rectifies our sense of proportion and of values and hence renews our perspective of the world. Secondly, by the very fact of showing that the origin of organised bodies is linked with a chemical transformation unprecedented and unrepeated in the history of the world, the
development of a wave, he
instance of the element.
When
Firstly,
It is
physicist wants to study the
for
science.
Life
a
begins by calculating the pulsation of a single particle.
first
be studied
at the surface
103
and from without.
:
We
THE EXPANSION OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
LIFE
few generations, a single infusorian could by simple of itself and its descendants cover the whole surface of earth. Every volume, however great, succumbs to the effects
that, in a shall
only
probing into the within of tilings in the subsequent
start
chapter.
i.
division
the
of geometrical progression, and this is not a pure extrapolation of the mind. In its ability to double itself and to go on doubling
THE ELEMENTAL MOVEMENTS OF
LIFE
itself as
A.
Reproduction
whereby the envelope of the of the earth stands the meclianism of reproduction which is typical of life. Sooner or
At the base of the biosphere spreads
later
each
cell
entire process
its
web over
the face
divides (by mitotic or amitotic division) and gives
let
or hindrance,
First, a single
itself.
centre
two.
Everything in the subsequent development of
from
this
then
;
stems
life
potent primordial phenomenon.
But
whereas in the case of so-called inert matter the increase in volume soon reaches a point of equilibrium, no such limit appears to
be
set to the
expansion of living substance.
phenomenon of cellular virulence. Once fission
The more the more it gains in nothing from within can
division spreads, the has started,
devouring and creative conflagration, because it is spontaneous. Nor is there any external influence powerful
enough to check
the process.
remedy
a
for its
molecular
fragility c.
and for the structural process
is
difficulties
The more
one of rejuvenation and shedding.
indefinite longevity, and with it an equivalent rigidity.
The
cell,
must split in two to conAt first sight reproduction appears as a simple process thought up by nature to ensure the permanence of the
continually in the toils of assimilation, tinue to exist.
unstable in the case ot these vast molecular edifices.
But, as always happens in die world, accident or
means of survival,
is
Renovation
involved in continued growth.
limited groups of atoms, the micro-molecules, have an almost
as
force of expansion
that dilates or vaporises.
division seems to be due to the simple need of
itself, cell
the living particle to find
The
life possesses a
body
arrest its
birdi to another cell similar to
In
without
invincible as that of a
what was
only die
first result and only the quantitative side of Reproduction doubles the mother cell. Thus, by a mechanism winch is the inverse of chemical disintegration, it
this is
multiplies without crumbling. At the same time, however, it transforms what was only intended to be prolonged. Closed in on itself, the living clement reaches more or less quickly a state of
immobility.
at first a
happy
promptly transformed and used
an instrument of progress and conquest. Life
Yet
the process.
at first
seems to
Then by
It
becomes stuck and coagulated
the act of reproduction
it
in
its
evolution.
regains the faculty for inner
re-adjustment and consequendy takes on a
new
appearance and
The process is one of pluralisation in form as well as in number. The elemental ripple of life that emerges from each individual unit does not spread outwards in a monotonous circle direction.
have reproduced prelude to
its
itself
only
in self-defence
;
but
this
was
a
mere
vast conquests.
formed of individual units exactly like itself. It is diffracted and becomes iridescent, with an indefinite scale of variegated tonal-
B. Multiplication
ities.
For, once introduced into the stuff
of the duplication of living
of
particles
the universe,
knows no
diose of the quantity of matter provided.
It
the principle
The
ipso facto
living unit
an equally
is
a centre
of
limits other than
has been calculated
105
104
irresistible multiplication,
irresistible focus
of diversification.
and
'
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE EXPANSION OF arc
d. Conjugation
And
then, so
seems, so
it
as
to enlarge the breach thus
discovered the wonderful process of conjugation.
made by
It
would
life
take
growth and sublimation of sexual dualism in the course of evolution from the cell to man. At the early stages that we are now considering, the phenomenon appears in the main as a means of accelerating and intensifying the double effect (multiplication and diversification) obtained by
a
whole book
to describe and extol the
reproduction such
a sexual
as is
still
prevalent in
organisms and even with the individual
cells
many of the lower
own
of our
bodies.
By the first conjugation of two elements, however little they may as yet have been differentiated into male and female, the door modes of generation whereby a single individual can pulverise itself into a myriad of germs. Simultaneously we find coming into play the endless permutations and so dear to modern geneticists. combinations of characters Instead of simply radiating from each centre in process of division, was thrown open
to diose
*
*
the rays of
life
now
anastomose
We
respective riches.
—exchanging and
writing.
fire,
Yet what chances and what fumblings
— were
discovery from which
much
varying
no more dream of being astonished
prodigious invention than at the discoveries of
endless ages therefore
longer
still
fulfilment in the
no
we
before less
their
at this
bread or
— and
what
necessary before this fundamental
have sprung was matured. And how it
found
its
clusters.
But the purely mechanical necessity or
opportunity to get together engendered in the long run
inroads in the ramparts of the unorganised world,
its first
even born in
complement and
revolutionary innovation
of
natural
association'.
method of biological improvement. We still seem to be able to see all the stages of finished march of nature towards the unification or ever-increasing
the
bottom fungi.
In
first
analysis
Association
yet centralised,
though
distinct specialisation has
the higher vegetable forms and the bryozoa.
moment — the grouping of living isms
is
particles into
complex organ-
an almost inevitable consequence of their multiplication.
un-
At
the
begun,
Higher
as
with
still is
the
— '
seems to be being attempted.
The
last part of this book will be particularly devoted to this and highest form of aggregation, in which the self-organising effort of matter culminates perhaps in society as capable of refleclast
tion.
Here wc must confine
association, considered at tal
ourselves
all its levels, is
to
pointing
out that
not a sporadic or acciden-
appearance in the animal kingdom.
On
the contrary,
it
of die most universal and constant expedients (and thus one of the most significant) used by life in its expansion. Two of its advantages are immediately obvious. Thanks to it, living substance is able to build itself up in sufficient bulk to escape innumerable external obstacles (capillary attraction, osmotic represents one
is
medium,
etc.)
wliich paralyse
In biology, as in navigation, a certain
movements. Thanks to it its increased volume) is lodge the countless mechanisms
physically necessary for certain
again, the organism (here too because of
able to find
room
inside itself to
added successively in the course of
its
Cells tend to congregate because they press against each other or
106
still
synthesis of
metazoan cell of cells, in which by a prodigious critical transformation an autonomous centre is established (as though by excessive shrinking) over the organised group of living particles. And still farther on, to round off the list, at the present limit of our experience and of life's experiments, comes society that mysterious association of free metazoans in which (with varying success) the formation ot hyper-complex units by mega-synthesis
size
factors for die
this
products of living reproduction.
the microscopic organisms.
— and supposing we ignore deeper
a definite
we find the simple aggregate, as in bacteria and the lower One stage higher comes the colony of attached cells, not
pressure, chemical variation of the E.
LIFE
107
differentiation.
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE EXPANSION OF LIFE point already stands out clearly at the present stage
F.
Controlled Additivity
Thanks
to
the matter
Reproduction, conjugation, association they are extended, these various
.
.
activities
.
No
of the
matter
cell in
how
far
themselves
deployment of the organisms. If it had been life would have spread and varied, level. the same It would have been like an aeroon always but plane which can taxi but not become airborne. It would never
only lead to
a surface
left to their
resources alone,
have taken It is
of the
physicists) finds
instability.
there
an ascent of
is
A
point that the
phenomenon of additivity
made
by each reproduction achieve something more than mere substitution. They add, one to
sum
the other, and their
or rather
It falls,
'
rises,
towards forms that
Corollary
with
;
it
invincible.
life that is
The Ways of Life
:
intervenes
acts as a vertical
see that the rejuvenations
*
more and more improbable. Without orthogenesis life would only have spread
are
off.
at this
component. There seems to be no lack of examples, in the course of biological evolution, of transformations acting horizontally by pure crossing of characters. One example is the mutation we call Mendelian. But when we look deeper and more generally we
and
and
tions
of our inquiry.
power, living matter (unlike itself ballasted with complica-
characteristic additive
its
possible
increases in a pre-determined direction.
At this point let us pause for a moment. Before we try to see where these various laws regulating the movements of the isolated particle lead us, when extended to the whole of life, let us attempt to distinguish the general lines
of behaviour or attitudes which, in
accordance with these elementary laws, characterise
ment
at all levels
and in
life
in
move-
circumstances.
all
These attitudes or ways of proceeding can be reduced to three: profusion ingenuity and (judged from our individual point of t
Dispositions are accentuated, organs are adjusted or supplemented.
view)
We
a.
get diversification,
forming
the
growing
specialisation
genealogical sequence
a single
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;in
of factors
other words, the
Let us
cess in
which we get
first
molecule and finally the orthogenesis.
On
is
the
The word
the pretext of
word
essential
*
known
to
biologists
as
dynamic and only complete form of
conceals deep and real springs of cosmic
its
little,
but meanwhile one
being used in various questionable or restricted senses,
orthogenesis \
But
my
some
biologists
would
considered opinion
is
for
word
a system
in
which
*
108
effects,
y
which
is
born of unlimited
elbow room and for
there
is,
as
we must
be
fair
dint of multitudes flung into
devouring
the best all
by
and millions of one another, fight
Milliards of germs
and
efficiency in the struggle for
the
and
largest living space.
mystery and scandal
it
Despite involves,
and admit, a great deal of biological life,
hi the course of this implacable
contest between masses of living substance in irresistible expan-
undeniably
sion, the individual unit
is
strength and resources.
Survival of the
'
is
not
*
tried to fittest
meaningless expression, provided
a
the limits of
by natural it is
its
selec-
not taken to
is
imply either
terms succeed each other experi-
mentally, following constandy increasing degrees of centro-complexity \
shoving
the waste and ferocity,
tion
and indispensable for singling out and affirming the manifest property
of living matter to form
jostling,
like to suppress
that the
by mass
action without apparent plan. adults
all
or of its having a metaphysical flavour, the
is
We shall find this out little by
extent. 1
first cells,
mega-
consider profusion
Life advances
1
Orthogenesis heredity.
the micro-molecule then the
first
multiplication.
apparition of the line as a natural unit distinct from the individual.
This law of controlled complication, the mature stage of the pro-
indifference.
in
a final ideal
or a
final
explanation.
But it is not the individual unit that seems to count for most the phenomenon. What we find within the struggle to live is 109
THE EXPANSION OF LIFE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN something deeper than
By
a series
of duels
it is
;
reckless self-reproduction life takes
mishap.
increases
It
multiplies
its
a conflict of chances.
precautions against
its
chances of survival and at the same time
its
freedom
c.
this
particles,
we
find
nature
weapon of
all expanding multitudes. This groping strangely combines the blind fantasy of large numbers with the precise orientation of a specific target. It would be a mistake to see it as
Groping
mere chance. everything so
as to try
is
directed chance.
find everything. Surely in the last resort this
procedure (always increasing in
as it spreads) that
Next comes more precisely b.
means pervading
It
everything, and trying everything so as to precisely to develop
it is
size
and
cost in proportion
nature has had recourse to profusion.
ingenuity.
This
is
the constructive facet, of additivity.
minimum
like
an engineer, so design
space and
is
simple and
that
it
resilient.
And
it
What At an
a
But in the same
occupies the
this implies
and
By
of their discoveries
(or
were surprised however perfect spontaneity, were always decombiologists
fact that living beings,
even more perfect) their
Fury trampling existence in the dust
'
passes
life
this
inhuman
'
is
over
a
true,
every orgaaism
From
this
is
always
and inevitably reducible into its component parts. But it by no means follows that the sum of the parts is the same as the whole, or that, in the whole,
emerge. That what into determinisms,
is
is
*
some free \
even
no proof
in
that the
no
new
may not man, can be broken down
specifically
world
value
is
association
part
By
die force
it
a link
has been put,
On
not based on
in
of descent achieves no less inexorably of orthogenesis the individual unit becomes
of a chain. From being
intermediary, as
it
accession to a line
its
in time.
a centre
—no longer
life is
more
real than
the one hand the individual unit
it is
changed into being an
it is
existing,
but transmitting
;
and,
lives. is
lost in
number, on
the
torn apart in the collectivity, and in yet a third direction
stretches
out in becoming.
This dramatic and perpetual
opposition between the one born of the
many and
the
many
constantly being born of the one runs right through evolution.
As the general movement of life becomes regular, despite occasional counter-attacks, tends to resolve
clears
it is
and
organic or social incorporation does to extend
overlooked the essential difference between a natural whole and the elements into which it is analysed. very construction,
like
:
made up of
bridge
direction orthogenesis
they thought they could deduce universal materialism. But they
its
?
a direct effect of multiplication.
remains painfully noticeable to the end.
By
life.
indifference.
the
And what
it
posable into an endless chain of closed mechanisms.
— on the part of
comes
of
result
phenomenon of association, the living particle is wrenched from itself. Caught up in an aggregate greater than itself, it becomes to some extent its slave. It no longer belongs to
other
can be put together can be taken apart. early stage
simply the
also operate, in their fashion.
space,
property which must never be forgotten.
and fascinated by the
It is
the first trace of this apparent brutality
accumulated corpses, and
involves, as regards the structure of organisms (particularly die
higher ones),
is
Tolstoy's grasshoppers,
the indispensable condition, or
accumulate characters in stable and coherent aggregates, has to be very clever indeed. Not only has it to invent the
machine but,
it is.
itself.
To life
maintain that
often have artists, poets and even philosophers depicted
as a blind
Profusion
the fundamental technique of groping, the specific and invincible
I
a triumph of ingenuity
Lastly, for individual units,
How
time on the plane of animate
indeed
as
ingenuity'
chances of progress.
Once more,
— —
the conflict,
itself.
Yet
it
The antinomy only
up with the appearance of mind where it attains its paroxysm and the indifference of the world for its constituents is
in feeling,
transformed into an immense solicitude. This
is
the sphere of the
person.
But we have not yet come to that point. constructive ingenuity Groping profusion ;
towards whatever
is
not future and
headings under which
life rises
totality
;
up by virtue of
in
indifference
;
— these
are the three
its
elementary
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN mechanisms. There all
— that of global
also a fourth
is
heading which embraces them
unity.
we have come
This
THE EXPANSION OF LIFE
across already
—
divergent and arranged in tiers species. In other
first
in primordial matter,
whose
variety,
—
classes, orders, families,
words what we see order of size and
is
the
whole
then on the early earth, then in the genesis of the first cells. Here it reappears in a still more emphatic way. Though the prolifera-
systematic biology tries to express in names.
tions of living matter are vast
segmentation. As
in
their
A
continuous adjustment co-adapts them from withprofound equilibrium gives them balance within. Taken
solidarity.
out.
and manifold, they never lose
A
its totality,
the living substance spread over the earth
—from
first stages of its evolution— traces the lineaments of one and gigantic organism.
Considered
I
repeat this
same thing
ladder that leads to
man
;
like a refrain
for, if this
on every rung of
thing
is
the
forgotten, nothing
can be understood.
To
see
life
we must
never lose sight of the unity of
life's
expands,
animate masses
to large
A
number of
as
it splits
three
A.
:
spontaneously into large,
And
the
moment has come
phenomenon
mitotic division
was
Again,
life.
I
as essential
to cells.
different factors contribute to
accentuating the branches of
of groups
our modern
advances go hand in hand with
to study this ramification, a particular
shall
drawing up or reduce them to
Aggregates of growth, giving birth to 'phyla.'
b.
Florescence (or disjunctions) of maturity, periodically producing *
properly
whole,
life
natural, hierarchical units. It ramifies.
the very single
as a
scale
relationships
genera,
verticils',
of the
c. Effects
of distance
:
the ehmination (from view)
peduncles \
*
beyond the plurality and essential rivalry of individual beings. This unity was still diffuse in the early stages —a unity in origin, framework and dispersed impetus rather than the biosphere that lies
grouping
in ordered ascent,
was
;
yet a unity which, together with
grow
ever sharper in outline, to fold in and, finally, to centre itself under our eyes. to
life's
itself,
us study,
one might well expect the multitude to be entangled in Or, inversely, we might expect that their total,
utter confusion. in the process
of harmonising, should create
like the radiating ripple
happens
is
today, the tinuous.
from
a
a third alternative. '
As we
see it
'
112
and multiplication.
From
element, taken as centre,
this
we
have
them and so form an impenetrable network. By aggregate of growth I mean the new and unexpected fact that a dispersion oj simple type occurs precisely where the play of chance would have made us most fear a complicated tangle. When poured out on the ground, a sheet of water quickly breaks '
'
wave
up into streamlets and then into definite streams. Similarly, under the influence of various causes (such as the native parallelism of
But what actually
elementary orthogenesis, the attraction and mutual adjustment of
continuous
under our very eyes
of advancing life is neither chaotic nor conan aggregate of fragments at one and the same time
front
It is
stone in a pool.
a
Let us return to the living clement in the process of reproduction
by the accentuation of certain characters. By their construction these lines diverge and tend to separate. Yet, so far, we have no reason to suppose that they may not meet with other lines radiating from neighbouring elements, become enmeshed with
over the whole extent of the living earth, the various movements whose aspect we have analysed in the instance of cells or groups of cells taken in isolation. Seen on such a huge scale
Aggregates of Growth
seen different lines radiating orthogenetically, each recognisable
THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE LIVING MASS
i.
Now let
upon
A.
lines, the selective
fibres
influence of the environment
of a living mass
in the process
draw together, to bind, following 113
of
and
so on) the
diversification tend to
a restricted
number of domi-
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
nam
In the beginning this concentration
directions.
round
THE EXPANSION OF
few privileged axes is indistinct and involves a mere increase, in certain sectors, of a
of forms
indefinite
;
it
number or Then gradually the movement takes shape. True nervures become visible, though without breaking up the limb of the leaf in which they appear. At this stage the fibres may still partially escape from the network which is trying to contain them. From nervure to nervure, they may still touch one another, anastomose, or cross one another. The zoologist would say that density of the
the group
lines.
is still
at the racial stage.
what may be
place
And
we
take).
of mutual cohesion, the
certain degree
at this point there takes
called the final aggregation or final separation
(according to the point of view
closed sheaf that can
From now
sheaves.
For, having reached a
lines isolate themselves in a
own, autonomously.
its
'
observers life in
how
still
become
species has
of
lines.
Many
refuse to see or admit the reality of this strand
the process of evolution.
They do not know how
of
to see,
to
fail
wood
to see the
polymorphous and elastic. Like a molecule, which ranges through all sizes and degrees of complication,
it
can be
dom. There must be ready
are simple phyla is
not so
phylum
properly into view
or
as vast as a
sub-king-
groups
itself
What
When soul.
About the
is
killed
in the first place
by
a
'
still
'
initial
to say the particular direction in
and evolves
as
it
separates off
it
in the second place
the case
one thing
certain at the outset. Just as
is
drop of water it is
to
condense save
angle
which
it
from neighbouring
is
its
initial section
'
'.
physically impossible
it is
volume
at a certain
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;or
impossible for a chemical reaction to take place
unless a certain quantity
of matter
is
present
from
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the phylum cannot
the start,
it
has gathered
up in itself a sufficient number and variety of potentialities. The lack of a certain initial modicum of consistency and richness (or the failure to break a
away
new branch from attaining individuality. in concrete terms, are we to express
how, its
operation
a mass,
or
as
?
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
in
gone
a
is
the rule and visualise
terms of a diffuse segregation of a mass within
an effect of contagion propagating around a narrowly ?
What
give to the birth of a species
question
enough to prevent The rule is strict. But
at a sufficient angle)
surface representation
We
?
are
still
can
wc
hesitant and the
may perhaps involve a variety of answers. But we have way towards solving a problem once we are able to
long
it.
what
serves not only to define the
phylum, but
one of the natural
also to
of the law of autonomous development \ If we say that it behaves like a living thing this is no mere figure of speech in its own way it grows and flourishes.
world,
is
without ambiguity
'
its
power and
as
units
singular
*
;
'.
Considered without these provisos, the phylum might well 114
is its
touched on when we were considering and which will assume outstanding importance in of man) we are still very much in the dark. But at least
classify it
is
that
phylum
this point (already
on every scale of dimension. a dynamic nature. It only comes
motion
at in
first cells,
Lastly
so
depth of duration, in other words immobilised in time, it loses its features
Its
',
defines
formulate
;
But looked
life.
can be seen to be a perfectly
it
forms.
we
quantitative as structural
at a certain
and, as
its
it
has
only in movement. were,
of divergence
and phyla composed of phyla,
much
to recognise
Lastly, the
it
is
as small as a single species
Phylctic unity
defines the
limited area of mutation
for the trees.
phylum
Secondly, the
light,
establish itself biologically unless, line
make the necessary adjustments in their vision. The phylum is first of all a collective reality. Therefore, to see it clearly, we need to look from a sufficient height and distance. Examined too closely, it crumbles into unevenness and confusion.
We
What
again, as
individualised.
entity carved for classifica-
continuum of
defined structural reality.
on, their association, the
bundle \ will
more artificial
the
proper magnification and
for a
'
of
tion purposes out
no longer be penetrated by neighbouring
The The phylum has been born. The phylum. The living bundle '; the
evolve on
the
be thought to be just one
LIFE
US
*
THE EXPANSION OP LIFE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
b.
The Flourishing
xiumphant the solution brought by the new form to the problems -aiscd by existence, it still admits of a certain number of variants.
oj Maturity
which correspond, as we shall discover later, to a deep bond of nature, the development of a phylum is strangely parallel to the successive stages undergone by an invention made by men. We lenow those stages well from having seen them for about a century constantly around us. Roughly the idea first takes the shape of a theory or a provisional mechanism. Then follows a period of rapid modifications. The rough model is continually touched up and adjusted until it is practically
In virtue of analogies
On
completed. enters
the attainment of this stage, the
new
creation
phase of expansion and equilibrium. As regards quality
its
now only undergoes minor changes it has reached its ceiling. But quantitatively it spreads out and reaches full consistence. It is the same story with all modern inventions, from the bicycle to the aeroplane, from photography to the cinema and radio. In just this way the naturalist sees the curve of growth followed
it
'
But
both viable and advantageous.
most economical or
period of time
about within
it
efficient
devotes
all
this
form
new
type will not attain
up
at once.
all
For
a certain
Try-out follows try-out, without being
itself.
adopted.
Then
phase of conquest.
at last
It splits
as it
—
)f the general
ays
(*
Stronger
now
than
its
newly born group spreads and
solidates.
It
now
multiplies, but
entered
its
fully
perfected neigh-
less
at the
without further
grown period and
same time con-
diversification.
at
It
the same time
its
period of stability.
The
flourishing of the
thickening of the
phylum by
initial stalk
—except
simple dilatation or in the case
has reached the limits of its evolutionary
procedure
is
never completely
realised.
116
power
by the
of a branch that
—
this
However
elementary
decisive
and
Hence
type to particular needs or habitats.
radiations
')
that are clearly
he case of the vertebrates.
marked,
as
As
is
to
we
the
shall see, in
be expected, the mech-
tnism tends to come into action again, in a more attenuated form, nside each ray. The rays, in their turn, show immediate signs of "arming out in fresh lines of segmentation. Theoretically there 10
end
to this process.
But in
phenomenon quickly begins 3Ut
Dn
is
we know by experience, the peter out. The process of fanning
fact, as
to
and the terminal dilatation of the branches goes soon stops without any further appreciable splitting up. ;
The :>loom
final picture generally presented is
that of a
And now — last
perfection
bours, the
'
were along the whole iront of its expansion. It subdivides qualitatively at the same time Disjunction starts again. Sometimes ls it spreads quantitatively. :he new subdivisions seem merely to correspond to superficial diversifications they are effects of chance or of a playful invenBut at other times they are precise adaptations ;ive exuberance. he fundamental type.
strength, so to speak, to groping
its
comes within sight, and from that moment the rhythm of change slows down. The new invention, having reached the limit of its potentialities, enters its finally
has
*
;
by the branches of life. At the outset the phylum corresponds to the discovery \ by groping, of a new type of organism that is
its
\nd because each of these variants brings its own particular idvantage, they have no power or reason to eliminate each other. That explains why, as it grows, the phylum tends to split up nto secondary phyla, each being a variant or harmonic of
by
a
phylum
in full
verticil of consolidated forms.
touch to the whole phenomenon
the heart of each clement
of the
— we
find
profound inclination ;owards socialisation. On the subject of socialisation I must repeat my general observations made above on the vital power of issociation. Since definite groupings of organised and diffcren:iated individuals or aggregates (ants, bees, mankind) are relatively rare in nature, we might be tempted to think of them as freaks of evolution. But this early impression soon gives way to the opposite conviction that they exemplify one of the most essential laws of organised matter. Is it the last resort employed oy the living group to augment by mutual adherence its resis:ance to destruction and its capacity for conquest ? Is it a useful Lt
—
117
verticil a
THE EXPANSION OF LIFE
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN means
for increasing inner wealth
ever the fundamental reason
by pooling resources
may
be, the fact
is
What-
?
there
once
:
they have attained their definitive form at the end of each verticillate ray, the elements of a phylum tend to come together and
form
societies just as surely as the
atoms of a
solid
body tend
to
has achieved this last progress in consolidating and
it
individualising the extremities of
can be said to have attained
now
its
full
its
phylum persist, from
ramification, the
maturity.
It
will
thinned out and then eliminated either by internal weakening or external competition. Then, except for the on, until
it is
accidental survival
come
to an
end
of a few permanendy fixed
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;unless by
a process
of
lines, its
story has
self-fertilisation
it
starts
somewhere or other shooting out a new bud. To understand the mechanism of this revivification, we must return once again to the idea or symbol of groping. As we have already seen, the formation of a verticil
is
explained in the
first
by the phylum's need to pluralise itself in order to cope with a variety of different needs or possibilities. But since the number of stems is always on the increase, and since, moreover, each stem that splits up increases the number of individuals, place
'
trials
'
and
out of the
'
experiments
phylum
'
the fissure, the formula, giving
new compartment of life,
fixed or merely spreading out in
branch finds
Through
number too. The fanning of exploring antennae. And
increase in
involves a forest
when one of these chances upon access to a
the
to divide in
all
its
new
then instead of becoming
monotonous
mobility once more.
variations, the
It enters
on mutation.
opening, another pulsation of life surges, soon
turn into verticils under the influence
of the of aggregation and disjunction. A new phylum appears, grows, and spreads out above tixc branch on which it was born though without necessarily stifling or exhausting it. combined
And
Thus, by the very rhythm of
development, each
its
line
of life
follows a process of alternate contraction and expansion. It takes
crystallise.
Once
c. Effects of Distance
its
forces
so the process continues. Perhaps a third branch germinates
on the second, and yet a fourth on the thirdâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;always provided the branches are on the right path and the general equilibrium of the biosphere
is
favourable.
118
on the appearance of a series of knots and bulges, strung beads, a sequence of narrow peduncles and spreading leaves.
But
gives only a
this
theoretical
For the process to be
happens.
seen as
representation it
really
is,
like
of what
we
should
require a terrestrial witness simultaneously present through the
whole of duration, and the very idea is monstrous. In reality, the ascent of life can only be apprehended by us from the standpoint of a short instant, that is through an immense layer of lapsed time. What is granted to our experience and which subsequently
movement its
phenomenon is thus not the evolutionary it is this movement corrected according to '
in itself
alteration
show
*
the
constitutes
itself ?
;
by the effects of distance. How does this alteration Quite simply through the accentuation (rapidly
with the distance) of the fan-structure deriving from of life. This happens, moreover, in two ways first by exaggeration of the apparent dispersion
increasing
the phyletic radiations different
;
of the phyla and subsequently by the apparent suppression of the peduncles.
Exaggeration of
apparent dispersion of the phyla.
the
optical illusion, affecting to the
*
Only an
decimation
'
infinitesimal
on the
of
all
observation,
is
due
This
to the ageing
the living branches as a result
number of the organisms
diat have
of
first
and age.
grown
of life exist for us to inspect today. And, despite all the efforts of palaeontology, many extinct forms will remain unknown to us for ever. As a result of this destruction, many gaps are continually forming in the ramifications of the animal and vegetable kingdom, and die farther back we go, the larger the gaps are. Dried up branches have broken off. Leaves have fallen. Many transitional forms have disappeared and their absence often makes the surviving lines of generation look gaunt successively
tree
119
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN and
THE EXPANSION OF LIFE
Duration, which with one hand multiplies
solitary.
creations ahead,
works no
diligently with the other
less
By
thinning out the ranks in the rear.
so doing,
it
separates
its
hand them
them more and more in our vision, while at and more subde process, it gives us another time, by same illu si on of seeing them floating like clouds, rootless, over off and isolates
minimum of differentiation,
to a
then, will
be the
effect
expansion and resistance. What,
of time on
Inevitably to destroy
all
this area
vestiges of
of weakness
?
it.
the
Beginnings have an the
irritating
be taken to heart by
that should
but essential fragility, and one
who occupy
all
the
themselves with
history.
abyss of past ages. Suppression of the peduncles. Since the heroic times of Lamarck
and Darwin, the favourite argument employed against the transformists has always lain in pointing out their incapacity to prove the birth of a species in terms
show
us,'
past ages, strate the
say these objectors,
and
we
of material *
traces.
a succession
will even concede that
'
Admittedly you
of varying forms in
you
are able to
demon-
transformation of those forms within certain limits.
But however primitive it is, your first mammalian is already a mammal, your first equine already a horse, and so on all along the line. Accordingly, though there may well be evolution within
a
given type,
we
So the increasingly rare still
no new type produced by evolution.' fixed-type survivors of the school
see
*
'
contend.
Quite apart from
all
the arguments that can be based, as
we
on the continual accumulation of palaeontological is a more weighty answer (a conclusive proof in fixed-type school's case can be rebutted. fact) with which the What die antiIt consists in denying the initial assumption. nothing less than that we should transformists are demanding is show them the peduncle of a phylum. But this demand is both pointless and unreasonable. To satisfy it we should have to change the very nature of the world and the conditions under which we perceive it. Nothing is so delicate and fugitive by its very nature as a beginning. As long as a zoological group is young, its characters remain indeterminate, its structure precarious and its dimensions scant. It is composed of relatively few individual units, and these change rapidly. In space as in duration, the peduncle (or, which shall
see,
evidence, there
It is
the same
in
every domain
begins to germinate around us,
when anything
:
we cannot
really
distinguish
it
new
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for the
very good reason that
it could only be recognised in the light of going to be. Yet, if, when jt has reached full growth, we look back to find its starting point, we only find that the starting point itself is now hidden from our view, destroyed or
what
it is
Close as they are to
forgotten.
Romans ? Where And where, even
us,
where
are the first
Greeks and
are the first shutdes, chariots or hearth-stones ? after the shortest lapse
motor-cars, aeroplanes or cinemas
of time, are the
first
In biology, in civilisation, in
?
draughtsman with an drawing of life. By a mechanism whose detail in each individual case seems avoidable and accidental, but which, taken over a wide range, expresses a fundamental condition of our knowledge, embryos, peduncles and all early stages of growth fade and vanish as they recede into the past. Except for the fixed maxima, the consolidated achieveas in all things, time, like a
linguistics,
eraser, rubs
out every
weak
line in the
*
'
*
comes
to the
same
what has terminal enlargements of the
ments, nothing, neither trace nor testimony, subsists of
gone before. In other words, the fans are only prolonged into the present by
their survivors or
'
thing, the bud) of a living branch corresponds
120
their fossils.
With finding,
that understood, there
when we
into the
world
and
If *
our machines
fossilised
pression as
we
these products
look back, that everything seems to have burst
That which moves automatically from our view (by the selective absorption of
(cars, planes, etc.)
were swallowed up
in
some cataclysm
\ future geologists, finding them, would get the same imget from the pterodactyl. Represented only by the
latest
makes,
of our invention would seem to them to have been created
without any previous evolutionary groping first
nothing surprising in our
ready made. 1
tends to disappear 1
is
attempt.
121
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;completed and
*
fixed
'
at the
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN become
resolved into a discontinuous succession of
stabilities
throughout the whole domain of what
the ages) to
and
levels
The
Mammalia
us. 1
appears to
destruetivencss of the past, superimposed
on
the con-
strued veness of growth, enables us in the light of science to distinguish and
make
a
diagram of the ramifications of the
tree
of life. Let us try to see
it
THE TREE OF
3.
it.
50
LIFE
The Main Lines
A.
A
and to measure
in its concrete reality,
the Layer of the Mammals. from what has gone before that, to get a clear view of the tree of Life, we must make our eyes see that part of Not it only moderately affected by the corrosive action of rime.
a. It
Quantitative Unit of Evolution
:
follows directly
100
'
'
too close, or the leaves will get in the
way
not too
;
or the
far,
branches will lack detail.
Where
in nature today can
we
find such a privileged region
?
Undoubtedly in that great family, the mammals. If mankind constitutes a group which is still immature \ the mammals form a group which is both adult and fresh. Geology
150
'
provides us with positive evidence of this, and a simple inspection
of the internal structure of the group reaching
full
is
enough to prove
Not
it.
florescence until the Tertiary era, their grouping
appendices. That
been and 1
still is
remark
I
why
is
the
every case tion
')
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the
happy hunting-ground for
later (footnote p. 186)
non-fortuitous impossibility cf.
Cournot)
in our perception
wc
to get
on
find
the subject
of
transformist ideas.
monogenism
'
on
the
ourselves in (for fortuitous reasons in
beyond
a
certain limit of precision
of the very distant
(of
separa-
is
eventually blurred, and outside a certain radius
all.
^*^
we
distinguish nothing
diackam [Birds
i.
omitted).
of years.
122
\
/
/
PERMIAN
past. In all directions (towards the
very old and very small, but also towards the very big and very slow) our
view at
200
number of their most delicate kingdom of the mammals has long
leaves visible an appreciable
still
The development The figures on
oj the Tetrapods in
the
left
indicate
Layers
millions
THE EXPANSION OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Diag.
by
i
shows us the main lines of the group. But let us begin on the younger and more progressive
focussing our attention
branch of the
From an
mammals
— die placental.
*
physiological
we
and the Antilopidae
find the Suidae, the Camelidae, the Cervidae
— to say nothing of other
and robust group, the Proboscidia.
what I shall speak of here as a biota. By this I mean a verticillate group whose elements are not only related by birth but are mutually auxiliary and complementary in the effort to
of the
stitute
To
this
American school of palaeontology have only to observe
important point which the is
fond of emphasising,
we
of those most familiar the herbivores and the rodents who get their food directly from the vegetable kingdom, the insectivores similarly predatory on the arthropoda, the carnivores battening on both these groups, and the omnivores who dine at every table. Those are the four dominant radiations and they coincide substantially with the generally accepted classification of phyla. in a suitable light the distribution
animal forms with which
now
Let us
They
we
According
—
all
consider these four stems or sectors separately.
up
Take them at present the herbivores. two different ways in which the extremities of
sub-divide, splitting
for instance
are
easily into subordinate units.
—
the richest of
to the
Conforming
to the rule
suppression of the peduncles \ the early history of
*
of these groups
each
they have appeared the
and multiply. begin to understand
vigorous stems
')
point of view, the placental mammals, taken in the mass, con-
subsist
less
which are nevertheless as differentiated and as interesting to the palaeontologist. And we have not mentioned that abundant
1
evolutionary (one could even say a
the Artiodactyla
LIFE
principal
lost in the mists
is
wc
phases of their
But once
of the past.
them through
can follow each one of
geographical
expansion
;
also
through their successive sub-divisions into sub-verticils which proceed almost indefinitely; and
lastly
by
the exaggeration
due
to orthogenesis of certain skeletal characteristics, dental or cranial,
which generally end up by making them monstrous or delicate. Nor is this all. For we can distinguish, superimposed on this florescence of genera and species issued from die four fundamental radiations, another network corresponding to attempts to abandon life on the ground and take to even to an underground existence. Besides forms specialised for running there are arboreal and even flying forms, swimming forms, and burrowing forms. The Cetacea
made
here,
and there
the air, the water, or
and Sirenia seem to have developed surprisingly quickly from the carnivores
and the herbivores. Others (such
as
the chiroptera,
moles and mole-rats) are derived from the oldest elements of the
and the rodents both dating
the limbs are transformed into feet for running (by the hyper-
placental group, the insectivores
development of two fingers or the single median one), we see group separating into two great families, the Artiodactyla
from the end of the Secondary
and the Perissodactyla, each formed by
whole to be convinced that it represents an organic and natural grouping which is sui generis. This conviction gathers strength
this
distinct lineages.
crowd of tapirs, theridae,
In
a collection
the Perissodactyla
we
find
of large and the obscure
the short but astonishing branch of the Titano-
the Chalicotheridae with digging claws
in his early days
may
which man
possibly have seen, the Rhinocerotidae
horned and hornless, and
lastly the solipedal
Equidae, imitated
South America by a completely independent phylum.
in 1
So
called in contrast to the a-placentals (marsupials, etc.) the
nourished by a special organ, the placenta, which enables
it
In
embryo being to develop to
One
when we ional
realise that
case,
the course
124
it
docs not correspond to an isolated except-
but that similar units have periodically appeared in
of the history of
life.
We
only need mention two
examples within the confines of the mammals.
Geology teaches
us that during the Tertiary era a
of the placental biota, then
in full process
Now how
did this off-shoot react to 125
fragment
of evolution, was cut
off by the sea and imprisoned in the southern half of the
continent.
maturity in the uterus.
era.
has only to consider this elegantly balanced functional
its
American isolation
?
a
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Exactly like a plant scale
separated.
rodents,
A
— that
same design
the
It set
to
work
to say,
is
to
grow
pseudo-horses and
its
complete biota
it
its
its
reproduced on
from which
the trunk
as
THE EXPANSION OF
pseudo-elephants,
pseudo-monkeys
in miniature, a sub-biota
a
smaller
had been
it
its
pseudo-
(Platyrrhini).
within the original
And now
for our second example, furnished
by
the
mar-
To judge by and
also
by
their relatively primitive
method of reproduction
their present geographical distribution (in surviving
the
pockets),
marsupials or a-placentals
stage at the base
of their own.
On
represent
of the mammalian stem.
forming
flourished before the placentals,
the whole, except for a
a
peculiar
They must have
a separate earlier biota
few strange
types (like
pseudo-Machacrodus recently found in Patagonia), 1 marsupial biota has disappeared without leaving a trace.
that fossil this
On
neatly fitting beside each other
of
but intriguing because
the other hand,
one of
its
sub-biota accidentally developed
and conserved in Australia before die Tertiary era and again through isolation, shows such sharpness of contour and perfection as still to
make
the naturalists marvel. At the time of its discovery
its
;
the enigma has been provided by a discovery
we
flash,
In the
get a glimpse of a
Middle
no bigger than
rats
type
not yet fixed,
is
as it is in
them we can already
marsupial moles,
more
etc.
It
would be impossible
example of the power inherent
phylum
to differentiate itself into a sort
logically
complete organism.
striking
This grasped, enclodse by the sidered together. the forms
us
let
two
now
lift
biota, the placentals
these
at
and a-placentals, con-
an early date that in
two groups,
sometimes supposed
be
to
a
prolongation
mammals all
Machaerodus or sabre-toothed
tiger.
type), existing
'
of the Tertiary era and
common
at
multi-
derive
at the
Beneath this level, end of the Triassic
period of yet another verticil to which the multi tubercular type
would seem But their
accept
we
mammals
is
with
lost to us.
can say that towards the top and
group, naturally isolated by the rupture of
its
all
round
peduncle,
and individuality for us to evolutionary mass '.
sufficient sharpness
it as a practical
Let us
of
unit
call this unit a layer.
We shall A
to belong, the story of the
at least
stands out
all
be needing that unit at once.
Layer of Layers
:
When
the Tetrapods.
they measure the
the cad
at the beginning of the Quaternary* era, is strangely mimicked by the Pliocene carnivorous marsupial of South America. 2 Except for a group of rodents and (the latest arrivals) man and his dog,
126
'
—
the molar teeth were
Tliis big feline,
of the
from one narrow unique group. Taken all together they represent (in a state of florescence) but a single one of the many stems into which the Jurassic verticil of the mammals was divided namely the tritubercular. 1 At this point we have almost reached the limit of what the tubercular
b. 1
;
of other combinations may be observed in the development and opposition of molars and cusps. These other combinations have been eliminated long since. From this only one conclusion can be drawn. With the possible exception of the Ornithorhynchus and the Echidna (paradoxical oviparous forms
of closed and physio-
our eyes to the vast system
Among
but alongside
it all sorts
it,
Zoologists noticed
composing
to
in every
or
nature at the present day.
except for the probable existence right
a
mammals — shrews. And in
of
find the tritubercular type
opacity of the past will allow us to see.
imagine
the
The key to made in certain ?
these tiny creatures, already extraordinarily varied, the dental
supials, carnivorous marsupials, insectivorous marsupials, mar-
supial rats,
explain
Jurassic period, in a
pulsation
first
by Europeans, Australia, as is well known, was inhabited only by marsupials. 2 They were of great variety, however, being of herbivorous and cursorial marall shapes, sizes and habitats
—
How
constancy.
universality of such an accidental characteristic
world of small animals
supials.
of upper and lower teeth an insignificant trait in itself,
essentially tritubercular, the projections
Jurassic beds in England.
one.
LIFE
1
Which might
alternatively be called the
another coincidence which
is
'
scptcm-vertcbraccs
*
equally unexpected and significant,
seven cervical vertebrae whatever the length of the neck.
127
since, al!
by
have
THE EXPANSION OF
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN distance of the nebulae, astronomers calculate in light years.
If
we, working back from the mammals, want to enlarge and prolong our vision of the tree of
downwards,
life
we
must
Let us begin with the layer of the reptiles of the Secondary lose sight
of it below the Jurassic period, the
malian branch does not disappear into
we
find
it
a
sort of
vacuum.
era.
mam-
Instead
enveloped and covered over by a thick living growth
of an entirely different appearance
of Dinosaurians, Ptero-
:
saurians, Ichthyosauri ans, Crocodilia
and
many
other monsters
layman in palaeontology. Amongst these, the zoological distances between the various forms are considerably greater than between the various orders of mammals. Yet
less
familiar to the
three characteristics strike us at once.
Firstly,
we
are dealing
with a ramifying system. Secondly, the ramifications are already far
advanced or even nearing the end of their florescence. Thirdly,
by and large, the whole group represents nothing else than an immense and perhaps complex biota. The herbivorous forms are often gigantic. Their satellites and enemies, the carnivores, are heavy or leaping types. Besides there are the flying types, with
their bat-like
swimming
membranes
or their birds' feathers.
Lasdy,
more commammalian, yet, judged by its expansion and its final complexity, it must be assumed to have lasted at least as long. Anyhow, it disappears into the depths in die same way. About the middle of the Triassic age, Dinosaurians can still be recognised but hardly emerging from another layer which itself is approaching its decline, diat of the Permian reptiles, best typified in the Theromorphs. Clumsy and deformed and rare in our museums, the Theromorphs are much less popular than the Diplodocus or the In the distance this reptilian world seems to us
pressed than the
;
This does not prevent their taking
growing importance on the zoological horizon. At merely have
as freaks
now
life.
At one moment, before the Dinosaurs, before the mammals, they were the creatures that occupied and possessed all land that
by sea. Standing squarely on their strongly and often provided with teeth of molar form, they might well be called the first quadrupeds to be firmly established on terra firma. In the age in which we become aware of their presence, we find them abounding in a strange variety of forms horned, crested, armoured indicating (as always) a group at the end of its evolutionary career. A rather mono-
a
position of
first
regarded
belonging exclusively to South Africa, they
been definitively identified 128
as
articulated limbs,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the sole representatives
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
tonous group, as a matter of
fact,
under
its
superficial extrava-
One, moreover, which does not yet exhibit clearly the nervures of a true biota. It is nevertheless a fascinating group by virtue of the spread and the potentialities of its verticil. On the one hand there are the unchangeable tortoises, and at the other extreme, types which in their agility and cranial construction gances.
very progressive. We have every reason to believe that was among the latter that the long dormant shoot finally
are it
appeared which
was
Then another
'
to
become
tunnel \
the
At
mammalian branch. these distances,
the slices of
duration are increasingly compressed under the weight of the
When,
past.
types, as streamlined as dolphins.
Iguanodons.
complete and special stage in continental vertebrate
a
was not covered
calculate in layers.
When we
of
LIFE
we
at
the lowest level of the Permian era and below
discern another surface of the inhabited earth,
occupied only by
we
find
it
it,
now
The of squat or serpentine creatures among which it is often difficult to distinguish adult from larval forms vertebrae tubular or in a mosaic of skin glabrous or armoured again, following the general rule, we can only tiny bones. Here
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
amphibians
amphibians crawling over the slime.
a throng
;
;
find
end
an already highly differentiated world, almost coming to an ;
in this
and there
may
well be
many
other layers that
we
confuse
writhing mass, through sediments about whose thickness
immense duration we
But one thing is sure. At this level we are witnessing the emergence of an animal group from the waters in which it was nourished and formed. And at this extreme beginning of their sub-aerial life, the vertebrates display a surprising characteristic which we must and
are
still
129
unclear.
THE PHENOMENON OY MAN pause to consider.
same, particularly
motory
The
every variety the skeletal formula
In
number and composition
in the
the
is
oi the loeev
limbs, to say nothing of the marvellous similarities of
the cranial bones.
legs,
THE EXPANSION OF LIFE
fact that all
What
is
the reason for this
amphibians, reptiles and
and only four, might be explained
vergence towards
a
particularly
in
simple
?
mammals have
four
terms of mere con-
mode of locomotion But how are
(though the insects never have less than six legs).
we
complete similarity
to justify in purely mechanical terms the
of structure in these four appendices
?
In the anterior pair, the
single
humerus, then the two bones of the forearm and the
digits
of the hand.
Is
not
this,
yet again,
five
one of those accidental
combinations which could only once have been discovered and accomplished
?
If so, the
conclusion already forced upon us in
formes) are an assembly of monstrous complexity.
Wc
seem
more than anywhere numbers of layers accumulated and confused under the same heading. There are relatively young layers developing in the oceans at the very time when those of the four-footed were spreading over the continents. There are also ancient layers, still more numerous, ending up to find
here
very low stage near the Silurian, at a fundamental verticil Pisciformcs from which we see two principal stems diverging by the today nature in represented with one nostril and no jaws,
at a
:
lamprey alone, and Pisciformes with jaws and two
nostrils,
have been derived. said above about the concatenation of have After what I terrestrial forms, I will no longer attempt to unearth and analyse from which all the
this
rest
other world.
I
prefer to
draw
of
attention to a fact
a dif-
animals can only represent variation superposed on a very special
which we meet here for the first time. The oldest fishes we know are for the most part strongly, even abnormally, 1 Under this first and apparently rather fruitless attempt scaly.
solution of
at
the case of the triiubcrcularity of
Despite
their
extraordinary
mammals looms up
variety,
terrestrial
again.
air-breathing
life.
Thus when we go back towards
its
origins, the
immense and
complicated ramification of the walking vertebrates folds back
and closes
A layers
in
single
upon
oj the
Vertebrates.
stem shot off and
tubercuJar less
at
its
base a layer of
ness.
of mammals, we from which the tri-
In the case
have been able to pick out the verticil
however,
isolated itself.
made have no
We
life
in
which four-footed ness could have germinated amongst other tentative combinations. It must have done so somewhere among fish
with lobed and
spread,
is
now
'
limb-like
'
fins
represented only by
a
whose layer, once widefew living fossils the *
Dipnoi (or lung-fishes) and, a very recent surprise, the pterygian
Made to
',
'
*
Crosso-
swimming,
the fish
homogenic by mechanical adaptation (it would be better to call them the Pisci'
*
130
we go That
was an
internal skeleton
still
entirely
less and less of them, no vestige
back, the vertebrates appear is
why we
lose trace
down
to us intact.
phenomenon group we take, it
Now
this is only a particular example of a of immense importanceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; whatever living always ends by drowning itself in the depths oi mollification. This is
general
an infallible
way of causing
peduncles to vanish. level the Pisciformes disappear
Thus below the Devonian
into a sort of foetal or larval phase, incapable
of
fossilisation.
Were it not for the accidental survival of the strange Amphioxus, we should have no idea of the multiple stages that the Chordate type had to go through before being ready to fill the waters, pending
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
recently fished up in the southern seas.
superficially
As
ossified internally.
Science has
pointing to the only region of
in
cartilaginous.
'
progress about the origin of the amphibians.
hesitation,
external consolidation
remaining even in sediments that have come
stem.
peduncle closes and defines
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the world of four-footed
The Branch
c.
itself in a single
ferent order
So edifice
its
invasion of the land.
at the base a vast
which includes
vacuum ends all
the story of that
the quadrupeds and
all
enormous
the fishes, the
branch oj the vertebrates.
Without this ossified integument they would have them and we should never have known of them. 1
131
left
nothing behind
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN With
d.
we
THE EXPANSION OF
the vertebrate branch
The Remaining Branches of Life. have, within the biosphere, the greatest definite
Two
biology.
to systematic
other
besides the vertebrate, contribute to
cation of
life
arthropods,
— one
the
consolidated
two
worms
by
The
succeeded in in
first
drawn but away into the
less
a
and right
;
in
same general pattern of development of the
forms of socialisation. There seems no reason these
various lines
dates, the
insects,
we
Thus we is
greater
see
com-
observe extreme
doubt that in the abysses of time converge towards some common pole of to
we
reach the junction of the
Annelids and the plants (the junction of the
among the mctazoa, while their junction with much lower still and among the protozoa), their
Chortwo
first
being
the plants
is
respective
trunks
vanish
Porifera,
to the
into
a
complex of extremely strange forms
Echinodermata, Coelenterata.
problem of
life, a
All
tentative
answers
*
*
mushroom. Nor can wc Below the Precambrian
And
from what
say
the
stage,
all
this
unicellular
so the roots of the tree of
unknowable world of
the
soft tissue
life are lost to view in and the metamorphosis of
emerges beyond question (though we arc unable to how, so wide is the breach of continuity caused by duration) from another world quite unbelievably old and multiform infusoria, various protozoa and bacteria free cells, naked or shelled in which the kingdoms of life arc confused and which science is unable to classify. Applied to them, the words animal All this
:
The Dimensions
b.
So
we
that
bring to a close our very sketchy diagram of the forms
have been observed and
naturalists
from
labelled
by
the patient labour
of
Aristotle to Linnaeus and onwards. In the course
of describing it, we have already tried to communicate the enormous complexity of the world we were attempting to It remains for us, by a final effort of vision and resuscitate. facing
as
it
dimensions.
and
more
a whole, to realise
Of
their
own is
explicitly its prodigious
accord our minds always tend, not
their function) but also to
the realities
abbreviate
they
touch.
They
condense over-
falter,
burdened by the weight of distances and multitudes. So having sketched, for what it is worth, the expansion of life, it is incumbent on us to restore to the elements of our diagram their true dimensions, in number, in volume and in duration. Let us First
now attempt
of
all, in
this.
number, for the sake of simplicity our sketch
of the animate world had to be orders,
say
132
able to deter-
creatures too lose every kind of calcareous or siliceous skeletal
:
thicket of abortive branches.
—
no longer
find in a
only to clarify (which
But long before
dispersion.
firmly
but because in the
;
branches are obviously older, there
plication and, in the instance
more
are
with layers piled on layers and mycelium of confused fibres such
with
at the base the fading-
world of unstable chemical forms.
latter case the
we
germinated.
primaeval slime.
Indeed,
in a struggle
deeper, the layers with stems
well equipped
as
We
meaning.
are dealing
branches on branches, or a
the atmosphere.
the
boned animals for the world's available space. It would be possible to analyse these two other branches as we have just analysed the vertebrates, but 1 think we can dispense with that. At the top we find the newer groups, rich in ;
we
mine whether
form.
nature today, plants and insects are locked
delicate verticils
or vegetable lose all
second by breaking out of their watery
calcareous matter,
or
chitin
only,
(Annelida) and
other by the vegetable kingdom.
spread vigorously
to
and
branches,
forming the main ramifi-
consituted by the
cellulose, they, too,
prison,
group known
LIFE
biota,
collective units,
layers,
have
tudes that in fact to think in
made
in bold strokes
we
really
we were
dealing with
?
Anyone who wishes
terms of evolution, or write about
off
by wandering through one of
are
four or five in the world
whose heroism and
— families,
But in dealing with these even begun to imagine die multi-
branches.
spiritual
— in
those great
which
(at
it,
should
museums
the cost
of
value will one day be 133
start
—there efforts
under-
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN stood) a host of travellers has succeeded in concentrating in a
handful of rooms the entire spectrum of
There, without
life.
him surrender himself to what he by the uniaround him, and become impregnated by it
bothering about names, sees
let
:
of thousands
4
whose
verse of the insects
reliable
species are counted in tens
'
by the molluscs, thousands more, inexhaustibly
;
variegated in their marblings and their convolutions
unexpected, capricious, and
fishes, flies
by the
;
feather,
hardly
birds,
and beak
less
;
our minds
a
;
as
by the butter-
And
ot
every coat, carriage, and
for each
word, which brings
dozen manageable torms, what multiplicity, what
And to think that all we sec are What would it be like if all the others
impetus, what effervescence
merely the survivors
were
marked
extravagant, ol every form,
by the antelopes
diadem. And so on, and so on. to
as prettily
there too
!
every epoch of the earth, on every
In
?
!
level
museums would have displayed the same teeming luxuriance. Added together, the hundreds of thousands of names in our catalogues do not amount to one millionth of
of"
evolution, other
the leaves that
Next,
By
volume.
in
groups in nature
?
this
of
quantitatively,
ance,
on die mean what
have sprouted so I
:
the relative import-
M. Cuenot,
has
and botanical
?
give a rough idea of their proportion,
here the very illuminating diagram in field,
is
life.
share belongs to each, materially, in
the general assemblage ot organised beings
To
tree of
various zoological
the
What
far
shown
which
I
am a
reproducing
master in
this
the principal departments of the
animal kingdom, in the light of the most recent advances This
science.
but
it
is
a
diagram of position rather than
answers precisely the question
1
am
in
ot structure,
asking.
we may well receive an initial shock â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the sort of shock we get when an astronomer speaks of our solar system as a simple star, of all our stars as a single Milky Way, and of our Milky Way as a mere atom among other galaxies. Mammals does not that word normally sum up our idea of Looking
at
it,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
*
animal
'
?
the tree of
Here life.
it is,
a
Around
poor it,
little
on
lobe, a belated offshoot
on
the other hand, and beneath
134
The Tree oj Life* after Cuenot. On this 2. principal lobe {or bunch) represents a grade at each diagram least as important {morphologically and quantitatively) as
diagram
that
*
of the whole of the Mammalia taken togetlnr. Below AB the forms are aquatic; above it they live on land.
the line
t
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE EXPANSION OF
what a teeming rivalry of types, of whose existence, magnitude and multitude we have been unaware Mysterious creatures we may well have come upon, hopping among dead leaves or crawling over a beach, and upon which we may have bestowed an idle glance without pausing to wonder about their origin or !
mammals, once again
such as the
as
we have
seen,
mammals,
—we
of
the average structural divergence
LIFE
can apprehend vaguely
which,
types, a divergence
Now
took some eighty million years.
and the higher plants
compare
number
significance—creatures negligible in size and today probably in too. Here these despised forms come into their own.
(which is possible) the three branches at whose ends these three groups flourish did not strike off exactly from the same stem but shot up separately from a common mycelium \ What length of
By
time was necessary to effect the gigantic divergence
the wealth of their modalities, by the length of time it took nature to produce them, they represent each of them a world as important as ours. Quantitatively— I emphasise the word—
we
are only one
among
these others, and the latest
Lastly, in duration.
struction
for
This
is,
our imaginations.
different levels
of the past
As
comers
have
I
said
already,
the
are
compressed and telescoped in our vision even more than the horizons of space. How are we to separate them out ?
To
put the depths of
best return to
Because
what
I
this layer is
time required for
its
development from
the moment when it clearly emerges above
whole of the Tertiary
million years.
into their true perspective,
we
had
have called above the layer of the mammals. relatively young, we have some idea of the
the Cretaceous period the
life
Let us
era and a
now
little
assume that,
on
at the
a
end of
the reptiles
more—some
florescence
(which
alone
So
clearly
another in the case of the vertebrates
we
see ?
Here the zoologist's figures would seem as if tending to contradict the geologist's. Physicists, having measured the lead-content of Precambrian mineral, are prepared to allow only hundred million years from the earliest sediment of carbon onwards. Must not the first organisms have existed long
fifteen
before these
vestiges
first
Besides, if there
?
which of the two timc-measurcments the years of the earth
?
The slow
its full
what can be
the total
count
?
thousand years for
growth (and no one yet
trust to
disintegration of radium or the
slow aggregation of living matter If it takes five
disagreement,
is
we
shall
a
mere sequoia
to reach
has seen one die a natural death)
age of the tree of
life ?
:
c.
The Evidence
given zoological
that their periods
are
unless
;
'
eighty
branch, the lateral layers strike off at regular intervals, as on the trunk of a pine-tree.
the insects
a radiferous
at that.
the most difficult recon-
as usual,
the
of
registrable)
maximum
follow
one
Now we tree,
can
see
no doubt.
the tree of
We
could
life
A
standing before us.
call
it
the negative
contrary to what happens with our great forest
of
a
trees, its
strange
tree,
for
branches
mate duration of a zoological interval is to count up the number of layers in it and multiply by 80,000,000. We have three layers,
and trunk are revealed to our eyes only by ever-widening gaps an almost petrified tree, as it appears to us, so long do the buds take to open. Many that are half-opened now we shall never know in any other state. A clearly drawn tree, none the less, with its
for instance, at the lowest estimate,
superimposed foliage of living
million years apart.
All
we need
the base of the tetrapods.
The
to
do
at a
distance of eighty
to estimate the approxi-
between the mammals and
figures
become imposing. But
they tally well enough with current geological ideas
immensity of the
as to the
Permian and Carboniferous ages. We can try to follow another method in a more approximate way from branch to branch. Within one and the same layer— Triassic,
136
;
vast dimensions,
it
species.
In
Before attempting to probe the secret of
good look it,
there
is
at
it.
For,
a lesson
its
main
stands there before us covering
from
a
its
lite,
lines
and
the earth.
all
let us
take a
merely external contemplation of
and a force to be drawn from
of its testimony. 137
it
:
the sense
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
We
find here and there in the world people
still
are suspicious
a
THE EXPANSION OF
and
regards evolution.
sceptical as
book-knowledge of nature and
that the transformist battle
And
of Darwin.
naturalists these
people imagine
carried on as in
still
is
whose minds Having only days
the
because biologists continue to discuss species could have been
mechanisms by which
the
formed, they
imagine that biologists hesitate (or that they could hesitate without suicide) about the fact and reality of such a development.
But
the real situation
In the course
of
is
quite otherwise.
of the organised world, the reader may have been surprised at my failing so far to mention the still lively quarrels over the soma and the germplasm \ over the distinction between the l
*
'
function of
existence and
'
genes
over the transmission or
',
The
non-transmission of acquired characters. the point
concern
I
me
is
that at
is
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; guarantee, mean, the objectivity ot an evolution â&#x20AC;&#x201D;one thing, and one thing
substantial
only,
truth
have reached in my inquiry, these questions do not directly. To provide anthropogenesis with a natural
framework and man with necessary.
Namely
a cradle
to
I
that the general phylogenesis
(whatever the process and springboard of
it
may
of
life
see
without the
least
astonishment every Living creature
pass. a
quasi-mechanical proof of
biosphere imposes pattern at which
itself
we
this
global growth of the
inescapably on our niinds by the material
inevitably end
up with each new
effort to
point by point, the contours and nervures of the organised
world.
No a
efforts at analysis life sheds its
husk.
life
breaks
It
degree into an anatomically and physio-
infinite
system of overlapping
logically coherent
appreciable fans of sub-species and races
fans.
We
1
find barely
ones of species
larger
;
still larger ones of biota, then of layers, then of And, to end with, the whole assemblage, animal and vegetable, forming by association one single gigantic biota,
and genera
;
branches.
simple stem,
a
in
some
verticil steeped in
would thus be on something else. From top to bottom, from the biggest to the smallest, one same visible structure whose design, reinforced by the very of
the depths a
mega-molecular world.
the
Life
simple branch based
disposition of the
shadows and voids,
accentuated and pro-
is
by the quasi-spontaneous arrangement of the unforeseen elements brought forth by the day. Each newly-discovered form finds its natural place, though of course nothing within the framework is absolutely new '. What more do wc need to be convinced that all this was bom longed (no hypothesis
this!)
*
9
that
all this
has grown
?
Thenceforward wc can go on for years arguing about the way which the enormous organism could have come into being.
in
As we look closer at the bewildering complexity of the mechanour brains begin to reel. How arc we to reconcile this persistent growth with the determinism of the molecules, the blind play of the chromosomes, the apparent incapacity to transmit individual acquisitions by generation
words, arc J
one would think of doubting
the gyratory origin
spiral nebulae, the progressive accretion
of
an
to
of the layer of
the evolutionary origins
ism,
Now
fix,
down
be) should be
as clearly recognisable as the individual orthogenesis through
which we
moment about
on the earth ? Under our
rooted perhaps, like
chapter devoted to die concatenations
this
a
LIFE
crystal or
of
of the
particles at the heart
of a stalagmite or the concretion of the
woody
1
bundles position,
'
round the which seem
irrefutable sign
axis
of
a stalk.
Certain geometrical dis-
of kinematics.
How 138
could
we
hesitate
fans,
it
would
another way, especially
in
'
How,
?
'
finalist
composed
ot course be possible to trace the connec-
giving
ot several stems derived
arrived similarly less
well,
at in
more importance
trom
to the parallelisms
different verticils,
the quadruped tormula.
my
affect
my
unity
which maaifestly
fundamental
opinion.
thesis,
in other
evolution of
and convergence. The tetrapods, tor example, could he regarded
and
even for
to reconcile the external,
As regards these
tions in
the facts
to us perfecdy stable, arc the trace
we
In
any case
viz, that life
indicates the
Tl\is its
a
bundle
polyphvletic scheme
truth
would not
in
the
tits
least
displays an organically articulated
phenomenon 139
as
each one having
ol
growth.
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN phenotypes with the internal, mechanistic evolution of genotypes
Though we
take
it
apart,
may
machine works. This
we
well be, but the machine
while standing in front of us cause chemistry
should
we
and
;
it
works
all
by year
all things
how is
?
the
mean-
the same.
Be-
floundering over the formation of granites,
dispute the fact that the continents
granitic year
Like
is still
cannot understand
still
evolutionary nature and dimension.
corresponds with a function
Physically and historically
X
which determines the position of every living thing in space, in duration and in form. This is the fundamental fact which requires an explanation but the evidence for it is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by :
experience.
At this degree of generalisation, it may be said that the problem of transformism no longer exists. The question is settled once and for all. To shake our belief now in the reality of it would be necessary to uproot the undermine the entire structure of the world. 1
biogenesis,
1
As
tree
of
life
and
matter of fact, in view of the impossibility of empirically perceiving any entity, animate or inanimate, otherwise than as engaged in the time-space
Throughout the express life's way some way towards
we
spoke of growth to were even able to go recognising the principle behind this impetus which seemed to us linked up with the phenomenon of controlled additivity. By a continuous accumulation of properties (whatever the exact hereditary mechanism involved) life acts like a snowball.
It
foregoing chapter
of proceeding.
upon
piles characters
We
characters in
its
protoplasm.
It
becomes more and more complex. But, taken as a whole, what Is it like the is the meaning of this movement of expansion ? confined and functional explosion of the internal combustion engine ? Or is it a disorderly release of energy in all directions like the blast
of
a
high explosive
?
a
evolutionary theory has long since ceased to be a hypothesis, to become (dimensional) condition which all hypotheses of physics or biology must
series, a
DEMETER
which time is definitely estabis, and only can be, a reality of
in a universe in
lished as a fourth dimension, life
it
CHAPTER THREE
become more
?
henceforth
about the
satisfy.
way
Biologists and
palaeontologists are
things happen, and above
transformations, and whether there
is
a
still
arguing today
about the mechanism of life's preponderance of chance (the Neoall
Darwinians) or of invention (the Nco-Lamarckians) in the emergence of new characters. But on the general and fundamental fact that organic evolution life as a whole or to any given living creature in today in agreement for die very good reason that they couldn't practise science if they thought otherwise. The one regret we
equally to
exists, applicable
particular, all scientists are
might express here (and not without astonishment) is that despite the clearness of the facts, this unanimity does not go so far as to admit the 'galaxy of living '
forms constitutes
(as posited in these pages) a vast
'orthogenetic
of involution on an ever-greater complexity and consciouness. return to this
at
the conclusion of this book.
140
'
movement
But we
shall
That there I
have
said,
is
common ground among
that evolution life
is
an evolution of one sort or another
is
directed
is
scientists.
another question.
going anywhere at the end of
its
now, as Whether or not Asked whether is
transformations, nine
biologists out of ten will today say no, even passionately. will say is
in
a
* :
It is
state
They
abundantly clear to every eye that organic matter
of continual metamorphosis, and even that this
metamorphosis brings improbable forms.
it
with time towards more and more
But what
scale
can
we
find
to assess the
absolute or even relative value of these fragile constructions
?
By what right, for instance, can we say that a mammal, or even man, is more advanced, more perfect, than a bee or a rose ? To some extent we can arrange beings in increasingly wide circles according to the distance in time which separates them from the 141
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN initial cell.
But, once
we
reached,
a certain
DHMETER
degree of differentiation has been
can no longer find any scientific grounds for pre-
one of these laborious products of nature to another. They are different solutions but each equivalent to the next. One spoke of the wheel is as good as any other no one of the ferring
—
;
anywhere in particular.' Science in its development and even, as I shall show, mankind in its march is marking time at this moment, because
lines appears to lead
—
—
men's minds are reluctant to recognise that evolution has precise
and
orientation
a
privileged
Weakened by
axis.
a
this
fundamental doubt, the forces of research are scattered, and there is
no determination Leaving aside
I
believe
line
and
I
to build the earth.
alJ
can see
which
and a
line
of progress for
marked
are in fact so well
of tomorrow.
And
1
want here
to
life,
that
admitted
convinced their reality will be universally science
?
there one, that
Is
more
whole of living things a
is
make the
by
I
a
am the
reader
understand why.
which
to say,
gives to the
satisfying coherence, either in
relation to itself, or in relation to the
world to which life finds committed ? To answer this question, think we had better go back to said above about the mutual relations between the what itself
J
I
without and the within
of
The
things.
could well be represented by the universe
at
given moment.
a
fundamentally be nothing this
psychic
'
or
'
'
radial
'
*
essence of the real,
inferiority
In
that
which (Book
case
1,
Chapter
2, 3
I
said,
contained by the evolution
would
than the continual growth of energy, in the course of duration,
practically constant
is
'
else
beneath and within the mechanical energy
anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism,
a direction
a direction
than the others
on the
scale
I
called
'
tangential \
of our observations
Spiritual Energy, Section B).
And what,
which empirically expresses the relationship between the radial and tangential energies of the world in the course of their respective developments ? Obviously arrangement, the arrangement whose successive advances
I
asked,
is
the particular co-efficient
are inwardly reinforced, as
we
can see, by a continual expansion and deepening of consciousness.
ARIADNE'S THREAD
i.
Let us turn this proposition round (not in a simple adjustment of perspective).
but by
To
we
are dealing here with degrees
of organic complication, let us try to find an order in the complexity. Contemplated without any guiding thread, it must be recognised that the host of living creatures forms qualitatively begin with,
as
an inextricable labyrinth.
going through In the course
of
this
What
is
happening, where are we
monotonous succession of ramifications
of ages, doubtless, creatures acquire
increased sensibility.
But they
also reduce
more
them by
?
organs
specialisa-
numerable ebullience, superficial
complications
we
by
vicious circle,
organic
the in-
matter
in
hard to distinguish those which are merely diversifications and those (if any) which would reprefind
sent a renewal
Well
undergone
a
Among
it
and re-grouping of the
then, let us just try to see
binations tried out
by
life,
stuff
of the universe.
whether, amongst
some
all
the
com-
are not organically associated
with a positive variation in the psychism of those beings which possess it. If so, let us seize on them and follow them for, if ;
what
meaning of the term complication ? There are so many different ways in which an animal can become less simple differentiation of limbs, of tissues, of sensory organs, of integument. According to the point of view adopted, all sorts of distributions are possible. In these multiple combinations, is there really one which can be said to be truer Besides,
tion.
is
the real
'
'
—
142
my
hypothesis be correct, they are undoubtedly the ones which,
among
equivocal mass of insignificant transformations, represent the very essence of complexity, of essential metamorphosis. the
There
is every chance that they will lead us somewhere. Framed in these terms, the problem is immediately solved. Of course there exte in living organisms a selective mechanism
143
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
DEMBTER
of consciousness. We have merely to look into perceive it— the nervous system. We are in a positive way aware of one single inferiority in the world our own directly, and at the same time that of other men by immediate equivalence, thanks to language. But we have every for the play
had hardly
ourselves to
This can also be observed within a single line of descent.
'
'
:
reason to think that in animals too
inwardness
a certain
exists,
approximately proportional to the development of their brains. So let us attempt to classify living beings by their degree of '
cerebralisation \
What
happens
?
—
An
order appears— the very
we wanted and automatically. To begin with, let us turn to that part of the tree of life we know best, partly because it is still full of vitality and partly because we belong to it ourselves— the Chordate branch. In order
this
group an outstanding
characteristic
is
apparent, one
has for long been emphasised in palaeontology.
from
It is
that
which
we
layer to layer, by massive leaps, the nervous system
tinually
developing and concentrating.
We
know
find
con-
example of the enormous Dinosaurs whose absurdly small brain was no more than a narrow string of lobes considerably smaller in all
the
diameter than the spinal chord in the lumbar region, reminding us of the state of affairs still lower, in the amphibians and the fishes.
we
But when
see a
we
pass to the stage
above— the mammals
remarkable change.
Among
the
mammals,
average brain
in their distribution.
is
to say, this time, within a single
is
The gradation
in the first place follows
the
position of the biota.
In nature at the present day the placentals take precedence in the matter of brain over the marsupials. Next, within the same biotas, we find a gradation according to age.
We
see
placental
relatively smaller
the
few primates) always lower Tertiary age than in strongly emphasised by extinct
brains (except for a
and simpler
Eocene carnivores, for instance, the cerebrum, stage,
is
In the
in the marsupial
still
smooth and well separated from the cerebellum.
would be easy
to add to the
taking any oifshoot find that
reptiles.
(provided
list.
from any
In general
verticil, it is
long enough)
it is
it
may
It
be said that,
only rarely that
we
does not lead in time to
it
more and more cerebralised forms. Taking another branch, the arthropods and the insects, we find the same phenomenon. Dealing as we are now with another sort of consciousness, we are less sure of our values, but the thread which guides still seems to hold. From group to group and age to age, these forms, psychologically so far removed, *
'
The grow forward in the head. At the same time instincts become more and simultaneously the extraordinary phenomena of complex socialisation appear, to which we shall have to return. display,
the influence
like ourselves,
nerve ganglions concentrate
of cerebralisation.
they become localised and
;
;
We
could continue
this
enough, however, to show
we have found
analysis indefinitely.
how
have
I
said
easily the skein is disentangled
For obvious reasons of convenience, naturalists setting out to classify organic forms have once
the end.
been led to make use of certain variations of ornament, for
that
much more voluminous and convoluted than in any other group of vertebrates. Yet, when we look closer, we see not only many inequalities, but a remarkable order layer, the
advanced beyond that of the Secondary
in the
Miocene and Pliocene. This
instance,
or functional modifications of the skeleton. Guided by
orthogenesis affecting the coloration and nervation of wings,
of limbs, or the shape of
the disposition sorts
living world. to
teeth, their classification
out the fragments or even the skeleton of
But because the
lines thus traced
a
structure in the
correspond only
the secondary harmonics of evolution, the system
has neither shape nor
movement.
On
whole from the
as a
the other hand,
moment that the measure (or parameter) of the evolving phenomenon is sought in the elaboration of the nervous systems, not only do the countless genera and species
fall
naturally into place,
phyla such as the Condylarthra or Dinocerata, those horned monsters whose brain-case (in size and the spacing of the lobes)
network of their verticils, their layers, their but branches, rises up like a quivering spray of foliage. Not only does the arrangement of animal forms according to their degree
144
145
is
the entire
k
'
DEMETER
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN of cerebralisation correspond exactly systematic biology, but
it
the classification
to
on the
also confers
tree
of life
of
of feature, an impetus, which is incontcstably the hall-mark of truth. Such coherence and, let me add, such case, inexhaustible fidelity and evocative power in this coherence could not
THE RISE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
2.
a sharp-
ness
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
life is
as It
which the complication of
the infinite modalities in
nervous
dispersed, the differentiation of
theory
would
tissue stands out,
lead us to expect, as a significant transformation.
provides a direction
;
and therefore
it
proves that evolution has a
That
my
is
But
conclusion.
first
it
has
We
corollary.
its
began by saying that, among living creatures, the brain was have now added the sign and measure of consciousness.
We
that,
among
itself
with time, so
living creatures, the brain
essentially linked final
much
is
continually perfecting
so that a given quality of brain appears
with a given phase of duration.
conclusion proclaims
itself,
a
conclusion which at
the
of
clear a.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in value,
To
in
When we that, if their
exterior to the it
the surface,
we
consciousness.
find the nerve fibres and ganglions
We
were only looking
initial
evolution)
On
deep down,
for a simple rule to sort
And now
out the tangle of appearances.
with our
;
earth.
(entirely in
keeping
on the ultimately psychic nature of fundamental variable capable of following
anticipations
we possess
a
But on one condition, obviously a condition which will seem irksome to certain scientific prejudice. It is that by a change of front, a reversal of plane, we abandon the without to delve into the Yes, almost.
light
of the
radial
by
this
first cells,
much more important
on
'
progress
simple change
of
life
the
in
we
considered
for scientists to
We
con-
moreover, that
said,
emergence of organised matter marked
a critical
the curve of this evolution.
phenomenon seemed
now we
to
become
we
lost in
the
almost forgot
it.
emerging again, on the tide, with the tide (duly recorded by the nervous systems), whose flood carries the ving mass ever onward towards more consciousness. This is the
But
see it
great primaeval
movement
reappearing,
whose sequel we now
grasp.
movements of and foldings, the palaeontologist who animal forms in time is apt to see in the
Like the geologist occupied in recording the the earth, the faultings
?
brought to
multitude of ramifications, to the point that
in the past, and perhaps defining Ln the future, the true curve
of the phenomenon. Will that solve the problem
tangential
it
After that the
the interior to the
with the
is
than any superficial oscillations.
amounts on the
installation oi a psychic state coextensive
'
was apparently because the initial formation of the protoplasm was bound up with a state which the general chemistry of the earth passed through only once. The earth, we said, should be regarded as the seat of a certain global and irre-
whole of time,
nervous system,
vast
the *
everything becomes definitively
discussed the origin
point
a
appears
spontaneous generation took place only once in the
the primordial
on
it
general history of our planet.
the length of each stem, the natural history of living creatures
gradual establishment of
affecting
the place occupied by the development
is
as
of losing ourselves
operation and in hope.
begin with, what
follows in our disquisition.
therefore corresponds
Now
internal energies.
its
sider
and throughout
movement of life
'
this time, instead
energies of the world, let us try to follow the
versible evolution,
its totality
But
of arrangements
labyrinth
one and the same time confirms the bases and controls what Since, in
expansionist
*
broad outline.
its
of variable
direction.
The
in in
be the result of chance.
Among
Let us return to the
fixes
past
the position of the
nothing but
a
monotonous
series
of homogeneous pulsations.
;
In
these records,
the
146
succeeded the reptiles which
succeeded the amphibians, just as the Alps replaced the
Mountains which had
within of things,
mammals
in their turn replaced the
U7
Cimmerian
Hercynian range.
DEMETER
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Henceforward we can and must break away from this view which lacks depth. We have no longer the crawling sine curve, but the spiral which springs upward as it turns. From one zoological '
layer to another, something ceaselessly
and
in
carried over:
is
it
And
a constant direction.
'
grows,
this
'
jerkily,
something
but *
is
most physically essential in the planet we live on. The evolution of the simple bodies following the radio-active way, the granitic segregation of continents, the possible isolation of the
what
is
of the globe many other transformations besides movement form no doubt a continuous bass underlying
from time to time to break up the collective which he is imprisoned, it is indispensable that he should be shaken and prodded from outside. What would we do without our enemies ? While capable of supply regulating within
habit, and also
frameworks
in
organic bodies the blind to exploit for are
born
its
movement of molecules,
and events
the vital
ingeniousness and these stimulants do
but since
;
life
separated out within the
no longer
the quality
With the birth of the first albuminterrestrial phenomenon shifted in a decisive
or being the supreme event. oids, the essence
way
of the
mental
inertia
would
the
*
them
?
Beneath the
The impetus of
radial \
drive of consciousness, can only have
ever-increasing harmonies, the different objects of science
act in
visible in proper perspective
see
life at
the head, with
the heart of
life,
all
explaining
become
and in their true proportions. physics subordinate to
its
it.
We
And
at
progression, the impetus of a rise
of consciousness. b.
The Impetus of
Life.
This
is
a
question hotly debated by
naturalists ever since die understanding
on
the understanding of evolution.
of nature has been hinged
Faithful to their analytical
we
as
inner principle,
'
to a
this
funda-
have pointed out,
tangential
its
we
'
find the
glimpsed in the great
the world,
become concentrated in that seemingly negligible thickness, the biosphere. The axis of geogenesis is now extended in biogenesis, which in the end will express itself in psychogenesis. From an inward point of view, constantly confirmed by to
applied
mechanical energies themselves be without some
to feed
within
if
And what, moreover,
?
But what could
with atoms.
as
still
which
Life seems to play as cleverly with
collectivities
heart of matter, these various processes have
seems
world between material
fortuitously throughout the
currents and animate masses.
interior layers
the rhythms of the earth
life
creative arrangements the vast reactions
ultimate source in some
which alone could explain
its
irreversible
advance
towards higher psychisms.
How
can
life
respect determinism
freedom within
some day. Meanwhile
?
the vital
Perhaps
we
on the without and yet
shall
understand that better
phenomenon seems on
the
whole both
when once
the reality of a fundamental natural and possible impetus has been accepted. Furthermore, its micro-structure For we now perceive a new way of itself becomes clearer. explaining, over and above the main stream of biological evolution, the progress
and particular disposition of its various phyla. 1
and determinist methods,
biolgists persist in looking for the principle of vita, developments in external stimuli or in statistics:
1
the struggle for survival, natural selection and so on. From this point of view, the animate world could never advanceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; if it
in the
advanced
is left
sum of all Far be
at all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;otherwise
makes to remain itself. from mc, let me say once again,
the efforts it
than by the automatically regulated
of
the material forms.
To jolt
As
by
living beings,
to
deny
this historic
we
the imworking
feel it in ourselves.
the individual out of his natural laziness and the rut of
148
I
shall
be accused of showing too Lamarckian a bent in
Within in the organic arrangement of bodies. But be pleased to '
morphogenctic
'
strokes of chance that
recognised and grasped
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;that
stood the
'
*
anti-chance
Darwinian chance.
On
is
life
It is
proceeds, but strokes of chance
to say, psychically selected.
of the Nco-Lamarckian the contrary
it
symbiosis \
149
is
appears as
functional complemcntariness between the '
remember that,
action of instinct as here understood, an essential part
to the Darwinian play of external forces and to chance.
through
it
portant, indeed essential, role, played
various quarters
lii
the explanations which follow, of giving an exaggerated influence to the
two
not die its
;
really
which
are
Properly under-
mere negation of
utilisation.
factors
only
we
There
could
is
call
a it
THE PHENOMENON OF
MAN
DEMETER And why, on
It is one thing to notice that in a given line in the animal kingdom limbs become solipedal or teeth carnivorous, and quite another to guess how this tendency was produced. It is all very well to
not be accentuated phyletically
say that a mutation occurs at the point
the stem leaves the
and their workers with an exterior suited to their
of the phylum sometimes the organs
And we also surely know men of prey ? Once we have admitted this, unexpected horizons c.
But what then
verticil.
The
?
where
later modifications
are as a rule so gradual, and so stable are
even from the embryo
affected,
we
(the teeth, for
abandon
are definitely forced to
case simply as the survival
fittest,
I
pore over
we
fact
it,
the
are confronted
with an
?
not be allowed
its
carnivorous instincts because
its
claws sharp.
Should
not of external forces but
effect
we
its
molars
claws
is
it
is
the
and hands on the
same with the timid
burrow, swim or
that
its
cutting and
fangs and sharpens
not rather because, following
receives, develops
become
not turn the proposition around
In other words if the tiger elongates
*
soul
its
of
line
of descent,
a carnivore
'
? its it
There
is
It
same with those an evolution of characters
but on condition that this word is taken in the of temperament \ At first sight the explanation reminds one of the virtues of the Schoolmen. As we go deeper, it becomes increasingly likely. In the individual, qualities and certainly
sense
;
'
*
'
Why
defects develop with age.
It (still
may
be added that
if
we
give
too often ignored) between
a
its
(or rather,
how) should they
proper place to the
essential distinction
biology of small units and a biology of big
complexesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; in the same way as there is a physics of the infinitesimal and another of the immenseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; wc appreciate the advisability of distinguishing two major zones of the organic world, and treating them differently. On die one hand is the Lamarckian zone of very big complexes (above all, man) in which antichance can be seen to dominate on the other hand the Darwinian zone of ;
small complexes, lower forms of
life,
in
which anti-<hance
is
so
swamped by
chance that it can only be appreciated by reasoning and conjecture, that say indirectly. (Sec p. 302.)
150
with their image
it
?
For obvious practical reasons
we
instincts.
rise
up
in
are led to
use of the variations in their fossilisablc parts to follow the
But this practical necessity must what is limited and superficial in this arrangement. The number of bones, shape of teeth, ornamentation of the integument all these visible characters form merely the outward garment round something deeper which supports it. We arc dealing with only one event, the grand orthogenesis of everything living towards a higher degree of immanent spontaneity. Secondarily, we find by periodical between
living creatures. to blind
us to
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
'
'
of this impetus, the verticil of the little orthogeneses, where the fundamental current splits up to form the true, inner radiation '. Finally, thrown over all that like a axis of each simple sheath, we find the veil of tissues and the architecture of the limbs. That is the situation. To write the true natural history of the world, we should dispersal
'
?
cursorial types, the
fly.
front of biology.
mechanical
to current thought, an animal develops
that scale, should
the ants and termites succeed in fitting out their warriors
make
a
I
of psychology. According
all
links
as
come across this problem and the longer more firmly is it impressed upon me that in
often
After
of explaining every
adaptation to environment and us. So what follows
The more
they not react upon the organism to stamp
or
the idea
of the
example), that
?
is
to
need to be able to follow it from within. It would thus appear no longer as an interlocking succession of structural types replacing one another, but as an ascension of inner sap spreading out in a forest of consolidated instincts. Right at its base, the living world is constituted by consciousness clothed in flesh and bone. From the biosphere to the species is nodiing but an immense ramification of psychism seeking for itself through different forms. That is where Ariadne's thread leads us if we follow
it
to the end.
of our knowledge, of course, we cannot dream of expressing the mechanism of evolution in this interiorradial form. On the other hand, one thing becomes ised \ clear. It is that, if this is the real significance of traiisforrnism, In the present state
'
*
'
life,
in so far as
it
represents a controlled process, could only proceed
151
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN ever farther along
on condition that
original line
its
DEMETER it
underwent
some profound readjustment at a given moment. The law is formal. We referred to it before, when we spoke of the birth of life. No reality in the world can go on increasing without sooner or
change of
state.
we
If
tures.
later
There
reaching is
a critical
a ceiling limit to speeds
increase the acceleration
near the speed of light,
point involving some
of
a
and tempera-
body
until
we
likeness that,
there
;
is
no
acquires
ceiling limit to pure diversification.
Now
beneath the historically increasing intricacy of forms and we have discovered the irreversible increase, not only
organs,
but also
in quantity ness)
we
of brains (and therefore consciousan event of another order was inevitably awaited to wind up this long in quality,
are forced to realise that
a metamorphosis
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
period of synthesis in the course of geological time.
We
must
now
turn our attention to the
this great terrestrial
3.
first
phenomenon which ends up
in
Congo, or in Arizona. Except for so familiar
man.
THE APPROACH OF TIME
is
nowhere
that
camp
this is
a
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
we
are today
on the Zambesi, in the few Lingering archaic forms,
we have to make an effort to realise much as a wisp of smoke rising from
scene that
there so
or village.
It is
a period of
calm profusion. The mammalian layer has
spread out. Yet evolution cannot be stopped. Something,
where,
To
some-
unquestionably accumulating and ready to rise up for
is
another forward leap. But what detect
what
at this
the universal mother,
let
and where ? moment is maturing in the womb of us make use of the index which we ?
have henceforward at our disposal. Life is the rise of consciousness, we have agreed. If it is to progress still further it can only be because, here and there, the internal energy is secretly rising up under the mantle of the flowering earth. Here and there, within nervous systems, psychic tension is doubtless increasing. Physicists
and
doctors
use
delicate
instruments
on
bodies
:
thermometer of consciousness do to this somnolent nature. In what region of the biosphere in the Pliocene period is there a sign of rising temperature ? Of course we must look at heads. Outside the vegetable kingdom, which does not count,1 there are two summits of branches, and only two, which emerge before us in air, light and spontaneity on the arthropod side,
let
symptoms of
not too dissimilar from that which
is
seeking to preserve in National Parks
get
by excess of mass an infinitely inert nature. If we heat it, it would first melt, then vaporise. And the same applies to all known physical properties. So long as we could regard evolution as a simple advance towards complexity, we could imagine it developing indefinitely in its own it
landscape
us
likewise, applying our
'
'
:
i.e.
at the
concretely
wave of life
movement where we left it, expansion of the mammals or, to situate ourselves in duration, let us go back to the world as we can
Let us return to the
in
towards the end of the Tertiary period. A great calm seems to be reigning on the surface of the earth at this time. From South Africa to South America, across Europe and Asia, are fertile steppes and dense forests. Then imagine
it
other steppes and other forests.
And amongst
this endless
verdure
of antelopes and zebras, a variety of proboscidians deer with every kind of antler, tigers, wolves, foxes
are myriads in herds,
and badgers,
all
similar to those
152
we
have today. In short, the
the insects
;
on
mammals.
the vertebrate side, the
side belongs the future
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and truth
To which
?
The Insects. In the higher insects a cephalic concentration of a. nerve ganglions goes hand in hand with an extraordinary wealth 1
In the sense that in the vegetable
nervous system the evolution of
That I
is
not to say that the
latter
would noc think of denying it.
is it
not enough to
see
how
a
kingdom we
are unable to follow along a
psychism obviously remaining
does not
Indeed, to
diffuse.
growing in its own manner. take one example out of a thousand, exist,
certain plants trap insects to be convinced that the
vegetable branch, albeit from afar,
is
like the other
of consciousness.
153
two, subservient to the
rise
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
Wc
and precision of behaviour. around us
see living
this
cannot but wonder
when we
so marvellously adjusted
world
Our
so terribly far away.
DEMETER
Our
rivals ?
successors,
and yet
perhaps
?
not rather say a multitude pathetically involved and
Must we
struggling in
a
blind alley
?
What
seems to eliminate the hypothesis that the insects for or even that they simply are an issue represent the issue
—
—
evolution
much
the fact that although very
is
the elders
of
the
higher vertebrates by the date of their florescence, and now they seem irremediably stationary \ Throughout what may well be geological ages, they have become endlessly complicated like Chinese characters, yet give the impression of being unable to *
change
—
their plan
as
if their
impetus or fundamental meta-
we
morphosis were stopped.
And
see certain reasons for this
marking-time.
First
ment of
of
reflect a
moment, wc can
the organs, an external, chitinous skeleton is a
of repeated moultings
bad
solu-
imprisons the organs
it
:
The insect cannot grow beyond an inch or two without becoming dangerously fragile. In spite of the disdain with which we someand
it
quickly yields under increasing interior volumes.
times regard
'
a
mere question of
size
\
it
is
undeniable that
certain qualities, by the very fact that they are linked to a material
are only capable
synthesis,
quantities.
The
of being manifested above certain
superior psychic levels
demand
physically big
brains.
And insects
then,
show
a
precisely
perhaps for
Our own
cleverness
movements and Looked at more
is
ised
their
its
is
we
size,
domain
their superiority.
the precision
But
closely, this perfection
must be
conditioned
of
their
careful.
by
the
psychology becomes mechan-
It has been amply demonstrated that the of an appreciable margin of indetermination and operations. Only, hardly are these performed,
and hardened.
choice for
put
to
dumbfounded by
their constructions.
extreme rapidity with which insect disposes
very reason of
this
strange psychic inferiority in the very
where we should have been tempted
154
its
acts
seem to become charged with habit and soon
trans-
formed into organic reflexes. Automatically and continually, one could say, its consciousness is extravcrted to become frozen (i) at once in its behaviour, which successive corrections promptly registered render ever more precise and (ii) in the long run, in a somatic morphology in which individual particularities disappear, absorbed by function. Hence those adjustments of organs and behaviour at which Fabre rightly marvelled, and :
hence also the simply prodigious arrangements which group together in a single living machine the swarming hive or ant-hill. This could be called a paroxysm of consciousness, which spreads outwards from within, to
become
materialised in rigid
arrangements. The exact opposite of a concentration. fc.
The Mammals. Let us therefore leave
to the
For quantitative develop-
insects are too small.
all
In spite
tion.
if
than
the insects and return
mammals.
At once we feel at ease so much at ease that our relief could be accounted for by an impression of anthropocentrism \ ;
*
If
we
now
breathe more freely
the hive and ant-hill,
is
the higher vertebrates,
we
it
that
we
have come away from
not quite simply because, amongst
feel
'
at
home
'
?
There
is
always the
menace of relativity hanging over our minds. No, we are not making a mistake. In this case at least we are not misled by an impression our judgment is really being guided by our intelligence, with the power it has to appreciate
—
certain absolute values. If a furry quadruped seems so
compared with an ant, so genuinely alive, it of a zoological kinship we have with it. In cat, a
ness,
dog, a dolphin, there
such exuberance of
narrowly canalised, single function.
takes interest, different tions
form
it
phylum
it
is
animated
'
not only because
the behaviour of a
such suppleness, such unexpected-
and
curiosity
!
Instinct
is
no longer
in the spider or the bee, paralysed in a
Individually and socially flutters, it plays.
remains
it
flexible.
It
We are dealing with an entirely
of instinct in fact, and one not subject to the limita-
imposed upon
the insect, the
as
life
is
c
the tool by the precision
mammal
belongs
to.
it
has attained.
Unlike
no longer completely the slave of the Around it an aura of freedom begins is
*
155
'
DEMETER to float, a
glimmer of personality. And
it is
in that direction that
the possibilities presently crop up, intcrminate and interminable, straight ahead.
But from what species was it that the leap forward towards promised horizons was to take place ? Let us take a closer look at the great horde of Pliocene animals
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
AnihroÂŁoJJs_
-J
those limbs developed
perfection, those forests
PLIOCENE
\
of simplicity and of stags, of lyreforeheads of antelopes,
to the last degree
of antlers on
the heads
shaped horns on the starred or striped
those heavy tusks on the snouts of the proboscidians, canines and incisors of the great carnivores
MIOCENE
.
.
.
those
Surely such
condemn marking them for an
luxuriance, such achievement, must precisely serve to
the future of these magnificent creatures, early death, writing
them offâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;despite
their psychic vitality
forms that have got into a morphological dead end. All may seem rather more like an end than a beginning.
as
OLIGOCENE
This sicerata,
is
doubtless so.
But
this
besides the Polycladida, the Strep-
the elephants, the sabre-toothed
tigers,
and
so
many
others, there are the primates.
The Primates. So far I have only mentioned the primates once or twice in passing. I have not yet allotted a place to these near neighbours of ours on the tree of life. The omission was deliberate. At the point I had then reached, their importance had not yet come to light they could not have been understood. Now that we have perceived the secret spring that moves zoological evo.ution, it is different. Their hour has come, and we see how they can and should make their entrance at that
c.
EOCENE
r'
'
*\*>
;
fateful
diagram
3.
The development of the Primates.
On
moment towards the whole,
like
appear morphologically
the end of the Tertiary era. all
other animal groups, the primates
as a series
of overlapping
verticils or
ramifications, and, as usual, the terminals are sharply defined,
the stems blurred (Diag.
3).
At
the top
we
have on either side
the two great branches of the monkeys proper true monkeys of the old world with 32 teeth
:
;
the Catarrhines,
and the Platyrr-
hines of South America, with flattened nose and 36 teeth. Below,
the lemurs, generally with an elongated snout and often pro-
157
DEMETER
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN seem
bottom the beginning of
Right
clivous incisors.
to break off at
4
'
insectivorous
these two-tiered verticils
at the
ramification,
from an the Tupaioids, of which they seem the Tertiary era
Nor
to represent a single radiation in a state of florescence.
At
all.
the heart of each of these
two
verticils
of particularly
a central sub-verticil
*
we
is
that
can distinguish
cephalised
On
forms.
'
jumping animals with a round, bulging cranium and huge eyes, whose sole living repre-
the lemurian side, the Tarsioids, tiny
of Malaya, reminds us bizarrely of
sentative, the tarsier
man.
On
the side of the Catarrhines
we
are
a
the gibbon),
and most
tailless
alert
of
all
were the first to reach their prime towards the end of the Eocene age. As for the anthropoids, we find them in Africa from the Oligocene onwards. But they certainly did not reach their maximum diversity and
The lemurs and
the tarsiers
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
size until the
end of the Pliocene. Then
Africa and India,
We
i.e.
them
find
this
date and this
mode
that,
we have
placed the primates outwardly
duration and in their external form.
We
should
now
to the within of things and try to understand in
from
these animals differ
What looks at
at
the others, seen
from
cranial capacity
is
mammal, but what
of
differentiation in
relatively
are
we
much
penetrate respect
is
when
therefore the servative of
No In
The
isolated
molar
chimpanzee could readily be confused with the tooth of an Eocene omnivore such as the Condylarths.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;with
it
best,
transformed the adjustment of their
to
the differentiation
with such catastrophes.
littered
most con-
the
be the most wary. of an organ is an it is
it
irreversible,
in
a
restricted
kills.
Palaeontology
Because, right up to the
Pliocene period, the primates remained the most
*
'
primitive
of the mammals as regards their limbs, they remained also the most free. And what did they do with that freedom ? They used it to lift themselves dirough successive upthrusts to the very frontiers of intelligence.
So
we
definition
now
have
of
before
the primate, the
us to study the primates.
What makes biology
is,
pure and
'
simultaneously with the true
us,
answer to the problem which led
After the
mammals,
at the
end of
'
life
be able to carry on
?
the primates so interesting and important to
in the
direct
first
phylum of mammals too, no
place, that they represent a
cerebralisation.
In the other
doubt, the nervous system and instinct gradually develop. in
them
the internal travail
was
distracted, limited
by accessory differentiations. psychical development, horse, stag and arrested
moving
tetrapods of the Palaeozoic era. In the course of the Tertiary
they
them
end of which, under the pressure of orthogenesis, runs the risk of ending up either in monstrosity or in fragility.
in the
158
its
Specialisation paralyses, ultra-specialisation is
;
consider
at the
same plan and proportions that they had
era, the ungulates radically
at
imprisons the animal that undergoes
also
insect, to
their radiations
to
among mammals,
conservatives
but they have shown themselves
;
intact
the limbs
we
Are
tri tubercular.
immediate factor of superiority. But, because it
Meanwhile
their molars.
all ?
itself,
still
Then
these exhibit the
a
and
incisors
had kept their ulna intact and also their
they jealously hung on to their five fingers
;
remained typically
he
the aston-
their bones.
An
their side
the Tertiary era, where will
bigger than in any other
to say of the rest ?
belonging to a Dryopithecus or
first
fibula
in
inside.
(particularly the higher ones)
ishingly slight degree
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;both
what
once catches the anatomist's attention
monkeys
both
of distribution
for they contain a lesson.
With
in
always in tropical or sub-tropical zones.
mind
should keep in
we
on
the primates
path
monkeys.
;
;
gready complicated their
familiar with
all
the carnivores reduced and sharpened their teeth the streamlined themselves like fish the Proboscidea
;
Cetacea
little
anthropoids (the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-outang and
monkeys, the biggest
feet
some
evolution
tiger
with
their
became, like the
extent prisoners of the instruments of their swift-
or predatory ways.
had become.
Passu
Pari
But
and finally
For
that
is
what
their limbs
and
teeth
In the case of the primates, on the other hand,
went
straight to
work on 159
the brain, neglecting evcry-
'
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OP thing
else,
they are greater
which accordingly remained malleable. That is why head of the upward and onward march towards
at the
consciousness.
In
particular orthogenesis of the
this
I
shall
and privileged
phylum happened
the principal orthogenesis of
which
singular
life
itself:
to
case,
the
coincide exactly with
following Osborn's term
borrow while changing its
sense, it
is
'
aristogenesis
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and thus unlimited. Hence this fust conclusion that if the mammals form a dominant branch, the dominant branch of the tree of life, the primates
(i.e.
the cerebro-manuals) are
anthropoids are the bud in which
Thenceforward, to look in
We
all
already
grow warm
it
may be
added,
knew
leading shoot, and the
its
shoot ends up. it is
the biosphere to see signs of
easy to decide where
what
is
to be expected.
everywhere the active phyletic lines with consciousness towards the summit. But in that
one well-marked region the
this
at the heart
of the mammals, where
most powerful brains ever made by nature are to be found, And right at the heart of that glow burns
they become red hot. a point
We
of incandescence. must not
lose sight
of that
line
crimsoned by the dawn.
After thousands of years rising below the horizon, a flame bursts forth at a strictly localised point.
Thought
is
born.
160
BOOK THREE
THOUGHT
CHAPTER ONE
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT Preliminary
From a purely terious
The Human Paradox
:
positivist point
and disconcerting of
we may as for him in
all
of view the
well admit that
In fact place
Remark
its
man
most mysobjects met with by science. science has not yet found a is
the
representations of the universe.
Physics
world of the atom. Biology has been able to impose some sort of order on the constructions of life. Supported both by physics and biology, anthropology in its turn docs its best to explain the structure of the human body and some of its physiological mechanisms. But when all these features are put together, the portrait manifestly faLls short of the reality. Man, as science is able to reconhas succeeded in provisionally circumscribing the
him
struct
today,
is
an animal like the others
anatomically from the anthropoids that the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; so
little
modern
separable
classifications
made by zoologists return to the position of Linnaeus and include him with them in the same super-family, the hominidae. Yet, to judge by the biological results of his advent, is he not in reality
something altogether different
?
Morphologically the leap was extremely
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there
same breath,
lies is
;
the evidence that science, in
reconstructions of the rather, an entire
In
was
of an incredible commotion among the spheres the whole human paradox and there, in the
the concomitant
of life
slight, yet it
its
present-day
world, neglects an essential factor, or
dimension of the universe.
conformity with the general hypothesis which throughout 163
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN this
book
has been leading us towards a coherent
interpretation
now,
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
of the earth as
appears today,
it
devoted to thought,
in this part
natural position in the
only see one
want
secondary and equivocal manifestations of inner activity in
it is
sufficient to consider the within as well as the
show
to
man
his
necessary and
without of things.
This method has already enabled us to appreciate the grandeur
and the direction of the movement of
life
and
;
method
this
once again to reconcile in our eyes the insignificance
will serve
and the supreme importance of the phenomenon of man in an order that harmoniously re-descends on life and matter.
Between absent,
the last strata of the Pliocene period, in
to find the first chipped is
what has
flints,
the true measure of this leap It is
is
we
down
way of doing
so
to
brush resolutely aside
behaviour, making straight for the central phenomenon,
all
those
human
reflection.
From our experimental point of view, reflection is, as the word indicates, the power acquired by a consciousness to turn in upon itself, to take possession of itself as of an object endowed
own
no longer merely no longer merely to know, but to know that one knows. 1 By this individualisation of himself in the depths of himself, the living element, which heretofore had been spread out and divided over a diffuse circle of perceptions and activites, was constituted for the first time as a centre in die form of a point at which all the impressions and with
its
particular consistence
know, but
to
to
know
and value
:
oneself;
experiences knit themselves together and fuse into a unity that
?
our task to divine and to measure the answers to these
questions before right
man is
which
dumbfounded happened ? And what
and the next, in which the geologist
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and expressive
to give
that,
world of experience,
I
follow step by step the
to the decisive stage in
which
is
conscious of its
it is
involved today.
own
organisation.
Now the consequences of such a transformation are immense,
march of mankind
visible as clearly in nature as
or astronomy. The being
any of the
who is the
recorded by physics
facts
object of his
own
reflection,
in consequence of that very doubling back upon himself, becomes
THE THRESHOLD OF REFLECTION
i.
in
a
The Threshold of the Element
A.
Horn im sat ion 1
the
:
of
is
a direction (still less a definite axis
there any greater agreement
is
connected reason, (by
specifically
not.
As
a
nature
'
and
wish to
:
said,
settle this
the sake of the ethics [French
from
that
hominisation
it is
of life
differs
of man's predecessors or *
scientists
'
would
of such a breach of continuity.
is still
over the animals (and
1
')
So
tend
much
about the intelligence of animals.
question of the
every
bit as
*
superiority
of
necessary to settle
as well as for
pure knowledge)
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a word coined by the author.] 164
'
centre as
nor
;
psychologists, and for a
matter of fact the majority of
has been said,
wc
among
)of evolution
whether the human psychism
to
as
to contest the validity
If
on whether or not
Biologists are not yet agreed
Nature.
there
man
it
for
I
can
This
else
foregoing,
I
it is
sphere.
In reality,
calculation
art,
of love
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
of space and
these activities
of
time,
inner
life
than the effervescence of the newly-formed
explodes onto
it
said,
new
a
Abstraction, logic, reasoned choice and
born.
anxieties and dreams
are nothing a.
is
mathematics,
inventions,
the Individual
himself into
flash able to raise
another world
have
a
itself.
question to ask.
the fact of being
If,
as
l
reflective
we
*
follows from the
which
constitutes
doubt that intelligence is the evolutionary lot proper to man and to man only ? If not, can we, under the influence of some false modesty, hesitate to admit that man's possession of it constitutes a radical advance on all forms of life that have gone before him ? Admitthat tedly the animal knows. But it cannot know that it knows multiplied have ago it long would could, If it is quite certain. the
strictly
'
intelligent
'
being, can
seriously
:
1
[Non plus
settlement connaitre, mais se conrtaitre;
mais savoir que Von
sait.]
165
nan plus settlement savoir,
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
system of internal constructions observation. In consequence our that could not have escaped reality in which we can it is denied access to a whole domain of
its
inventions and developed
We
a
—or
threshold— are not only we reflective are we Because cross. cannot which it of change matter of merely a not is It other. different but quite of a change from resulting degree, but of a change of nature,
move
freely.
by
are separated
a
chasm
find
ourselves confronted
with exactly what
we
expected at the end of the chapter we called Demeter, Life, being an ascent of consciousness, could not continue to advance indefinitely along its line without transforming itself in depth. had,
we
said, like all
different so
as
to
growing
remain
itself.
realities in
the world, to
become power
same moment we find the summed up and clarified reappearing whole curve of biogenesis
rebirth consisted for
it.
And
at the
in this singular point. Theoretical
b.
Mechanism. All along, naturalists and philosophers
have held opinions of the utmost divergence concerning the * psychical make-up of animals. For the early Schoolmen instinct '
of sub-intelligence, homogeneous and fixed, marking one of the ontological and logical stages by which being grades downwards from pure spirit to pure materiality. For the
was
What
of any modern biologists, within, was a mere automaton. For most as I have said already, there is no sharp line to be drawn between instinct and thought, neither being very much more than a so the animal, devoid
of luminous halo enveloping the play thing of the determinisms of matter.
sort
— the
only essential
—
In each
of these varying opinions there
is
to recognise (i) that instinct, far
166
its
different expressions the
it
consequently represents a
we
look
at
nature from this angle
our minds the
realise better in
fact
From
of animal behaviour.
an element of
from being an
?
and the reason
the
moment we we see
regard evolution as primarily psychical transformation, is
not one instinct in nature, but a multitude of forms of
each corresponding to a particular solution of the problem of life. The psychical make-up of an insect is not and cannot be that of a vertebrate nor can the instinct of a squirrel be this in virtue of the position of each that of a cat or an elephant on the tree of life.
instincts
'
'
;
:
By
the fact
dimension,
itself,
out and
a relief stand
we
in this variety,
begin to see legitimately
gradation formed. If instinct
a
the instincts will
not only be different
;
is a
variable
they constitute
their complexity, a growing system. They form as a whole a kind of fan-like structure in which the higher terms on each nervure are recognised each time by a greater range of choice and depending on a better defined centre of co-ordination and consciousness. And that is the very thing we see. The mind (or psyche) of a dog, despite all that may be said to the contrary, is positively superior to that of a mole or a fish. 1
beneath
This being light
what
said,
and
I
am
merely presenting in a different
has already been revealed in our study of
concerted
when
they
or are obliged to
see,
see, in
the
life,
upholders of the spiritual explanation have no need to be
dis-
the higher
animals (particularly in the great apes) ways and reactions which strangely recall those 1
in
From
its
this
of which they make use
point of view
own way
to
become
'
it
to define the
could be said that every form of instinct tends
intelligence
'
;
but
it
is
only in the
that (for extrinsic or intrinsic reasons) the operation has
truth, but also a cause of error which becomes apparent when, following the point of view put forward in these pages, we make
up our minds
we
for the diversity
a sort
Cartesian only thought existed:
exactly happens if
Firstly
Here, in the accession to the
of reflection, emerges (more clearly recognisable than in the obscure primordial psychism of the first cells) the particular and or critical form of transformation in which this surcrcation
(2) that
variable dimension.
there
So we
through
translates
phenomenon of life, and
very
a
state.
It
epiphenomenon,
human
been successful
all
line
the
way. Having reached the stage of reflection, man would thus represent a single one of the innumerable modalities of consciousness tried out by life in the animal world. In all those other psychological worlds it is very difficult for us to enter, not only because in
they
work
differently
from
them knowledge
ours.
167
is
more confused, but because
man of a reasonable soul \ If no more than a movement of consciousness
nature and prove the presence in the story of veiled by
life is
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OF
morphology,
it is
towards the summit of make-ups seem
inevitable that,
the series, in the proximity of man, the
'
psychical
'
And that is exactly what happens. thrown on the human paradox itself. We
to reach the borders of intelligence.
Hence
light
is
cally
from
how
anatomi-
differs
— so disturbed that we distinguish
to
towards their point of origin. But resemblance precisely what had to be
When
'
the other anthropoids, despite his incontestable mental
abandon the attempt
to
anthropos
'
little
pre-eminence in certain respects ready
'
*
are disturbed to notice
water
is
is
feel
them,
almost
at
it,
the
first
change of temperature
—
vaporised molecules.
Or, taking
is
not this extraordinary
?
thing that follows
a tumultuous expansion a series
—without
of
freed and
of sections trom
crease, the
became
By
a centre.
'
a tiny
tangential
in-
'
was turned back on itself and so to speak took an infinite leap forward. Outwardly, almost nothing in the organs had changed. But in depth, a great revolution had taken place consciousness was now leaping and boiling in a space of
the
radial
*
'
:
super-sensory relationships and representations ously consciousness was capable of perceiving
centrated simplicity of
the
first
faculties.
its
And
and simultane-
;
itself in
happened
this
all
the confor
time. 1
Those who adopt the
least
heated to boiling point under normal pressure,
and one goes on heating
a centred surface
'
when
spiritual explanation are right
they defend so vehemently a certain transcendence of man over the rest of nature. But neither are the materialists wrong when
they maintain that man is just one further term in a series of animal forms. Here, as in so many cases, the two antithetical kinds of evidences are resolved in a movement provided that
—
movement we emphasise the highly natural phenomenon of the change of state \ From the cell to the thinking animal, as from the atom to the cell, a single process (a psychical kindling or concentration) goes on without interruption and always in the same direction. But by virtue of this permanence in the opera-
in this
'
base towards the stantly
;
summit of
cone, their area decreases con-
a
then suddenly, with another infinitesimal displacement,
the surface vanishes leaving us
comparisons
we
with
a point.
are able to imagine the
Hi us by
these remote
mechanism involved
in
tion,
the critical threshold of reflection.
By years.
how
of the Tertiary era, the psychical temperature in world had been rising for more than 500 million
the end
the cellular
From branch
to branch,
from
layer to layer,
we
have seen
nervous systems followed pari passu the process of increased
with the primates, an instrument was fashioned so remarkably supple and rich that the step immediately following could not take place without the whole animal psychism being as it were recast and consolidated
on
itself.
Now
this
movement
Finally,
did not stop, for
nothing in the structure of the organism to prevent
When
the anthropoid, so to speak, had been
there was
advancing.
it
brought
'
*
mentally
were added. Or, when the anthropoid had almost reached the summit of the cone, a final effort took place along the axis. No more was needed for the whole inner equilibrium to be upset. What was previously only to boiling point
some
further calories
168
from the point of view of physics
that certain
leaps suddenly transform the subject of the operation.
Discontinuity in continuity
Realisation.
c.
theory of presents 1
complication and concentration.
inevitable
it is
its
itself
Need
and defines
repeat that
I
experimental
that
:
mechanism, the birth of thought,
is
how,
like that
itself.
confine myself here to the phenomena,
I
in the
of life,
i.e.
to the
between consciousness and complexity, without prejudging the deeper causes which govern the whole issue ? In virtue of the limitations imposed on our sensory knowledge by the play of the temporo-spatial series,
it is
relations
only,
it
seems, under the appearances of a
grasp experimentally the
with
that said, there
is
*
hominising
Note).
Is
creative it
not
a
'
operation or
'
point that
who
(for reasons of a higher order
his dialectic), under the phenomenal *
critical
we
(spiritualising) step to reflection.
nothing to prevent the thinker
explanation from positing
whatever
'
veil
of
169
'
he
a spiritual
at a later
stage of
transformation,
likes (see Prefatory
Christian thought in
by our minds there arc
principle universally accepted
successive planes of knowledge?
adopts
a revolutionary
special intervention
theological interpretation of reality that for
and
can But,
different
its
and
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OF But how has
Had
the
mechanism worked
there been a witness to the
in its concrete reality ?
what would have been
crisis,
him of the metamorphosis later on, when I come primaeval forms of man this picture we are
externally visible to
As
*
I shall
be saying
',
will probably, like the origin of
our grasp
—and
guide us here
is
same
for the
life,
reasons.
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
?
that bears
to deal
with the
so eager to paint
remain for ever beyond The most we have to
of thinking of the awakening of of ontogeny. Two remarks
the resource
intelligence in the child in the course
deserve, however, to be made, the one circumscribing, the other still
further deepening, the mystery
which
veils
this singular
point from our imagination.
The
that to culminate in
first is
man
at
the stage of reflection,
must have been preparing a whole group of factors for a long time and simultaneously though nothing at first sight could have given grounds for supposing that they would be linked
life
—
together
'
providentially \
from
the organic point of view, the
whole metamorphosis leading to man depends on die question of a better brain. But how was this cerebral perfectioning to be if there had not been a carried out how could it have worked conditions other realised at just the same time ? whole series of If the creature from which man issued had not been a biped,
—
—
his
hands would not have been
from
free in
time to release the jaws
and the thick band of maxillary
their prehensile function,
muscles which had imprisoned the cranium could not have been relaxed.
It is
thanks to two-footed ness freeing the hands that the
brain was able to
grow
;
and thanks to
this, too, that the eyes,
we
This
it.
have reason to know, but
us precisely to recognise that
And we
maternal law.
are
it is
satisfying to
man was born under
happy
the
upon itself, not only of of the whole being. What at first sight
the nervous system, but
disconcerts us, on the other hand,
is
the need to accept that this
step could only be achieved at one single stroke.
For that
my
to be
is
second remark, a remark
I
cannot avoid.
human ontogeny we can slur over the question at what moment the new-born child may be said to achieve intelligence and become a thinking being, for we find a conIn the case of
tinuous
series
the fertilised
there
of
states
ovum
a hiatus or
is
of
happening in the same individual from
What
to the adult.
where
it
might be
?
does
It is
it
matter whether
quite different in the
phyletic embryogenesis in
which each stage or each and it is impossible (at any rate within the scope of modern methods of thought) to evade the problem of discontinuity. If the threshold of reflection is a
state is represented
really (as
its
by
a different being,
physical nature seems to require, and as
we have
ourselves admitted) a critical transformation, a mutation from
zero to everything,
it is
impossible for us to imagine an inter-
mediary individual at this precise level. Either this being has not yet reached, or
it
has already got beyond, this change of
at
it
as
The terms of this proposition are disconcerting, but become less bizarre, and even inoffensive, if we observe
of
speaking
closer together
—
In itself this marvellous conjunction should not
reflection.
surprise us.
always the
whose
Surely the smallest thing formed in the world result
strands
of the most formidable coincidence
have been for
all
corners of space. Life docs not
—a
is
knot
time converging from the four
work by following a single thread, 170
state-
—
we will, we cannot avoid the alternative either thought is made unthinkable by a denial of its psychical transcendence over instinct, or we are forced to admit that it appeared
Look
on the diminished face, were able to fix what and on the hands held and brought before converge them the very gesture which formed the external counterpart brought
same
admit that the birth of
to
intelligence corresponds to a turning in
case
true that in the end,
It is
nor yet by fits and starts. It pushes forward its whole network at one and the same time. So is the embryo fashioned in the womb
between two individuals.
might
strictly as scientists,
(or
we may
even must) have been
phyletic origin
as
it
is
suppose that intelligence
as little visible externally at its
today to our eyes in every new-born
in which case every tangible between the observer and the theorist disappears.
child at the ontogenetical stage:
subject of debate
they that,
171
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN
THE BIRTH OP THOUGHT
form of the unsort of scientific any graspable' in the footnote on p. 186) that discussion today on the outward and visible signs of the first emergence of reflection on the earth (even supposing there had
To
been here
say nothing of the fact (see the second
a spectator there to see them)
if anywhere,
beginnings
(*
we find
is
*
quite impossible
because,
;
ourselves in the presence of one of those
infinitely small quantities in evolution
automati-
')
by a cally and irremediably removed from our range of vision Note, 122). (see past p. thick layer of the Without trying to picture the unimaginable, let us therefore keep hold of one ideaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that the access threshold which had to be crossed at a
thought represents a
to
single stride
a
;
*
trans-
experimentar interval about which scientifically we can say nothing, but beyond which we find ourselves transported onto
an d.
entirely
new
biological plane.
Prolongation.
nature of the
at this
another kind of
by
then,
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;precisely
life
A moment
spoken above.
mind with
we
point that
this
In the
very
is
concerned,
it
we compared
of which
to be posited
does not
mean
I
have
the simplicity of
that of a geometrical point.
'
involved
the beginning of
fact,
have been better to speak of a line or an axis. l
can fully see the place
first
that interior life
ago
And
mitted.
was
It
would
Where intelligence *
to be
achieved \
must breathe or
it
will die.
the reflective psychic centre, once turned in
else itself.
So man becomes
Obviously by the
a person in
effect
animated
to this point the
on
and
ceaselessly
Caught up
indefinitely.
it
;
appeared to have no value for
ignored
it.
With
Life,
once again, was more
the advent of the
any
itself.
which passed over
a fugitive foothold for a process
it
It
and
real than living things.
power of
reflection (an essentially
rate to begin with)
everything is changed, and we now perceive that under the more striking reality of the collective transformations a secret progress has elemental property,
at
parallel to individualisation. The more highly phylum became charged with psychism, the more it tended granulate \ The animal grew in value in relation to the to speci2S. Finally at the level of man the phenomenon gathers new power and takes definitive shape. With the person \ endowed by personalisation with an indefinite power of elemental evolution, the branch ceases to bear, as an anonymous whole, the exclusive promises for the future. The cell has become someone \ After the grain of matter, the grain of life and
been going on *
4
*
'
'
;
now
at last
Does
it
so
lack the right to live
moment
born,
Up
modified.
in the chain of succeeding generations, the animal seemed to
Similarly
as a child is
is
received, maintained, acquired if possible, reproduced and trans-
upon itself, can is in reality which movement a double of means only subsist by itself by peneon further one and the same. It centres itself tration into a new space, and at the same time it centres the rest of the world around itself by the establishment of an ever more coherent and better organised perspective in the realities which surround it. We are not dealing with an immutably fixed focus but with a vortex which grows deeper as it sucks up the fluid at the heart of which it was born. The ego only persists by becoming ever more itself, in the measure in which it makes everything
As soon
life
element was so narrowly subject to the phylum that its own individuality could be regarded as accessory and sacrificed. It
each
transit to reflection.
a change of state
the thinking
only
It is
structure of
of such 172
and through personalisation. a
transformation the entire
we
see constituted the grain oj thought.
mean
that
that the
phylum
and vanishes in thin
their identity in a veritable dust
to in dying interest
?
Above
of evolution
loses its
air, like
function from
those animals
who
this
lose
of spores which they give birth
the point of reflection, does the whole
shift,
passing
from
life
into a plurality of
isolated living beings ?
Nothing of the spurt,
sort.
Only, from
without slackening in the
this crucial
slightest, has
degree, another order of complexity.
break like
a fragile jet just
with thinking centres psychisms.
On
;
it
The phylum does not
because henceforward
does not crumble into
the contrary
date the global
acquired another
it is
an additional framework. Until
173
it
its
fraught
elementary
by an inner lining, was enough to consider
reinforced
now
it is
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
in nature a simple vibration on a wide front, the ascent individual centres of consciousness.
of
What we now have to do is to
define and regulate harmoniously an ascent of consciousnesses (a delicate phenomenon). We are dealing with a proup of other progresses as lasting as itself a movement made of movements. Let us try to lift our minds high enough to dominate the
much more gress
;
problem.
For that,
let
us forget for a
moment
die particular
destiny of the spiritual elements engaged in the general trans-
formation.
It is,
in point of fact, only
and spread of the whole in
its
main
by following
lines that
we
the ascension
are able, after
a long detour, to determine the part reserved for individual
hopes
We
thus reach the personalisation of the individual
hominisation
'
envelope.
mammal
We have already said that each has
by the
of the whole group.
The Threshold of the Phylum
the
:
Hominisation of the Species
through this leap of intelligence, whose nature and mechanism we have been analysing in the thinking particle, life continues in some way to spread as though nothing had happened. According to all appearances, propagation, multiplication and ramification went on in man, as in other animals* after the threshold of thought, as busily as before. Nothing, one might think, had altered in the current. But the water in it was no longer the same. Like a river enriched by contact with an alluvial plain, the vital flux, as
was charged with new
it
crossed the stages of reflection,
principles,
and
as a result
manifested
new
From now onwards it was not merely animated which the pressure of evolution pumped up the living stem, but grains of thought. What was to happen under this influence to the colour or the shape of the leaves, the flowers, activities.
grains
I
if
I
instincts.
So
type of insect, bird or no attempt has been made two elements, namely the There are naturalists who
far
species.
who
specialise in the
anticipating later developments of our
a detailed
and considered answer to 174
this
argument
question
now.
study
below man, purely morphological criteria provide a perfectly adequate framework for studying the distribution of species. But from the advent of man difficulties appear. We cannot fail to be aware of the extreme confusion which prevails concerning the significance and the distribution of the extremely varied groups into which mankind divides up In fact,
under our very eyes
—
races, nations, states, countries, cultures,
etc. In these diverse and constantly shifting categories, people as
a rule only care to see
heterogeneous units
artificial (nations)
others
—overlapping
—some natural
irregularly
on
(race),
different
planes. It
is
an unpleasing and unnecessary irregularity, and one
which vanishes
as
soon
as well as to the without
Indeed,
from
this
composition of the confused
it
may
as
we
give
its
proper place to the within
of things.
more comprehensive point of view, the its branches, however
human group with
appear, can be reduced nevertheless to the
general rules of biology. But, by the exaggeration
of a
variable
had remained negligible in the animals, it simply brings out the dual nature of those rules or even, on the contrary— if what is somatic is woven by the psyche their fundamental that
?
would be
gave
own
describe and classify shapes, and others
Thus,
the fruit
its
somatic and psychic, of the
of behaviour. b.
—
—
to link together systematically the
in the total success. 1
But it would be as well to indicate at once three particularities which manifest themselves in any and every operation or production of the species from the moment the threshold of thought One concerns the composition of new branches, is crossed. another the general direction of their growth, the third their relations to and differences from taken as a whole what had flourished earlier on the tree of life. The composition of the human branches. Whatever idea we have a. about the inner mechanism of evolution, there is no denying that each zoological group is enclosed in a certain psychological
—
175
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE BIRTH OP THOUGHT
unity. This
is not an exception but a generalisation. It is imposremain long in doubt in the world become human always the zoological ramification which, in spite of all
sible to it
is
:
appearances and
all
complexities, pushes
according to the same mechanism
of
onwards and operates
as before.
Only,
as a result
of inner energy liberated by reflection, the operation then tends to emerge from the material organs so as to formulate itself also or even above all in the mind. What is spontaneously psychical is no longer merely an aura round the soma \ It becomes an appreciable part, or even a principal part, of the phenomenon. And because variations of soul are the quantity
*
much
richer and
more
subtle than the often imperceptible organic
changes which accompany them,
it
obvious that the mere
is
Direction of Growth, So long as our perspectives of the psychic nature of zoological evolution were based only on the examination of animal lines and their nervous systems, the direction of that evolution remained perforce as vague for b.
The General
our knowledge Consciousness
we were thought
That
To
by
how
is
things stand.
And
the
faces us
no
less
itself
is
This
is
a laborious
clear that
:
no
complication of course, since
satisfactory classification
will be forthcoming, save through the partially
for
remedy
unravel the structure of a thinking phylum, anatomy not enough it must be backed up by psychology.
clearly.
two
On
independent variable. But
it is
of the
it
human
becomes *
genus
complication,
reasons.
— that
is
to say, truth
—come
back into our per-
life extended to include man and, because we correctively the organic value of every social construction, feel already more inclined to treat it as a subject of science,
spectives of
;
realise
we
hence to respect
On
it.
the other hand,
from the very
fact that the fibres
of the
when we were
anthropological
A moment the
be
line, it is
ago
I
—
human group
brings us at the
our study of the phenomenon of man vergence of the spirit. 176
is
to culminate
—
the con-
recognise ourselves in
sufficient to say
the
life,
' :
human element
we
it.
noticed
as
Following each
that seeks itself and
referred to the unparalleled complexity of all
those races, those nations, the resourcefulness
ethnologists alike. There are so
we
many
despair of analysing them.
what this multiplicity we do this we will see
that
facets,
its
rays in
those states
of anatomists and that spectrum that
Let us try instead to perceive
represents
but a multitude of sequins reflection the same light.
when viewed
as a
disturbing aggregation
whole. is
If
nothing
all
sending back to each other by
We
find hundreds or thousands of
each expressing at a different angle
(because
Which
we
grows.'
itself
same time on the track of the fundamental discovery with which
because
it,
discussing the tree of
tion) it will henceforth
we
nation and coalescence that they show.
for
;
tension and the counterpart of this law (after the transit to reflec-
human phylum
appear surrounded by their psychic sheath, can begin to understand the extraordinary power of aggluti-
the threshold of
progress becomes easier to unravel
whose entanglements defy
the one hand, at the price of this difficulty, order and
homogeneity
its
moment
fundamental character that brains grew bigger and became more differentiated along each zoological stem. To define the ex-
combined play of two a fruitful
crossed
are better able to follow
a
tion.
is
the
has not only reached the rung
or
total zoological differentia-
:
But from
able to say.
but begins to overflow freely by
Earlier,
of the
itself of those distant relations of ours. through living beings that was about all
the soul
on which we ourselves stand, its free activity beyond the boundary within which it had been confined by the exigences of physiology. The message is more clearly written, and we life
inspection of bones or integuments will not suffice to explain to catalogue the progresses
as
rises
a reality
which
seeks
a world of groping forms. We are not astonished happens to us) to see in each person around us the
among it
spark of reflection developing year
by
year.
We are all conscious,
too, at all events vaguely, that something in our
atmosphere
is
changing with the course of history. If we add these two pieces of evidence together (and rectify certain exaggerated views on 177
m
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN the purely it
'
we
that
and passive nature of heredity), how is more sensitive to the presence of something ourselves moving forward within us and in our
germinal
'
are not
greater than
midst
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
reality
?
Up
to the level
of thought a question could
the science of nature
still
be asked of
— the question about the evolutionary value
and transmission of acquired characters. As we know, the and biologist tended, and still tends, to be sceptical and evasive ;
of the body he likes But what happens if we give the psyche Imits legitimate place in the integrity of living organisms ? phyletic germmeciitely, over the alleged independence of the plasm \ the individual activity of the soma reclaims its rights.
perhaps he
is
right, as regards the fixed zones
to confine himself to.
'
'
'
we
In the insects, for example, or the beaver, blatant
way
see in the
most
the existence of hereditarily-formed or even fixed
From mechanism becomes not only manifest but preponderant. Under the free and ingenious
instincts
reflection
effort
underlying the play of animal
onwards, the
reality
of
spontaneities.
this
of successive intelligences, something (even in the absence of
any measurable variation of brain accumulates, according to least collectively
ages.
and sociology, we meet with a stream whereby a continuing and transmissible tradition of reflection is established and allowed to increase. So from individual men there springs the human
all
or
cranium)
the evidence, and
down
by means of education,
The point here
is
that this
'
is
something
*
irreversibly
transmitted,
at
the course of
—construction of
matter or construction of beauty, systems of thought or systems of action— ends up always by translating itself into an augmenta-
of consciousness, and consciousness in its turn, as we now know, is nothing less than the substance and heart of life in process
tion
of evolution.
What can phenomenon
mean
—the
except that, over and above this particular
individual
accession
to
reflection
phenomenon of a
nature co-extensive with the whole of mankind.
whole shows simple sum of the elements of which the universe, the
itself
—
science
reflective
Here
human
stem. 1
That seen and accepted, under what form should we expect the human stem to rise up ? Will because
it,
to the past
it is a
—and,
thinking stem, sever the fibres which attach at the
summit of
develop from new elements and according to a new some neoplasm ? To imagine such a rupture would
it
to misjudge and
again,
underestimate our
as well as the organic unity
of
the
it
the vertebrate branch, will
plan, like
once
be,
own 'dimension'
world and the methods of
In a flower the sepals, petals, stamens and pistil arc not leaves and they have probably never been leaves. Yet they
evolution.
unmistakably in their attachments and their texture everything that would have resulted in a leaf had they not been formed under a new influence and a new destiny. Similarly, possess
with the human inflorescence, we can see transformed or undergoing transformation the vessels, the disposition, and even the sap of the stalk upon which the inflorescence was born not only the individual structure of the organs and the interior ramifications of the species, but even the tendencies and behaviour :
of the
*
soul
'.
man, considered
as a zoological group, everything is extended simultaneously sexual attraction, with the laws of reproduction ; the inclination to struggle for survival, with the competitions it involves; the need for nourishment, with the accompanying taste for seizing and devouring curiosity, to see, with its delight in investigation the attraction of joining others to live in society. Each of these fibres traverses each one of us, coming up from far below and stretching beyond
In
—
as else-
But following each strand 178
;
and above 1
it is
us.
And
each one of them has
its
story (no less true
to be greater than the
formed. The human
individual does not exhaust in himself the vital potentialities of his race.
phylogenesis, the
;
this
has grounds for recognising another
where in
from human
;
Connections and Differences.
c.
known
to anthropology
[Even
if
is
human
level
becomes
*
the Lamarckian view of the hcritability of acquired charac-
biologically vieux jeu, and decisively refuted,
teristics
and have
to
tradition \ Sec
reckon with history, culture
M.
when we etc.,
*
reach the *
transmission
Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (Kegan Paul, 1958)!.
179
than any other)
evolution
to
tell
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OF
the primates (urging
of the whole course of evolution
of love, evolution of war, evolution of research,
But each one,
evolution of the social sense.
undergoes
evolutionary,
threshold of reflection.
new
possibilities,
a
metamorphosis
Beyond
new
colours,
point
this
fertility.
just because crosses
the
new
it
the
is
It
is
enriched by
as
it is
it
same
thing,
—
you like, but it is something quite different also a figure that become transformed by a change of space and dimension, discontinuity superimposed upon continuity, mutation upon evolu-
if
has
tion.
harmonious recasting which whole grouping of vital antecedences, both
In this supple inflection, in this
transfigures
the
we
external and internal,
cannot
fail
to find precious confirma-
of what we had already guessed. When an object begins to grow in one of its accessory parts, it is thrown out of equilibrium and becomes deformed. To remain symmetrical and beautifu] a body must be modified simultaneously throughout, in the direction of one of its principal axes. Reflection conserves tion
even while re-shaping
There
settles.
Man
is
no
all
the lines
of the phylum on which
fortuitous excrescence
of
only progresses by slowly elaborating
it
a parasitic energy.
from age
to age the
essence and the totality of a universe deposited within him.
To with
grand process of sublimation
this
all
its
force the
accepted in the leap
from
first
word
it
fitting
to apply
Hominisation can be the individual and instantaneous
honrinisation.
place as
instinct to thought, but
it
is
also,
the progressive phyletic spiritualisation in all
is
wider
in a
human
sense,
civilisation
of
Thus we
are led
pictured the species
— after
all
having considered the element and
— to contemplate the earth in
its
of the primates,
When is
compared
Terrestrial Planet
:
the
—
—
observation.
We have been following the successive stages of the same grand progression from the fluid contours of the early earth. Beneath the pulsations of geo-chemistry, of geo-tectonics and of geo-biology, we have detected one and the same fundamental the one which was given material process, always recognisable form in the first cells and was continued in the construction of nervous systems. We saw geogenesis promoted to biogenesis,
—
which turned
out in the end to be nothing else than psycho-
genesis.
With and
within the
effaces
to all the living verticils, die
not like any other.
But because the 1 80
human phylum
specific orthogenesis
of reflection, the next term in the
of
Now
it
by another and a higher development of the subsequent and engendering the
itself,
—
crisis
Psychogenesis has led to man.
relieved or absorbed
noogenesis.
When for
itself in its
world took a pace forward. As regards the choices and
Noo sphere
man, appearing of
the leading shoot
*
creature instinct perceived
The Threshold of the
on
It was with this observation that we rounded off our remarks on the state of the Pliocene world. It is easy to see what privileged value that unique situation will confer upon the transit to reflection. The biological change of state terminating in the awakening of thought does not represent merely a critical point that the individual or even the species must pass through. Vaster than that, it affects life itself in its organic totality, and consequendy it marks a transformation affecting the state of the entire planet.' Such is the evidence born of all the other testimony we have gradually assembled and added together in the course of our nquiry which imposes itself irresistibly on both our logic and
mind, in one word
c.
flourishes
zoological evolution.
function
totality.
increasing cerebralisation)
living things towards a higher consciousness)
at the heart
series manifests itself.
the forces contained in the animal world.
them towards
coincides with the axial orthogenesis of organised matter (urging
the
own
first
time in
a living
mirror, the whole
rep onsibili ties of our activity,
the consequences of this discovery are enormous.
our understanding of the earth they 181
are decisive.
As regards
THE BIRTH OP THOUGHT
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Geologists have for long agreed
We
composition of our planet. barysphere,
and
central
lithosphere that in turn
admitting the zonal
have already spoken of the
by
surrounded
metallic,
is
in
surrounded by the
rocky of the
the
fluid layers
Since Suess, science has rightly
hydrosphere and the atmosphere. become accustomed to add another to these four concentric layers, the living membrane composed of the fauna and flora of the globe, the biosphere, so often mentioned in these pages, an
envelope as definitely universal as the other
more
them.
definitely individualised than
senting a
more or
of the very of life.
The
tissue
less
vague grouping,
of the genetic
relations
it
*
spheres
and even
*
For, instead of repre-
forms
which
a single piece,
delineate the tree
new
recognition and isolation of a
proportionate to the operation
era in evolution, the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
is
to say, yet another
A
brane in the majestic assembly of telluric layers.
outward from the of ignition grows till
first
spark of conscious reflection.
larger.
finally the
The
fire
whole planet
is
mem-
glow ripples
The point widening
spreads in ever
covered with incandescence.
Only one interpretation, only one name can be found worthy of this grand phenomenon. Much more coherent and just as extensive as any preceding layer, *
thinking layer \ which, since
it
is
really a
germination
its
new
at the
layer,
the
end of the
Tertiary period, has spread over and above the world of plants
and animals. there
is
In other
words, outside and above the biosphere
the noosphere.
With
that
classification
it
bursts
upon
how
us
of the living world
utterly
warped
(or, indirectly,
is
every
every construc-
which man only figures logically as a genus or a new family. This is an error of perspective which deforms and uncrowns the whole phenomenon of the universe. To give man his true place in nature it is not enough to find one more pigeon-hole in the edifice of our systematisation or tion of the physical one)
in
even an additional order or branch. With hominisation,
of
finds
the insignificance
of the anatomical 182
leap,
we
in spite
have the begin-
new
The earth
age.
'
gets a
new
skin \
Better
still, it
its soul.
Therefore, given
place in reality in proper dimensions,
its
is much more important than any zoological gap, whether it be the one marking the origin of the tetrapods or even that of the metazoa. Among all the stages
the historic threshold of reflection
by evolution, the birth of thought comes the only thing comparable in order of the condensation of the terrestrial chemism or the
successively crossed directly
after,
importance
to,
and
is
advent of life itself. The paradox of man resolves Despite the relief and is
ear of noogenesis, obliges us to distinguish correlatively a support
circles
ning of a
at first sight disconcerting,
illusion
we
itself by
it
passing
beyond measure.
brings to things, this perspective
running counter
as
it
does to the
and habits which incline us to measure events by their
material face. as
harmony
are in
It
also
what
is
seems to us extravagant because, steeped like a fish in the sea, we have diffi-
human
emerging from it in our minds so as to appreciate its and breadth. But let us look round us a little more carefully. This sudden deluge of cerebralisation, this biological invasion of a new animal type which gradually eliminates or subjects all forms of life that are not human, this irresistible tide of fields and factories, this immense and growing edifice of matter and ideas all these signs that we look at, for days on end to proclaim that there has been a change on the earth and a
culty in
specificness
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
change of planetary magnitude. There can indeed be no doubt
that, to
an imaginary geologist
coming one day far in the future to inspect our fossilised globe, the most astounding of the revolutions undergone by the earth would be that which took place at the beginning of what has so rightly been called the psychozoic era.
Martian capable of analysing less
than physically, the
not the blue of the
And even
today, to a
no of our planet would be, green of the forests, but the phossidereal radiations psychically
first characteristic
seas
or the
phorescence of thought.
The
greatest revelation
open
to science
today
is
to perceive
that everything precious, active and progressive originally con-
183
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
tained in that cosmic fragment from which our world emerged, is
now
concentrated in a
And what this
noosphere
'
crowning
'
noospherc.
is
so supremely instructive about the origins of
we know how
by dint of being
how
gradually,
universally and lengthily prepared, the
enormous
to look)
is
to see
their last strongholds like the Australian
back into
(if
event of its birth took place.
the negrillos of our day, there
Man came
seem
instance)
a
tion
THE ORIGINAL FORMS
silently into the
century or
The more we
world.
so, the scientific
we
sum up all our prehistoric knowof fossil human remains and the better
understand their anatomic features and their succession in
geological time, the
convergence of
all
however unique it,
find
more evident
signs
it
becomes, by an unceasing
and proofs, that the
human
*
species
',
moment of its advent, make any sweeping Whether we consider the species in its environ-
ment, in the morphology of its stem, or in the global structure of its group, we see it emerge phyletically exactly like any other species.
Firsdy, in
environment.
As we know from palaeontology,
an animal form never comes singly. It is sketched out in the heart of a verticil of neighbouring forms among which it takes shape, so to speak, gropingly. zoologically,
man
is
In his cradle he was
room
of
for doubt.
So
it
is
with man.
Regarded
today an almost isolated figure in nature.
Nowadays there is no more well-defined but immense area, extend-
less isolated.
Over
a
have been
far
more hominoid than any
morphology of
in the
sister-forms
',
what
for alive
the rocks and the forest, at the end of the Tertiary period, the
more numerous than they 184
With
stem.
its
the multiplica-
indicates to the naturalist the origin
follow an animal line back into the
and the more palpable arc
man, on
*
are
today.
past, the
primitive
*
The farther we more numerous
features.
Here too, mechan-
the whole, keeps strictly to the habitual phyletic
All
ism.
its
we need
is
to try to arrange in a descending series
and Sinanthropus after the Neanderthaloids below present-day man. Palaeontology does not often succeed
Pithecanthropus
in tracing so satisfying
Thirdly,
in
an alignment.
the structure
the characters of a
of
its
phylum may
be,
it is
gether simple, like a pure radiation. as
we
can follow
it
However
group.
internal tendency to cleavage
the contrary, as far
its past,
and dispersion.
up
while being born, the species breaks
sub-species. This let us take
is
known
to
all naturalists.
another look at man,
well-defined
never found to be alto-
On
into the depths of
it
manifests an
Newly
Keeping
man whose
born, or
into varieties or it
in
mind,
pre-history (even
the most ancient) proves his congenital aptitude for ramification. Is it
possible to
himselfâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; in fan of his
deny
that in the fan
this subject
own
of the anthropoids he isolated
to the laws of
all
animate matter
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
as a
?
was not exaggerating in the least. The more deeply science plumbs the past of our humanity, the more clearly does it see that humanity, as a species, conforms to the rhythm and the rules that marked each new offshoot on the tree of life before the I
ing from South Africa to Southern China and Malaya, amongst anthropoids were far
Australopithecus,
clearly than in adult life its zoological parentage.
even its
African
is a certain convergence of the axis of that stem with that of its neighbours. In the proximity of a knot, the leaves grow closer together. Not only is a species at its birth found bunched with others, but, like them it betrays much more
the ontological position that reflection gave
did not, at the
change in nature.
was a whole population of other big (the
of a living stem
expressive formula than this to ledge.
to
thrown
bushmen and
today.
problem of the origin of swelling team of research and a discussion, under man has been workers has been digging feverishly into die past to discover the initial point of hominisation, and yet I cannot find a more For
whom
primates, some of
Secondly, 2.
now
Besides the gorilla, chimpanzee and orang-outang,
185
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
the subject to
its
conclusion.
Since
similar to the other phyla, let ail
arc logically obliged to pursue
Thus we
advent of mankind.
man
as a
species
is
us stop being surprised
at birth so if,
as
with
his earliest origins give living groups, the fragile secrets of to force slip; and let us henceforward forbear
our science the
and
falsify this
Man came
natural condition with clumsy questionings. fact he silently into the world. As a matter of
him him sprawling find we instruments, stone by those indestructible to Peking. Hope Good of Cape the all over the old world from trod so softly that,
when we
first
as revealed
catch sight of
always complete and already legion. only see Thus in the eyes of science, which at long range can and crowd, can only be, a things in bulk, the "first man is, and 1 of years. infancy is made up of thousands and thousands
of the depths of history,
'
his
inevitable that this situation should be disappointing, curiosity unsatisfied. For what most interests us is
is
leaving our
what happened during those first thousands of years. And still more, what marked the first critical moment. Dearly would we love to know what those first parents of ours looked
precisely
ones that stood just this side of the threshold of reflection. single have already said, that threshold had to be crossed in a
like, the
As
I
be prepared to forgo the satisfaction of photograph could record upon the
shall
No
human phylum
diis passage
to reflection
Imagine the past to have been photographed section by hominisation, what at that critical moment of initial section ? film our developed should we sec when we
stride.
which so naturally
intrigues us, for the simple reason that the
phenomenon took
which is always lacking in a reconstructed peduncle of its original forms. tangible forms of this peduncle escape us, can we
place inside that
phylum But
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
the
if die
not at any structure
up
its
rate guess indirectly at
On
?
We could,
mind.
A number
its
complexity and
these points palaeanthropology has
however, try
to
think the peduncle of our race must have been several distinct but related
human
once
intellect,
*
initial
not yet made
form an opinion. 1
of anthropologists, and those not the
eminent,
least
composed of
bundles \ Just as, on the plane of degree of preparation and tension
a certain
it is
'
It
we
past,
this futile curiosity.
he already
Without doubt he already speaks and lives in groups to expect. makes fire. After all, this is surely what we ought before us out As we know, each time a new living form rises up ;
of the
has been reached, the same idea
may come
to birth at several
points simultaneously, so in the same way, man, according to
must have
these authorities,
regions on the
started
simultaneously in several
of the Pliocene era, thereby following the general mechanism of all life. This is not properly polyphyletism \ because the different points of speaking germination are located on the same zoological stem, but it is an '
anthropoid layer
*
4
extensive mutation of the whole stem '
hologenesis
whole
series
'
The
idea involves
What we
get
of points of hominisation scattered along
tropical zone of the earth,
coming
itself.
and therefore polycentricity.
and hence several
merged somewhere
genetically
human
a
is
a
sub-
stems be-
beneath the threshold of
:
have understood the limits of enlargement imposed by the landscape nature on the instrument which helps us to study If
we
reflection
;
Though
not
(I
That
is
of the word the problem of monogenism in the stria sense monophyletismâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; see below) seems to elude science as such by its the At those depths of time when hominisation took place,
why
do not say
very nature.
presence and the
movements of
unrcvealable to our eyes
can say that there
is
room
at
a unique couple are positively ungraspable,
no matter what magnification. Accordingly one
in this interval for
anything that a trans-experimental
'
focus
'
but a
*
front
of this perspective, Some idea of how
I
feel
1
86
of evolution.
myself personally attracted to
the transit to
man was
basis
still
which
clearly simian,,
of what was taking place
a
whole
we can at
see
scries
is
perhaps
In this South
African family of Pliocene anthropomorphs (evidently a group active mutation) in
a slightly
effected zoologically
suggested by the case of Australopithecus mentioned above.
in a state
of hominoid characters overlay
an image perhaps, or
call it a faint
of a
echo,
about the same period even not far from there, in this case culminating in genuine hominisa-
another anthropoid group, in tion.
source of knowledge might demand.
'
not disputing the value and the scientific probabilities
1
1
a
is?
THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN different hypothesis.
curious peculiarity
on them,
fixed
I
have already
shown by
several times that
stressed
zoological branches of bearing
like essential characters, certain traits
whose origin
and accidental— such as the tntubercular teeth the fourand seven cervical vertebrae of the higher mammals, in one power rotatory the footedness of the walking vertebrates, plainly peculiar
is
particular direction
of organic substances. Precisely because these
universal occurrence are secondary and accidental, their
traits
properly explained by in groups, sometimes vast, can only be highly particularised a from assuming these groups to derive localised
and therefore extremely
We
verticil.
would
thus
verticil to support perhaps find no more than a single radiation in a of life. Or, whole the even or branch a even originally a layer or have been only can it part, a convergence has played
some amongst
if
closely-related fibres.
and particularly when specialised as the one dealing with a group as homogeneous and the effects of paralminimise to under discussion, 1 feel inclined branch. On the human lelism in the initial formation of the In the light of these considerations,
opinion, of the higher primates, this branch did not, in my from the whole glean its fibres here and there, one by one, other species, any than closely more but, even range offered and sucthickening the branch, I am convinced, represents
verticil
in a ramification
W.
verticil as late as the Pliocene
development of one solitary stem among all— this stem collection because the being, moreover, the most central of the
cessful
most that
If and, except for the brain, the least specialised. the at but genetically, right, all human lines join up
vital is
bottom,
at the
And now,
very point of if
we do
reflection.
assume the
1
to the plane of pure phenomena) can
and probable thickness 1
for
the
?
unique existence of what more (still keeping
strictly
such a peduncle at the origin of man,
Should we,
we
say about
like
Osborn,
its
length
locate
its
Which amounts to saying that if the science of man can say nothing directly sec note p. 186) it can on or against monogenism (a single initial couple— of monophyletism (a favour in seems, it decisively, out other hand come
single
phylum).
188
age
?
Another question, always on the same subject and still maintaining a strictly phenomenal attitude what minimum '
'
:
diameter should
we
ascribe as biologically possible to this stem
deep or not) if we consider it at its initial point of hominisation ? For it to be able to mutate \ resist and live,
(whether
it is
'
what is the minimum number of individuals (in order of size) that must have undergone simultaneously the metamorphosis of
However monophyletic one
reflecrion
?
a species is
always sketched out
mass
effects
?
propagating
itself like crystallisation
tiue perhaps)
still
and attractions. synthesis
is
?
In
and have
must have
And
we
rather view
—by it
as
beginning with a few parts their respective
advantages
the patience to wait until their
to encourage our patience let us recall
two following points. The first is that on every
advent,
to be, surely
our minds the two symbols (each partly
conflict
We
it
established.
Let us wait. the
supposes
like a diffuse current in a river
Or, on the contrary, should
— by effect of unities
:
this
low down,
in the Eocene or Oligocene period of pre-anthropoid forms ? Or should we, like K. Gregory, regard it as a branching off from the anthropoid
separation very
man emerged from
a
hypothesis,
however solitary his of the world. He
general groping
from a total effort of life, so that the species has an axial value and a pre-eminent dignity. At bottom, to satisfy our intelligence and the requirements of our conduct, we have no need to know more than this. The second point is that, fascinating as the problem of our origin is, its solution even in detail would not solve the problem of man. We have every reason to regard the discovery of fossil men as one of the most illuminating and critical lines of modern research. We must not, however, on that account, entertain any illusions concerning the limits in all its domains of that form of analysis that we call embryogencsis. If in its structure the embryo of each thing is fragile, fleeting and hence, in the past, practically ungraspablc, how much more is it ambiguous and
was born
a direct lineal descendant
189
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OF undecipherable in
lineaments
its
It
?
state that beings manifest themselves
Taken
not in their germinal
is
but in their florescence.
at the source, the greatest rivers are
no more than narrow
CHAPTER TWO
streams.
To
we had
to follow
first folded in
nature of
on
its
roots through
itself.
man and
But
if we
life,
want
divine his secret,
than to observe what it
phenomenon of man, back to when the earth
grasp the truly cosmic scale of the
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE
to understand the specific
we have no
reflection has already
other
method
provided and what
announces ahead.
In order to multiply the contacts necessary for
its
and
of its
life
to be able to store is
when
obliged to therefore
up the multifarious
move forward
its
in terms
variety
gropings riches,
of deep masses.
And
course emerges from the gorges in which a
new
mutation has so to speak strangled it, the narrower the it emerges and the vaster the surface it has to cover with its flow, the more it needs to re-group itself in
channel from which multitude.
Our picture is of mankind labouring under the impulsion of an obscure instinct, so as to break out through its narrow point of thought becoming of emergence and submerge the earth ;
number
conquer all habitable space, taking precedence of mind, in other words, deployover all other forms of life ing and convoluting the layers of the noosphere. This effort at so as to
;
multiplication and organic expansion
the
summing up and
history,
We
from will
final expression
the earliest beginnings
now
try, in a
few bold
is,
for
him who can
human pre-history and down to the present day.
of
strokes,
phases or successive waves of this invasion (diag.
1.
see,
to
map
out the
4).
THE RAMIFYING PHASE OF THE PKE-HOM1NIDS
Towards the very end of the lower Pleistocene period, a vast upward movement, a positive jolt, seems to have affected the 191
T90
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERB from the Atlantic
continental masses of the old world
to the
Almost everywhere, at this period, we find the land being drained, ravines being carved, and thick layers of alluvium spreading over the plains. Before this great upheaval we can establish no certain trace of man anywhere. Yet it was barely over when we find chipped stone mixed with the gravels on almost all the raised lands of Africa, Western Europe and Southern Pacific, 1
- MODERN - NEOLITHIC
Asia.
Man two
'H.
LV
sohensis
\
#
of the
Lower Quaternary
and the author of
We
know them
contemporary
period, the
these earliest tools
only
is
known
to us in
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
however the Pithecanthropus of Java, long represented only by a simple skull, but now by much more satisfactory specimens recently discovered and the Sinanthropus of China, numerous specimens of which have been found in the last ten years. These two beings are so closely related that the nature of each would have remained obscure if we had not had the good fortune to be able to compare
sapiens
\
SO-
remains.
fossil
well,
;
them. 2
What least
100
we
can
some one
To
or
learn from these venerable relics which two hundred thousand years old ?
begin with, anthropologists are
one point definitely
:
now
are at
in agreement
on
both Pithecanthropus and Smanthropus are already
hominid
in
their
anatomy.
If
we
arrange their skulls
of the great apes on the one hand and modern man on the other, we are at once struck by the wide morphological breach, the void, apparent between them and the anthropoids, while on the human side they seem to fall naturally into the same cast. We find a relatively short face and a relatively in series between those
Homo
sapiens
Neanderihaloid Prehominians
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;+
+
l^;::
: l
j
Australopithecus Socialized Zone
spacious cranium.
The development of the human Layer. 4. The figures on the left indicate thousands of years. They
diagram
minimum estimate and should probably be at doubled. The hypothetical zone of convergence on the Omega is obviously not to scale. By analogy with are a
living layers,
of years.
its
least
point
duration should certainly run into thousands
man
the cerebral capacity hardly
descends below 800 ex. while with Peking
man
more
exact.
1
At the end of the Villafranchian
age, to be
in the biggest
[By
the International Geological Congress (1948), the Villafranchian
is
a
decision of
now included
in the Pleistocene.] a
other
In Trinil
To
avoid complicating the story,
I
will say nothing here
man. However ancient and remarkable about him
to
determine
his real
his
jaw,
wc do
anthropological position.
193
not
of Heidelberg
know enough
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHBRE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN males
reaches
it
uoo. 1
We
find a
lower jaw
essentially
ance narrowly localised on the farthest confines of Eastern Asia,
con-
towards the symphysis, and lastly and posture leaving the most important of all, we find erect biped it is quite obvious that we fore limbs free. With all these signs line. are on the human side of the hominid the Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus
structed
on human
However
they were certainly strange were, judged by their physiognomy vanished from the earth. Eloncreatures such as have long ago behind enormous orbits gated skull, markedly compressed section, instead of being transverse whose ;
flattened
cranium
an arch widely open at ovoid or pentagonal, as with us, forms ossified skull whose brain-box the level of the ears ; strongly surrounded posteriorly by a does not project backwards but is skull whose dental arches prognathous thick occipital roll ; a which not only lacks a project far forward above a symphysis and finally, highly marked sexual dimorchin but is receding rather slender jaws and phism, the females being small with and canines. These molars strong teeth, the males robust with ;
but expressing a various characters, in no way teratologicai, seem to suggest, anawell-established, well-balanced architecture, towards the simian world. tomically, a downward convergence can affirm without further scientist the All things considered, discovery of Trinil man double that, thanks to the '
'
hesitation
and Peking man,
we
recognise within
mankind
logical rung, a further evolutionary stage
a further
morpho-
and a further zoological
morphological rung because on the line separating, we must place them, for instance, a white man from a chimpanzee, by the form of their skull, almost exactly half-way an evolutionary stage because, whether they have are
group obviously belonged
whose nature and
a
structure
1
to a very
shall
much
bigger group
be dealing with a
little
further
on. In short, Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus are far from being merely a couple of interesting anthropological types. Through them, we are able to glimpse a whole wave of mankind. Thus palaeontologists have once again shown their sense of proportion in picking out this very old and very primitive human layer and treating it as a distinct natural unity, to which they have even given a name, calling these early types the pre-hominids. This is an expressive and correct term from the standpoint of the anatomical progression of forms, but one liable to veil or misplace that psychic discontinuity in which we thought it
necessary to
place
the
very pith of hominisation.
To
call
and Sinanthropus pre-hominids might suggest that they were not yet quite man. And that, according to my argument, would mean they had not yet crossed the threshold of Pithecanthropus
The contrary seems to me much more probable that, while admittedly far from having reached the level on which we stand, they were already, both of them, in the full sense of the word, intelligent beings. That they were so seems to me to be stipulated by the general mechanism of phylogenesis. A mutation as fundamental as that of thought, a mutation which gives its specific impetus
reflection.
;
to the whole
verticil.
They
this
lines
human group,
could not in
my
opinion have
it could not have hapmiddle of the journey pened half-way up the stalk. It dominates the whole edifice. Its place must therefore be beneath every recognisable verticil
appeared
in the
;
;
They
in the or have not left any direct descendants through world, they probably represent a type
contemporary
which modern
man must once have passed in the course of his phylogenesis in all appearLastly, they are a zoological verticil, for, though ;
1
600
in the unattainable depths of the peduncle, and thus beneath
are
cerebral capacity does not In prcscnt-day anthropoid apes, the
exceed
those creatures which (however pre-hominid in cranial structure) are already clearly situated above the point of origin
ing of our human
And trace
of
there
is
more
to
it
than
that.
So
far
we
can find no
industry associated directly with the remains of Pithe-
canthropus.
This
is
due to the conditions of where they
c.c.
T94
and blossom-
race.
195
lie
:
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OP around Trinil the
down by
fossils
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE
are of bones that have been carried
the other hand,
Near Peking, on
streams to a lake.
Sinanthropus has been caught in his
lair, a
fdled-up cave littered
with stone implements mixed with charred bones. as
M. Boule
suggests, to see in this industry (sometimes,
of an astonishing
whom
to us, to
prey 1
As long
?
Ought we,
quality) the vestiges
of
another
I
admit,
man, unknown
homo fabvr, served as found of this hypothetical man,
Sinanthropus, himself not a as
no remains
are
consider the idea gratuitous and, everything considered,
worked
Sinanthropus already
scientific.
stones and
made
less fire.
Until disproved, those two accomplishments must be considered on the same level as reflection, forming with it an integral part
of the
peduncle \
*
Taken together
elements crop up universally at objectively,
And
if
is
it
in
one strand, these three as mankind. That,
the same time
China by some isolated teeth. This makes, with Sinanthropus (for the same period and the same continental fringe), five different types in
tendency
really so,
see that despite
their osteological
the prc-hominids
features so reminiscent of the anthropoids,
were psychologically much much less young and primitive than might have been supposed. making It must have taken time to discover fire and the art of nearer to us and thus phylctically
We
of development, unquestionably lived at the same time as Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus. Unfortunately we have only the famous jaw from Heidelberg very inadequate relics of diem :
perhaps,
from
and the badly
East Africa.
This
preserved cranium is
of Africanthropus
not enough to enable us to
work
out the general physiognomy of the group. An observation may, however, serve to shed light indirecdy on what we want to
is so we should have to say that, zoologically speaking, human group in the Lower Quaternary period still formed
only
a loosely
at
was
still
dominant.
the same time, doubtless in the
more
central regions
of the continents, 1 the elements of a new and more compact wave of mankind were mustering, ready to take over from this archaic world.
2.
THE GROUP OF THE NEANDERTHALOIDS after
the
Lower Quaternary
period, the curtain
During the interval, the Trinil deposits were folded the red earth of China was carved with valleys ready to receive their thick coating of yellow loess the face of Africa was fissured glaciations advanced and receded. further elsewhere When the curtain rises again some sixty thousand years ago, and we can see the scene again, we find that the pre-hominids have disappeared. Their place is now occupied by the Neanderfalls.
;
;
;
thaloids.
This
know.
We now know two species of Pithecanthropus, one relatively brutal \ To these small, the other much more robust and
coherent group in which the divergent structure,
usual in animal verticils,
Geologically, a similar stage
an almost
If this
the
toolâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so much so that there is plenty of room for at one more human verticil still lower down, which we shall
perhaps unearth one day in Villafranchian times. have already said that other hominids, at
of an isolated,
itself in
elsewhere, in the case of other stems farther west.
a cutting least
to gigantism, surely suggest the idea
autonomous manner. And so it might seem that what was going on in China and Malaya may have had its equivalent
But
we
certainly related.
marginal, zoological offshoot mutating upon
the situation. is
all,
This multiplicity of related forms living closely pressed together in a narrow strip, and also this curious common
new humanity
is
much
by
fossil
not only
more
better represented
remains than the preceding one, because
it
is
*
must be added two other forms positively gigantic, the one from Java represented by the fragment of a jaw, the other from South 196
1
Perhaps
among
the populations
whose anatomical form
is
still
unknown,
but whose 'bi-faced' industry can be followed in the ancient Pleistocene
from the Cape to
the
Thames and from Spain 197
to Java.
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OF recent, but also
more numerous.
Little
by
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE
little
network of
the
and more numerous,
thought has extended and consolidated. We find both progress in number and progress in hominisa-
apparent,
tion.
now
With Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, science could still hesitate, wondering what sort of creature it was dealing with. By the Middle Quaternary period, on the other hand, except for a moment's hesitation at the Spy cranium or the Neanderthal
'
show
that
have true man, then— but
man who was
not yet pre-
absence of canine fossae, absence of
any
distinct
European Neandcrthaloid. No people on earth today could be confused with him, not even an Australian Aborigine or an Aino. The advance from Trinil or Peking man is, as I have said, manifest
;
but the gulf in relation to
modern man
is
hardly
Accordingly we have now another rung on the morpholess. logical ladder, another evolutionary stage. And in conformity
with the laws of phylogenesis
we must
inevitably suspect another
whose reality has not ceased to assert itself in pre-history in the last few years. When the first Mousterian crania were discovered in Western Europe, and when it became clear that these bones had not belonged either to idiots or degenerates, anatomists were naturally led to imagine that in the Middle Palaeolithic age the earth was peopled by men zoological verticil here,
corresponding
exactly
to
the
Neanderthal
certain disappointment, perhaps,
198
when
type.
Whence
fresh discoveries,
it is '
its
that
interest
two
and
its
true physiognomy.
Neanderthaloids, our science today
called
groups
distinct
at
different levels
of phyletic :
terminal group. less
Survivors, gradually dying out,
autonomous
offshoots
—
we
neck between crown and root. Confronted with these different features, no anthropologist could fail to recognise at a glance the fossil remains of a
chin, large teeth without
by year more what we ought to have expected. For we can very diversity which definitely gives to their
of the which probably composed the pre-hominid verticil Solo man of Java, a direct and scarcely changed descendant of Trinil man, 1 in Africa the extraordinarily brutal Rhodesian man and, in Europe, unless 1 am mistaken, Neanderthal man himself who, in spite of his remarkable and persistent distribution over the whole of Western Europe, seems really to represent nothing but the last florescence of a dying stock. The infant group. A nebulous, not easily distinguishable b. group of pseudo-Neanderthaloids with primitive features, but definitely modernised or modernisable a rounder head, less prominent orbital ridges, canine fossae better marked, sometimes such are Steinhcim man and the finds the beginning of a chin in Palestine. They arc incontcstably Neanderthaloids, but they
more or
fmd his cranium generally elongated, a low forehead, prominent orbital ridges, a still noticeable prognathism face, as a rule the
simple hypothesis.
precisely
the forms
The
a.
We of the
this
evolution, a group of terminal forms and an infant group
cisely us.
thick,
bundle
is
recognises
are in the presence of true man.
We
see
Of
skull, there is never any serious doubt but that we are studying the vestiges of members of our own race. This great development of the brain, this industry of the caves, and for the first time those
incontestable cases of burial—everything goes to
confirm
failed to
Actually the diversity of the Neanderthaloids, year
a
—
:
are ever so
much
nearer to us
;
a progressive branch, sleeping,
one might say, waiting for the coming dawn. So let us put this triple bundle in its proper light, geographically and morphologically. Far from being a disconcerting combination, the pattern is familiar. Leaves which have just leaves leaves still alive but beginning to turn yellow fallen the complete section, almost not yet opened but full of vigour *
'
;
;
;
an ideal one, of zoological ramification. 1
Found in number in the horizontal terraces levelling the folded beds at homo solocnsis seems to have been simply a big Pithecanthropus with a more rounded cranium. This is an almost unique case in palaeontology, oi one and the same phylum seen at the same place, across a geological discordance, at two different stages of its development. Trinil,
more 199
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN of
face
the earth at the
modern man 3.
One of
First
THE HOMO SAPIENS COMPLEX
the great surprises of
botany
is
see
to see at the beginning
the Cretaceous period the world of cycads and conifers abruptly submerged and replaced by a forest of angiosperms, plane trees, oaks, etc., the bulk of modern forms bursting ready-
of
made on globe.
from some unknown region of
the Jurassic flora
the
No less is the anthropologist bewildered when he discovers,
superimposed upon each other, hardly separated in the caves by a floor of stalagmites, Mousterian man and Cromagnon man or Aurignacian man. at
all,
wc
yet none the less
We
mankind.
by
Here there
is
hardly any geological hiatus
find a fundamental rejuvenation of
find the sudden invasion of
Homo
sapiens, driven
climate or the restlessness of his soul, sweeping over the
Nean-
derthaloids.
come from, this new man ? Some anthropologists would like to see in him the culmination of certain lines of development already pin-pointed in earlier epochsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a direct
Where
did he
descendant, for example, of Sinanthropus.
For definite technical
more because of overall analogies, Without doubt, it is better to view things in another way. somewhere or other and in his own way, Upper Palaeolithic man however, and
reasons,
a
prc-hominid phase and then through
mammals, the he disappears from our
a Neanderthaloid one. But, like the all
the other phyla,
field
of vision
We
find imbrication and replacement rather than continuity and
I
:
the law of succession once again dominates history.
can thus easily picture the new-comer
as
the scion
of an autono-
of evolution, long hidden though secretly activeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; to emerge triumphantly one fine day doubdess in the midst of those pseudo-Neanderthaloids whose vital and probably very ancient
mous
*
is
line
bundle certain
'
we have
rounded all
parietal
;
;
We
in his well-
weak occipital crest now below jaw with its prominent chin well marked in the last cave-dwellers, are
bones
;
in his
in his slight
these features, so
definitely
already
without any possible doubt.
anatomically
all
in lus high forehead with reduced orbits
his swelling brain
our own.
So
clearly are they ours that,
from
this
moment
onwards, the palaeontologist, accustomed to working on pronounced morphological differences, no longer finds it easy to distinguish between the remains of these
men
fossil
men and
For that subtle task their over-all methods and visual sizing-up are no longer adequate, and they must now today.
to the most delicate techniques (and audacities) of anthropology. We arc no longer dealing with the reconstruction on general lines of the mounting horizons of life, but with the analysis of the overlapping nuances making up our fore-
have recourse
ground.
A
Thirty thousand years.
terms of our
lifetime,
but
it
is
a
long period measured in
mere second for evolution.
From the osteological point of view there is during this interval no appreciable breach of continuity in the human phylum. It might even be
said that there
already mentioned. But at any rate, one thing
and admitted by everybody. The 200
in the progress of
And
man we
find
on
the
this is
its
is,
up
to a point,
no major change
where
somatic ramification.
we
get our greatest surprise.
only very natural that the stem of Homo its
trituberculates,
in the course of his (possibly accelerated) embryogenesis.
prolongation
of
is
still
must have passed through and
it
end of the Quaternary period
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and in every way.
In
itself, it is
sapiens fossilis, studied at
point of emergence, far from being simple, should display in
the composition and divergence of its fibres the complex structure
of a fan. This is, as we know, the initial condition of each phylum on the tree of life. At the very least we should have counted on finding, in those depths, a cluster of relatively primitive and generalised forms, something antecedent in races.
can
And what we
trust
bones
to
find
is
form
to our present
Assuming one and blood, what were in
rather the opposite.
give us an idea of flesh
fact those first representatives, in the age of the reindeer, of a
new human than what
verticil freshly
we
see
living
opening
?
Nothing more or
less
today in approximately the same 201
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE
Negroes, white men and yellow men pre-yellow), and those the most pre-negro, pre-white and
regions of the earth. (or at
settled to north, to various groups already for the most part geographical zones. That south, to east, to west, in their present
over the ancient world from Europe to China Accordingly when we study Upper at the end of the last Ice Age. man, not only in the essential features of his anatomy
is
what we
find
all
Palaeolithic
but also in the
main lines of his ethnography,
it is
really ourselves
own infancy that we are finding, not only the skeleton modern man already there, but the framework of modem
and our
of humanity.
the same same general bodily form least in (at the same tendency fundamental distribution of races join up together in a coherent outline) for the ethmc groups to
We
see the
;
;
system, over-riding
all
divergence.
And (how
could
it
fail to
essential aspirations in the depths of their soul.
follow?) the same Among the Neanderthaioids,
advance was in the caves of the
as
we have
seen,
a
psychic
shown amongst other signs by the presence Neanderfirst graves. Even to the more brutal
manifest,
thals,
everyone
is
prepared to grant the flame of a genuine
however, seems to have been used up reproduce. If there was any in the sheer effort to survive and to recognise them. What fail or it of signs left over, we see no cousins of ours? We distant went on in the minds of those sapiens, have no idea. But in the age of the reindeer, with homo
Most of
intelligence.
it,
thought which explodes, still warm, it is Within them, these new-comers caves. the of on to the walls brought art, an art still naturalistic but prodigiously accomart, we can for the plished. And thanks to the language of this a definitely liberated
vanished time enter right into the consciousness of these spiritual strange a is There together. put we beings whose bones black and in red expressed rites nearness, even in detail. Those
important point.
modern
We
make
could
misrakes in interpreting in
terms the prints of hands, the bewitched bisons, and
which give expression to the preoccupation of an Aurignacian or a Magdalenian man. Where we could not be mistaken is in perceiving in the artists of those distant ages a power of observation, a love of fantasy, and a joythe fertility symbols
and
religion
much
in creation (manifest as
and outline
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; these itself,
and
flowers of a consciousness not merely reflecting
skulls has it
not led us astray.
indeed and in the
is
whom we
In
fullest
the
upon
Upper Quaternary
sense present-day
are looking, not yet adult, admittedly, but
nevertheless reached the
him
of movement
spontaneous play of chiselled ornament)
but rejoicing in so doing. So the examination of skeletons
period at
as in the
in the perfection
*
age of reason \
to ourselves, his brain
is
man
having
And when we compare
already perfect, so perfect that
since that time there seems to have been
no measurable
variation
or increased perfection in the organic instrument of our thought.
Are we
to say, then, that the evolution in
the end of the Quaternary era
man
ceased widi
?
Not at all. But, without prejudice to what rnay still be developing slowly and secretly in the depths of the nervous system, evolution
has since
that
date overtly overflowed
its
anatomical modalities to spread, or perhaps even to transplant its
main
thrust into the zones
of psychic spontaneity both indivi-
dual and collective.
Henceforward shall
it is
be recognising
it
in that form almost exclusively that we and following its course.
furst
on
of caves in Spain, in the Pyrenees and Pengord, in Oceania, still practised under our eyes in Africa,
the walls
are after
all
and even in America.
What
difference
is
between the sorcerer of the Trots-Freres his deerskin,
and some oceanic god 202
?
But
there, for
Cave that's
example,
dressed
up
in
not the most
4.
THE NEOLITHIC METAMORPHOSIS
Throughout living phyla, at all events among the higher animals where we can follow the process more easily, social development It is an achievement of is a progress that comes relatively late. maturity. In man, for reasons closely connected with his power of reflection, this transformation is accelerated. As far back 203
THE PHENOMENON OF as
we
MAN
THE DEPLOYMENT OP THE NOOSPHERE
can meet them, our great-great-ancestors are to be found
in groups and gathered round the
seems
fire.
may
because critical
its
it
is
With
age and one of solemn importance it Civilisation was born.
was nevertheless
among
all
a
the epochs
take place
Once
?
with the laws regulating our do not know. A few years ago
again, and always in conformity
vision of time in retrospect,
we
l
it
was usual
to speak of a
great gap
'
the rapidly
between the
last levels
of
growing number of
that fundamental change
growing agglomerations
irresistible
propagation of
the emphasis he on a
movement of cultures
fruitful
movement of ?
We
innovations
?
Did
peoples or primarily on
should find
it
hard,
as yet,
a
to say.
gap geologically negligible, but long enough nevertheless for the selection and domestication of all the animals and plants on which we are still living today, we find sedentary and socially organised men in place of the nomadic
What
is
certain
is
that, after a
hunters of the horse and the reindeer.
twenty thousand years his roots in
man
In a matter of ten or
divided up the earth and struck
it.
In this decisive period of socialisation, as previously at the instant of reflection, a cluster
of 204
partially
independent
factors
the rest followed.
In the
complex of rights and duties began all sorts of communal whose vestiges we can still see today in
and
juridical structures
the shadow of the great civilisations
Simultaneously, in the
or the
all
the
brought together the verges of this gap, yet essentially die gulf still persists. Did it come from a play of migrations, or was it the effect of contagion ? Was it due to the sudden arrival of some ethnic wave, which had been silently assembling in some other and more fertile region of the globe, little
individuals the available
to appear, leading to the invention of
populations of the world.
by
out.
The groups
chipped stone and the earliest levels of polished stone and pottery. Since then a series of intercalated horizons, better defined, have little
them
the incessant advances of multiplication.
pressed against one another. As were on a smaller scale. The problem now was how to get the most out of ever more diminishing land, and we can well imagine that under pressure of this necessity the idea was born of conserving and reproducing on the spot what had hitherto been sought for and pursued far and wide. Agriculture and stock-breeding, the husbandman and the herdsman, replaced mere gathering and hunting.
From
that birth
Under what conditions did
come
a result migrations
past, for in
of the
all
land diminished.
too young, neglected by historians
phases cannot be exactly dated,
of
First
with seem to have constituted no more than loosely bound groups of wandering hunters. It was only in the Neolithic age that the great cementing of human elements began which was never thenceforward to stop. The Neolithic age, disdained by pre-historians because
have mysteriously converged to favour and even to
force the pace of hominisation. Let us try to sort
be the signs of association at those remote periods, the whole phenomenon is far from being clearly outlined. Even in the Upper Palaeolithic era, the peoples we meet Definite as
to
among
the least progressive
In regard to property,
morals and
marriage, every possible social form seems to have been
more
stable
tried.
and more densely popufarms, the need and the
environment created by the first taste for research were stimulated and became more methodical. It was a marvellous period of investigation and invention when, in the unequalled freshness of a new beginning, the eternal groping of life burst out in conscious reflection. Everything possible seems to have been attempted in this extraordinary
lated
period
:
the
selection
cereals, live-stock
;
soon followed the
and empirical improvement of fruits, and weaving. Very
the science of pottery first
;
elements of pictographic writing, and
soon the first beginnings of metallurgy. Then, in virtue of all this, consolidated on itself and better equipped for conquest, mankind could fling its final waves in the assault on those positions which had not yet fallen to it. Henceforward it was in the full flush of expansion. It was in fact at the dawn of the Neolithic age that man reached America (passing through an Alaska free of ice and perhaps by other ways) 205
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN there to start again
—
—on new
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE
material and at the cost of
new
efforts his patient work of installation and domestication. Among them were many hunters and fishers still living a more
or
despite their pottery and polished stone.
less Palaeolithic life
—
them were genuine tillers of the soil the maize eaters. And at the same time, no doubt, another layer began to spread whose long trail is still marked by the presence of banana
But
beside
trees,
mango
trees
and coconut palms
— the
fabulous adventure
the
perspective,
more
'
4
historic
modern
—
—
humus or sand deposits Utter the old earth of the continents. Mankind was of course still very much split up. To get an it, we must think of what the first white men found in America or Africa a veritable mosaic of groups, profoundly
idea of
—
different
both ethnically and
But mankind was
Since the
exchanges increased in the commerce of objects and the transmission of ideas. Traditions became organised and a collective developed.
membrane might close in
Slender
and granular
as
this
first
and then began to
be, the noosphere there
upon itself— and
to
we
to encircle the earth.
We
have retained the habit, come
when human ticular slice
palaeontology did not
of
six
down exist,
to us from the days
of
isolating that par-
thousand years or so for which
written or dated documents. This for us
206
is
wc
possess
History, as opposed
get the past into
of of point out, there was the
including
Of
the Neolithic age.
course, as
we
shall
ing the same are taking
lines
beginning
and on the same plane.
view
the biological point of
— how
hominisation
shall
—which
is
the
one
define and represent the progress
course of
in the
digiously fruitful
we
we of
period, so short yet so pro-
this
?
what history records among the welter of peoples and empires, is the normal expansion of
Essentially, institutions,
Homo
sapiens at the heart
of the
the Neolithic transformation.
of
the
oldest
*
splinters
'
social
Wc
atmosphere created by
find a gradual falling
some of which,
like
away
the Australian
still adhere to the extreme fringe of our civilisation on die other hand we find accentuation and our continents and domination of certain other stems, more central and more vigorous, which attempt to monopolise the land and die light. Here and there we find disappearances causing a thinning-out, here and there some fresh buddings which make the foliage more dense. Some branches wither, some sleep, some shoot up and spread everywhere. We find endless interlacing of ramifications, none of which allow their peduncles to be seen clearly, not even at a mere two thousand years back in other words the whole series of cases, situations and appearances usually met with in any phylum in a state of active proliferation. Nor is this quite all. We might suppose that, after the Neolithic age, what constituted the extreme difficulty, but also the exceptional interest, of human phylogenesis was the proximity of the facts, allowing us to follow with the naked eye, as it were, the biological mechanism of the ramification of the species. In fact, something more than that happens. So long as science had to deal only with pre-historic human ;
;
THE PROLONGATIONS OF THE NEOLITHIC AGE AND THE RISE OF THE WEST
no breach of conthe periods called
that
see
and
is
we
aborigines,
socially.
already outlined and linked up.
age of the reindeer the peoples had been little by little finding their definitive place, even in matters of detail. Between them
memory was
clearly
down
better
times) are nothing else than direct prolongations
'
From
metamorphosis (whose existence, once At the end of again, we can only just infer from the results) die world was polished practically covered with a population whose remains stone implements, mill stones and shards, found under recent
the (right
'
The
two.
increasing complexity and differentiation, but essentially follow-
across the Pacific. this
In reality, however, there
to pre-History. tinuity between
207
THE DEPLOYMENT OP THE NOOSPHERE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN groups,
more or
and to
isolated
less
a
greater or
less
extent
undergoing anthropological formation, the general rules of animal phylogenesis were still approximately valid. From Neolithic times onwards the influence of psychical factors begins to outweigh
somatic
by
factors.
—and by
And
far— the variations
henceforward
the
of ever-dwindling
foreground
is
taken up
two series of effects we announced above when describing main lines of hominisation (i) the apparition above the
the
—
the
a complex genealogical verticils of political and cultural units scale of groupings which, on the multiple planes of geographical ;
distribution,
economic
links, religious beliefs
and
social institu-
have proved capable, after submerging the race \ of and simulreacting between themselves in every proportion taneously (ii) the manifestation between these branches of a *
tions,
;
—
new
kind
—of the forces of coalescence (anastomoses, confluences)
law of '
substitution are those (mostly functional) associations
symbiosis
insects, the
accompanied
no need for
me
to emphasise the reality, diversity
rate potentially divergent
;
human
one thing that must not be forgotten if we want to But enter into and appreciate the drama. However hominised the events, the history of mankind in this rationalised form really there
is
does prolong
—though in
its
own way and
degree
— the organic
movements of life. It is still natural history through the phenomena of social ramification that it relates. Much more subtle and fraught with biological potentialities are the phenomena of confluence. Let us try to follow them in their mechanism and their consequences. Between animal branches or phyla of low psychical endowment, reactions are limited to competition and eventually to elimination. The stronger supplants the weaker and ends by stifling it. The only exceptions to this brutal, almost mechanical '
208
of
socialised
exceptional, or at
all
man) simple
events second-
always
as the geologists call the process,
is,
in
the
more with
still
is
degree of assimilation. Even when vanquished still reacts on the victor so
—especially
invasion, and yet
of a peaceful cultural
case
populations, equally resistant
which interpenetrate slowly under prolonged tension. is mutual permeation of the psychisms combined with a remarkable and significant inter fecundity. Under and
active,
What this
happens then
two-fold influence, veritable biological combinations are
at the
and fixed which
same time
had
of Homo
a
shuffle
mere tangle of stems
sapiens
;
and blend ethnic traditions Formerly, on the tree of life
as cerebral genes.
now
over the whole domain
this
everywhere to the same
we have synthesis. we do not find
But of course extent.
We
see the specevolution of nations, states and civilisations. tacle on every hand, its vicissitudes fdl the annals of the peoples.
most
brutal the conquest, the suppression
by some
endomorphosis
collective unities, at any
such as the birth, multiplication and
—
or with the
events with Post-Neolithic
become
transform him. There
as to
we
is
all
partially absorbed, the
divergences and convergences.
and continual germination of
(at
However
ary.
organisms
enslavement of one group by another-
With man
established
There
'
elimination tends to
liberated in each one by the individualisation of psychological a whole conjugated play of sheath, or more precisely of an axis
—
inferior
Because of the haphazard configuration of continents on the earth,
some regions are more favourable than others for the extended archipelagoes, junctions
concourse and mixing of races
of
valleys,
great river.
—
vast cultivable plains,
tendency ever since the installation of settled
mass to concentrate, to
Whence
the
irrigated
particularly,
In such privileged places there has
no doubt
*
fuse,
life
been
by
a
a natural
for the
human
and for its temperature to rise. appearance on the Neolithic
congenital
layer of certain foci of attraction
'
and organisation, the prelude
and presage of some new and superior state for the noosphere. Five of these foci, of varying remoteness in the past, can easily be picked out the
— Central
South Seas, with
America, with
its
Maya
Polynesian civilisation
;
civilisation
;
the basin of
the valleys of the Yellow River, with Chinese civilisation civilisation and lastly the Ganges and the Indus, with Indian ;
;
209
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN
THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE
Nile Valley and Mesopotamia with Egyptian and Sumerian civilisation. The last three foci may have first appeared almost
same period, the
at the all
first
largely independent of
two were much later. But they were one another, each struggling blindly
to spread and ramify, as though
and transform the
it
Neolithic, not rejuvenated, as elsewhere, but simply interminably complicated in on itself, not merely continuing on the same lines, but remaining on the same level, as though unable
still
to life itself
earth.
its
we
above the
up
build
these great psycho-somatic currents
par excellence
?
was quickly
In fact this struggle for influence
Maya
centre
which was too
tonous dust of its distant
islands,
The
World, and on the mono-
influences
New
isolated in the
the Polynesian centre which was too dispersed
soon met their respective
fates,
one being completely extinguished and the other radiating in vacuum. So finally the contest for the future of the world was fought out by the agricultural plain dwellers of Asia and North Africa. One or two thousand years before our era the odds between them may have seemed fairly equal. But we a
today, in the light of events, can sec that even at that stage there were the seeds of weakness in
two of
the contestants in
Either by
(and
I
mean
its
own
genius or
of immensity, China
the old China, of course) lacked
both the inclination
and the impetus for deep renovation. A singular spectacle is presented by this gigantic country which only yesterday represented still living under our eyes a scarcely changed fragment of the world as it could have been ten thousand years ago. The
—
—
population was not only fundamentally agricultural but essentially organised according to the hierarchy of territorial possessions the emperor being nothing It
was
a
more
than the biggest proprietor.
population ultra-specialised in brick work, pottery and
bronze, a population carrying to the lengths of superstition the
study of pictograms and the science of the constellations
;
an
incredibly refined civilisation, admittedly, but unchanged as to method since its beginning, like the writing which betrays the fact so ingenuously. Well into the nineteenth century it was
210
was formed.
it
of
physics, India allowed itself to be
from
past
become
lost there.
of high philosophic and
make too much of our which have come down this
*
anticyclone
'.
India
—
drawn
the region
religious pressures
:
we
indebtedness to the mystic
to each and all of us in the But however efficacious these
for ventilating and illuminating the atmosphere of mankind, we have to recognise that, with their excessive passivity
currents
and detachment, they were incapable of building the world.
The
primitive soul of India arose in
but, like a great
wind
also, again in
hour
its
How indeed could it have been odierwise
like a great
hour,
its
it
wind
passed away.
Phenomena regarded
?
an illusion (Maya) and their connections as a chain (Karma), what was left in these doctrines to animate and direct human evolution ? A simple mistake was made but it was enough in the definition of the spirit and in the appreciation of the bonds which attach it to the sublimations of matter. as
—
the East. as an effect
a science
into metaphysics, only to
can never
localised.
where
while China, already encrusted in its soil, multiplied gropings and discoveries without ever taking the trouble to
not say that the essential diing in history consists in the conflict and finally the gradual harmonisation of BasicaLly can
soil
And
were alone destined to absorb
Then
step
by step
zones of the world
ranean
—
we
are driven nearer to the
more western
to the Euphrates, the Nile,
the Mediter-
— where an exceptional concurrence of places and peoples
was, in the course of a few thousand years, to produce that
happy which reason could be harnessed to facts and religion to action. And this without losing any of their upward thrust in fact quite the contrary. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece with Rome soon to be added and above all the mysterious Judaeo-Christian ferment which gave Europe its spiritual form. But I shall be coming back to that at the end of blend, thanks to
—
—
—
book.
this
It is
to a
easy for the pessimist to reduce this extraordinary period
number of civilisations which have 211
fallen into ruins
one
after
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OF the other.
Is it
not
far
more
beneath these successive
scientific to recognise, yet
oscillations,
once again,
the great spiral of
life
:
thrusting up, irreversibly, in relays, following the master-line
of
its
An is
evolution
ever
passed
Memphis and Athens can crumble.
Susa,
?
more from hand
highly organised consciousness of the universe
Later on,
when
to hand, and I
come
CHAPTER THREE
glows steadily brighter.
to speak of the current planetisation
failed to recognise that
ardent zone of growth and universal recasting that
make man today
It
all
is
that goes
have been rediscovered. For even that which had long been its
definitive
human
not in any
way
naive to hail
as a great
known
value in becoming
incorporated in the system of European ideas and is
in this
has been discovered, or at any rate must
elsewhere only took on
activities.
It
event the discovery by
neo-humanity has been germinating round the
a
Mediterranean during the at this
moment
it
last six
starts the
noosphere, and the densest of
The proof of world
last vestiges of the budding of another layer on the
so, are
all.
all
the peoples,
to
from one end of the remain human or to
inexorably led to formulate the hopes and
problems of the modern earth in the very same terms in which the
West
man
In every epoch
of
history
And
'.
when and
this
has formulated them.
at
not been wrong.
'
a
turning-point
advancing on a
is
But there are moments
impression of transformation becomes accentuated
thus
is
has thought himself
to a certain extent, as he
rising spiral, he has
And we
particularly justified.
are certainly not
exaggerating the importance of our contemporary existences in
upon them,
estimating that,
When
turn of profound importance
a
may even
exactly.
did this turn begin ?
Like
as far as the
It is
great ship, the
a
course gradually, so
much
Renaissance
change of route.
this lies in the fact that
to the other,
become more
thousand years, and precisely
has finished absorbing the
Neolithic mosaic; thus
Change of Age
taking place in the world which
Columbus of America. In truth,
A
during historic time the principal axis
of anthropogenesis has passed through the West. to
MODERN EARTH
THE
of the noosphere, I shall try to restore to the other fragments of mankind the great and essential part reserved for them in the expected plenitude of the earth. At this point of our investigation, we would be allowing sentiment to falsify the facts if we
naturally impossible to say
human mass we can put
so that
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
It is clear,
first
only changes
back
far
which
vibrations
any
at
is
crush them.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;at
its
least
indicate the
the end of the
rate, that at
eighteenth century the course had been changed in the West.
Since then, in spite of our occasional obstinacy in pretending that
we
are the
Firstly,
ways two
same,
we
have
in fact entered a different
economic changes.
Advanced
as
centuries ago, our civilisation was
mentally on the
soil
and
its
partition.
it still
was
world.
many
in
based funda-
The type of
'
real
'
pro-
perty, the nucleus of the family, the prototype of the state (and
even the universe) was
still,
as in the earliest
arable field, the territorial basis.
Then,
little
days of society, the
by
little, as
a result
of the dynamisation of money, property has evaporated into something fluid and impersonal, so mobile that already the '
212
'
213
THE MODERN EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
common
wealth of nations themselves has almost nothing in
with
Secondly, industrial changes.
Up
many improvements made, there was still only one known source of chemical energy fire. And there was only one sort of mechanical energy employed muscle, human
—
—
the machine.
or animal, multiplied by Lastly, social
changes and the awakening of the masses.
Merely from looking
at these external signs
to suspect that the great unrest
from
wc
can hardly
which has pervaded our
nobler and deeper cause than the difficulties of a
a
life
ever since the storm of the French Revolution springs
seeking to recover
some
ancient equilibrium that
it
world
has
lost.
wc are up against is we are just entering What is troubling us
honour and good fortune of coinciding with a
the
change of the noosphere. confused and
restless zones in which present blends world of upheaval, we stand face to face with all the grandeur, the unprecendented grandeur, of the phenomenon of man. Here if anywhere, now if ever, have we, more legitimately than any of our predecessors, the right to think that we can measure the importance and detect the direction of the process of hominisation. Let us look carefully and try to understand. And to do so let us probe beneath the surface and
In these
to the eighteenth century,
in spite of the
in the West
falls
critical
their frontiers.
fail
life,
with future in
a
mind which is coming of the earth today. Our earth of factory chimneys and offices, seething with work and business, our earth with a hundred new radiations this great organism lives, in final analysis, only because of, and
try to decipher the particular form of to birth in the
womb
There is no question of shipwreck. What the heavy swell of an unknown sea which
—
from behind
for the sake of,
soul.
of thought.
arc
the cape that protected
intellectually, politically
With
simple.
to
me
and even spiritually
'
We
have only just
which held us to the Neolithic age.* but illuminating.
something quite
is
customary acute intuition, Henri Breuil
his
one day:
us.
In fact the
words, the more inclined
I
more
cast off the last
The formula I
is
said
moorings
paradoxical
have thought over these
have been to think
that Breuil
was
right.
We are, at this very moment, passing through The
age of industry
;
we that
the best
name
atom
?
total
change
in
come
from our forebears
who
at
last,
to describe the era
by the
witnessed our origin.
wiuiess the great scenes of the end.
214
birth
is
To
us, in
to
of all that
may be said), so ambitious wc have discovered and
not merely that
mastered other forces of nature.
not mistaken, is
that
In final analysis it
we have become
conscious of the
is,
if
I
am
movement
carrying us along, and have thereby realised the for-
midable problems
set us
by
this reflective exercise
pangs
men who will
first
There are others
we
;
little.
characterised
change
in four or five generations so different
(in spite
too, and so worried,
and of science
change of state. There were the
arc
in an awakening.
the apparent immobility of the agricultural centuries,
the hour has
lies a
where
—
After the long maturation that has been steadily going
inevitable in another
it,
made new creatures of one only in a new intuition involving a the physiognomy of the universe in which we
move — in other words, What has made us
effort.
matters
to look for
and subtle alteration which, without
renovating
In one place and
taking a step, and a decisive step, in us and in our environ-
The word
should be told that, at the cost
on during
those
is
collectivities
us
which
wc
ment.
what
huge
this
Beneath a change of age
we
appreciably changing our bodies, has
What does matter is of what we arc enduring,
are entering.
life is
change of age.
the age of oil, electricity and the
the age of the machine, of
the future will decide
a
situate
a new Where
our brief span of 215
of
the
human
THE MODERN EARTH i.
had an intuition that there were antipodes. onwards round the round earth the firmament
The
A,
roundly.
1
Perception of Space-time
its
It
We have the
first
up and
forgotten the
all
time,
we saw
on one
all
moment when, opening our
light
and things around us
single plane.
all
eyes for
jumbled
requires a great effort to
It
imagine the time when we were unable to read or again to take our minds back to the time when for us the world extended no farther than the walls of our home and our family circle. Similarly it seems to us incredible that men could have lived without suspecting that the stars are hung above us hundreds of light years away, or that the contours of life stretched out millions of years behind us to the limits of our horizon. Yet we have only to open any of those books with barely yellowing pages in which the authors of the sixteenth, or even as late as the eighteenth, century discoursed
on the
structure of worlds to
fact
that our great-great-great-grandfathers
felt perfectly at ease in a
cubic space where the stars turned round
be
by the
startled
than 6,000 years.
In a
cosmic atmosphere which would suffocate us from the
iirst
the earth, and had been doing so for
moment, and
in perspectives in
less
which
it is
physically impossible
for us to enter, they breathed without any inconvenience, if not
very deeply.
Between them and us what, then, has happened ? revealing of I know of no more moving story nor any more intelligence that of the biological reality of a noogenesis than struggling step by step from the beginning to overcome the encircling illusion of proximity. In the course
the relief of the
because in
it
of
was more
this field
when
tangible.
before Aristotle), bending back on 1 I
master the dimensions and the first to yield
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; naturally,
In fact the first hurdle
long, long ago a
But
situation
was only
it
the focus
man (some itself
was taken
Greek, no doubt,
the apparent flatness of
Cf. Collingwood, Idea of Nature (O.U.P. 1944) passim]
itself rolled
of the spheres was badly placed.
By
incurably paralysed the elasticity of the system.
really in the
time of Galileo, through rupture with
the ancient geocentric view, that the skies
were made
free for
which we have since detected in them. became a mere speck of sidereal dust. Immensity became possible, and to balance it the infinitesimal sprang into
the boundless expansions
The
earth
existence.
For lack of apparent yardsticks, the depths of the past took
much
longer to be plumbed. The movement of stars, the shape of mountains, the chemical nature of bodies indeed all matter seemed to express a continual present. The physics of the seventeenth century was incapable of opening Pascal's eyes to the abysses of the past. To discover the real age of the earth and then of the elements, it was necessary for man to become fortuitously interested in an object of moderate mobility, such as life, for instance, or even volcanoes. It was thus through a narrow crack (that at' natural history ', then in its infancy) that from the eighteenth century onwards light began to seep down
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
into the great depths beneath our
feet.
In these initial estimates,
the time considered necessary for the formation of the world
was still very modest. But at least the impetus had been given and the way out opened up. After the walls of space, shaken by the Renaissance, it was the floor (and consequently the ceiling) of time which, from Buffon onwards, became mobile. Since then, under the unceasing pressure of
has continually accelerated.
Although the
facts,
strain has
the process
been taken
The
between the turns in the spiral has seemed ever greater and there have always been further turns still
not been relaxed.
appearing deeper
distance
still.
awakening to the immensistill remained they were two homogeneous and independent of each other 217 Yet in these
ties
first
stages in man's
of the cosmos, space and time, however vast, ;
2l6
then
off for close on two hundred years, the spirals of the world have
this struggle to
universe, space was
From
things,
THE DISCOVERY OF EVOLUTION
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE MODERN EARTH
from the other, extending great containers, quite separate one or were no doubt, but in which things floated about
conquered the surrounding territory chemistry, physics, sociology and even mathematics and the history of religions. One after the other all the fields of human knowledge have been shaken and carried away by the same under-water current in the direction of the study of some development. Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis ? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be
infinitely
to the nature
packed together in ways owing nothing
of
their
setting.
beyond measure, The two compartments had been enlarged seemed as freely transposable but within each of them the objects seemed as if they could be placed here at will. moved forward, pushed back or even suppressed
as before.
or there,
It
ventured formally
as far as this play
of thought,
If no-one
at least there
was
extent it was no clear idea why or to what arise. not did This was a question which middle of the nineteenth century, again It was only in the that the light dawned at last, under the influence of biology, impossible.
still
revealing the
irreversible
concatenations of
molecule
is,
and, soon
in nature
sidereal process,
knit into the
life
coherence
and
and the
web of life
after,
all
The
exists.
those of matter
its
of the protozoa
distribution,
is
The
least
of the whole structurally so
succession
in a are born front their concrescence
common
whole network of the
and solidarity genesis.
of objects
Time and
perceive things today.
what is hidden behind this initiation ? One heart at the sight of so might well become impatient or lose Psychologically
today (and not mediocre ones either) remaining
whole of history were closed to idea of evolution, if the seen, even by a single once not there to pledge to us that a truth of human always ends up by imposing itself on the totality
Evolution
is a
light illuminating all facts, a
must follow. In the last century and a half the most prodigious event, perhaps, ever recorded by history since the threshold of reflection the definitive access of has been taking place in our minds consciousness to a scale of new dimensions and in consequence the birth of an entirely renewed universe, without any change of line or feature by the simple transformation of its intimate curve that
all
lines
:
;
substance.
Until that time the world seemed to able,
on
the three axes of its geometry.
rest, static
and fragment-
Now
a casting
it is
from
a single mould.
What makes
space
as to weave, together, the stuff are organically joined again so have reached and how we of the universe. That is the point we
many minds
thinkable and true.
existence cannot be hypothctically
the annihilated without ipso facto undoing
biosphere.
that
in position, a function
least
that
of
First the
—
and
modern man (and a whole not yet modern in this sense)
classifies a
host of our contemporaries
is
'
'
'
'
having become capable of seeing in terms not of space and time alone, but also of duration, or it comes to the same thing of biological space-time ; and above all having become incapable of seeing anything otherwise anything not even is
—
—
—
himself
This
last step
brings us to the heart of the metamorphosis.
still
mind,
For many, evolution is still only transfer mism, hypothesis as local and transformism is only an old Darwinian solar system or the of and as dated as Laplace's conception of Continental Drift. Blind indeed are those
b.
The Envelopment
in
Duration
consciousness.
Wegener's Theory who do not see the sweep of
a
transcends the natural sciences
movement whose
orbit infinitely
and has successively invaded and 218
Obviously man could not see evolution feeling to some extent carried along by demonstrated
this.
all it
around him without himself.
Darwin
has
Nevertheless, looking at the progress of
transformist views in the
last
hundred 219
years,
we
are surprised
THE MODERN EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN able at the naively naturalists and physicists were the outside to be standing early stages to imagine themselves Almost incurably universal stream they had just discovered. each other in from separated become subject and object tend to isolate ourto inclined are continually the act of knowing. as though us, events which surround selves from the things and
to see
how
We
them from outside, from unable to observatory into which they were goes what in we were spectators, not elements,
we
were looking
at
when it was raised man s origins was
the shelter of an
though on. That is why, by the concatenations of life, the question of enter, as
for so long restricted to the purely somatic
might well have formed and bodily side. A long animal heredity the play of which it above always our limbs, but our mind was might be, it did not the score. However materialistic they kept
their scientific intelligence
occur to the first evolutionists that had anything to do in itself with evolution. truth they had At this stage they were only half-way to the discovered.
pages of this book, 1 have been relentlessly for invincible reasons of homogeneity insisting on one thing demand their proand coherence, the fibres of cosmogenesis flesh and blood. than deeper longation in us in a way that goes far in the current of life are not only set adrift and carried away but, like a subtle fluid, by the material surface of our being
From
the very
and transferring cosmic stuff but
to the spiritual constructions
also the
cosmic
'
primacy
'
of life not only the
hitherto reserved by
whirlwind of the ancient ether'. How indeed could we incorporate thought into the organic flux of space-time without being forced to grant it the first place
science to the tangled
the
in
processus
*
How
?
could
with a noogenesis ? Thus we see not only thought as
an anomaly or
we
imagine a cosmogenesis
mind without being thereby confronted
reaching right up to
as an
as participating in
epiphenomenon
evolution
but evolution as so
;
reducible to and identifiable with a progress towards thought that the
movement of our
stages of progress
nothing
else
than evolution
itself.
(because
It
summit and on
waiting for
this
discovers that he
summit
itself,
seems to
and inasmuch
will never find rest until they settle this
Man
become conscious of
Julian Huxley's striking expression.
modern minds
and measures the very
souls expresses
of evolution
as
down
me
is
borrow
to
that
our
they arc modern) to this
view.
On
alone are repose and illumination
us.
first
:
We
c.
The
The
Illumination
of each of us
consciousness
is
evolution looking at itself
;
space-time soul
;
soul's
first
it fdls it
drowns our bodies and then and impregnates
potentialities
longer knows
how
to such
to
it
;
it
penetrates to our
blends
itself
space-time from
its
own
can use their eyes nothing, not even at longer, because the summit of our being, can escape this flux any very act by The consciousness. it is only definable in increase of is a which the fine edge of our minds penetrates the absolute recognised as it were, of emergence. In short, first
thoughts.
To
those
who
phenomenon, only
at a single
point, then perforce extended to the
whole
is now, inorganic and organic volume of matter, evolution whether we like it or not, gaining the psychic zones of the world
220
reflecting
With
with the
an extent that soon the soul no
distinguish
and
that
as instinctive
upon
itself.
very simple view, destined,
as
1
suppose, to
and familiar to our descendants
become
as the discovery
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
of a third dimension in space is to a baby, a new light inexhaustibly harmonious bursts upon the world, radiating from
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
ourselves.
Step by step, from the early earth onwards,
we have
followed
going upwards the successive advances of consciousness in matter
undergoing organisation.
now
the whole. is
Having reached
die
peak,
we
can
turn round and, looking downwards, take in the pattern of
perfect.
And
this
From any
second check
is
decisive,
the
other point of view, there
221
is
harmony always
a
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN snag
something
THE MODERN EARTH
no natural place no Whereas here, from top to bottom, from our souls and including our souls, the lines stretch in both directions, untwisted and unbroken. From top to bottom, a triple unity persists and develops unity of structure, unity of mechanism and unity of movement.
'
'
:
generic place
— for
there
clashes, for
human thought
is
in the landscape.
:
a.
Unity of structure.
On
every
We found human
it
*
Verticils
scale, this
*
the pattern
is
farmings out \
'
we
see
on
the tree of
life.
again at the origins of mankind and of the principal
waves.
We have
seen
it
own eyes today in the and races. And now, with an training, we shall be able to
with our
ramifications of nations
complex
and
eye rendered more sensitive by discern the same pattern again in forms which are more and more immaterial and near.
Our
habit
is
to divide
up our human world into compart-
natural and ments of different sorts of realities moral, organic and juridical, and for instance. physical *
'
:
In
a
space-time,
include the
between
these pairs
and
legitimately
movements of
the
us,
of opposites tend to vanish.
such a great difference
from
the point
extended
perforce
mind within
artificial,
Is
all
he has had the ingenuity to provide himself ineluctable play
of the energies of
?
In
what way
is
than the principle of universal attraction
?
little
one day to become the structural laws of the nooIn their essence, and provided they keep their vital
what
spherc
?
or
are
connection with the current that wells up from the depths of the
it
would
account verbally for it in terms of some abstract necessity. For a mind that has awakened to the full meaning of evolution,
mere
inexplicable similitude
resolved in identity— the
is
of a structure which, under different forms, extends from the bottom to the top, from threshold to threshold, from the roots to the flowers— by the organic continuity of movement or, which amounts to the same thing, by the organic unity of milieu. identity
The
social
phenomenon
of the biological b.
was
is
the culmination
to these
'
words
Groping
we
that
*
and
'
exactly are these
*
invention \
turned instinctively
ran up against the facts of mutations ance of successive zoological groups.
What
and not the attenuation
phenomenon,
Unity of mechanism. It
'
when we
in describing the appear-
words worth, imbued
well be with anthropomorphism
And, conventional
and impermanent as they may seem on the surface, what are the intricacies of our social forms, if not an effort to isolate little by
;
sophic and religious doctrines. In each of these groups of human activity a superficial glance would only detect a weak and haphazard reproduction of the procedures of life. It would accept without questioning the strange fact of parallelism—
the
the heart less physically real
on close to us in a phenomena which we should never have imagined
with biology in the formation and dissemination of languages, in the development and specialisation of new industries, in the formulation and propagation of philo-
of view of the expansion
of life between a vertebrate either spreading its limbs or equipping them with feathers, and an aviator soaring on wings with which
social
to be so closely linked
to
the frontiers there after
the ramifications of evolution reappear and go
thousand
as
they
may
?
Mutation reappears undeniably at the origin of the ramifiof institutions and ideas which interlace to form human
cations
Everywhere around us it is constandy cropping up, and precisely under the two forms that biology has divined and between which it hesitates on the one hand we have mutations narrowly limited round a single focus on the other mass society.
:
'
;
past, are
not the
artificial,
the moral and the juridical simply the
hominised versions of the natural, the physical and the organic ?
From
this
point of view, which
history of the world, distinctions
is
we
that
of the future
cling to
from
die risk of over-partitioning the world) lose their value.
222
natural
habit
(at
Hence
mutations
'
in
which whole blocks of mankind are swept along as however, because the phenomenon takes place
by
a flood. Here,
in
ourselves with
mistaken
of
life
:
we
its procedure in full view, we cannot be can see that in interpreting the progressive leaps
in an active and finalist
way we
223
are not in error.
For
if
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN our
'
artificial
'
constructions are really nothing but the legitimate
sequel to our phylogenesis, invention also
from which other
THE MODERN EARTH
—
as
revolutionary act
emerge one
after the
an extension in
reflective
the creations of our thought
—can legitimately be regarded
this
the obscure mechanism whereby each new form has always germinated on the trunk of life. This is no metaphor, but an analogy founded in nature. We
form of
find the same thing in both
hominised
And
it
easier to define in the
is
here again,
glancing off and in
But
lowest stages
is
this
we
a flash
find that light reflected
on
itself,
descending to the lowest frontiers of
time what
no longer an
its
of the
beam
illuminates in us at our
endless play of tangled verticils, but
a long sequence of discoveries. instinctive gropings
In the
first
same beam of light the up with the learned
cell link
So let us bow our heads with respect for the anxieties and joys of trying all and discovering The passing wave that we can feci was not formed in all \ it set out at the same ourselves. It comes to us from far away gropings of our laboratories.
'
;
time as the light from the first stars. It reaches us after creating everything on the way. The spirit of research and conquest is the permanent soul of evolution. And hence, throughout all time, unity of movement. The c. *
Man our
is
not the centre of the universe
simplicity, but
pointing the life.
Man
way
something
leave
it
But
is
as
once
we
much more wonderful
to the final unification of the
thought in
— the arrow
world
in terms of
alone constitutes the last-born, the freshest, the most
complicated, the most subtle of
This
nothing
else
all
the successive layers of
than the fundamental vision and
this vision,
mind you, only
—through
life. I
shall
acquires
its
full
value
—
is
the simultaneous illumination
within ourselves of the laws and conditions of heredity.
how
I
phy
way
talking
is
of recon-
have already had occasion to
say,
characters are formed, accumulated
224
in
him
is
enough
we do
not yet
and transmitted
to dispel or at least to correct these paradoxical
appearances.
Certainly in our innermost being we all feel the weight, of obscure powers, good or bad, a sort
the stock
unalterable
quantum
'
handed down to
us
of definite and once and for all
from the past. But with no less clarity we see that the further advance of the vital wave beyond us depends on how industri-
we
ously
tion
How
use those powers.
we see them directly
before
us,
could
through
all
we doubt
this
the channels
of
when '
tradi-
stored up irreversibly in the highest form of life accessible to our experience-I mean the collective memory and intelligence ,
of the
human
biota '
?
Ever under the influence of our tendency
artificial
',
we
are apt to regard these social
functions— tradition, education and upbringing— as pale images, almost parodies, of what takes place in the natural formation of species. If the noosphere is not an illusion, is it not much more exact to recognise in these communications and exchanges of which they come to be fixed in us, of
ideas the higher form, in
at that.
indeed only defensible
As
ciling in
as it
ogenesis the spontaneous activity of individuals with the blind determinism of the genes. In its inability to do so it is inchned to make the living being the passive and powerless witness of the transformations he undergoes-without being able to influence them and without being responsible for them Hut then (and this is the moment to setde the question once and for all), the phylogenesis of mankind, what becomes of the part, obvious enough, played by the power of invention ? What evolution perceives of itself in man by reflecting itself
to disparage the
and expansion of consciousness.'
rise
of the germ cells. Or rather, so long of plants and animals, biology has not yet found a
m
state.
so,
the past.
— only
secret recesses
the less supple
modes of biological enrichments by additivity? In short, the further the living being emerges from the anonymous masses by the radiation of his own consciousness, the greater becomes the part of his activity which can be stored up and transmitted by means of education and imitation. From point of view
know
this
in the
formation.
man only
Transplanted
represents an extreme case
by man 225
of trans-
into the thinking layer
of the
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN somatic) in the individual, finds
by
itself,
which phylogenesis merges with of cells
There
chromo-
life-centre,
and permanent,
From
ontogenesis.
in
nothing surprising
thanks to the characters of finest part to the
from
if
this
new
this
milieu,
it
is
reduced
in its
pure and simple transmission of acquired spiritual
treasures.
Passive as
may have been
it
life,
supremely
before reflection, heredity
active, in
its
noospheric form
—
now
that
is
by becoming hominised. Hence we were not saying enough when we said that evolution, by becoming conscious of itself in the depdis of ourto sav,
in
only needs to look its
all
at itself in the
wc
—
it
can give
Is
of
past to
its
this
In addition
itself
or refuse
read in our slightest acts the secret
but for an elementary part we hold for
mirror to perceive
depths and to decipher itself
free to dispose of itself
only do
top of a tower, and
tion.
The whole psychology of modern
its
it
in our
it
itself
becomes
itself.
Not
of its proceedings
;
hands, responsible
future.
grandeur or servitude
Therein
?
lies
the whole problem
suffers
from giddiness and disorienta-
is
man
old as
doubt the
himself
Nor do
I
think that
-a
more
Disquiet
impossible to accede to a fundamentally
new environment
without experiencing the inner terrors of a metamorphosis. The child
is
for our
terrified
mind
measure, It
it
when
it
opens
to adjust itself to lines
a
new
first
time. Similarly,
and horizons enlarged beyond
equilibrium for everything that had formerly
been so neatly arranged it
eyes for the
must renounce the comfort of familiar narrowness.
must create
when
its
emerges from
its
in
its
small inner world.
dark prison, awed to find
226
so
any other moment of history. Conscious or not, anguish fundamental anguish of being-despite our smiles, strikes in at
the depths of
all
our hearts and
versations.
This does not
—far from
it.
mean
is
the undertone of all our con-
that
its
cause
is
clearly recognised
Something threatens us, something is more than ever lacking, but without our being able to say exactly what. Let us
try then, step by step, to localise the source disquiet, eliminating the illegitimate causes of disturbance
find the exact site of the pain at
which the remedy,
if there
of our till is
wc
one,
should be applied. In
the
and most widespread degree, the malady of manifests itself as a rule by a feeling of futility, of being crushed by the enormities of the cosmos.
when is
anxiety
and is thus as anyone can seriously
under the influence of reflection undergoing socialisation, the men of today are particularly uneasy,
first
'
'
is
the
Which of us
'
It
human
most tangible and thus the most has ever in his life really had the courage to look squarely at and try to live a universe formed of galaxies whose distance apart runs into hundreds of thousands of light years ? Which of us, having tried, has not emerged from the ordeal shaken in one or other of his beliefs ? And who, even
THE PROBLEM OF ACTION Modem
linked with
fact that,
The enormity of space
A.
is
reflection
frightening aspect.
2.
disquiet
sudden confrontation with space-time. It cannot be denied that, in a primordial form, bound up with the very advent of
space-tune
action.
it
the
than
springs to
selves,
at the
the chain
of the noosphere. moment onwards, and
passes into the circumterrestrial layers
it
is
very
its
settled in a reflecting organism, collective
MODERN EARTH
THE
earth, heredity, without ceasing to be germinal (or
It is
dazzled
itself suddenly
'
trying to shut his eyes
as best he can to what the astronomers has not had a confused sensation of a passing over the serenity of his joy ?
implacably put before
us,
shadow Enormity of duration— sometimes having the effect of an abyss on those few who are able to see it, and at other times more usually (on those whose sight is poor), the despairing gigantic
effect
of
and monotony. Events that follow one anodier in vague pathways which intertwine, leading nowhere.
stability
a circle,
Corresponding enormity of number— the bewildering number
227
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN of
and will be necessary to ocean in which we seem to dissolve
that has been,
all
space.
An
THE MODERN EARTH
irresistibly the
more
is,
lucidly alive
conscientiously to find
we
fill
time and
all
the
more
The effort of trying among a thousand
are.
our proper place
happiness facts
we
if
and place the essence and the measure of our modern
cosmogonies within
The
million men. Or merely in a crowd. Malady of multitude and immensity ...
possible.
To overcome this first form of its uneasiness, I believe that proceed unhesitatingly the modern world has no choice but to
tomorrow
of its As motionless or blind (and by that I mean so long as we space are indeed think of them as motionless or blind) time and make our initiation into the terrifying. Accordingly what could is for it to remain dangerous world true dimensions of the necessary corrective and incomplete, deprived of its complement
itself for the
—the perception of an evolution animating those dimensions. On the other hand, what matters the giddy plurality of the stars (symmetrical with and their fantastic spread, if that immensity to equilibrate the but function the infinitesimal) has no other intermediary layer where, and where only in the medium range of
the universe
right to the end
size, life
can build
moment
intuition.
itself up
chemically
?
What
matter the millions
of years and milliards of beings that have gone before if those Our countless drops form a current that carries us along ? consciousness limitless
would evaporate,
expansions of
a
static
as
though annihilated,
or endlessly
moving
it
may
something quite be, is not only becoming but genesis, which is as a different. Indeed time and space become humanised as soon definite movement appears which gives them a physiognomy. '
There
is
nothing
new under
the sun
'
man
?
this axis
continues to be in ?
at this
turning point where the future substitutes
present and the observations of science should give
the anticipations
of a
faith,
do our perplexities legitimately
Tomorrow ? But who can guarantee us a tomorrow anyway ? And without the assurance that this tomorrow exists, can we really go on living, we to whom
and indeed inevitably begin.
has been given
— perhaps
for the first time in the
— the terrible
gift
of foresight
whole
story
of
?
—
of die dead end the anguish of feeling shut in . we have at last put our finger on the tender spot. What makes the world in which we live specifically modern And I can is our discovery in it and around it of evolution. now add that what disconcerts the modern world at its very Sickness
.
.
This time
roots
is
not being sure, and not seeing
sure, that there
is
an outcome
a suitable
how
it
outcome
ever could be
— to that evolu-
tion.
Now
what should the future be
like in
order to give us the
strength or even die joy to accept the prospect its
weight
To come remedy,
of
it
and bear
?
let
to grips
with the problem and
us examine the
whole
see if there
is
a
situation.
say the despairing.
But what about you, O reflection, you must admit that you have climbed a step higher Very well, but at least nothing has changed than the animals. any longer since the beginning of changing is and nothing man of the twentieth century, how does history/ In that case, and are susceptible it happen that you are waking up to horizons thinking
way to
no doubt is motion and at this motion. But will it still be in motion Along
n oogenesis.
a
universe has always been in
Here only,
universe.
inwardly reinforced in a flux which, incredibly vast as
It is
in the
our present uneasiness would be turned into could once make up our minds to accept the
In truth, half
Unless you repudiate
b.
The Requirements of the Future
*
O
to fears that
your forefathers never knew 228
?
There was children.
—the
bait
a
To
time
when
advance,
life
held sway over none but slaves and
all it
needed was to feed obscure instincts
of food, the urge of reproduction, the half-confused
struggle for a place in the sun, stepping over others, trampling
229
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN them down
if
The aggregate
need be.
when
There was a time too, almost within living memory, the workers and the disinherited accepted without reflec-
which kept them
tion the lot
of society. Yet when found
life
rose automatically and
of an enormous sum of egoisms given
docile, as the resultant rein.
THE MODERN EARTH
criticising
it it
the
first
upon
spark of thought appeared
ing to the idea of evolution.
that
something
perhaps
we
who
workers
we
*
that,
is
who have grown up, we are discovering
or collectively) at the utmost limits of ourselves. This is an elementary request, a basic wage, so to speak, veiling neverthe-
more
in the great
serious
game
still
that
are the players as well as being the cards
is
is
us,
that
being
and
the
Nothing can go on if we leave the table. Neither can force us to remain. Is the game worth the candle, or power any are we simply its dupes? This question has hardly been formulated as yet in man's heart, accustomed for hundreds of centuries it is a question, however, whose mere murmur, to toe the line stakes.
;
The
already audible, infallibly predicts future rumblings.
century witnessed the
systematic strikes in industry
first
There lies precisely the ill that causes our disquiet. Having got so far, what are the minimum requirements to be fulfilled before we can say that the road ahead of us is open ? There is only one, but it is everything. It is that we should be assured the space and the chances to fulfd ourselves, that is to say, to progress till we arrive (directly or indirectly, individually
conscious \
And what
that the effort demanded of us has a chance of succeeding and of taking us as far as possible. An animal may rush headlong down a blind alley or towards a precipice. Man will never take a step in a direction he knows to be blocked.
awaken-
first
developing in the world by means of
is
have become aware
played,
Like sons
have become
our expense.
at
die earth,
had brought into the world a power capable of and judging it. This formidable risk which long
lay dormant, but whose dangers burst out with our
like
remainder
in servitude to the
on condition
;
last
the
next will surely not pass without the threat of strikes in the
is not the end and aim of thought unimaginable farthest limit of a convergent sequence, propagating itself without end and ever higher ? Does not the end or confine of thought consist precisely in not having a
that
?
danger that the elements of the world should
a
is
nothing
at
order be restored
they think itself
Under our modern
reflection.
And now,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; because
world should refuse
cisely that the
and growing
world
what ?
less
what
crisis in
is
itself
forming
evolution.
and on what contractual bases will the evidence, that
all
or more pre-
perceiving
disquiet,
than an organic
price
On
when
;
is
the nub of the
problem.
is
clear.
We
task that has been allotted us
of mind we shall be in from now shall never bend our backs to the
of pushing noogenesis onward except
230
in this respect is a
among
all
the energies
dimension to which
it is
of
the
inconceiv-
and even contradictory to ascribe a ceiling or to suppose it can double back upon itself. There are innumerable critical points on the way, but a halt or a reversion is impossible, and for the simple reason that every increase of internal vision is essentially the germ of a further vision which includes all the others and carries still farther on. able that
fact
this
of being
able to itself,
move
of
remarkable situation
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
that
our mind, by the very
able to discern infinite horizons ahead,
is only by the hope of achieving, through something of
a supreme
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; without which
consummation
be stunted,
feel itself to
frustrated
and cheated.
it
would
By
rightly
the nature
the work, and correlativcly by the requirement [exigence]
the worker, a total death, an unscalable wall, on sciousness
would
crash
of which con-
and then for ever disappear, are thus
with the mechanism of conscious activity would immediately break its mainspring).
compossible
In the critical disposition
on, one thing
Unique
universe, consciousness
Hence is
refuse to serve the
through
still
confine
noosphere.
There
stupendous demand. But
less a
'
The more man becomes man, the less will he be move except towards that which is interminably 231
'
in-
(since it
prepared to
and indes-
THE PHENOMENON OP tructibly
new. Some
*
*
absolute
is
THE MODERN EARTH
MAN
implied in the very play of
his operative activity.
minds can go on saying as much as they like that ihe new generation, less ingenuous than their elders, no longer believes in a future and in a perfecting of the world. Has it even occurred to those who write and repeat these tilings that, if they were right, all spiritual movement on earth would be virtually brought to a stop ? They seem to believe that life would continue its peaceful cycle when deprived of light, of hope and of the attraction of an inexhaustible future. And this is a great mistake. Flowers and fruit might But from still go on perhaps for a few years more by habit. trunk would severed. Even be well and truly these roots the on stacks of material energy, even under the spur of immediate fear or desire, without the taste for life, mankind would soon stop inventing and constructing for a work it knew to be doomed in advance. And, stricken at the very source of the impetus which sustains it, it would disintegrate from nausea or revolt and crumble into dust. Having once known the taste of a universal and durable progress, we can never banish it from our minds any more than our intelligence can escape from the space-time perspective it After that,
*
positive and critical
'
If progress
we
myth, that
is
to say, if faced
by the work
What's the good of it all ? our efforts that With the whole of evolution will come to a
will flag. halt
a
is
remedy that can cure it. After the long series of transformations leading to man, has the world stopped ? Or, if we are still moving, is it not merely in a circle ? The answer to that uneasiness of the modern world springs *
'
up by
itself
when we
formulate the dilemma in which the
analysis of our action has imprisoned us.
Either nature
closed to our
demands for futurity, in which of millions of years of effort, is stifled, still-born in a self-abortive and absurd universe. Or else an opening exists— that of the super-soul above our souls but is
case thought, the fruit
;
in that case the
way
out, if we are to agree to
embark on
must open out freely onto limitless psychic spaces in a universe to which we can unhesitatingly entrust ourselves. Between these two alternatives of absolute optimism or absolute pessimism, there is no middle way because by its very nature progress
is
all
or nothing.
We are confronted
can say
'
'
:
— because we are evolution.
And now, by
:
way
house.
On
neither side
is there any tangible evidence to produce. Only, in support of hope, there are rational invitations to an act of faith.
this cross-roads where we cannot stop and wait because we pushed forward by life—and obliged to adopt an attitude if we want to go on doing anything whatsoever what are we going freely to decide ?
are
—
To
1
The Dilemma and
determine man's choice, in
his
famous wager, Pascal
the very fact that
we have measured
1
There
is
us,
we
the truly are put in
no such thing as the energy of despair in spite of what is somethose words realiy mean is a paroxysm of hope against hope. *
'
What
All conscious energy
is,
like love (and because
232
it is
love),
Here,
one of the alternatives is weighted with logic and, in by the promise of a whole world, can we still speak of game of chance ? Have we the right to hesitate ?
the Choice
cosmic gravity of the sickness that disquiets
times said.
accordingly
with two directions and only two one upwards and the other downwards, and there is no possibility of finding a half-
loaded the dice with the lure of boundless gain.
c.
it,
At
once has glimpsed. involved
possession of the
founded on hope.
The world
is
too big
a
concern for
that.
To
when
a sense, a
simple
bring us into
from the beginning juggled miraculously with too many improbabilities for there to be any risk whatever in committing ourselves further and following it right to the end. existence
If it
it
has
undertook the
task,
it is
because
233
it
can finish
it,
following
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN the same methods and with the same it
began.
is
that
infallibility
with which
In last analysis the best guarantee that a thing should
We been
happen
appears to us as vitally necessary.
it
have
by
said that life,
lifted to
its
very structure, having once
stage of thought, cannot
its
go on
at all
without
BOOK FOUR STIR V V T
requiring to ascend ever higher.
This is enough for us to be assured of the two points of which our action has immediate need. The first is that there is for us, in the future, under some
form or
another, at least collective, not only survival but also
super-life.
The second
is
that,
to imagine,
superior form of existence,
always further
we have
in the direction in
tion take on their
maximum
discover and reach
which the
coherence.
^34
this
only to think and to walk lines
passed by evolu-
a t
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
CHAPTER ONE
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE Preliminary Observation
A When man
Blind Alley to be Avoided
:
:
Isolation
has realised that he carries the world's fortune in
himself and that a
him in which him along the
limitless future stretches before
he cannot founder, his
first
reflex often leads
dangerous course of seeking fulfilment in isolation. In one example of this flattering to our private egotism
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
some
innate instinct, justified by reflection, inclines us to think
that to give ourselves full scope
possible
from
the
our fellows, or alternatively that
we
*
will find that
declared goal
Is it
break
with that
To
initial
So
is it
from
is our with the
phyletic
not in a line continuous
emancipation that further advance must
be more alone so
ing substance,
which
'
the past teaches us that,
itself.
as far as
to ourselves,
their subjection
in
onset of reflection, an element partially liberated servitudes began to live for
away
not in our aloofness from
utmost limit of ourselves
The study of
?
we must
crowd of others.
as
to increase one's being. Like
mankind would
of active, dissociated
particles.
some
lie?
radiat-
in this case culminate in a dust
This doubdess would not
mean
would be extinguished in darkness, for would involve the total death whose hypothesis we have just eliminated by our fundamental option. Rather it would involve the hope that, in the long run, some rays, more penetrating or luckier than others, would finish up by finding the path sought from the outset by consciousness, groping for diat a cluster of sparks that
*37
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN consummation.
its
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
Concentration by decentration from the
and by dint of solitude the elements of the noosphere capable of being saved would find their salvation at the rest
;
solitary,
extreme limit It is
of,
bounds of
the
and by the very excess
a
come
the need to
of, their
individualisation.
'
extreme individualism to go beyond philosophy of immediate enjoyment and feel
around
rare
phenomenon— the natural confluence of grains of thought '—they disfigure or hide from our eyes the veritable contours of the noosphere and render biologically impossible the formation of a veritable spirit of the earth. an essential
us for
with the profound requirements of
to terms
1.
THE CONFLUENCE OF THOUGHT
action.
Less theoretical and is
less
another doctrine of
very moment,
is
*
extreme, but
all
fascinating large
more
the
progress by isolation sections
'
of mankind
doctrine of the selection and election of races. collective egotism, keener, nobler
and more
individual egotism, racialism
the virtue in
lias
insidious,
which, at
—
the
Flattering to
easily
aroused than perspectives
its
of accepting and extending rigorously, just as they occur, the lines of the tree of life. What indeed does the history of the animate world show us but
a
succession of ramifications, spring-
ing up one after the other, one on the top of the other, through the success
should
and domination of
we
privileged
a
group
be exempt from the general rule
?
And why
?
Why
should
and the the trial of strength ? The super-man survival of the fittest should, like any other stem, be an offshoot from a single bud between
there not be once again
a. Forced Coalescence
this
us the struggle for life
;
Coalescence of Elements.
a.
we have two
forms of the same
different
able to produce a plausible justification
pursued by
We versity)
life
shall
for
its
later
wherein
here
each seemingly
by pointing to the methods
development right
be seeing
tactics,
:
lies
down
more than conjecturable in atoms and molecules, this psychic interpenetrabihty grows and becomes directly perceptible in the case of organised beings. Finally in man, in the effects of
whom
consciousness attain the present maximum found in nature, it reaches a high degree everywhere. It is written all over the social
phenomenon and
at the
same time,
the
the attraction (or per-
of these cynical and brutal theories in which, however,
why, faced with a noble passion may also stir. We one or other of these calls to violence, we cannot help sometimes being deeply responsive. They involve a subtle deformaof a great
What
'
truth.
matters at the
moment
is
to see clearly that those in
both groups deceive themselves, and us too, inasmuch 238
as,
is,
of course,
in this case also,
tangential energies
*
it
felt
by
us directly.
ignoring
But
operates only in virtue of
of arrangement and thus under certain
conditions of spatial juxtaposition. here there intervenes
a fact,
commonplace
at first sight,
but through which in reality there transpires one of the most fundamental characteristics of the cosmic structure— the roundness
of the
earth.
The geometrical limitation of a star closed, upon itself. We have already regarded
a gigantic molecule,
to us.
shall also see
tion
'
'
And of the individual or isolation of the group
very nature, and at every
their
*
of mankind. Isolation
By
of complexity, the elements of the world are able to influence and mutually to penetrate each other by their within, so as to combine their radial energies in bundles \ While no level
as
a
necessary feature at the origin of the
polymerisations
on the
having
to say so,
it
and
the progress
early
earth.
first
Implictly,
has constantly sustained
all
like this
and without our
synthesis
the differentiations
of the biosphere. But what are we to say of its function in the noosphere ? What would have become of humanity if, by some remote chance, it had been free to spread indefinitely on an unlimited all
surface, that
is
to say left only to the devices
239
of
its
internal
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Something unimaginable,
affinities ?
gether different from the at
when we
all,
played in
certainly something alto-
modern world. Perhaps even nothing forces
of compression.
no
Originally and for centuries there was
human waves expanding
to the
probably
their social
serious obstacle
over the surface of the globe
;
is
waves began,
these
as
we
have seen, to recoil upon themselves.
All available space being occupied, the occupiers had to pack in
That
tighter.
ing
effect
is
how,
step
of generations,
by
step,
through die simple multiply-
we have come
at present, an almost solid mass
Now,
to the degree that
—
to constitute, as
we
do
of hominised substance. under the effect of this pressure
—
and thanks to their psychic permeability the human elements infiltrated more and more into each other, their minds (mysterious coincidence) were mutually stimulated by proximity.
And
as
upon themselves, they each extended little by little the radius of their influence upon this earth which, by the same token, shrank steadily. What in fact do we see happening in the modern paroxysm ? It has been stated over and over again. Through the discovery yesterday of the railway, the motor car and the aeroplane, the physical influence of each man, formerly restricted to a few miles, now extends to hundreds of though
dilated
leagues or more. Better
still
:
thanks to the prodigious biological
event represented by the discovery of electro-magnetic waves,
each individual finds himself henceforth (actively and passively) simultaneously present, over land and
sea, in
every corner of the
earth.
Thus, not only through the constant increase in the numbers
of its members, but also through the continual augmentation of their area of individual activity, mankind forced to develop as it
is
in
a
is one of the first facts to keep in mind, or our picture of the future of the world. Undeniably, quite apart from any hypothesis,
confined area
— has
—
found
itself relentlessly subjec-
to coalesce—of
this effort
structions
L
nature—so prone
souls, operates
of consciousness
;
Coalescence of the Branches.
the theory and
pogenesis— I to
Twice already—once in developing once in outlining the historic phases of anthro-
called attention to the curious property, peculiar
human lines of descent, of coming into contact and mixing with
each other, notably by institutions.
survey of the
What
means of their psychic sheath and social The moment has now come to make a general phenomenon and discover its ultimate significance.
at first
sight intrigues the naturalist when he tries to we the hominids—not merely in themselves, as anthropologists usually do, but in comparison with other animal forms— is the
extraordinary elasticity of their zoological group. Outwardly man, the anatomical differentiation of a primitive type pursues its course as everywhere in evolution. By genetic effects mutain
tions are varieties
By
produced. and races
come
climatic and geographical influences,
into existence.
Somatically speaking, present continually in formation and perfecdy recognisable. Yet the remarkable thing is that its divergent branches no longer succeed in separating. Under conditions of distribution which in any other initial phylum would have led long ago to the break up into different species, the human verticil as it spreads out remains entire, like a gigantic leaf whose the
'
veins, tissue.
level,
fanning-out
'
is
however distinct, remain always joined in a common With man we find indefinite interfecundation on every the blending of genes, anastomoses of races in civilisa-
offers us the
240
our thinking
the
presently.
each advance in element.
shall
towards a concenand so powerful is that it even succeeds in subjugating the very conof phylogenesis— but wc shall be coming to that
tions
caused a corresponding expansion in each
when combined with
tration of the energies
ted to an intense pressure, a sclf-acccntuating pressure, because it
we
the external
play of cosmic forces,
one of the reasons explaining the slowness of evolution. Then, from the Neolithic age onwards,
this
That vitiate
think of the extreme importance of the role
development by the
its
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
or
political
bodies.
Zoologically
speaking,
mankind
unique spectacle of a species capable of achieving something in which all previous species had failed It. '
241
'
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN has succeeded,
not only
in
becoming cosmopolitan, but
membrane over the earth without stretching a single organised breaking
it.
To what
.
we
should
more
a reversal, or
attribute this strange condition
it
not to
ways
exactly a radical perfectioning, of the
and only
now
of a
possible)
of life by the operation (at last, coalescence upon powerful instrument of evolution-thc
itself
of
man and can make no as we fail to see that, in
stand nothing about
long
his future, so
.
association had been to gather socially to realise in the matter of the finer extremities of the together on themselves, one by one,
mechanical and family same phylum. This resulted in essentially impulse of construction, groups, created on a purely functional '
'
colony, the hive or the defence or propagation, such as the association is limned ant-heap— all organisms whose power of man onwards, From mother. to the offspring of one single or support provided by thanks to the universal framework of confluence. At the thought, free rein is given to the forces branches themselves of one and heart of this new milieu, the or rather they become welded the same group succeed in uniting, to separate off. together even before they have managed of groups in the course of In this way the differentiation
maintained up to a certain point, that is gropingly creating new types—it is a biologi-
phylogenesis
to say so far
as—by
*
ramifi-
(in so far as it still persists)
—
—
—
'
species
around the surface of the earth,
of phylogenesis.
a
completely
new mode
1
B.
Mega-Synthesis
'
'
human
his case,
works only with the aim and under higher forms of agglomeration and convergence. Formation of verticils, selection, struggle for life henceforward these are secondary functions, subordinate in man to a task of cohesion, a furling back upon itself of a bundle of potential
cation
'
serried shoots
to reach a point of conjunction always have remained insufficient on the human biota by the without the new binder conferred came, the most life had managed birth of reflection. Until man
we under-
valid forecasts of
'
an entire phylum ? process, lies the exiguity of Here again, at the base of the living stems are forced by their very the earth on which the their living branches like growth to writhe and intertwine and would of ivy. But this external contact was .
Anthropologically, ethnically, socially, morally,
in
is
that (or at the condition of discovery and enrichment. After meridians separate same time)— as happens on a sphere where the the other— this divergence off at one pole only to come together at to, a movement of subordinate gives place to, and becomes consolidate one nations in which races, peoples and
cal
The
coalescence of elements and the coalescence
of stems, the geometry of the earth and psychical curvature of the mind harmonising to counterbalance the individual and collective forces of dispersion in the world and to impose unification there at last we find the spring and secret of horninisation. But why should there be unification in the world and what
spherical
—
purpose does
To
it
to put side
by
serve
?
answer to
sec the
side the
this
ultimate question,
phenomenon of man
moment we began
in the
trying to
world.
Evolution= Rise of consciousness, Rise of consciousness= Union effected.
The
general
gathering
together in which,
by
correlated
and the within of the earth, the totality of thinking units and thinking forces are engaged the aggregation in a single block of a mankind whose fragments weld together and interpenetrate before our eyes in spite of (indeed in proactions of the without
—
—
all this becomes intelligible to) their efforts to separate from top to bottom as soon as we perceive it as the natural culmination of a cosmic processus of organisation which has
portion
convergence
fecundation. another and complete one another by mutual 242
have only
two equations which have been gradually
formulating themselves from the situate the
we
1
This
is
what
I
have called elsewhere
243
*
the
human
Planetisation \
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
never varied since those remote ages when our planet was young. molecules of carbon compounds with their thousands
First the
direction in
which, within
a
degree of
very small volume, contains thousands of molecules linked in
a
must make
of atoms symmetrically grouped complicated system
more
next the
;
then the metazoa in which the
;
than an almost infinitesimal element
made
fold attempts
symbiosis and
cell
;
and
all together*
reality
of the
we must now
to enter into
2.
THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH
themselves to a higher biological condi-
raise
the thinking layer
which over
twines
not to confuse and neutralise them but to
them in the
reinforce
Really
its full
extent develops and inter-
living unity of a single tissue.
can see no coherent, and therefore
I
of grouping
this
immense
succession
of
facts
scientific,
but
'
to
which
all
the thinking elements
way
as a gigantic
psycho-biological operation, a sort of mega-synthesis, the
arrangement
'
super-
of the earth
Mega-synthesis in the tangential, and therefore and thereby
forward of the
evolution
ever
:
If that
sciousness.
radial energies
reserved for those
No
of
Also
and against nature. and grow except with and by all the
move
is false
itself.
false
and against nature
draining off for itself alone
is
all
required than the
the racial ideal of
one branch
the sap of the tree and rising
over the death of other branches. is
error hidden in the depths
?
everyone for himself'
element could
others with
vital
The egocentric ideal of a future who have managed to attain egoistically the
of any doctrine of isolation extremity
along the principal axis of
more complexity and thus ever more conis what really happens, what more do we
need to convince ourselves of the
To
reach the sun nothing
combined growth of the
The outcome of
less
entire foliage.
the world, the gates of the future, the entry super-human these are not thrown open to a few of the privileged nor to one chosen people to the exclusion of all others. They will open only to an advance of all together, in a
into the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
244
Mankind the idea of mankind was the first image in terms of which, at the very moment that he awoke to the idea of progress, modern man must have tried to reconcile the hopes of an unlimited future with which he could no longer :
dispense, with
the perspective of the inevitability of his individual death. Mankind was at first '
'
rather than thought out, in
growth was
find themselves today individually and collectively subject.
a leap
Mankind
germination of planetary dimensions, comes
as a
fibres,
whose physical whose outline we
no mani-
A.
its
consider and
clearer.
tion.
And now,
can join and find completion in a
earth, a renovation
cell is
later the
by the metazoa
sporadically
which
spiritual renovation
allied to a
own
a
which an obscure
need for universal
unavoidable
vague
entity, felt
feeling of perpetual
fraternity.
Mankind was
the object of a faith that was often naive but whose magic, being stronger than all vicissitudes and criticisms, goes on working with persuasive force upon the present-day masses and on the 'intelligentsia alike. Whether one takes part in the cult or makes fun of it even today no-one can escape being haunted or even '
dominated by
of mankind.
the idea
In the eyes of the
prophets
of the eighteenth century, the a jumble of confused and the divination of a believer was ; required to feel the beating heart of that sort of embryo. Now less than two hundred years later, here we are penetrating (though hardly conscious of the fact) into the reality, at any rate the material reality, of what our fathers expected. In the course of a few generations all sorts of economic and cultural links have been forged around us and they are multiplying in geometric '
world appeared really and loose relationships
progression.
Even
if
'
no more than
Nowadays, over and above
simple Neolithic 1
as
man
the bread
symbolised food, each
they do so only under the influence of
245
a
which
to
man demands
his
few, an Mite.
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN electricity, oil and daily ration of iron, copper and cotton, of news. international of and cinema the of discoveries, of
probable
whole earth have any words which is required to nourish each one of us. If meaning, is this not like some great body which is being born
universe
radium, It
is
no' longer a simple field,
—with
limbs,
its
its
the
nervous system,
big, but the
perceptive organs,
its
its
of that great Thing which had to reflective being by to fulfil the ambitions aroused in the acquired consciousness that he was at one with and
memory— the body come
however
in fact
as
initial
constantly heresies.
?
with
tion that.
intuition of the first philanthropists that our minds racial return, with the elimination of individualist and
No
And
evolutionary future awaits
man
except in associa-
other men. The dreamers of yesterday glimpsed are a sense we see the same tiling. But what we
all
in
we
better able to perceive, because
stand on their shoulders, are
and finally the cosmic roots, its only have could which they specific nature of this mankind of we shut unless overlook a presentiment— and which we cannot particular physical substance,
its
Physical
For
stuff.
our eyes. with
roots.
his fellows,
For the
earliest
was following
humanitarians, man, in uniting a natural
precept whose origins
their people hardly bothered to analyse and hence to measure as a personage gravity. In those days, was not nature still treated
or as a poetic metaphor
?
What
realities as vast as itself.
many
of our contemporaries, mankind
remains something unreal, unless materialised in an absurd
still
For some
way.
it
is
only an abstract entity or even a mere
conventional expression
for others
;
she required
of us
at a particular
literally in
becomes a closely-knit
terms of anatomy and physiology.
both views
we
to think the
whole
dead-end
work After
lie
find the
in
same
or else as
a
It
appears either
gigantic animal.
by default or
inability,
by
Does not the only way out of this
correctly.
yet another category to serve for the super-individual ail,
why
not
conceptions of
In
excess,
introducing boldly into our intellectual frame-
Geometry,
?
at first
?
constructed on rational
would have remained
stationary if it had and other incommensurables as being just as complete and intelligible as any whole number. The calculus would never have resolved the problems posed by modern physics if it had not constantly continued to conceive size,
not in the end accepted
new
*
e \
tc,
For identical reasons biology would not be able
functions.
on the dimensions of the whole of life without it now needs to deal common experience has
introducing into the scale of values that
with certain stages of being which
Yes,
—
and in particular that of the collective. from now on we envisage, beside and above individual
hitherto been able to ignore
realities,
the collective realities that arc not reducible to the
perhaps time she might have just thought up yesterday and of the aware would no longer want tomorrow. For us, more
ponent element, yet are in their
dimensions and structural demands of the world, the forces which converge upon us from without or arise from within and drive us ever closer together, are losing any semblance of
so as to translate the
and any danger of instability. Mankind was a fragile and even fictitious construction so long as it could only have a limited, plural and disjointed cosmos but it becomes consistent and at the same time as a setting
it
organic group in which the social element can be transcribed
to generalise itself
Cosmic
brought within the compass of a biological
as a general idea, a legal entity,
co-ordinate Indeed, following logically upon our effort to recalling outlook an to and organise the lines of the world, it is the
it is
amongst other
newly
responsible to an evolutionary All
soon as
space-time and appears as a continuation of the very lines of the
Is it
not
in this
way
that
I
the eye that has
com-
as objective as it is.
have been inescapably forced to write
movements of life
Phyla, layers, branches, etc.
To
own way
.
become
.
into concepts
?
.
adjusted to the perspectives of
evolution, the directed groups of phyla, layers, branches, etc.
arbitrariness
become perforce object.
And
naturally takes
in its
as this
clear,
as
place.
But, for
;
246
real, as any isolated of dimensions mankind
physically
particular
247
class it
to
become
reprcscntable to
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN is
us, it
enough
by
that
a
mental re-orientation
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
we
should reach
wijout attemptdirectly, exactly as it is. th point of seeing it know of any thing simpler which we ing to put it into terms
^
Here,
at the point at
which
lastly,
we
pick up the problem again
confluence of human the realisation of the reakty us. Being a collective
wi
thoughts had already led
mankind can only be understood to the tangible constructions, living behind its body of
therefore sui generis,
oSnt
that,
synthesis particular type of conscious to determine the and industrious concentration. It emerging from its laborious
STL
definable as a mind. in the last resort only condition of point of view and in the present
Now from this
in which we can two ways, through two stages, (and tomorrow-either will assume picture the form mankind common power and act of knowing and doing, is simpler) as a
thines, there are
this
or (and
this
goes
of souls. In short
much
deeper) as
an organic superaggregation
science or unanimity.
:
b.
Science
twin
modern sense of the word, science is the two ideas (or two dreams) of mankind. Born together, the
Taken sister
in the full
valuation in the to attain an almost religious together into fell they Subsequently course of the last century.
erew up together
when that does not prevent them, the same disrepute. But continuing as they do from mutually supporting one another the ideal forces upon which ever) than to represent (in fact more our imagination terrestrial
form
falls
its
back whenever
it
maybe)
completely coherent knowledge lay in lighting time when the only part ascribed to objects ready made and given up for our speculative pleasure the 248
is
world can only
the
in mathematics,
of something
existence
a sort
of ontological inferiority so far as
fulfil itself in
not
is
new
*
discovery
From
?
we
things,
all
a
this
'
it
expresses
Even (above
all,
the bringing into
point of view, intellec-
and synthesis are no longer merely speculation
tual discovery
some
consummation of things we make of them. And is 1 therefore, they are (at least partially) right who situate the crown of evolution in a supreme act of collective vision obtained by a pan-human effort of investigation and construction. 2 Knowledge for its own sake. But also, and perhaps still more, but creation. Therefore,
bound up with the
physical
explicit perception
knowledge for power. Since
its
made
birth, science has
some
its
greatest advances
when
problem of life needing a solution and its most sublime theories would always have drifted, rootless, on the flood of human thought if they had not been promptly incorporated into some way of mastering the world. Accordingly the march of humanity, as a prolongation of that of all other animate forms, develops indubitably in the direction of a conquest of matter put to the service of mind. Increased power for increased action. But, finally and above all, increased action for
stimulated by
particular
;
increased being.
Of
forerunners of our chemists strove to find the
old, the
philosophers' stone.
no longer 1
Is
not
this
a
say that, by virtue
upon
itself
who would
to
not merely to register (i.e.
the
think it
all
It is
that has
dare to say that this
?
reflection (both individual
physico-chemical
'
the
world
'
(as
but to confer upon
without being thought) be without.
249
first
a
of
note following)
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
physics it
and
organisation
itself (see
vastly concentric to the
To
of the universe.
is
and in view of
and thereby reinforces
new organising power
would otherwise
;
of human
overflowing
organisation realise)
life
last fifty years,
evolution,
bodies, turns back
with
ambition has grown since then.
one of Brunschvig's ideas
One might
collective),
Our
make gold but
to
happened in the *
out-
consecration to our thirst to think
a
systematic and reflective perception.
itself in a
reasons for believing and hoping.
approximauon future of science ... As a first of an overall and establishment the lined on our horizon as was a perspective of the universe There
The
evil, since
which has given
to a philosophy
can glimpse that unconsciousness
seeks to materialise in
it is
Nowadays, thanks
us.
meaning and or
^Specific nature.
is
around
is
cognitive
beginning
form of unity
it
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
mere mirage? With our knowledge of hormones we appear to be on the eve of having a hand in the development of our bodies and even of our brains. With the discovery of genes it
is
a
we
soon be able to control the mechanism of organic heredity. And with the synthesis of albuminoids immi-
appears that
nent,
we may
earth, left to
what the seems no longer able to produce a new an artificially provoked neo-life. 1 Immense
well one day be capable of producing itself,
:
wave of organisms, and prolonged ning,
many
as the universal
groping has been since the begin-
been able to
possible combinations have
slip
through
die fingers of chance and have had to await man's calculated efforts in order to appear.
Thought might
thinking instrument
;
itself
the collective effect of
human
Unanimity
C.
shall
its
life
artificially
perfect the
might rebound forward under The dream upon which is fundamentally that of master-
reflection.
research obscurely feeds
SoW
71? ^
nW***-
erm
the
Tt
°f
n eCt,VC C °"
*
U Scems
It™
mm
homogeneous nature and dimensions. so f the loops of its spiral lost one jot or tittle °nS1St
r
C
I
extend that
would
far
say to
;
have the courage to admit that their hopes
they are at the pinnacle of mankind
them
that there
is
less
;
and
I
difference than people think
between research and adoration. But there is a point I would them to note, one that will lead us gradually to a more complete form of conquest and adoration. However far science pushes its discovery of the essential fire and however capable
like
'
'
it
becomes some day of remodelling and perfecting the human it will always find itself in the end facing the same
element,
—
problem how to give to each and every element its final value by grouping them in the unity of an organised whole.
applied
necessarily
Would
it still be of their degree of
aSCei
Y
*
which
common power
than the
3 S ° rt
S
f
bi
"h
particles
.bl c
not yet completed
its
at
amount
it
expresses itself
of action from which
heS realif '
*? J u ibleWh/^ .that the stuff of the t
who
salute those
ls
'I the
by the bv theT living reunion °r of reflective
;
of the world.
when
dmg CVCr higher ? TI «U1 ] gradual combination of individuals peoples and races W1 U bring into existence, must needs e ™p«-phys,cal, not ^physical, if it is to be coherent with the rest. Deeper than the common act in
T
uTaLd Thing Tl t unnamed which
by grasping
tiller
Universe
-
more important
the very mainspring of evolution, seizing the
Within a better under*»t the word should
™e
be understood without attenuation or metaphors aU hUman beingS The
beyond all atomic or molecular affinities, the ultimate and thus, energy of which all other energies are merely servants
ing,
to
y ltsclf>
com "tuted
M
to if not it is quite credumverse, by becoming thinking, has evolutionary cycle, and that we
are
therefore moving forward towards some new critical point that lie, ahead. In spite of B organic links, whose existence has everwhere become apparent to us, the biosphere has so far been no more ,
of reflection and the recoils it involves, the loose ends have b d up| and noosphere fcnds smglc closed system m which each element sees, feels effect
^
^suffers
desires
for itself the
same
things as
all
the others at the
sam"
We
are faced with a harmonised collectivity of consciousnesses equivalent to a sort of super-consciousness. The idea is that of the earth not only
1
lc is
what
I
have called
*
the
human rebound
conjugated with Pianetisation.
250
*
of evolution
as correlative
and
becoming covered by myriads of grams of thought but becoming enclosed in a single 'thinking envelope so as to form, functionally, no more than a single vast grain of thought on the sidereal scale, the plurality of individual 251
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN reflections
another in
THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE
grouping themselves together and reinforcing one the act of a single unanimous reflection.
This is the general form in which, by analogy and in symmetry with the past, we are led scientifically to envisage the future of mankind, without whom no terrestrial issue is open to the terrestrial demands of our action. To the common sense of the man in the street and even to a certain philosophy of the world to which nothing is possible save what has always been, perspectives such as these will seem highly improbable. But to a mind become familiar with the fantastic dimensions of the universe they will, on the contrary, seem quite natural, because they are simply proportionate with '
'
the astronomical immensities. In the direction of thought, could the universe terminate
with anything
less
than the measureless
in the direction of time and space
One
thing at any rate
a thoroughly
realistic
is
— any more than
it
could
we
adopt
?
—from the moment
sure
view of the noosphere and of the hyper-
organic nature of social bonds, the present situation of the world for we find a very simple meaning for the becomes clearer profound troubles which disturb the layer of mankind at this moment. The two-fold crisis whose onset began in earnest as early as the Neolithic age and which rose to a climax in the modern world, derives in the first place from a mass-formation (we might planetisation ') of mankind. Peoples and civilisations call it a reached such a degree either of frontier contact or economic interdependence or psychic communion that they could no longer develop save by interpenetration of one another. But it also arises out of the fact that, under the combined influence of ;
matter from which it sprang without stopping to think how impossible and monstrous such an act against nature would be.
When we
at the heart
how
can we
perennial
consider the increasing compression of elements
of a fail
free
energy which
symptoms of
a formidable upsurge of unused powers.
knows what unleashed. are haunted
are
to
We by
of a new step in the genesis of mind In order to avoid disturbing our habits settle international disputes by adjustments treat as
tempted to trample
'
this
unemployment
this
leisure
'
\
two —that is the
?
we
seek in vain to
of frontiers—or
we
the
of a world. A new domain of psychical expansion— that is what we lack. And it is staring us in the face if we would only raise our heads to look at it. scale
Peace through conquest, work in joy. These are waiting for the line where empires are set up against other empires, in an interior totalisation of the world upon itself, in the unanimous construction of a spirit of the earth. us
beyond
How
is it
seem merely
then that our
first efforts
to take us farther
from
We
Sometimes we
super-abundance back into the
252
radial
(to be
he has
wealth.
'
whiled away) the activities at the disposal of mankind. As things are now going it will not be long before we run full tilt into one another. Something will explode if we persist in trying to squeeze into our old tumble-down huts the material and spiritual forces that are henceforward on '
are witnessing
potentialities
groan under the burden of
phenomenon
to say,
Modern man no longer
do with the time and the the fear of
we
also relentlessly increasing,
a leap forward of the
'
machinery and the super-heating of thought,
is
to see in this two-fold
253
it
?
towards
this great goal
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL of it. After
to say the least
were required for life to pass from the pre-hominids Should we now start wringing our hands
a million,
to
modern man.
because,
less
than
modern man
CHAPTER TWO
half a million years, perhaps even
all
two
still
is
at
centuries after glimpsing a higher state,
loggerheads with himself
have got things out of focus. To have understood the immensity around us, behind us, and in front of us is already a first step. But if to this perception of depth another perception, that of slowness, be not added, we must realise that the trans-
THE HYPER-PERSONAL
position of values remains incomplete and that
our gaze nothing but an impossible world. has
Another Preliminary Observation Feeling to be
The reasons behind fashionable among
'
of
overcome
the scepticism
enlightened
a representative order.
'
:
is
people today are not merely the intellectual difficulties
and visualising spaceof the mind left with another and perhaps time have been overcome, we are hesitation which is bound up with a still more serious form of of men today. incoherent aspect presented by the world in conceiving the collective
the
a promised land. nineteenth century had lived in sight of a Golden Age, of thought that we were on the threshold fraternity. Instead up and organised by science, warmed by ourselves supped back into a world of spreading
The It lit
of that,
we
proper rhythm. Planetary
Would
behind
its
history
?
history, there
Similarly,
of noogenesis
at
Though
possible
and even
spirit of the earth perhaps probable in theory, the idea of a No, man will never does not stand up to the test of experience.
beyond man by uniting with himself. That and there is no Utopia must be abandoned as soon as possible more to be said.
succeed in going
which, if explain or efface the appearances of a setback encourwere true, would not only dispel a beautiful dream but I would universe, the of absurdity radical weigh up a
To
age us to
out in the first place that to speak of experience— is premature of the results of experience— in such a connection 254
like to point
movement
can beget for
it
Each dimension involves planetary
not humanity seem to us altogether
and
our
were not
static if,
the endless stretch of
its
pre-
despite an almost explosive acceleration
level,
we
cannot expect to see the earth
under our eyes in the space of a generation. calm and take heart. keep Let us transform
itself
In spite of
all
fact
many
signs
all
tilings
This point
is
—doing is
round us
To
acute of our
fears.
on
moment
— there
doing
so, it
must be
—
as
is
the
are in
that
way
it is
with
so almost imperceptibly.
of the utmost importance and must never be have made it does not, however, allay the most
lost sight of.
the light
at the
whereby we can reasonably suppose
advancing. But, if it
very big
mankind may very
evidence to the contrary,
well be advancing
find
and ever more tragic dissension.
it
its
majesty.
Discouragement
regarding mankind which
Even when
again
we
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE
A
Once
?
After
we
all
need not mind very
the horizon appears stationary.
when it seems to be going we were merely motionless that we are actually being
out.
is
If
only
But does
!
we
it
What
much
if
does matter
could believe that
not sometimes seem
blocked in our advance or even
—
swallowed up from behind as though we were in the grip of some ineluctable forces of mutual repulsion and materialisation. Repulsion, I have spoken of the formidable pressures which hem in the human particles in the present-day world, both individuals and peoples being forced in an extreme way, geographically and psychologically, up against one another. Now 255
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN the strange fact
men
of the strength of these energies
that, in spite
is
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL
do not seem capable of falling within their radius of internal attraction. Leaving aside individual cases, where sexual forces or some extraordinary and
bringing
transitory
together, thinking units
common
one another.
at least closed to
however compressed,
down men
deep
come
passion
into play,
Like a
men
are hostile or
powder whose
refuse to enter into
all
unless (and this
is
still)
—
slaves
of the obscure seethings of the
we
spiritualised
suppose
automatically
(at
upon
superimposed 4
tangential
Of
'
all
satisfaction
However
not harmonised, envelops
level)
with
a veil
of
forms of matter
other
'
itself
react to such conditions
;
— matter,
of the
cell
;
the ant-hill
Instead of the upsurge
of consciousness mechanisation that seems to emerge
expected, it is inevitably from totalisation.
'Eppur
'
si
tnuove
!
In the presence of such
of noogenesis,
I
a profound perversion of the rules hold that our reaction should be not one of determination to re-examine ourselves. When
despair but of a an energy runs amok, the engineer, far from questioning the power itself, simply works out his calculations afresh to see how it can be brought better under control. Monstrous as it is, is not modern totalitarianism really the distortion of something magnificent, and thus quite near to the truth ? There can be no doubt of it the great human machine is designed to work and must work— by producing a super-abundance of mind. If it does not work, or rather if it produces only matter, this means that :
it
has gone into reverse.
Is it not possible that in our theories and in our acts we have neglected to give due place to the person and the forces of
personalisation
?
the 1.
but with the
we make
to organise ourselves ?
history has
mankind been so well
made such efforts to reduce its multitudes to order. We have mass movements no longer the hordes streaming down from the forests of the north or the steppes of Asia, but the Million scientifically assembled. The Million in rank and equipped nor '
'
—
1
'
on
enly ending up
THE CONVERGENCE OF THE PERSON AND THE OMEGA POINT
of knowing that they are only the sign of and price
At no previous peri9d of
file
crystal instead
which we
But what are we to say of the other slavery, one which gains ground in the world in very proportion to
the efforts
this
all
National-Socialism and the most ghastly
instead of brotherhood.
paid for progress. the
motorised—and
neo-matter \
aspect of every living mass in course of unification.
we must
course
it is
own
its
mass.
elements to be, every aggregate of
its
consciousness, so long as
human
the Million
Communism and fetters. So we get the
their
their mass forms in such might a way that, instead of the expected mind, a new wave of determinism surges up that is to say, of materiality. Materialisation. Here I am not only thinking of the laws of large numbers which, irrespective of their secret ends, enslave by structure each newly-formed multitude. As with every other form of life, man, to become fully man, had to become legion. And, before becoming organised, a legion is necessarily prey to the play, however directed it be, of chance and probability. There are imponderable currents which, from fashion and rates of exchange to political and social revolutions, make us all the :
;
with
molecular contact,
exclude and repel one another with
worse
particles,
factory
the parade
ground
;
the Million standardised in the
256
The Personal Universe
A.
Unlike the primitives
who
the early Greeks
who
modern man
obsessed
personalise)
is
all
that he
for this tendency,
ment of
gave
defined
The
a face to
every
the aspects
moving
thing, or
and forces of nature,
by the need to depersonalise (or immost admires. There are two reasons first is analysis,
scientific research to
but which, breaking
all
down
which
that marvellous instru-
we owe
all
our advances
synthesis after synthesis, allows
257
on
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN leaving us confronted with a pile of soul after another to escape, pamces. The second dismantled machinery, and evanescent the sidereal world, so vast that it reason lies in the discovery of our own being all proportion between
seems to do away with around and the dimensions of the cosmos
us.
Only one
It
is
only in the direction of hyper-reflection
hyper-pcrsonalisationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
Otherwise
how
could
in the field of what
by the
reality
is
it
thought
garner our conquests which are
At
reflected ?
first
sight
That
immense: energy-that floating universal emerges and into which all falls back as entity from which all the new god. So, at the energy, the new spirit into an ocean
infinitesimal and the
lies
is
because
by every consciousness
three-fold property possessed
centring everything partially upon centre
the Impersonal
as these, it looks Under the influence of such impressions person and underlost both respect for the as though we have end up by admitting that to standing of his true nature. able to say I \ is the privilege (or be pivoted on oneself, to be element in the measure to which the rather the blemish) of the in setting himall the rest and succeeds latter closes the door on of the All. In the opposite direction we self up at the antipodes itsdf, ego to be diminishing and eliminating conceive the in the lasting most real and with the trend to what is most is Personality the Collective and the Universal.
We
'
'
'
world namely
corpuscular and ephemeral property seen as a specifically prison from which
we must
Intellectually, that
Yet
if
we
try,
is
as 1
;
a
more or
less
have done in
pursue the
to the very end, we seem to be logic and coherence of facts opposite view by the notions of space-time led to the precisely
and evolution. evolution is an ascent have seen and admitted that longer contested even by the towards consciousness. That is no the most agnostic of most materialistic, or at all events by in some Therefore it should culminate forwards
We
humanitarians. sort
of supreme consciousness. But must
not that consciousness,
degree what be supreme, contain in the highest involution oi illuminating perfection of our consciousness-thc to extend error an be manifestly the being upon itself ? It would diffusion. of direction of a state the curve of hominisation in the 258 is
if it is to
this
the
upon
itself constantly
itself
very super-centration
and
;
;
into
(iii)
(i)
:
of
(ii) of being able to of being brought more
association
with
other
all the
Are we not at every instant living the experience of a universe whose immensity, by the play of our senses and our reason, is gathered up more and more simply in each one of us ? And in the establishment now proceeding through science and the philosophies of a collective human Weltanschauung in which every one of us co-operates and participates, are we not experiencing the first symptoms of an aggregation of a still higher order, the birth of some single centre from die convergent beams of millions of elementary
centres
surrounding
it.
centres dispersed over the surface of the thinking earth
between
stand today.
this essay, to
by
itself
All our
try to escape.
where we
disconcerted
an Ego with what is the All. The utter two terms seems flagrant, almost laughable. we have not sufficiently meditated upon the
;
Alpha,
we arc
itself.
made
all
association of
;
at its
to say,
is
disproportion of the
of succeeding and spanning the seems to survive and be capable
world's Omega, as
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that
extrapolate
can
and repulsions as regards the opposition and the Person would be dissipated if only we
difficulties
the All
understood
that,
by
structure, the noosphere (and
the world) represent a whole that
Because
centred.
time
is
?
it
is
more
generally
not only closed but also
contains and engenders consciousness, space-
enormous must somewhere ahead point which we might call Omega, which
necessarily oja convergent nature. Accordingly its
layers, followed in die right direction,
become fuses
involuted to a
and consumes them integrally
the sphere of the world
may
be,
in
itself.
it
only
perceptible in the directions in which
its
However immense exists
radii
and meet
is
finally
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;even
if
were beyond time and space altogether. Better still the more immense this sphere, the richer and deeper and hence the more conscious is the point at which the volume of being that it embraces is concentrated because the mind, seen from this
:
'
'
;
259
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE! THE HYPER-PERSON AL
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN and organisation. without losing Seen from this point of view, the universe, suffering any anthroany of its immensity and thus without think it, undergo it to pomorphism, begins to take shape since must look, not the and make it act, it is beyond our souls that we and perspective of a noogenesis, time othet way round. In the
our
side,
is
essentially the
power of
synthesis
:
space
become
truly
humaniscd-or
rather super-humanised.
is
to say, the
'
other. culminate simultaneously in each for the extension or our look to mistake It is therefore a The Futurethe Impersonal. being or of the noosphere in Hyper-Personalbut the Universal could not be anything else at the
Omega
The Personalising Universe
consciousness by this internal deepening of Chapter I, III, (Book upon itself that we have characterised become has that the element Section I) the particular destiny of there, and threshold of reflection— fully itself by crossing the human beings-we brought our a regards the fate of individual Personalisation.
by
definition in
Omega
that
It is
the same type Personalisation inquiry to a provisional halt. the collective defines it of progress reappears here, but this time There is an identical future of totalised grams of thought. :
function for the element as for the
sum of the elements brought
conceive and foresee that together in a synthesis. How can we How, without being impeded the two movements harmonise ?
itself together
when we
implied,
of consciousness
When we it
little
by
sacrifices
*
its
integrity
on earth So much mean, what
little
and concentrates.
we
'addition
use the apparently simple phrase
?
the disciples of Marx, we might think mankind (for its growth and to justify the imposed on us) to gather together the successive
was enough
coveries, our
able treasure
Let us
for
we bequeath
acquisitions
works of is
art,
to
dying
in
it
— our
our example.
ideas,
our
dis-
Surely this imperish-
the best part of our being.
reflect a
moment, and we
we
soon see that for a admitted to be a collector shall
and custodian of consciousness \ the mere hoarding of these remains would be nothing but a colossal wastage. What passes from each of us into the mass of humanity by means of invention, education and diffusion of all sorts is admittedly of vital importance. I have sufficiently tried to stress, its phylctic value and no one can accuse me of belittling it. But with that accepted, I am
bound to admit that, far from transmitting
in these contributions to the collectivity,
most precious, we are bequeathing, at the utmost, only the shadow of ourselves. Our works ? But even in the interest of life in general, what is the work of works for man if not to establish, in and by each one of us, an absolutely original centre in which the universe reflects itself in a unique and inimitable way ? And those centres are our very selves and all its
radii
;
the
The very
personalities.
that
the evolunonary convergence upon whose existence hangs
must
260
flower and
listen to
particular curves be or deformed, can the innumerable envelope ? common or even prolonged in their and, for that purproblem, The time has come to tackle this centre of personal of the pose to analyse still further the nature
should this higher pole or equilibrium of the noosphere. What ? role evolution be, in order to fulfil its
its
has already been accepted. But what exactly do is
Omega, must
inscribed
—in
hoard of consciouness liberated
by noogenesis adds
universe which, by hypothesis,
Point.
b.
—the
Far
Universal and Personal from being mutually exclusive, the and centred ') grow in the same direction (that
It is
is
centre of our consciousness, deeper than
the essence
reclaim.
And
which Omega, if it
this essence is
is
to be truly
obviously not some-
we can dispossess ourselves for the benefit of we might give away a coat or pass on a torch. For we very flame of that torch. To communicate itself, my ego
thing of which others as are the
The
subsist
through abandoning
conclusion
is
itself
or the gift will fade away.
inevitable that the concentration
universe would be unthinkable if 261
it
of
a conscious
did not reassemble in itself
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN all
well
as
consciousnesses
conscious;
the
all
as
each particular
operaconscious of itself at the end of the consciousness remaining particular each understood) absolutely be tion and even (this must more clearly sail more itself and thus
consaousness becoming distinct
The
the closer
from others
it
them
gets to
m
after
what,
:
thoroughly in keeping with
all
we know
?
of a body the
mem-
the element, of a spiritual bers of a society or organised whole, the parts perfect
them-
In any
domain-whethcr
it
be the
cells
W^™™
In every of this universal themselves. Through neglect selves and fulfil to the cult astray has led us many a system of pantheism merged individuals were supposed to be of a great AU in which salt. Applied or like a dissolving grain of a drop in the ocean
differentiates.
5
Hke
of union summation of comelinesses the law to the case of the the following No, and recurrent illusion. rids us of this perilous consciousness do centres, the grains of confluent orbits of their the contrary, outlines and blend, but on not tend to lose their depth to accentuate the
The more
*
other
*
find themselves as
are steeped in
would not
its
self.
'^Thus under
How
could it be otherwise since they Or rath*, a centre dissolve?
way of
dissolving be to supercentraUse
which we could correctly conof a world undergoing psychical a with system whose unity coincides
to
itself
be
By
its
a distinct
grouping in
begin to see the motives for the fervour
holds within is
to
It feels right.
it.
only mistake, but a
Its
In trying to separate
confuse individuality with personality.
itself as
much
itself
but in doing so
;
from others, the element it becomes retrograde and
as possible
individualises
seeks to drag
the world backwards towards plurality and into matter. it
diminishes
itself
and
To be
loses itself.
one,
fatal
In fact
fully ourselves it
is
the opposite direction, in the direction of convergence with
we must advance— towards
in all
the world,
would be as a harmonised complexity. Thus of paroxysm simply as represent Omega to ourselves fusion of elements
we
their egos.
immiscibility of consciousnesses, umfication-the only fashion in
centration
point
more they
two factors-the essential and the natural mechanism ot
express the final state
at this
in conjunction, the
the influence of these
all
And
and the impotence which accompany every egoistic solution of life. Egoism, whether personal or racial, is quite rightly excited by the idea of the element ascending through faithfulness to life, to the extremes of the incommunicable and the exclusive that it
and incommunicability of
Omega? Could particular
with remorseless logic to
granular whole of thoughts.
other \ The peak of ourselves, the acme of our originality, is not our individuality and according to the evolutionary structure of but our person
become
they
'
try to apply the notion of collectivity a
Omega.
by the conservation, of elements exaltation, not merely simple, and more all, could be more
convergence
of the elements reach their maximum, simultaneously and without merging, under the influence of a supremely autonomous focus of union. 1 That is the only picture which emerges when we
which
it
it
262
*
;
There
is
we
can only find our person by uniting together.
no mind without
from top
The
synthesis.
The same law
to bottom.
good
true
'
made. For the human particles to become really personalised under the creative influence of union according to the preceding analysis not every kind of union will do. Since it is a question of achieving a synthesis of centres, it is centre to centre that they
—
—
1
or annihilating them in ultimate principle, can only
holds
ego grows in inverse proportion egoism \ Like the Omega which attracts it, the element to only becomes personal when it universaliscs itself. 8 There is, however, an obvious and essential proviso to be
born of the
structure Omega, system of centres ; a Centre radiating at the core of a and personalisation All which personalisation of the its
the
would be mistaken
a centre
collects,
in
rest, that
the
It is
for this central focus, necessarily
forward reserve the expression 2
Conversely,
it
There
all
sonal.
is
is
Omega
only universaliscs
autonomous, that
Point
itself
we
shall
hence-
'.
properly in becoming super-per-
the difference (and ambiguity) between the true and the
false political or religious
the former he
'
fulfilled
mysticisms.
by
'
becoming
By
the latter
man
lost in the greater
263
is
destroyed
;
than himself'.
by
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN
world may come to being. This is much more than poetry. Whether as a
seek each other so that the
Thus, amongst the various animating the noosphere, the forms of psychic inter-activity others must identify, harness and develop before all
must make contact and energies
not otherwise.
no metaphor
*
intercentric
'
nature, if
we want
of bodies, so striking to us, is merely the reverse or shadow of that which really moves nature. To perceive cosmic energy at the fount we must, if there is a within of things, go down into the internal or radial
to give effective
'
'
in ourselves. help to the progress of evolution of love. problem the Which brings us to
2.
zone of spiritual attractions.
Love in all its subtleties is nothing more, and nothing less, than more or less direct trace marked on the heart of the element by the psychical convergence of the universe upon itself. This, if I am not mistaken is the ray of light which will help us to see more clearly around us. We are distressed and pained when we see modern attempts the
LOVE AS ENERGY
refinement of accustomed to consider (and with what a and miseries joy the love, of face sentimental analysis!) only the evolutionary its and dynamism its natural it causes us. It is in here, with a view to that 1 shall be dealing with it
We
are
at
significance
phenomenon of man. reality, love— that is to
say,
of unification
matter. In the its
the forms successively adopted so close to ourselves,
mammals,
different modalities
social solidarity, etc.
I
easily
recog-
down on become so repeat what
to say lower
obscure until they
more But this
is
the place to
when we were discussing the
said earlier
it is
*
within ot things
A
?
far
There
is
societies,
Even
in the as it
have
wc gone
about the business
opened
a
;
new
up, better conditions for a social
—those
we
and very
the only
arc
have so
to get together.
far tried
cause to be surprised
we become
long
lowering and an enslavement of
material situation to be defended
favoured nations
less
no
a
how
mediocre grounds on which
of our
at a prowere no real internal propensity to unite, even itself— it molecule the digiously rudimentary level— indeed in
higher up, physically impossible for love to appear to be certain of its with us, in hominised form. By rights, presence, at least in its assume presence in ourselves, we should in fact if we look And an inchoate form, in everything that is. we see it us at the confluent ascent of consciousnesses,
would be
if, in the footsteps of animal mechanised in the very play of association.
supremely intellectual activity of science
(at
any
rate as
remains purely speculative and abstract) the impact
still
souls only operates obliquely
and indirectly.
Contact
is
involving the danger of yet another servitude.
superficial,
Love
alone
is
capable of uniting living beings in such a
them, for
to complete and
fulfil
them by what
deepest in themselves-
is
it
way
them and This is a fact of
alone takes
as
joins daily
'
'
around
and has immortalised like Nicolas of thinkers with the idea in his Dialogues. Later, to the same technically mediaeval philosphy returned not lacking anywhere.
Plato
felt
by the
forces
of love, the fragments of the world 264
moment do
At what
experience.
complete possession of themselves are lost in each other all
around
us, in
?
lovers if
not
come into when they
reputed to be contradictory, of
And
if diat
should
it
is
what
not repeat
the
most
say they
In truth, does not love every instant achieve
the couple or the team, the
magic
this
Cusa,
notion. Driven
ending up, contrary to our expectations
.
If there
is
or
class
by organised
sexual passion, parental instinct,
off, that is
Farther
the tree of life, analogies are faint as to be imperceptible.
:
But so
industrial field to be
a
all
collectivisation
consciousnesses.
Considered in its full biological being-is not peculiar to man. It is the affinity of being with such it embraces, in its varieties general property of all life and as
and degrees,
human
and theoretical predictions, in
determining the ultimate phases of the
nised in
it is
force or a curvature, the universal gravity
we
are those of an
and
;
it
'
pcrsonaJising
can achieve daily on
this
a
'
feat,
by
the feat
totalising
small scale,
one day on world-wide dimensions 265
?
why ?
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL
of the earth, the synthesis of individuals of the clement with and peoples, the paradoxical conciliation multitude— all these are called the whole, and of unity with
Whole
—cosmic
love
not only psychologically possible
And for them Utopian and yet they are biologically necessary. is to imagine need well may we all to be incarnated in the world the total of embraces power of loving developing until it
appearance
Mankind, the
spirit
our
this
is
the precise point at
which
may
seem,
invoking the impossible. Man's one fined to giving his affection to
capacity,
it
human being
we is
are
con-
or to very few.
and there
only
Beyond that radius the heart does not carry, all and everyone room for cold justice and cold reason. To love in the end to leads only which gesture and false is a contradictory
is
how
impossible,
is
can
we
that
if,
as
you claim,
account for that
a universal love
irresistible instinct
how
But, with this point made,
such a
If
to action *
source
universal
the only complete
we
are
to explain the
around us of mounting repulsion and hatred ? strong potentiality is besieging us from within and all
?
is it
waiting for to pass from potentiality
no doubt complex which
Just this,
anti-personalist
minds
;
A
sense.
it is
are able to love.
*
that
:
we
of love and
object
our heads. So long collectivity
kills
of love
at
the
summit of the world above
is
trying to
Common
down.
impossible to give oneself to an
absorb the person,
come
That
essentially unlovable.
thropic systems break
make up our of some
the reality,
as it absorbs or appears to
the love that is
should overcome the
paralyses us, and
accept the possibility, indeed
to
,
would answer
I
which we
in
such collectivity
loving no-one. that
way
final
and hence cosmic
affinity
urging us to union, what
men and of the earth. It may be said that
To
and
is
is
sense
As
to birth.
where philanis
right.
It
anonymous number. But
is
if the
towards unity whenever and in in our hearts which sense of the uniwhatever direction our passions are stirred ? A us when conseizes of the all, the nostalgia which
and so to speak personifies itself, 1 then in the atmosphere created by this focus the elemental attraction will immediately blossom. Then, no
to be an expectation
doubt, under the heightened pressure of an infolding world, the
leads us
verse, a sense
music— these seem Great Presence. The
fronted by nature, beauty,
'
and awareness of a
commentators sistently to
apart,
ignore
how
this
mystics
'
and their
has psychology been able so con-
be heard by every the All— the summit, of every great emotion ? Resonance to what again Once religion. pure keynote of pure poetry and :
with
it,
reveal if not a
seek each other
approach of the '
We
born with thought and grows deep accord between two realities which
phenomenon, which
;
is
the severed particle rest
'
which trembles
at
of
us assumes a face
formidable energies of attraction,
The
discoveries of the last
perspectives,
sense
are often inclined to think that
we
for his wife, various natural forms of love with a man's love extent for his country. his children, his friends and to a certain is missing Yet precisely the most fundamental form of passion involuting an of pressure from this list, the one which, under the
universe, precipitates the elements
266
one upon the other in the
dormant between human
have brought
a
hundred years, with their unitary new and decisive impetus to our
of the world, to our sense of the earth, and to our
human
Hence the rise of modern pantheism. But this impetus will only end by plunging us back into super-matter unless it leads us towards someone. For die failure that threatens us to be turned into success, for the concurrence
have exhausted the
still
a heart,
sense.
the
?
and
molecules, will burst forth.
fundamental vibration whose ring can
practised car at the basis, or rather at the
does this
universe ahead
of human monads
necessary and sufficient for us that
to
its
farthest limits
we
to
and recognise and accept
to close and balance space-time) not only 1
Not, of course, by becoming
heart of
its
a
come
about,
it
is
should extend our science
person, but
(as
being necessary
some vague
by charging
itself at
future the very
development with the dominating and unifying influence of a
focus of persona] energies
and
attractions.
267
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN existence, but also, as
I
must
now
stress,
the radiation as a present
centre of our centres reality of that mysterious called
BEVOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL which
I
have
thought can generalise the Principle of Emergence
same time,
as this
understood or implied that
THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE
Yet
is
it
function of
two
beginning to see that there value of synthesis in evolution. It is in the atom, more in the than molecule is definitely more in the more in society than in the individual, cell than in the molecule, calculations and in mathematical construction than in
and more
We
theorems.
are
now
inclined to admit that at each further
degree of combination something which
elements emerges in a
order.
irreducible to isolated this
admission,
on the threshold of acquiring existence in terms of science. But science is nevertheless
consciousness, a right to
new
is
And with
life
and thought
are
Omega,
that
of
all
energy, the
reflective
were
it
Love,
'
to
we want
its
particles.
But
how
sort loving
said,
dies
in contact
anonymous. With equal
For love
Omega
could never even so attractions
'
of view,
How
of could they anticipate or survive the ephemeral union on which their souls have alighted ? So in the end, in
particles
spiritual views, it is still on spite of a half-hearted conversion to matter infinitely diluted towards the elementary side— that is, Great physics and biology look to find the eternal and the
force, that
love, as
datum
is
to
much
A
moment
?
of force must
at
foreseen figure,
its
as equilibrate
the play
of
did not act with equal
it
stuff
of proximity.
it is
With
within the existing
every instant
a potential centre
come
together.
could possibly
present and real noosphere goes with a real and
present centre.
To
be supremely
Omega must
attractive,
he
supremely present.
To ward
In addition, the reason of survival.
disappearance, incompatible with the
Stability.
activity,
268
at this very
more,
—that
that some In conformity with this state of mind the idea the world of summit the at developing Soul of souls should be views present-day the is not as strange as might be thought from our of human reason. After all, is there any other way in which
exercise this action
it
with every other sort of energy,
that the lines
and
becomes impoverished much more, with be possible there must be costill
and repulsions if to say with the same
Neither an ideal centre, nor suffice.
could
Accordingly, however marvellous
human
from
consists in initiating
infallibility it
incredible conof independence and solidity. For, born of an and failing edifice, course of chances on a precariously assembled their advent, are to create any measurable increase of energy by point experimental the from synthesis \ of not these creatures ? things of fragile most the well as the most beautiful as
far
this for
with the impersonal and the
—and
difference in time.
—and
unanimity of the world's
and lovable
with remoteness in space
recognising that this something has a particular value
still
Omega
radius the
some
existence.
to rid ourselves
Expressed in terms of internal
the reason of Love.
not in I
two restrictions (fragility and my mind with the nature and
these
cosmic function of
maintaining within *
an
at
dependence on the rever-
one of love, the other of survival.
positive reasons,
First
is at last
from
precisely
both incompatible
distance),
in excess by the charms of After allowing itself to be captivated into illusion, modern thought analysis to the extent of falling creative getting used once more to the idea of the
total
laws of energy.
sible
OMEGA POINT
remains
it
could not form itself save
it
extremely distant future and in a 3.
At the
l
Soul coincides with a supremely improbable
coincidence of the totality of elements and causes,
Omega.
?
man
permanent
1
humanity, the
entities,
spirit
of
of
reflective
bring together in an ever vaster and
subject the collective principle
civilisation,
enormous
tries to
off the threat
mechanism of
more
his acquisitions
of the earth. Associated in these
with their incredibly slow rhythm of evolu-
See the quotation from J. B.
S.
Haldane
269
in footnote p. 57.
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN
BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE: THE HYPER-PERSONAL
he has the impression of having escaped from the destructive
tion,
action of time.
come
to speak
enough
1
of the conscious Pole of the world,
to say that
it
emerges
from the
But by doing this he has only pushed back the problem. For within time and space, after all, however large the radius traced the perishable ? So but anything does the circle ever embrace weight their on the earth, long as our constructions rest with all they will vanish with the earth. The radical defect in all forms
we must
of belief in progress, as they are expressed in positivist credos, eliminate death. What is the use of is that they do not definitely
scendence are the four attributes of
detecting a focus of any sort in the van of evolution if that ultimate focus can and must one day disintegrate ? To satisfy the
requirements of our action, Omega must be independent of the collapse of the forces with which evolution is woven.
There
Actuality, irreversibility.
is
only one way
in
which
our minds can integrate into a coherent picture of noogenesis of all these two essential properties of the autonomous centre
resume and complement our Principle of Emergence. In the light of our experience it is abundantly clear that emergence in the course of evolution can only happen
centres,
and that
is
to
and with mechanical dependence on what precedes then the manifestation First the grouping of the elements it. from the point of view betrays, only of soul whose operation involution sublimated of energy, a more and more complex and
successively
;
'
'
of the powers transmitted by the chains of elements. The radial a pyramid whose apex is supported function of the tangential we see during the course of the prowhat that is from below :
:
cess.
And it is in the very same way that Omega itself is
to us at the
end of
movement of
the
whole
processus,
synthesis culminates.
note that under this evolutive facet half of itself
While being
outside all series.
the
sum would
the
whole
Not only fall
the
does
short of
operation.
last it
inasmuch
we must Omega still
Yet
term of
crown, but
itself,
discovered
as in
it
the
be careful to only reveals
its series, it is also it
closes.
Otherwise
in organic contradiction
When, going beyond
with
the elements,
we
Sec for example that curious book by Wells, The Anatomy of Frustration, which eloquently bears witness to the faith and the misgivings ot modern man. 1
270
add that from
without which
it
Autonomy,
has already
it
is
not
of consciousnesses: emerged
;
could neither subjugate into love nor fix in
by its very nature it did not escape from the which it gathers together, it would not be Omega.
incorruptibility.
time and space
genesis
this
rise
it
If
actuality, irreversibility,
and thus
Omega. In
finally tranthis
way we
round off without difficulty the scheme left incomplete at the end of our second chapter, where we sought to enclose the energy-complex of our universe. In Omega we have in the first place the principle we needed to explain both the persistent march of tilings towards greater consciousness, and the paradoxical solidity of what is most fragile. Contrary to the appearances still admitted by physics, the Great Stability is not at the bottom in the infra-elementary sphere, but at the top in the ultra-synthetic sphere. entirely
pating it
by
its
tangential envelope that the
itself in a
finds
its
chance
shape and
its
way
into matter.
It is
world goes on
By
its
thus dissi-
radial nucleus
natural consistency in gravitating against
the tide of probability towards a divine focus of mind which draws it onward. Thus something in the cosmos escapes from entropy, and does so more and more. During immense periods in the course of evolution, the radial, obscurely stirred up by the action of the Prime Mover ahead, was only able to express itself, in diffuse aggregates, in animal consciousness. And at that stage, not being able, above them, to attach themselves to a support whose order of simplicity was greater than their own, the nuclei were hardly formed before they began to disaggregate. But as soon as, through reflection, a type of unity appeared no longer closed or even centred, but
punctiform, the sublime physics of centres came into play.
When
they became centres, and therefore persons, the elements could at last
begin to react, direcdy
of the centre of centres.
as such,
When
to the personalising action
consciousness broke through the
271
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN of hominisation, it really passed from divergence to convergence and changed, so to speak, both hemisphere and
critical surface
Below
pole.
that
equator
'
critical
*
lay
the
relapse
into
above it, the plunge into growing and irreversible formed, a reflective centre can no longer Once unification. change except by involution upon itself. To outward appearance, admittedly, man disintegrated just like any animal. But here and
multiplicity
there
we
;
find an inverse function
in the animal, the radial
in
man
it
escapes and
is
is
of the phenomenon. By death,
liberated
from
it.
It
escapes
from entropy itself.
:
—
as
we
is
a collector and conservator, not of mechanical energy,
supposed, but of persons.
a continual exhalation,
'
souls
'
All
round
us,
one by one,
like
break away, carrying upwards
incommunicable load of consciousness. One by one, yet not in isolation. Since, for each of them, by the very nature of Omega, there can only be one possible point of definitive emersion that point at which, under the synthesising action of personalising union, the noosphere (furling its elements upon their
—
themselves
as it
too
furls
point of convergence
—
at
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
reabsorbed into the tangential, while
the hominisation of death by turning back to Omega Thus from the grains of thought forming the veritable and a well-defined indestructable atoms of its stuff, the universe itself above our building on goes universe in the outcome— vanishes. which The heads in the inverse direction of matter
universe
CHAPTER THREE
upon itself) will reach collectively the end of the world \ '
its
We have seen that
to say,
is
without the involution of matter upon itself, without the closed chemistry of molecules, cells that
and phyletic branches, there would never have been either biosphere or noosphere. life
In their advent and their development, and thought are not only accidentally, but also structurally,
bound up with the contours and destiny of the terrestrial mass. But, on the other hand, we now see ahead of us a psychical centre of universal drift, transcending time essentially extra-planetary, to sustain
and space and thus
and equilibrate the surge
of consciousnesses.
The
idea
is
that of noogenesis ascending irreversibly
towards
Omega through the stricdy limited cycle of a geogenesis. At a given moment in the future, under some influence exerted by one or the other of these curves or of both together, that the
two branches should
separate.
be, evolution cannot attain to fulfilment
it is
inevitable
However convergent
it
on earth except through
a point of dissociation.
With
this
event which
we now
are introduced to a fantastic
and
event which comes nearer with every day that passes
of
all
life
on our globe,
phase of the
inevitable
begins to take shape in our perspective, the :
the end
the death of the planet, the ultimate
phenomenon of man.
No
one would dare to picture to himself what the noosphere will be like in its final guise, no one, that is, who has glimpsed
however faindy
the
accumulated in the defies imagination.
272
incredible
spirit
But
of the
if it
of unexpectedness The end of the world
potential earth.
would be absurd 273
to try to describe
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN it,
we may none
already laid
of approach and significance some extent foresee the
the less— by
down— to
making
use
circumscribe the forms. What the ultimate earth cannot be
how
substance;
will
it
no way
I
want
anything
as to
in a
to raise,
much
apocalyptically, not so
lines
universe of conscious will probably
it
be
coldly and logically, in
for the sake
of affirming
We are
well aware of these different eventualities.
them over
ally,
end of the world is mentioned, the idea that leaps into our minds is always one of catastrophe. There arc so Generally we think of a sidereal cataclysm. are those there many stars hurtling around and brushing past so, surely, by the implacable exploding worlds on the horizon sooner or later and we shall come will turn laws of chance, our we shall have to face a least, the or, at be stricken and killed slow death in our prison. runs down, we Since physics has discovered that all energy
Wc
could very well, and
And, equally
human
past evolution,
will
And 1 feel
ever to fear
yet,
on
the strength
entitled to say that
may be
in theory,
that they will not
any moment, be
tomorrow the Taken individu-
feet.
wc
of
all
we
learn
from
we have nothing what-
these manifold disasters
of premature accident or
the idea
they
from
at
true,
can repudiate the task of ascending higher
the
;
We
in
might quake and collapse under our each
towards union.
When
many ways of coming
have our minds. We have read descriptions of them in the novels of the Goncourts, Benson and Wells, or in scientific works signed by famous names. Each one of them is turned
crushed by a gigantic comet.
PROGNOSTICS TO BE SET ASIDE
are so
senility.
perfectly feasible.
give food for thought.
— there
Yet perhaps any tiling would be better than a long-
to an end.
earth i.
war, revolution
sterility,
drawn-out
and what
take shape;
are the questions
—those
of the
in so
failure.
imply
far as they
However
possible
have higher reasons for being sure
happen.
;
All
pessimistic
representations
of the earth's
;
world getting a shade chillier every day. That partially cooling-off to which we were condemned has been radio-activity, of that compensated for by another discovery, which has happily intervened to compensate and delay the
seem to
feel
the
imminent cooling. The astronomers guarantee that,
if all
goes as
it
should,
hundred million years ahead of Yet, though the settlement
is
us.
are
now
we have So
we
in a position to
at
any rate several
can breathe agairu
postponed, the shadow grows
mankind still be there to watch In the interim, apart from the cosmic mishaps us, what will happen in the living layer of
And
or simply arrested
growth or
will
the evening that
lie
fall ?
in wait for
the earth
?
With
age and increasing complication, we arc ever more threatened by internal dangers at the core of both the biosphere and the
noosphere. Onslaughts of microbes, organic counter-evolutions,
274
senility
that they take the characteristics
days
—have
a
whole.
men
;
common
:
correction to life as
Accident, disease and decrepitude spell the death of
and therefore the same applies to mankind.
But have wc any right
When
this in
and conditions of our individual
and elemental ends and extend them without
to generalise in this simple
way
an individual disappears, even prematurely, another
always there to replace him. His
loss is
?
is
not irreparable from the
life. But what about manbooks the great palaeontologist Matthew
point of view of the continuation of
kind
?
In
one of
his
has suggested that if the
longer.
last
whether in terms of cosmic catastrophe, biological disruptions
thinking branch
human
would soon
take
its
branch disappeared, another place.
But he does not
tell
us
where this mysterious shoot could be expected to appear on the tree of life as we know it, and doubtless he would be hard put to it to do so. If we take the whole of history into consideration, the biological situation
seems to
me
to
be quite otherwise.
275
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN it
in the course of
Once and once only
its
planetary existence
has the earth been able to envelop itself with life. Similarly once and once only has life succeeded in crossing the threshold
of reflection. For diought as for life there has been just one season. And we must not forget that since the birth of thought man has been the leading shoot of the tree of life. That being so, the hopes for the future of the noosphere (that is to say, of biogenesis, in the end
which
exclusively
is
the
upon him
same
as
as such.
cosmogenesis) are concentrated
How
then could he
come
to an
end before his time, or stop, or deteriorate, unless the universe committed abortion upon itself, which we have already decided to be absurd
?
world would be unintelligible and the presence in it of reflection would be incomprehensible, unless we supposed there to be a secret complicity between the iiifinite In
its
and the en d
infinitesimal to
warm, nourish and
sustain to the very
— by dint of chance, contingencies and die exercise of — the consciousness that has emerged between the two.
free
able.
upon
this
we must
complicity that
depend.
Therefore, however improbable
reach the goal,
What we
it
is
is
might seem,
not necessarily, doubtless, but should expect
Man
he must
—
developing during
not a halt in any shape or form,
which we have sprung. It is in this tion that we must extrapolate man and hominisation want to get a forward glimpse of the end of the world.
can say diat
life still
direcif
we
the limits of scientific probability,
we
THE APPROACHES
has before
time in which to develop.
it
long periods of geological
Moreover,
In the
noticed
down
first
this
period
?
place, in a collective and spiritual form.
We
have
man's advent, there has been a certain slowing of the passive and somatic transformations of the organism that, since
in favour of the conscious and active metamorphoses of the
We
individual absorbed in society.
on
the
work of the
natural
;
find the artificial carrying
and the transmission of an oral or
written culture being superimposed on genetic forms of heredity
(chromosomes). Without denying the
the Improbable from
Without going beyond
shoot.
—
Assuming success which is the only acceptable assumption under what form and along what lines can we imagine progress
possibility
or even prob-
infallibly.
;
2.
human
evolution along the line of the
irreplace-
but an ultimate progress coming at its biologically appointed a maturation and a paroxysm leading ever higher into hour
in its thinking
form,
it
shows every sign of an energy in full expansion. On the one hand, compared with the zoological layers which preceded 276
still
On the other hand, to judge from the rapid developments of thought in the short period of a few dozen centuries, this youth bears within it the indications and the promises of an entirely new biological cycle. Thus in all probability, between our modern earth and the ultimate earth, there stretches an immense period, characterised not by a slowing-down but a speeding up and by the definitive florescence of the forces of born.
present state, the
choice It is
whose average duration is at least in the order of eighty million mankind is so young that it could almost be called new-
years,
ability of a certain prolongation in our limbs, and
still
more in
our nervous system, of the orthogenetic processes of the I
am
past,
1
inclined to think that their influence, hardly appreciable
Homo sapiens, is destined to dwindle still As thought regulated by a sort of quantum law, the energies of life seem unable to spread in one region or take on a new form except at the expense of a lowering elsewhere. Since man's arrival, the evolutionary pressure seems to have dropped in all the non-human branches of the tree of life. And now that man has become an adult and has opened up for
since the emergence of further.
himself the
field
no longer change
of mental and appreciably
;
social transformations,
they
no longer need
—
bodies
to in the
1 Taken up again and prolonged reflectively, artificially who knows? by biology (assault on the laws and springs of heredity, use of hormones, etc.,
sec pp. 249-50).
277
— human
branch
or if they
;
still
change,
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
MAN
THE PHENOMENON OF
it
will only be
under
our industrious control. It may well be that in its individual capacities and penetration our brain has reached its organic
But die movement
limits. east,
From west
does not stop there.
henceforth occupied elsewhere, in a richer and complex domain, constructing, with all minds joined
evolution
more
is
Beyond all nations and races, taking-as-a-whole of mankind has already begun. together, mind.
With advance,
we
that said,
have
—are we
approaching
the inevitable
of
the present condition
of
to ask
:
from
the planetary
and evolutionary upsurge
we
are
?
which we see again were already led by our analysis
can distinguish three principal ones in
the predictions to
of the
ideas
which
we
of science and humanity. They are
research, the concentration of research
of man, and
:
the organisation
upon
the subject of
of science and religion. three natural terms of one and the same progression. the conjunction
These are
it
has acquired a social status
Yet we
still
leave
it
to
those wild plants whose
like
their
in
arc thinking
industrial
production,
And the darkness to compared dawn merely of the up to a point we are justified. Something
poverty of means and general haphazardness Have we ever given pursue truth in the world today
do we
of
spirit,
!
serious thought to the predicament we are in ? Like art — indeed we might almost say like thought
was born with every sign of was born of the exuberance of an
science
278
and
vital
The
is
whose If
provided annually for
if
us
budget
solution
we all
to
did
we
the pure
Surely
they think of us as
?
truth
is
of
that, as children
full
a transition
period,
control of, the
we
are
new powers
have been unleashed. Clinging to outworn habit, we still new means of providing more easily the same old things. We put Pegasus between the traces. And But the Pegasus languishes unless he bolts with the waggon moment will come it is bound to when man will be forced by that
— —
!
—
disparity of the equipage to admit that science
occupation
*
It
its
over the world than for one capital ship.
all
for
overspill
We
had
moment
see in science only a
itself
internal activity that
to the
to
consequence for the world.
neither fully conscious of, nor in
of the
superfluity and fantasy.
by
subordinated
for the investigation of clearly-defined problems
our great-grandsons will not be wrong
The Organisation of Research
plucked
it,
primitive
glance at the percentage of a nations' revenue allotted in
would be of
went before, enormous has been born in the universe with our discoveries and our methods of research. Something has been started which, Yet though we may I am convinced, will now never stop. exalt research and derive enormous benefit from it, with what pettiness
is
even worshipped. hardly tending
killing each other and eating. Let us stop to think for a
We are given to boasting of our age being an age of science. we
fruits are
Everything
forests.
it is
of the proportion of human energy devoted, here and now, the pursuit of truth. Or, in still more concrete terms, let
barbarians
that
sometimes
as best it can,
armaments. The scientist and the laboratories which multiply our powers still receive nothing, or next to nothing. We behave as though we expected discoveries to fall ready-made from the sky, like rain or sunshine, while men concentrate on the serious business of
increase
research
if
;
grow
should be staggered. Less
A.
;
;
peoples in
along what lines
destined to proceed
level of psychic totalisation
I
now
among others—judging from
the noosphere
now
to
life it was born of the of dreamers and idlers. Gradually it became important its effectiveness gave it the freedom of the city. Living in a world which it can justly be said to have revolutionised,
outstripped the material needs of
curiosity
leisure
not an accessory
of energy constantly liberated by mechanisation. a
world
and heightened
interest
can '
him but an
is
essential activity, a natural derivative
envisage
whose constantly increasing would find their vital issue in
fathoming everything, trying everything, extending everything 279
;
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN a
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
world in which giant telescopes and atom smashers would more money and excite more spontaneous admiration
absorb than
all
bombs and cannons
the
put together; a world in which,
not only for the restricted band of paid research- workers, but also for the
man
would be the from corpuscles,
in the street, the day's ideal
wresting of another secret or another force
world in which, as happens already, and to know, rather than to possess. be life to one gives one's That, on an estimate of the forces engaged, 1 is what is being relendessly prepared around us. In some of the lower organisms the retina is, as it were, spread over the whole surface of the body. Ln somewhat the same or organised matter
stars,
way human
vision
industrial activity
;
a
diffuse in
is still
its
and war. Biologically
itself
independendy, with
long
now
its
own
mixed up with
operation, it
its
It
will
not be
eyes.
And
sees.
to look.
more one
the
tomorrow,
to progress
the
central zones,
From of
this
by
cease-
Similarly, if research
thrust.
its
it
we
if
are
will be eminently
localising the ',
whose
going towards a
human
zones which
point of view,
science,
by
will be largely
it
sensitive
*
are
conquest will afford us an easy mastery of
era
because,
it is
has successively found the points of least resist-
it
ance at which reality yielded to is
one knows where
sees, the better
been able to advance,
If hfe has
groping,
less
all
alive
the rest.
human
an era of
science.
knowing subject, will perceive at last that man, the object of knowledge ', is the key to the whole science of nature. Carrel referred to man as the unknown But man, we should add, is the solution of everything that we can know.
Man,
the
'
'
needs to individualise
distinct organs.
before the noosphere finds
one
Up
to the present,
'.
whether from prejudice or
man
has been reluctant to look
in the face
fear, science
but has constandy
round the human object without daring to tackle
circled
it.
Materially our bodies seem insignificant, accidental, transitory
why
bother about them
souls are incredibly
subdc and complex
and b.
The Discovery of the Human Object
fragile
into a
When mankind
has once realised that
penetrate, intellectually unify,
surround
in order
it,
there will
still
its
first
function
is
further to understand and master them,
no longer be any danger of running
into an upper
A
commercial market can reach saturation point. One day, though substitutes may be found, we shall have exhausted our mines and oil-wells. But to all appearances nothing on earth will ever saturate our desire for knowledge or
limit of
its
florescence.
exhaust our crescit
power
for invention.
For of each
may
be said
ripple in an isotropic
medium. The more one
looks, the
External forces of planetary compression obliging
itself organically in itself;
spiritualisation,
him,
my
itself
280
can one
fit
them
as
whether what
is
trary, thought. its
we
try to avoid
man
in our theories,
end of
left
in
its
its
analyses, physics
hands
At the end of
is
its
is
no longer
sure
pure energy or, on the conconstructions, biology, if
it
discoveries to their logical conclusion, finds itself forced
to acknowledge the assemblage of thinking beings as die present
terminal form of evolution.
and
above
all,
We man
struggles desperately in us
find
man
at the
at the centre
and around
with him sooner or
us.
bottom,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; man We
who
shall
man lives
have to
like a
come
more
Man is, if 1 have not gone astray in these pages, an object of study of unique value to science for two reasons, (i) He represents, individually and socially, the most synthesised state under which the stuff of the universe is available to us. (ii)
humanity to totalise and internal forces (ascendent and propulsive) of
unleashed or cxaJced by technico-social totalisation.
how
tightly
Preface, at the
takes
:
drawn become the circles we describe around though we were caught up in his vortex. As 1 said in
more
at the top, and,
That does not mean that science should propagate indifferendy in any and every direction at the same time
1
:
eundo.
the
Psychologically, our
?
world of laws and formulas?
Yet the more persistendy
to
and harness the energies which
;
to grips
281
later.
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Correctively, he
is
at present the
most mobile point of the
stuff
For these two reasons, to decipher
man
is
essentially to try
was made and how it ought to go theoretion making itself. The science of man is the practical and the past of study profound cal science of hominisation. It means experiment and of origins. But still more, it means constructive pursued on
how
a
immense and
the world
The programme
continually renewed object. its
But
is
it
not precisely the world
only end or
aim
What is involved, firstly, is the human body, the health and
is
that
is
and improvement of
the care
impulses of nature so as to perfect requires reflective treatment.
which, culminat-
it
them
?
Reflective substance
strength of the^organism.
So
mankind,
If there is a future for
can only be imagined in terms of a harmonious conciliation
of what
the control
with what
free
is
involved are
is
planned and totalised.
the distribution of the resources
:
of the trek towards unpopulated areas
of
the
;
Points
the globe
;
optimum
of the powers set free by mechanisation the physiology of nations and races; geo-economy, geo-politics, geo-demography; the organisation of research developing into a reasoned organuse
of the future.
;
phase of immersion in the tangential lasts, thought now, in the can only be built up on this material basis. And
isation of the earth.
the mind, tumult of ideas that accompany the awakening of been said has It are we not undergoing physical degeneration ? own mankind, so full that we might well blush comparing our
irresistibly
which, in a of misshapen subjects, with those animal societies in lacking in found will be one hundred thousand individuals, not
that science,
'
long
itself
ing in thought, expects us to think out again the instinctive
in course of transformation.
to find out
nature.
Whether we
like
or not,
it
all
the signs
and
'
as its
all
our needs converge in the same direction.
physics,
We
need and are
being led to create, by means of and beyond
all
biology and
all
psychology, a
science
all
of human energetics.
of that creation, already obscurely begun, by being led to concentrate on man, will find itself increasingly face to face with religion. It is in
the course
In itself that geometrical perfection is not in suppleness and the line of our evolution whose bent is towards other values, to subordinated suitably same, All the
a single antenna.
c.
freedom.
So far we and we random, have certainly allowed our race to develop have given too little thought to the question of what medical
it
may
well appear as an indication and a lesson. at
and moral factors must replace the crude forces of natural selection should we suppress them. In the course of the coming centuries eugenics, on a it is indispensable that a nobly human form of standard worthy of our personalities, should be discovered and Eugenics applied to individuals leads to eugenics applied to society. It would be more convenient, and we would incline
of
all
it
safe, to
our bodies to
leave the contours of that great body made take shape on their own, influenced only by
the automatic play of individual urges and interfere
appearance, the
anti-religious
it
have heard
science and faith
;
little
indeed
and Religion
modern world was born of an
man becoming Our generation
movement:
reason supplanting belief.
preceded
oj Science
it
and
self-sufficient
and the two that
but talk of the conflict between
seemed
at
one
moment
a
foregone
conclusion that the former was destined to take the place of the latter.
developed.
to think
To outward
The Conjunction
with the forces of the world
up against the mirage of
instinct,
282
' !
whims.
*
Better not
Once more we
the so-called infallibility
are
of
But, as the tension
is
prolonged, the conflict visibly seems to
need to be resolved in terms of an entirely different form of equilibrium
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not
in elimination,
two
After close on
nor duality, but in synthesis.
centuries of passionate struggles,
science nor faith has succeeded in discrediting
the
contrary,
it
becomes obvious
normally without the other.
And 283
its
that neither the reason
neither
adversary.
is
On
can develop simple
:
the
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN same life animates both. Neither in its impetus nor its achievements can science go to its limits without becoming tinged with mysticism and charged with faith, Firstly in its impetus. We touched on this point when dealing with the problem of action. Man will only continue to work and to research so long as he is prompted by a passionate interest. Now this interest is entirely dependent on the conviction, strictly undemonstrable to science, that the universe has a direction and that it could— indeed, if we are faithful, it should— result in
some
sort
of
irreversible perfection.
Hence comes
belief in
in
its
society.
practice,
we
But
as
soon
realise that the
we can envisage an human organism and
Scientifically
construction.
almost indefinite improvement in the
human
as
we
try to put our
dreams into
problem remains indeterminate or
even insoluble unless, with some partially super-rational intuition, we admit the convergent properties of the world we belong to.
Hence
if
we
decide, under the pressure
favour of an optimism of unification, necessity
of discovering
we run
in the universe in
we look
at the
movement
temporal and
to
which we have
spatial series
just
diverging
and amplifying themselves around and behind us like the laminae of a cone, we are perhaps engaging in pure science. But when
we we
turn towards the summit, towards the
totality
and the future,
cannot help engaging in religion. Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases
of one and the same complete
act of
knowledge
— the only one
past and future of evolution so as to
contemplate, measure and In
fulfil them. mutual reinforcement of these two
the
still
opposed
powers, in the conjunction of reason and mysticism, the
human
by the very nature of its development, to find the uttermost degree of its penetration with the maximum of
spirit
is
destined,
its vital force.
of
facts, in
— in addition to the impetus required to
push us forward and should determine our route will associate
our
distorting them.
— the
special
lives together, vitally,
Hence, belief in
a
which cement which binder or without diminishing or
supremely
attractive centre
has personality.
outgrows the analytic investigations which constitute its lower and preliminary stages, and synthesis which naturally culminates in passes on to synthesis it is at once state of humanity superior some of realisation the and on the all. led to foresee and place its stakes on the future And with that it out-distances itself and emerges in terms of In short, as soon as science
—
and
3.
into the technical
in addition to the particular objective
option
When, awakened,
belief in unity.
Furthermore,
which
those very spiritual forces they claimed to be
of
getting rid
which can embrace the
progress.
Secondly
newed form, of
—
THE ULTIMATE
Always pushing forward indicated,
in the three directions
Thus Renan and the nineteenth century were not wrong to speak of a Religion of Science. Their mistake was not to see that their cult of humanity implied the re-integration, in a re284
have just it
has
mankind has enormous possibilities before it. Until the coming of man, life was quickly arrested and hemmed in by the specialisations into which it was forced to mould itself so as to act, and became fixed, then dispersed, at
still
to live,
each forward bound.
Since the threshold of reflection,
entered into an entirely
from
the
new
of
field
of evolution
wc
— thanks
have
to the
which separate the instrument organ and enable one and the same creature to intensify
astonishing properties
*
artifice'
and vary the modalities of its action indefinitely without losing anything of its freedom and thanks to the prodigious power of thought to bring together and combine in a single conscious effort all the human particles. In fact, though the study of the past may give us some idea of the resources of organised matter ;
adoration.
we
and taking advantage of the immense duration
285
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN of the possible magnitude are confronted with human effects. of noospheric whole layer of convibrations resounding by the million-a upon the future and sciousness exerting simultaneous pressure a million years of thought. the collected and hoarded produce of such magnitudes Have we ever tried to form an idea of what
in
its
dispersed state,
*
as yet no idea
we have
We
'
?*
represent
In this direction, the
most unexpected
Under
should most expect.
whether
life
spective)
by
perhaps what
we
of the mind
begin by asking serious y in ingeniously will not perhaps one day succeed
we may
the surface of the globe,
on
is
the increasing tension
prison, either by finding the means forcing the bars of its earthly planets or (a still more giddy perto invade other inhabited focal points getting into psychical touch with other
of space. The meeting and of consciousness across the abysses supposition which may mutual fecundation of two noosphcres is a all is merely extending after which seem at fust sight crazy, but think of denying would no-one to psychical phenomena a scope phenomena. Consciousness would thus finally conto material
struct itself
the galaxy
whose astral unit is Without in any way wishing
universe
to
Why
?
discourage such hypotheses
though enormously enlarging the dimenwould leave unchanged both the convergent form and their probfinal duration of noogenesis— I consider
—whose sions,
units.
by a synthesis of planetary
not, in a
sensitive, is
remote for them to be worth dwelling on. The human organism is so extraordinarily complicated and
difficult to see
in
upon
human
units, there are
exaltation (by mutual support or thus grounds for recognising a collective arranged. It would be difficult suitably are units those when reverberation)
or St. Augustines now on earth to say whether there are any Aristotlcs, Platos why not?) But what is dear is hand other (how could it be proved on the the other (making a single arch or a single mirror), our ;
that,
each supporting
modern
souls see
potentialities)
and
escaped
consciousness, could
advance
feel
in the
all
today
a
world such
as (in size,
men of
antiquity.
the great
anyone dare
to object that there has
profound structure of being?
286
interconnections and
could acclimatise himself to another
itself in isolation,
a spatial direction that
and
it
that
it is
in a psychical rather than
will find an outlet, without
leave or overflow the earth.
need to
Hence, quite naturally, the notion
of change of state recurs. Noogenesis rises upwards in us and through us unceasingly. We have pointed to the principal characteristics of that move-
ment
:
the closer association of the grains of thought
synthesis of individuals and of nations or races
autonomous and supreme
;
the
;
the need of an
personal focus to bind elementary
personalities together, without deforming them, in an atmosphere all this results from the of active sympathy. And, once again action of two curvatures the roundness of the earth and the cosmic convergence of mind in conformity with the law of complexity and consciousness. :
—
combined
—
Now when sufficient elements have sufficiently agglomerated, this essentially
ity
and such
obliged
—
convergent movement will attain such intens-
mankind, taken
quality that
on
as a whole, will
be
— to
as happened to the individual forces of instinct
upon itself at a single point 1 that is to say, in abandon its organo-planetary foothold so as to shift
reflect
to the intellectual value of isolated
Over and above
how man
were capable of navigating through interplanetary space. The sidereal durations are so immense that it is difficult to see how in two different regions of the heavens, two thought systems could co-exist and coincide at comparable stages of their development. For these two reasons among others I adopt the supposition that our noosphere is destined to close
ability too
i
so closely adapted to terrestrial conditions, that it
planet, even if he
realisation,
hence the
and
i
to the transcendent centre of
its
this case, its
centre
increasing concentration.
This will be the end and the fulfilment of the spirit of the earth. The end of the world the wholesale internal introversion upon itself of the noosphere, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limit of its complexity and its ccntrality. the overthrow of equilibrium, The end of the world :
:
To
this
progress in
been no corresponding
1 Which amounts to saying that human history develops between two points of reflection, the one inferior and individual, the other superior and collective.
287
THE ULTIMATE EARTH
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN detaching the mind, fulfilled
from
at last,
its
when
material matrix,
with all its weight on God-Omega. critical point simultaneously of world The end of the and escape. maturation emergence and emersion, of
so that
will henceforth rest
it
has reached
it
its
point of unification,
split
two zones Thought has
into
each attracted to an opposite pole of adoration.
never completely united upon
itself
here below.
Universal love
:
We can entertain two almost contradictory suppositions about and psychical state our planet will be in as it 1 hypothesis winch approaches maturation. According to the first in any case to turn ought we which expresses the hopes towards final stage will its at earth the our efforts as to an ideal, evil on will be conquered be reduced to a minimum. Disease and hunger in any acute by science and we will no longer need to fear them and human earth the of sense the by And, conquered
the physical
form.
and internecine struggles will have disappeared in Some sort of unanimity the ever-warmer radiance of Omega. the noosphere. The final conwill reign over the entire mass of Such an outcome would of peace* in place take vergence will with our theory. harmoniously course conform most a law from which Obeying But there is another possibility. go on grownothing in the past has ever been exempt, evil may
sense, hatred
ing alongside good, and
it
may
too
attain
its
paroxysm
at the
end in some specifically new form. There are no summits without abysses. Enormous powers will be liberated in mankind by the inner though it may be that this energy will play of its cohesion tomorrow, as today and in the discordantly still be employed
would only vivify and detach so as to consummate it the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
finally a fraction
of the noosphere
which decided to
part
threshold \ to get outside itself into the other.
*
cross the
Ramification once
again, for the last time.
which
In this second hypothesis,
traditional apocalyptic thinking,
more
is
we may
in conformity with
perhaps discern three
curves around us rising up at one and the same time into the future
an inevitable education in die organic possibilities of
:
the earth, an internal schism of consciousness ever increasingly
two opposite
divided on
of
tion
ideals
of evolution, and positive attrac-
the centre of centres at the heart
towards
And
it.
the earth
would
finish
at
of those
who
turn
the triple point at
in keeping with the ways would meet and attain their maximum at the very same moment. the split of The death of the materially exhausted planet the noosphere, divided on the form to be given to its unity and simultaneously (endowing the event with all its significance and
which, by a coincidence altogether
of life,
these three curves
;
;
with
all its
value) the liberation of that percentage of the universe
which, across time, space and ously synthesising
itself
evil, will
have succeeded in labori-
to the very end.
:
past.
force,
Are we to foresee a mechanising synergy under brute or a synergy of sympathy ? Are we to foresee man seeking
to fulfil himself collectively
greater than himself? conflict
may
upon
himself, or personally
Refusal or acceptance of
1
On
a
the degree
of
*
inevitability
'
of
this
it
together, will,
maturation of a free mass,
sec
same timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;since a critical point is being approachedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; in and the extreme tension. There is nothing in common between this perspective time. of end at the paradise terrestrial of a dreams millenary old fi
Though
at
the
288
is
an hypothesis contra-
the convergent nature of noogenesis, but an ecstasy
universe.
Ecstasy in concord
of
interior tension
Among
those
I
or discord
;
but in either case by excess
phenomenon
outcome proper to or
of man.
have attempted to read
this
book
to the
and thoughtful, wondering facts, through metathrough leading them have been
many
whether
who
;
the only biological
:
conceivable for the
end,
p. 309.
an indefinite progress, which
by
transcending the dimensions and the framework of the visible
Omega? A
supervene. In that case the noosphere, in the course
of and by virtue of the process which draws
Conclusion,
on
Not dicted
will close
it,
dissatisfied
physics or through dreams.
289
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN But have those
who
still
hesitate in this
A mark mally
;
now
under-
really
on our
admitted by
all
?
abnorappearing on a film; an electroscope discharging fantastic powers that is enough to force physics to accept
in the atom.
Similarly, if
we
try to bring
within the framework of what
is
man, body and
experimental,
man
obliges us
space. measure the layers To make room for thought in the world, 1 have needed to to to imagine an energetics of the mind interiorise matter of flow the against upstream a noogenesis rising '
conceive
and
;
a line of advance to provide evolution with a direction, points ; and finally to make all things double back
Neither in the play of its elemental activities, which can only be set in motion by the hope of an imperishable nor in the *
the action of
In this points.
arrangement of values
It is
up to others
I
may have gone
to try to
do
better.
astray at
My
many
one hope
is
the reader feel both the reality, difficulty, and that I and, at the same time, the scale and the problem urgency of the
have made
which require
affinities,
form which
The only
universe capable of containing the 4
an irreversibly
personalising
'
universe.
human
person
conquering love, can
a
is
supreme
in attraction
way save under Omega.
in any
That
is
The
upon
possible, or
however
experience will
there
By
man of
which
very structure
its
individually or socially
of the centre we have led logically
by
the experimental laws
of
even the probable, repercussion of
theoretical in the
now
continue to
a pole
is
which we have been
the postulate to
this conclusion,
itself either
the influence
the integral application to evolution.
it,
and consistence.
the noosphcre could not close
for their coalescence
reflective life
function and to progress unless, above
called
the solution cannot escape.
'
;
play of its collective
critical
upon someone.
is
THE CHRISTIAN PHENOMENON
;
:
entropy
EPILOGUE
soul,
of time and
to readjust completely to his
*
way
conditions imposed
stood the rigorous and reason by the coherence of the universe, salutary
first
approximation,
be obvious.
Omega were
only a remote and ideal focus destined to of emerge at the end time from the convergence of terrestrial consciousnesses, nothing could make it known to us but this If
convergence. At the present time no other energy of a personal nature could be detected on earth save that represented by the
sum
of
If,
human
on
in existence
then
it
persons.
the other hand,
and operative
would seem in
its
now
lower
could of course only 290
at the
is,
as
we have
admitted, already
very core of the thinking mass,
inevitable that
fested to us here and
evolution
Omega
its
existence should be
through some
traces.
stages, the conscious pole
act in
To
mani-
animate
of the world
an impersonal form and under the 291
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
EPILOGUE
Upon the thinking entity that we have become by hominisation, it is now possible for it to radiate from the one centre to all centresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;personally. Would it seem likely that it
promising affirmation of a personal God God as providence, directing the universe with loving, watchful care and God the revealer, communicating himself to man on the level of and through the ways of intelligence. It will be easy for me, after
of biology.
veil
should not do so
?
whole construction of the world presented here vain ideology or, somewhere around us, in one form or Either the
is
of personal, extra-human energy should be perceptible to us if we look carefully, and should reveal to us the great Presence. It is at this point that we see the importance
another,
some
excess
the conclusion of a study of the human phenomenon
I
have not chosen those words haphazardly, nor for the sake of mere verbal symmetry. They are meant to define without ambiguity the spirit in which I want to speak.
As
I
am
living at the heart
of the Christian world,
suspected of wanting to introduce an apologia by
here again, so far as
possible for a
it is
the various planes of knowledge,
but the naturalist
The
is
it is
realities
would
might be But,
to separate in himself
not the convinced believer
The important
thing to point out here is the way in which such an attitude in the hearts of the faithful leaves the door open to, and is easily allied to, everything that is great and healthy in
It
In
its
Judaic phase, Christianity might well have considered
itself the particular religion
of one people. Later on, coming under the general conditions of human knowledge, it came to think that the world around it was much too small. However that may be, it was hardly constituted before it was ceaselessly trying to englobe in
of the system
that
its
constructions and conquests the totality
managed
it
to picture to
Personalism and universalism
has
its
among
place
For reasons of
in
:
its
itself.
what form have these two
theology
?
and perhaps also of of God is too often described in conventional and purely moral terms. God practical convenience
intellectual timidity, the City
show how
it
seems to
we
nature the crucial confirmation substance of its creed, next, by
I have said, to demonstrate the value and actuality of this tenacious personalism, not long since condemned as obsolete.
all
characters been able to unite in
of the world.
like to
extraordinary
I
artifice.
asking for a hearing.
perspectives of a universe dominated
its
man
Christian fact stands before us.
the other I
who
;
the universal.
for science of the Christian phenomenon.
At
:
its
by
are in
me
to
bring to the
energies of a personal
need
of, firstly
by
pious works
in
and the world he governs
are seen as a vast association, essen-
conceived in terms of a family or The fundamental root from which the sap of Christianity has risen from the beginning and is nourished, is quite otherwise. Led astray by a false evangelism, people often
tially legalistic in its nature,
the
existence-value, and finally by
power of growth.
government.
think they are honouring Christianity
when
they reduce
it
to a
of gentle philanthropism. Those who fail to see in it the most realistic and at the same time the most cosmic of beliefs and hopes, completely fail to understand its mysteries '. Is the Kingdom of God a big family ? Yes, in a sense it is. But in another sense it is a prodigious biological operation that of the
sort i.
AXES OF BELIEF
*
To
those
who
only
desperately intricate. tains
know
it
outwardly,
In reality, taken in
its
Christianity
main
seems
lines, it
con-
an extremely simple and astonishingly bold solution of the
world. In the centre, so glaring as to be disconcerting,
292
is
the
uncom-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Redeeming As early fulfd
and
Incarnation. as in St.
Paul and
to purify the
world
St.
is,
John we read that to create, to God, to unify it by uniting it
for
293
EPILOGUE
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN organically with himself. 1
How
docs he unify
it
By
?
birth of a religion.
partially
control and leadership of principle of universal
men, put himself
what we
vitality
now
evolution.
call
because sprung up as
Christ,
ever succeeding in begetting
to
gates to himself the total
And when
ist
Paul
St.
form of
tells us, '
God
pantheism
tion or annihilation
shall be all in all
'*
Christianity
in mankind.
which each element
in
Then,
left.
indeed
is
will reach
its
as
apparent
same
exacdy, so perfecdy does this coincide with the that doubtless
I
or formulate the hypothesis rationally as a believer,
but also
its
I
Omega
if,
had not found not only
my
in its
I
so
latter
consciousness
speculative
of a
in
model
living reality.
specifically
am
experienced
the start
EXISTENCE VALUE
relatively easy to build
beyond 1
and 2
the
*
to be one
En
a theory
of the world. But
'
identical
pasi pant a
—following
it is
artificially the '
all
thought in
fact
arc not
'
to be
it
all
new
it.
is
took
it
its
place as one
more
still
of
is
appearance
how
human
can
many
But whether
we doubt
We
in great intensity ?
produces unceasingly
all
of mystics,
it
people
be founded on an
that such a sentiment exists,
have only to note crudely the
round for
us.
Is it
twenty
not
a positive
centuries,
the
urge and devotion of any
not also a fact that, having once experienced
thousands of
know
I
have
flame a passionate fervour that outstrips by far in
brightness and purity is it
have not
and the intangible can be heart can beat with genuine charity
infinite
results
its
who
incomprehensible to those
and even
love?
measured by its value which
— by the
in fact almost monstrous.
it
life if
of consciousness.
for a fellow-being, seems impossible to
—
the
a qualitative
biological progress
state
That the
fact that thousands
powers of an individual to provoke
Following Greek thought
*
up
but
lovable, or that the
drawn from It is
to create
to every class
thinking here of Christian love.
illusion or not,
2.
managed
man and
every corner of the earth today.
Christian love
Point
should never have ventured to envisage the
natural-
fruitful currents the
expresses itself— like
And
has
it
addresses itself to every
of centres in perfect conformity with the laws of union. God, the Centre of centres. culminates.
movement
doubtless a quantitative value of
It is
universe fulfilling itself in a synthesis
dogma
'
by virtue of the spon-
in the first place real
radius of action;
In that final vision the Christian
of a
to the eyes
existence-value and reality-value.
time as the universe.
The
What
most noosphere has ever known. Whether we adhere to it or break off from it, we are surely obliged to admit that its stamp and its enduring influence are
a superior
at the
It
vigorous and
of perfect unity, steeped
consummation
is
of man, and from
without trace of the poison of adulterathe expectation
:
never
This
is its
taneous amplitude of the
he
life.
comprises the importance and the enigma of the Christian
'
phenomenon
has gathered everything together and transformed everything, he will close in upon himself and his conquests, thereby rejoining, in a final gesture, the divine focus he has
amplitude with the per-
Yet none of these metaphysical systems advanced beyond the limits of an ideology. Each in turn has perhaps brought light to men's minds, but without
subdue under himself, to purify, to direct and superanimate the general ascent of consciousnesses into which he inserted himself. By a perennial act of communion and sublimation, he aggrepsychism of the earth.
in
spectives of the Incarnation.
man among
in the position (maintained ever since)
Spinoza and Hegel were able to
Plato,
which compete
elaborate views
immersing himself in things, by becoming element \ and then, from this point of vantage in the heart of matter, assuming the '
men and women
it,
human further
are daily renouncing every other
ambition and every other joy save that of abandoning themselves
?
to
Theos*
294
it
and labouring within
it
more and more completely
295
?
EPILOGUE
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Lastly,
not a
is it
fact, as
can warrant, that if the love of
I
God
were extinguished in the souls of the faithful, the enormous edifice of rites, of hierarchy and of doctrines that comprise the Church would instantly revert to the dust from which it
That
triumph.
what
is
now
the Christian
tion,
nothing but
a
It is
man
a
phenomenon of
importance for the science of
capital
over an appreciable region of the earth,
that,
thought has appeared and grown
in
which
a
a
zone of
genuine universal
love has not only been conceived and preached, but has also
been shown to be psychologically possible and operative in practice. It is all the more capital inasmuch as, far from decreasing, the
movement seems
to
wish to gain
still
greater speed and
perceives that
what
it
offers
him
is
to him. In a pluralistic
and
static
Nature, the universal domination of Christ could, strictly speaking,
still
be regarded as an extrinsic and super-imposed power.
In a spiritually converging world this
Christie
'
*
energy acquires
an urgency and intensity of another order altogether. If the world is
convergent and
if
Christ occupies
genesis of St. Paul and St.
John
its
centre, then the Christo-
nothing
is
else
and nothing
less
than the extension, both awaited and unhoped for, of that noogenesis in
intensity.
for a
magnificent means of feeling more at one with
God and of giving himself more
rose
much to their moment by evolu-
believers are beginning,
Though frightened
surprise, to find out.
which cosmogenesis
culminates.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
as
regards
our experience
Christ invests himself organically with the very
And it is in no way metaphorical to say man finds himself capable of experiencing and discovering his God in the whole length, breadth and depth of the world in movement. To be able to say literally to God that one loves him, majesty of his creation.
POWER OF GROWTH
3.
For almost
all
the ancient
outlook characterising crisis
of such severity
*
the
that,
renewal of cosmic
the
religions,
that
modern mind
'
has occasioned a
have not yet been
if they
killed
not only with
one's body,
all
that can only be
made
untenable myths, or steeped in a pessimistic and passive mysticism,
More
To
they can adjust themselves neither to the precise immensities, nor
ances to the contrary,
by
it,
it is
to die constructive requirements, step both
Narrowly bound
plain they will never recover.
of space-time. They are out of
with our science and with our
But under the shock which
to
is
rapidly causing
its
rivals to
which might at first have been thought to be shaken too, is showing, on the contrary, every sign of forging ahead. For, by the very fact of the new dimensions disappear, Christianity,
assumed by the universe as inherently
we
more vigorous
the world than
it
More
To
vigorous.
as
see
it
today,
in itself
and
as
more
live
and develop the Christian outlook needs
world becomes and the more organic become the
more
will
die
perspectives
296
new of
The bigger its
the
internal con-
of the Incarnation
all
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;that
one's soul, is
a
prayer
say of Christianity that, despite appearit
is
acclimatising itself and expanding
half of the picture.
by
science, is to point to
Evolution has
come
no
to infuse
blood, so to speak, into the perspectives and aspirations
Christianity.
In return,
is
not the Christian faith destined,
is it
not preparing, to save and even to take the place of evolu-
tion
?
I
have tried to show that
we
can hope for no progress on
earth without the primacy and triumph of the personal at the
summit of
an atmosphere of greatness and of coherence. nections,
necessary to
has ever been before.
one's heart and
in space-time.
in a world enormously enlarged
reveals itself both
it
necessary.
more than one
activity.
all
but with every fibre of the unifying universe
is
mind.
And
at
the present
the unique current of thought,
noosphcre, which
is
moment
on the
sufficiently audacious
Christianity
entire surface
and
of the
sufficiently
pro-
gressive to lay hold of the world, at the level of effectual practice,
in an embrace, at once already complete, yet capable
297
of indefinite
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN where
perfection,
faith
and hope reach
EPILOGUE
their fulfilment in love.
rises
Alone, unconditionally alone, in the world today, Christianity itself able to reconcile, in a single living act, the All
shows
the Person. Alone,
of that tremendous movement of the world which bears
movement
but beyond, to embrace that
we
In other words can
we
conditions future
and that hence, through
;
truly passes, as
Now
let
us
it
maintains
sum up
ment, through
its
us along,
from
a
the
fulfils all
:
phenomenon, the Christian move-
rootedness in the past and ceaseless develop-
ments, exhibits the characteristics of a phylum.
Reset in an evolution interpreted as an ascent of consciousness, phylum, in its trend towards a synthesis based on love, pro-
ii.
this
gresses precisely in the direction
presumed for the leading-shoot
of biogenesis. In the impetus
iii.
which guides and
sustains
advance,
its
this
rising shoot implies essentially the consciousness of being in actual relationship
with
a spiritual
and transcendent pole of universal
convergence.
To
we
confirm the presence at the sumrnit of the world of what
have called the
cross-check
Omega
we were
Point, 1
do
waiting for
?
we
not find here the very
Here
surely
is
the ray
sunshine striking through the clouds, the reflection onto what
ascending of that which solitude.
The
To
be more exact,
Is
This to
is
on our world of an
to confirm the presence at the still
more
other
and
which the binding contact between
God
super-intimacy (hence also
summit of the world
elevated than, the
in deference to the theological concept
attains to a
is
not die Christian phenomenon, which
(
of something in line with, but
of
already on high, die rupture of our
palpable influence
supreme Someone ... 1
is
of the
*
Omega
supernatural
and the world,
hie et
a supcr-gratuitousness)
*
point \
according
nunc inchoate,
of which
can have no inkling and to which he can lay no claim by virtue of his
man '
'
nature
alone.
298
precisely
Peking, June 1Q38-June 1940
of the
religion
the principal axis of evolution
the situation
phenomenon,
In the presence of such perfection in coincidence, even if I were not a Christian but only a man of science, I think I would ask myself this question.
?
Considered objectively asa
i.
it,
the heart of the social
in love.
not say that Christianity
are entitled to expect
at
that?
and
can bend our hearts not only to the service
it
upwards
299
postscript
The
philosophy or finalism.
him when he comes
before
and the perfect
tions
tion
THE ESSENCE OF THE PHENOMENON OF
still
more
clearly
it
the intuition
man
Taken
saw him when I vision has not remained as
I
as a
By
whole,
I
wrote these pages. could not remain
it
the irresistible deepening of reflection,
decantation and automatic patterning of associated ideas,
discovery of
new
understood,
certain
facts
me
formulations and
articulations
the
have
main
lines
to
of
earlier draft. It is this
in process
of
*
complex)
of complexity
'
(from
itself
—and, moreover,
is
experimentally
correlative increase in interiorisation, that
is
to
say in the psyche or consciousness.
In the the
narrow domain of our planet
scope of biology) the structural
between complexity and consciousness testable
and has always been known.
taken in this
book
that the particular
becoming more is
its
originality
is
the only
one within
relationship noted is
here
experimentally incon-
What
gives the standpoint
the affirmation, at the outset,
property possessed by
vitalised as they
(still
terrestrial
become
substances
increasingly
— of
complex
only the local manifestation and expression of a trend as
no doubt even more significant than) those those trends which cause the by science cosmic layers not only to expand explosively as a wave but also to condense into corpuscles under the action of electrouniversal as (and
unchanged, though recogitated, essence of the Pheno-
menon of Man which a
the
They tend
in the last ten years.
emphasise, and at the same time to simplify, the
my
by by
and by the continual need to be better
new
gradually occurred to
see
still
particular involution
bound up with a
first
—
basic
stationary.
have experienced no change in
seeks to express.
it
today exactly
Yet the
I
is
upon
chemically, as in process of organic involution
this
book was composed,
in this simple affirma-
presents itself to us, physico-
the extremely simple to the extremely
Since this
have
I
expansion (from the infinitesimal to the immense), in the
same way and
MAN
limita-
ultimate essence, the substance
its
that if the universe, regarded sidereally,
:
spatial
to
summed up
of these long pages can be
SUMMING UP OR POSTSCRIPT
weigh up the scope, the legitimacy of the views
scientific
Reduced
here put forward.
reader should keep this example
to
I
think
it
will
summing-up or conclusion under
be useful to
set
out here
as
three inter-related headings:
already identified
:
magnetic and gravitational forces, or perhaps to become dei.
A
WORLD IN INVOLUTION, OR THE COSMIC LAW
OF COMPLEXITY-CONSCIOUSNESS The astronomers have
lately
been making us familiar with the
which for the last few thousand million years from a sort of primordial atom. This perspective of a world in a state of explosion is still debated, but no physicist would think of rejecting it as being tainted with idea of a universe
has been expanding in galaxies
300
materialised in radiation
inter-connected, as If that
be so,
we it
:
shall
trends
which
one day
are probably strictly
realise.
will be seen that consciousness (defined
experimentally as the specific effect of organised complexity) transcends
by
far the ridiculously
our eyes can directly perceive
On
diffuse, state)
limits within
which
we
are logically forced to assume the form (in a microscopic, i.e. an infinitely of some sort of psyche in every corpuscle, even mega-molecules and below) whose complexity is
the one hand
existence in rudimentary
in those (the
narrow
it.
301
THE PHENOMENON OF of such
low
a
MAN
or modest order as to render
POSTSCRIPT
(the psyche)
it
imper-
of favourable combinations obtained, without the diminution,
ceptible—just as the physicist assumes and can calculate those
indeed with the increase, of the
changes of mass (utterly imperceptible to direct observation)
which gives rise to the extraordinary assemblage of living stems forming what I have called the tree of life though I could
occasioned
—
by slow movement.
On the other hand,
number of individuals engaged),
there precisely in the
physical conditions (temperature, gravity,
world where various etc.)
prevent
com-
plexity reaching a degree involving a perceptible radiation
equally well have chosen another image, that of the spectrum,
which each wavelength would correspond to
in
of consciousness, we are led to assume that the involution, temporarily halted, will resume its advance as soon as conditions
shade of consciousness or instinct.
are favourable.
be
Regarded along its axis of complexity, the universe is, both on the whole and at each of its points, in a continual tension of organic doubling-back upon itself, and thus of interiorisation.
valid solutions to a given problem,
Which amounts
to saying that, for science,
everywhere
pressure
through
in
;
and that where
it
life is
has succeeded in breaking
an appreciable degree, nothing will be able to stop
carrying to the uttermost limit the process
it
always under
from which
it
has
sprung.
my opinion necessary to take one's stand
It is in
convergent cosmic setting
of man
in its
proper
if one
relief
in this actively
wants to depict the phenomenon
and explain
it
fully
and coherently.
THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF MAN,
2.
OR THE INDIVIDUAL THRESHOLD OF REFLECTION So
overcome
as to
its
the improbability of arrangements leading
pre-reflective zones, 1 proceeds step
dint of billion-fold
trial
and error.
It is
this
by
by
step
process of groping,
combined with the two-fold mechanism of reproduction and heredity (allowing the hoarding and the additive improvement 1
Once
the threshold of reflection
is
crossed, the pJay of
4
planned
'
or
combinations come into the picture, and to sotnc extent supplants that of fortuitous combinations that just happen '. See below, *
invented
fan
may seem
—
so
-just
menon of Man
'
instincts, so
—apart from the interpretation of — on the contrary,
appearance on the value of a
many
this psychical
by
science) to
many
equally
comparison between which second original point in my position in The Phenolife as a
function of the cosmos
human
lies,
threshold
'
line
universal
in giving the
of the power of reflection the
or a change of
state.
This affirmation
is
from being an unwarranted assumption or based initially on any metaphysics of thought. It is a choice depending experimentally on the curiously underestimated fact that, from the threshold of reflection onwards, we are at what is nothing less than a new form of biological existence, 1 characterised, amongst other peculiarities, by the following properties: The decisive emergence in individual life of factors of internal a. arrangement (invention) above the factors of external arrangement (utilisation of the play of chance). The equally decisive appearance between elements of true forces of attraction and repulsion (sympathy and antipathy), replacing the pseudo-attractions and pseudo-repulsions of pre-life or even of the lower forms of life, which we seem to be able to refer back to simple reactions to the curves of space-time in the one case, and of the biosphere in the other. far
In exactly the same way as physics changes (with the introduction and dominance of certain new terms) when it passes from the scale of the mediumsized to that of the immense or, on the other hand, to that of the infinitesimal. 1
'
It is
too often forgotten that there should be, and
*
302
A
of
(indeed they are often so regarded
vitally equivalent
is futile.
the various stems
fc.
to units of ever increasing complexity, the involuting universe,
considered in
From one point of view,
a particular
'
infinitely
complex \
303
is,
a special biology of the
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN Lastly, the
c.
awakening
in the consciousness
element (consequent upon for foreseeing the future)
That
is
its
of a
POSTSCRIPT
of each particular
new and revolutionary aptitude demand for unlimited survival '.
to say, the passage, for
total death
to this question
depends entirely on the idea
is
our conduct, and
vital for
we form
(or rather
*
from
of relative irreversibility (the physical impossibility of the cosmic involution to stop, once it has begun) to a state of absolute irreversibility (the radical
The answer
life,
a state
dynamic incompatibility of
a
certain prospect
with the continuation of an evolution that has
of become
of the nature of the social phenomenon impetus around
full
As
ought to form)
we now
as
see
it
in
us.
matter of intellectual routine and because of the positive
a
difficulty of mastering a process in which we are ourselves swept along, the constandy increasing auto-organisation of the human myriad upon itself is still regarded more often than not as a
reflective).
juridical or accidental process only superficially,
These various properties confer on the zoological group possessing them a superiority that is not only quantitative and numerical, but functional and vital^an indisputable superiority, I maintain, provided that we make up our minds to apply relent-
and to the bitter end the experimental law of ComplexityConsciousness to the global evolution of the entire group.
comparable with those of biology.
logical progress.
From an
stopped moving,
if
And
my
THE SOCIAL PHENOMENON OR THE ASCENT TOWARDS A COLLECTIVE THRESHOLD OF REFLECTION
this
life.
But because
this
from
instinct into thought, its
so as to
it
second fanning-out.
known
to us.
Let us take
In virtue
a glance at
of the particular form of cosmogenesis adopted here, the problem our existence sets before our science is plainly the following To what extent and eventually under what form does the human layer still obey (or is exempt from) the forces of cosmic involution which gave & :
it
that
man of science,
common
of
it
has
leaps
become
forward
technically patterns
within
it
and the
we
man
has
I
feel
obliged to
make
sense 1
stationary. ?
its
Look
with
man
in reflecting
upon
us that
tells
ceiling
:
But should we not rather say way in which, as mankind
at the
multitudes, pari passu the psychic tension
with the consciousness of time and space and power of, discovery. This great event
increases,
taste for,
accept without surprise.
this revealing association
spiritual
its
Yet
how
can one
fail to
recognise
of technical organisation and inward
concentration as the
work of
the
same
great force
still
of anthropological types this
proves
itself capable of spreading out completely free zone of the world form a spectrum of another order-the immense variety"
turn, within this
as a
biological evolution has reached
particular stem, or radius, alone among others, has succeeded thanks to a privileged structure or position, in emerging
m
where,
is
evolutionary point of view,
he ever did move.
certain sort
itself, life
anatomic and psychic ramifications of
admitted,
protest and object.
A
As we have seen, from a purely descriptive point of view, man was originally only one of innumerable branches forming the
extrinsicaUy \
it is
mankind has always been increasing, which forces it to make more and more complex arrangements for its members. But these modus vivendi must not be confused with genuine onto-
lessly
3.
Naturally,
*
birth?
(though in proportions and with a depth hitherto never attained),
which brought us into being ? How can we fail on individually all of us, you and me upon our own selves, it is still the same cyclone (only now on the social scale) which is still blowing over our heads, driving us together into a contact which tends to perfect each one of us by linking him organically to each and all of his neighbours ? the very force
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
1
The same
beyond
304
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to see that after rolling us
all
'
common
question
by
sense
'
which has again and again been corrected
physics.
305
POSTSCRIPT
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN '
Through human
involute upon
of the
fibres
socialisation,
effect is
to
is
pursuing
forward
emending
two preliminary
concerning the primacy of
its
course
'
replacing and
:
life
some
Let
it
phenomenon of man.
how
easily
and co-
phenomenon
directions allows us to predict, the
merely be stated
that, if
above the
elementary hominisation that culminates in each individual, there is really developing above us another hominisation, a collective parallel
the
whole
with
species,
the
then
socialisation
it
is
quite natural to observe,
of humanity,
the
on
psycho-biological properties rising upwards
same three
the earth that
the individual step to reflection originally produced. a.
Firstly the
power of
invention, so rapidly intensified at the
present time by the, rationalised collaboration research that
it is
already possible to speak of a
of all the
forces
of
human rebound of
evolution. b.
Next, capacity for attraction (or repulsion),
in a chaotic
way throughout
the
world but
still
Lasdy and above all, the demand for irreversibility. This emerges from the still somewhat hesitating zone of individual c.
aspirations, so as to find categorical expression in consciousness
that, if an isolated
man
species.
Categorical in the sense
can succeed in imagining that
it is
pos-
even morally, for him to contemplate a complete suppression of himself—confronted with a total annihilation (or even simply with an insufficient preservation) sible
physically, or
306
what
is
— mankind, in that
all
effort to
its
too heavy, and the task threatens to
we
unless
it,
only
push the earth
go on are to
incorruptible.
me
These and other assembled pointers seem to
to constitute
a serious scientific proof that (in conformity with the universal
law of centrcHComplexity) the zoological group of mankind far from drifting biologically, under the influence of exaggerated far from individualism, towards a state of growing granulation turning (through space-travel) to an escape from death by sidereal expansion or yet again far from simply declining towards a catastrophe or senility the human group is in fact turning, by planetary arrangement and convergence of all ;
;
—
elemental terrestrial reflections, towards a second critical pole
towards a point of reflection of a collective and higher order beyond which (precisely because it is critical) we can see nothing direcdy, but a point through which we can nevertheless prognosticate the contact between thought, born of involution upon itself of the stuff of the universe, and that transcendent focus we call Omega, the principle which at one and the same time makes this involution irreversible and moves and gathers it in. ;
operating
rising so rapidly
around us that (whatever be said to the contrary) economics will soon count for very litde in comparison with the ideological and the emotional factors in the arrangement of the world.
and through the voice of the
For the
in
not the place to show in detail
course of history.
much
strike.
work
(the
—
explains, or even in
is
on
once and for
in the universe, the other the
herently this organic interpretation of the social
one of
course would be to go
realise
too long, for us to continue to accept
above
—
is
beginning to
much
scientific position as regards the
This
is
one
postulates stated
primacy of reflection in life) this is the third option the most decisive of all which completes the definition and clarification I
turn,
is
it
which
o my
destined for the fruit of his evolutionary labour
whole bundle of reflexive scales and the very axis of the cosmic vortex of
interiorisation
the
specific
its
itself the
earth,
whose
It
only remains for me, in bringing
this
work
to a close, to define
my
opinion on three matters which usually puzzle my readers what place remains for freedom (and hence for the possibility of a setback in the world) ? (b) what value must be given to spirit (as opposed to matter) ? and (c) what is the distinction between God and the World in the theory of cosmic involution ? As regards the chances of success of cosmogenesis, my cona. tention is that it in no way follows from the position taken up :
(a)
here that the
final success
of hominisation
is
necessary, inevitable
Without doubt, the noogenic forces of compression, organisation and interiorisation, under which the biological synthesis of reflection operates, do not at any moment and
'
certain,
307
'
POSTSCRIPT
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN on
relax their pressure bility
of foreseeing with certainty
directions of the future.
we
must not
Hence
the stuff of mankind.
1
forget, the
goes well) certain precise
(if all
But, in virtue of
very nature,
its
arrangement of great complexes
as
(that
to say, of states of greater and greater improbability, even though closely linked together) does not operate in the universe (i) the (least of all in man) except by two related methods (whose cases appearance favourable is of utilisation groping (ii) in and numbers) a second provoked by the play of large phase, reflective invention. And what docs that amount to if not that, however persistent and imperious the cosmic energy
is
:
of involution may be
in
activity,
its
it
finds itself intrinsically
by two uncertainties related to the double play chance at the bottom and freedom at the top ? Let me add, however, that in the case of very large numbers (such, for instance,
influenced in
its
effects
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
human
as the
population) the process tends to
'
unfallibilise
of success grows on the lower itself, side (chance) while that of rejection and error diminishes on the other side (freedom) with the multiplication of the elements inasmuch
engaged.
as the likelihood
As regards the value of the spirit, I would like to say that from the phenomenal point of view, to which I systematically confine myself, matter and spirit do not present themselves as things
it
or
'
*
natures
'
but
simple related variables, of which
as
behoves us to determine not the secret essence but the curve
in function reflection
treated,
an
'
'
not
effect
within these limits, modest
me
as
they are, something very
by experience
in favour of of metaphysics. On one side, when once we have admitted the abovementioned transposition of the concept of consciousness, nothing any longer stops us from prolonging downwards towards the lower complexities under an invisible form the spectrum of the within \ In other words, the psychic shows itself subtending (at various degrees of concentration) the totality of the phenomenon. On the other side, followed upward towards the very large complexes, the same psychic element from its first appearance in beings, manifests, in relation to its matrix of complexity \ a growing tendency to mastery and autonomy. At the origins of life, it would seem to have been the focus of arrangement (F 1) which, in each individual element, engenders and controls its related focus of consciousness (F 2). But, higher up, the equilibrium is reversed. Quite clearly, first from the individual if not before threshold of reflection it is F 2 which begins ') of the progress of F 1. Then, to take charge (by invention higher still, that is to say at the approaches (conjectured) of
important seems to
to be furnished
the speculations
*
'
*
*
'
'
*
'
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
'
3
b.
'
Now,
the possi-
\
And
of space and time. consciousness as a sort as the
*
'
I
recall that at this level
presents itself and
demands
of particular and subsistent
specific effect
'
entity,
to
but
collective
from
its
reflection,
we
and universal focus Omega.
After emergence
become co-extensive with
sciousness
be
verse rests in equilibrium
on
a
of
the 2
spirit),
For
a
towards
'
trying
Christian believer
all it
is
'
redeeming virtue
beyond
in his
advance to
and
*
thinking
the plan
'
of the
God
all
"
social
(liberators
right to the very end.
interesting to note that the fmal success of
hominisation (and thus cosmic involution) '
man
towards the development of machinery and automation
finer
experimental
is
positively guaranteed
incarnate in his creation.
of phenomenology.
308
But
by
Lasdy, to put an
c. '
pantheism
basis
',
form of thought,
could
of
we have on which spirit
end once and for
all
to
?
to
the
fears
of
constantly raised by certain upholders of traditional
spirituality as regards evolution,
case
in the
supreme pole of interiorisation.
What
of complexity.
that nothing could stop
This for instance;
unification,
comes emersion.
the universe, but the uni-
and consistency,
found metaphysically the primacy of the 1
away
In the perspectives of cosmic involution, not only does con-
of
as
F 2 apparently breaking
find
temporo-spatial frame to join up with the supreme
a converging universe
how can we fail
such as
I
to see that, in the
have delineated, far from
the
this takes us
being born from the fusion and confusion of the elemental centres it
assembles, the universal centre
309
of unification
(precisely
to
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN fulfil
motive, collective and stabilising function) must be
its
conceived
as pre-existing
theism
you
'
if
and transcendent.
like (in the etymological
but an absolutely legitimate pantheism
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
A
very
meaning of for
if,
all)
\
this state is
the
'
pan-
word)
in the last resort,
the reflective centres of the world are effectively
God
real
'
APPENDIX
one with
obtained not by identification (God becoming
SOME REMARKS ON THE PLACE AND PART OF EVIL IN A WORLD IN EVOLUTION
but by the differentiating and communicating action of love
(God
all
in
everyone).
And
that
is
essentially
orthodox and
Christian.
Throughout the long discussions we have been through, one point may perhaps have intrigued or even shocked the reader. Nowhere, it I am not mistaken, have pain or wrong been spoken of. Does that mean that, from the point of view I have adopted, problem have faded away and no longer count in the structure of the world ? If that were so, the picture of the universe here presented might seem over-simplified or even faked. evil
and
its
My
answer
(or,
if
you
like,
my
excuse) to this frequent
reproach of naive or exaggerated optimism
book
is
that, as
this
of
the biological process
of hommisation,
have not (and
1
in the interests of clarity and simplicity) considered to provide the negative of the photograph. to
what be
I
a
I
complete misunderstanding to interpret that
I
it
between
human
idyll rather
the
have assumed that
have omitted could nevertheless be seen.
suggested as a sort of
drama
this
necessary
have drawn attention to the shadows on the
Surely they were obvious enough.
?
it
What good would
landscape, or to stress the depths of the abysses
peaks
aim
has been limited to bringing out the positive essence
in
have done
my
And
would the view here it
than as the cosmic
have attempted to present.
True, evil has not hitherto been mentioned, at least explicitly.
But on the other hand surely it inevitably seeps out through every nook and cranny, through every joint and sinew of the system
in
First
310
:
which
I
have taken
evil oj disorder
my
stand.
and failure. 3ii
Right up to
its
reflective
THE PHENOMENON OF
we have
zones
heading alone
this
on which chance
level
we
—
— how many
how many
success,
how many
one hour's joy,
by means of groping even up to the human
most controlled
is
have there been for one with
APPENDIX
seen the world proceeding
Under
and chance.
MAN
sins for a solitary saint
?
To
begin
derangement on
find physical lack-of-arrangement or
the material level
failures
days of misery for
then suffering, which cuts into the sentient
;
man,
a particular
type of cosmos in which
evil
appears neces-
you like in the course of evolution not by accident (which would not much matter) but through the very structure of the system. A universe which is involuted and interioriscd, but at the same time and by the same token a universe which labours, which sins, and which suflfers. Arrangement and centration a doubly conjugated operation which, like the scaling of a mountain or the conquest of the air, can sarily
and
abundantly
as
as
—
:
flesh
of
then,
;
on
a
higher level, wickedness and the torture
still
spirit as it analyses itself
and makes choices.
we
every degree of evolution,
forming and reforming implacably sarium
scandata eveniant.
est ut
Statistically, at
find evil always and everywhere,
and around
in us
Neces-
us.
This b relentlessly imposed by the
only be effected objectively
Suffering and failure, tears and blood (often precious,
organisation.
noosphere on
Second
evil
:
of decomposition.
This
is
no more than
a
form result
rigorously
is
reflection at the first stage.
But
is
the quantity and the malice of evil hie
essential lever in the
Third
evil
:
(peculiar to in a
a
phyletic stem.
Death
— the
mechanism and upsurge of life.
of solitude
man) of
and anxiety.
a consciousness
This
is
the great anxiety
wakening up
to reflection
dark universe in which light takes centuries and centuries it a universe we have not yet succeeded in under-
—
to reach
standing either in
itself,
or
in its
demands on
Lastly, the least tragic perhaps, because
none the us, in
less real
the pangs
the humblest
makes
the evil of growth,
:
of
us.
it
by which
childbirth, the mysterious
chemism
exalts us, is
though
expressed in
law which, from
to the highest syntheses of the spirit,
progress in the direction of increased unity express itself in terms of work and effort. all
Indeed, if we regard the
point efforts
(i.e. it
not that of
requires)
harmony which
we
its
march of the world from this standprogress but that of its risks and the
soon
—viewed
see,
under the
veil
3ia
us.
by-products
else to see ?
In other words,
is it
Is
there
really sure that, for
an
eye trained and sensitised by light other than that of pure science,
through the world, does not betray a certain excess, inexplicable to our reason, if to the normal effect of evolution is not added the extraordinary effect
On this
et
nunc, spread
of some catastrophe or primordial deviation ? all loyalty, I do not feel I am in a position
question, in
any case, would this be the place to do so ? however, seems clear to me, and it is sufficient for
to take a stand
One point, the moment of the
*
in
:
as
creation
an orientation *
:
that in this case (just as in that
of the human soul
—see note
p. 169),
complete
not only conceded but offered by the phenomenon to theology, so that it may add precision and depth (should it wish liberty
is
and suggestions — always — furnished by experience.
to) to the findings
a certain point
ambiguous beyond
manner or the other it still remains true that, even view of the mere biologist, the human epic resembles
In one in the
nothing so
much
as a
way of the
Cross.
of security and
—envelop
from on high
many
that really all ?
death
the regular, indispensable condition of the replacement
so
:
of the world in movement reveals to our observation and nothing
of one individual by another along
—for
moreover, and re-utilisable) begotten by the way. This, in final analysis is, what the spectacle
its
from some unhappy chance. It is an aggravated and doubly fatal form, it must be added, inasmuch as, with living creatures, is
paid for
we knew them, would
enable us to penetrate the secret of the world around
play of large numbers at the heart of a multitude undergoing
of the foregoing, for sickness and corruption invariably
if it
reasons and at charges which, if only
the rise of
Rome, October 313
28,
1946
1
INDEX
Index
China, 184, 193, 197, 209-1 Chordates, 131, 132, 144
Devonian
Christ, 294, 297
Dinocerata, 144 Dinosaurs, 128, 129, 144 Dryopithecus, 158
Diatom
Christianity, 211, 291-9, 308 n., 310
Aborigines, Australian, 197, 206 Additivity, 108, no, 141, 225
Biogenesis,
210
139-40, 147-8, 166, 181,
276, 298
Africa, 128, 152, 158, 184, 185, 187 n.,
196, 197, 202, 206,
(see also
Biochemistry, 82
Biology, 48, 61, 79, 94, 95» 99, 103110, 113, i2i, 131-2, 138, 140 n„
Africanthropus, 196 Agriculture, 205, 214
145-6, 148, 149
Aino, 198 Alaska, 205 Albuminoids, 87, 148, 250 America, 124, 125, 126 n., 152, 157, 202, 206, 209, 212 Amitotic division, 104 Amphibians, 129, 130, 147
Amphioxus, 131
n., 151, 159, 163,
164, 166, 172, 175, 178, 218,223,
225,
277
242, 244, 247, 268 281-2, 283, 291-2, 293.
240, n.,
301, 303 n., 305, 3ii, 313
Biosphere, 78, 95-6, 101-2, 104, 112, 118, 132, 148, 151, 153, 160, 182, ?i8, 239, 251, 273, 275, 303
Boule, 196 Bovidae, 125
Animalcules, 40 Annelida, 132
Anthropogenesis, 42, 50, 138, 212, 241 Anthropoids, 158, 160, 163, 168, 184185, 18711., 189, 193, 193 n., 196 Anthropology, 163, 187, 198, 199-
200, 241, 243
Anthropomorphs, 187
Brain, I44"<5, 158, 159-60, 170, 177, 178, 181, 183, 188, 194, 194 n., 198, 203, 249-50, 278
Breuil, H., 214
Brunschvig, 249 n. Bryozoa, 107 Buffon, 217
Aristotle, 133,
Carboniferous
Arizona, 152 Arthropods, 124, 132, 145, 153 Artiodactyla, 124-5 Asia, 152,
157, 159
Caves, 202-3
134, 227, 274,
300-1
Atmosphere,
Atom,
136
Cell, 79-83, 68,
68
n.,
71, 182
86-109,
173. 225, 244,
132.
147,
Centre, 60, 65-6, 89, 104, 165, 173, 258-64, 267-72, 284, 287-8, 289,
39, 40-9, 52, 59, 69, 94, 104,
149, 2(58, 272, 300
Aurignacian man, 200, 203
291,294, 309, 313 Cerebralisation, see Brain
Australia, 126, 185
Australopithecus, 185, 187 n.
Cervidae, 125 Cctacea, 125, 159
Bacteria, 81, 82 n., 92, 102, 107, 132
Chalicotheridae, 124
Barysphere, 68, 71, 182 292-4 (see also Faith)
Chance, 149 n., 308, 312 Chemistry, 71, 140, 219, 273 Chimpanzee, 158, 185
Belief, 283-4,
Benson, 275
166,
268
3*4
(see
Civilisation, 204-5, 269/-70
Coelenterata, 132 Collectivity,
Collective,
41-2,
246,
254, 258, 261, 262-3, 265, 267 n., 216 n.
Collingwood, R. G., 52
Communism, 257 Complexity, 43, 48, 48 n,, 64, 66, 8687, 177, 301-2, 308-9
Comte, 57
n.
Condylarthra, 144. 158 Consciousness, 43, 47. 55-7. 72-4,
87-89,
143-52,
59~<5i,
153.
155.
Echinodermata, 132 Economics, 213-14, 306 Ego, 172, 258, 259, 261, 262, 263 Egotism, 230, 237-8, 244, 263 Egypt, 210, 211 Electro-magnetic waves, 240, 301 Electron, 41, 45, 48, 102 Embryogenesis, 78, 171, 189, 200
Endomorphosis, 209 Energetics, 283, 290 Energy, 40, 42-3, 45. 50-2, 62-6, 68-
160, 164-9, 173-4, 177, 178, 181,
70, 72, 98,
212, 219, 221-2, 224, 225, 229-
232
32, 241, 243, 246, 251, 256-9, 261-2, 264-5, 271-2, 276, 285-6,
72,
Omega
Carrel, A., 281 n., 99,
Church, 296
Convergence,
Carnivores, 124, 125, 128, 145, 150,
210
Astronomy, 67
era,
277
291, 292, 297, 308 88, 89, 143, 147,
Cromagnon man,
199 Crossopterygian, 130
Crystallisation,
69-70
Cucnot, 134 Cytology, 80 Cytoplasm, 79, 87
Darwin,
82, 120, 138, 149 n., 218, 219 Death, 237, 270, 272, 273, 275, 304,
64-6, 72,
168-9, 176,
Mind, Psyche, Soul, Within of things)
Unity
Cosmogenesis, 47, 221, 276, 297, 304, 307 Cosmos, 43-5, 217 Cournot, 122 n. Cretaceous period, 136 Critical points, 78, 88, 231
H9.
239, 244, 253, 265, 269, 272 (see also Consciousness, Intelligence,
see under Centre,
point,
102, 141, 231, 232,
241, 250, 253, 258, 264274, 276-7, 280, 281, 288,
n.,
radial (internal) energy,
Soul, Spirit, Within of things)
Camelidae, 125 Carbon, 95, 244
216
87, 139,
Psyche, Radial (internal) energy,
Aplacentals, 126 (see also Manupials) Aristogenesis, 160
Chromosomes,
131
40
Dualism, 64 Duration, 46, 47, 77, 219-20, 228 also Space-time)
Christogenesis, 297
289, 291, 294. 295. 300-4, 308-9, 312 (see also Intelligence, Mind,
Burial, 198, 202
n.
Religion)
level,
shells,
Spirit,
tangential (external) energy, 64-6,
169, 2 39,
272
Entropy, 51, 66, 271, 272, 290
(see
88, 143.
H7, H9»
Thermodynarnics) Enzymes, 95 Eocene period, 145, 158, 189 also
Epicurus, 40 Ethics, 62, 164 Eugenics, 282-3
EvD, 249, 288, 289, 311-13 External energy, see Energy
Fabre, 155 Faith, 229, 234, 245,
Belief)
307,312 Descartes, 166
Finalism, 53, 139, 301
Determinism, 53
Freedom, 307-8
315
283-4
(see
also
INDEX
INDEX Galileo,
Insectivores, 124, 158
152,
Genes, 209, 225, 250
Insects, 99, 132, 145, 153-5, 178
264
Genesis, 49, 99, 100, 218, 228 Genetics, 106
Instinct, 155, 159, 167, 171, 175. 178,
Genotypes, 140
Intelligence, 167 n., 168, 171-4, 202,
217
180, 181, 282, 287, 303, 304
Geogenesis, 148, 181, 273
216, 293 (see also Consciousness, Mind, Psyche, Radial (internal)
Geology, 100-1, 122, 125, 136, 164,
energy, Soul, Spirit, Within of
182, 183
Germs, 97, 106,
God, 292-7,
things)
109, 225
Interior
307, 308 n., 310
of things,
see
Within
of
things
Goncourts, 275 Gorilla, 158, 185
Internal energy, see
Energy
Invention, 223-5, 3°3. 306, 308 Involution, 72, 73, 3004, 307-9, 3*3 Isolation, 237-8, 244
Granulation, 49, 307 Graves, see under Burial Greece, 211, 257
153- 155-7,
16*0,
159.
200,
Noogenesis, 18 1-2, 216, 221, 229, 230, 255, 257, 260, 261, 270, 273, 286,
Marsupials, 124 n., 126, 144 Marx, 261
Mass-formation,
see under Planerisa-
252, 259, 260, 264, 269, 273-6,
Matthew, 275 Maya, 211
278, 286-9, 295, 297
Nucleus of
Mechanisation, 257 Mediterranean, 212
Megamolecule, 8i-6,
St.,
293, 297
S., 57 n., 269 n. Hegel, 294 Heidelberg man, 191 n., 196
Karma, 210 Knowledge,
46,
164-6, 167 n., 248-
250
Heredity, 108, 178, 179 n,, 224-6, 277,
Megasynthesis, 107, 243-5, 251 Mendel, 108
Hologenesis, 187
Horninidae, 163, 191-2, 195-6, 241 Hominisation, 164, 169 n. ? 174, 180, 182, 184, 186, 187, 189, 194, 198,
205, 207, 208, 215, 222, 226, 240,
243, 258, 264, 272, 276, 282, 292, 306, 307, 308 n., 311
Homo Homo
45 n., 287, 300-2, 304 of energy, 50-1, 66 of growth, 58 Laws, numerical, 50-2 Layer, 127-8, 130-2, 136, 144
faber, 195 sapiens, 199, 200, 206,
Hormones, 250, 277 Huxley,
Lamarck, 82, 120, 149 n., 179 n. Laplace, 218 Law of consciousness and complexity,
Sir Julian,
278
Life,
Tree
of,
97
n.,
99, 103, 122, 128,
134, 137,
140, 144, 145-6, 157, 167, 175, I77, l82, 185, 200, 222,
n.
221
238,275, 277. 303
Hydrogen, 45 Hydrosphere, 6$, 71, 101, 182 Hydrozoa, 99 Hyper-personal (see Super personal)
Linnaeus, 83, 133, 163 Lithosphere, 68, 71, 102, 182 Living mass, 103, 112
Love, 233 Ice age, 201
Impersonal, the, 258, 260 Incarnation, 29^
,
India, 158, 209,
211
n., 264-7, 269, 271, 289, 291, 295-6, 298, 310 Lower Quaternary period, 191, 196
telligence, ternal)
Radial
Psyche,
(in-
energy, Soul Spirit,
Within of things) Miocene era, 144 Mitotic division, 104 Molecules, 41, 45. 49, 69, 70, 73, 78, 8 1-2, 90, 94. 99.
139,
H9,
Individualism, 238, 246, 263 Industry, 214-15, 230, 280
Magdalenian man, 203 Magma, 99, 100 Malaya, 158, 184, 197
Infusoria, 105, 132
Mammals,
316
122-30, 136, 137, 144, 147,
189
era,
point, 57 n., 257-64, 268-72,
288, 291, 294, 298, 307, 309
244,
264, 268
Ontogenesis, 48, 100, 170, 171, 226
Organic matter, 70, 79, 92 Orthogenesis, 108-9,
n.,
n.,
188 n. 188 n.,
Palaeolithic era,
206
t
195, 199 n., 201
Palaeozoic era, 158 Pantheism, 262, 267, 294, 309 Pascal, 40, 44, 217, 233 Pasteur, 97, 99 Paul, St., 293-4,
297
Peking man, see under Sinanthropus Permian period, 128, 129, 136 personality,
172-3,
257-64, 265-6, 284 Phenotypes, 140
Photon, 48
Mousterian man, 198, 200
48,
100,
138,
i94~5»
198, 207-8, 224, 225, 226, 241,
242-3
Multiplication, 104-5, 109, 113
Mutation, 108, 118, 150, 171, 180, X87, 189, 195, 223, 241 Mysticism, 284-5, 295, 296
125,
Palaeontology, 81 f 119, 124, 125, 128, 140 n. 144, 147, 159, 184, 185,
Phylogenesis,
189
H3»
Osborn, 160, 189
Personalisation,
Monkeys, 157-8 Monogenism, 122 n., 186 Monophylctism, 93, 186
m*
138, 140 n., 145, 151, 160, 180-1
Physics, 42-3, 46-7, 54-5, 56, 57 n.,
65
n.,
68, 79, 93, 103, 137, 140 n. f n„ 163, 169, 211, 217,
148, 149
219, 220, 247, 249 n., 268, 271, 274, 281, 283, 290, 300-1,
National-Socialism, 257
295, 296
80, 87, 91
Omnivores, 124, 158
256, 257. 259-00, 271, 278, 282, 288 (see also Consciousness, In-
302
Oligocene
Omega
139, 30i
,
Jurassic period, 128
cell,
Oceania, 202 92, 93, 96, 108,
Herbivores, 124, 125, 128
John,
91-6
206,
Mathematics, 61, 219, 249, 268
Middle Palaeolithic period, 198 Middle Quaternary period, 198 Mind, 176, 215, 240, 243, 249, 253,
1
191,
209, 212, 222, 225-6, 239, 251,
Haldane, J. B.
Java,
287, 289, 290, 297 n., 180-4,
Noosphere, 73
tion
Mesopotamia, 210, 211 Metazoa, 60, 81 107, 132, 183, 244 Micro-molecules, 104, 108 Micro-organisms, 80, 81-3 Middle Jurassic period, 127
Gregory, K. W., 189 Groping, no, 118, 223-4, 242, 250, 281, 308, 312
Nile, 210, 211
Neanderthal oids,
196-202
Neolithic era, 203-12, 240, 245, 252
303 n., 305 n. Pisciformes, 130-1
Neutron, 48 Nicolas of Cusa, 264
Pithecanthropus, 193-8, 199 Placental, 125-7, r 44
185,
317
n.
302,
INDEX
INDEX Planetisation, 243 n., Plato, 264,
250
n.,
Reason, 283, 285
252
Reflection, 165-90, 196, 203, 204, 215, 227, 228, 230, 246, 249 n M 250-
294
Platyrrhini, 126, 157
Pleistocene era, 193, 197 n.
Pliocene era, 126
144,
11.,
156,
158,
i,
269, 271, 276, 283, 291, 302-
12
(see also
Polanyi, M., 179 n.
186-7, 219, 260, 276, 285, 302-4,
Polycladida, 157 Polymerisation, 70-1, 239
309
Polyphyletism, 93, 139 Porifera, 132
«•.
Religion, 219, 278, 283-5, 294-6 (see also Christianity)
i%7
Rerun, 284 Reproduction, 104-5, H3i
Pouchet, 97 Pre-anthropoids, 189
Precambrian
179. 302
Reptiles, 128-30, 145, 147
Pre-biosphere, 74 era, 133,
137
Pre-consciousness, 88
Triassic era, 128,
-matter, 267
Unanimity, 248, 251-3, 269, 288 Unity, 41-3, 56, 74, I". 139 n., 2226, 241, 243-4, 251, 262-8, 272,
Trois-Freres cave, 202
-personal, 254, 259, 260, 263 n.
Rhodesian man, 199 Rodents, 125, 126 n.
Symbiosis, 94, 149
Profusion, 109-10
Simians, 193 Sinanthropus, 185, 191-8
184 Tetrapods, 127, 136, 183 Theology, 169 n., 313 Theriomorphs, 128
208, 214, 223-4, 227, 241, 242, 268, 277, 282, 284, 304-7
Protozoa, 60, 81, 99, 132, 218
Pseudo-neanderthaloids, 199, 200 Psyche, psycliism, 151, 154, 164-8,
302
(see
Solo man, 198 Soul, 63,
178.208,239, 241, 3°t-
173, 175.
also
telligence,
Mind, Radial
88,
150,
257-60,
748,
(inter-
28], 313 (see Intelligence,
Within
of things)
168,
176-7,
179,
268-70, 272, also Consciousness, 265,
Mind,
Psyche,
Radial (internal) energy. Within of things)
Psychoeenesis, 148, 181
Thermodynamics, Entropy] Things, within
Spirit,
Time, 9,
201, 203
271-3,
285-90,
304,
259,
103, 143, 146, 149 n., 158, 164,
166, (see
Without of things,
259-60,
269-71,
Zoology,
273,
8,
Spirit, 62-3, 176, 180, 2ir, 239, 244-5,
Radiation, 42, 70, 274, 301
Intelligence,
307-9
(sec
also
t
287,
Consciousness,
Mind,
Psyche,
319 18
55-6, 58-64, 68-71,
243
of
Duration)
253-4, 266, 269, 273, 28s
309
Intelli-
89, 103, 143, 146, 164, 175,
Spinoza, 294
Racialism, 238 Radial energy, see Energy
Consciousness,
Radial
309
77, 101, 140, 152, 216-19, 228-
252,
175, 239. 243. 264-5, also
Mind, Psyche, fjence, internal) energy, Soul, Spirit)
275,
Reflection)
threshold
102-3, 224, 225, 240, 301
Wegener, 218 Wells, H. G,, 270 n., 275 Within of things, 53-66, 71-4, 87-9,
254, 258, 259, 267, 296, 303 (see also
n.,
281-3,
(see also
308 (see also Space-time) Space-time, 47, 216-22, 227, 232, 247,
126
Wave,
Threshold of reflection, see Reflection,
260, 269-71, 273, 289, 200, 305,
era,
Within of
see
260, 263, 266,
53,
278,
Pterosaurians, 128
43, 45-6, 51, 66, 102, 225,
(see also
215, 220, 222, 230-4, 239-43> 248-
Space, 216-9, 226-9, 240, 252,
277 Quaternary
72
without of, see Without of things Thought, 64, 160-84, 195, 198, 203,
Psychology, 150, 164, 176, 267, 283 Psychozoic era, 183
Quantum,
51, 65,
of,
136,
153-7, 179 Villefranchian era, 193 n., 196
things
183, 202, 215, 220, 222, 233, 241,
Consciousness, In-
nal) energy, Soul, Spirit,
106-7, 117-18,
179, 203-5,
145.
202, 204
Vegetables, 124, 132-3, 153 Vertebrates, 83-4, 99, 129-32,
168,
Socialisation, society,
101, 102, 141, 147
281, 307
Upper Palaeolithic man, 200, Upper Quaternary era, 203
307
Silurian, 131
132,
284, 289, 293-4 Universe, stuff of, 39-52, 55, 64, 67, 87, 94, 104, H3, 218, 251, 272,
209, 244 Synthesis, 51, 70, 73, 268, 270, 272, 281, 283, 287, 289, 294, 298, n.,
Proboscidia, 125, 157, 159
Proton, 48 Protoplasm, 77, 82, 87, 91, 95, 97,
136
man, 193-9
Trinil
Tangential energy, see under Energy Tertiary era, 125-6, 136, 144, 157-9,
Protein, 73, 77, 82, 85
140,
260 -individual, 247 -man, 238
era, 125, 145 Sex, 106, 179, 193, 256, 264
303
43-5, 47 Transformism, 120, 122, 138, 151, 218, 219 Tree of life, see Life, tree of
244,
Primates, 157-60, 168, 181, 185
Pre-life, 57, 73, 80, 88, 96,
Space-
Totum,
-soul, 233
Science, 265, 268, 276-85, 288, 296,
(see also
Totalitarianism, 256-7
Supcr-centration, 259 -consciousness, 251
Survival, 268-9
297 Secondary
199, 200, 255
289-90, 305, 308 time)
of
Research, 278-83, 306
Pre-history, 206
Pre-hominids, 191, 194-5, 397. 198,
stuff
-human,
Relativity, 47 n., 83
Polynesians, 209
Soul,
Stuff of the universe, see Universe,
Thought)
Reflection, threshold of, 88, 164-80,
159, 187, 189
Radial (internal) energy, Within of things) Spy cranium, 198 Steinheim man, 199
84, 114, 137, 163, 184, 187-
194, 198, 223, 241
"While other thinkers announced the
futility of life
and the death
de Chardin was passionately wringing from
of God, Teilhard
the earth answers to man's perennial questions: 'Who are
Why
we?
—Washington Post Book World
are we?'
Visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin applied his whole faith to building a scientific
life,
his
tremendous
intellect,
and
his great spiritual
philosophy that would reconcile religion with the
theory of evolution. In this timeless book, which contains the
quintessence of his thought, Teilhard argues that just as living organisms
sprung from inorganic matter and evolved into ever more complex thinking beings, as a
humans are evolving toward an "omega point" — defined by Teilhard
convergence with the Divine. "Brilliant will
cannot imagine anyone reading this book who
I
not be profoundly influenced by
read
it
several times over."
"A most extraordinary book, understanding of man's place "[Teilhard's]
framework
it,
— New
and who
will
not wish to
York Times Book Review
of far-reaching significance for the in
magnum opus
the universe/' ... set
—Abraham Heschel
down the philosophical
-Wired
for planetary, Net-based consciousness."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
(1
881-1955) was born in France and ordained a
Jesuit priest, Trained as a paleontologist, Teilhard codiscovered the celebrated
"Peking
Man"
fossils.
The Phenomenon of Man
is
his
best-known work.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SIR JULIAN HUXLEY, WINNER OF THE DARWIN MEDAL
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