object:1.02 - THE WITHIN OF THINGS
book class:The Phenomenon of Man
author class:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
subject class:Christianity
subject class:Integral Theory
class:chapter
CHAPTER TWO
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
On the scientific plane, the quarrel between materialists and the
upholders of a spiritual interpretation, between finalists and
determinists, still endures. After a century of disputation each
side remains in its original position and gives its adversaries solid
reasons for remaining there.
So far as I understand the struggle, in which I have found
myself involved, it seems to me that its prolongation depends
less on the difficulty that the human mind finds in reconciling
certain apparent contradictions in nature — such as mechanism and
liberty, or death and immortality — 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
in upon themselves in their ' immanent ' workings. Both fight
on different planes and do not meet ; each only sees half the
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 physic in which the internal
aspect of things as well as the external aspect 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.
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THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
We have just described the without of matter in its connections
and its measurable dimensions. Now, in order to advance still
farther in the direction of man, we must extend the bases of our
future edifices into the within of that same matter.
Things have their within ; their ' reserve ', one might say ;
and this appears to stand in definite qualitative or quantitative
connections with the developments that science recognises in the
cosmic energy. These three statements [i.e., that there is a within,
that some connections are qualitative, that others are quantitative]
are the basis of the three sections of this new chapter. To deal
with them, as here I must, obliges me to overlap ' Before Life '
and somewhat to anticipate ' Life ' and ' Thought '. However, is
not the peculiar difficulty of every synthesis that its end is already
implicit in its beginnings ?
i. EXISTENCE
If there is one thing that has been clearly brought out by the
latest advances in physics, it is that in our experience there are
' spheres ' or ' levels ' of different kinds in the unity of nature,
each of them distinguished by the dominance of certain factors
which are 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
nature of matter. None the less, we now know that at the extreme
values reached 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,
observed over a sufficiently great duration of time, the earth's
crust changes ceaselessly under our feet, while the heavens sweep
us along in a cyclone of stars.
In all these instances, and in others like to them, there is no
54
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
absolute appearance of a new dimension. Every mass is modified
by its velocity. Every body radiates. Every movement is veiled
in immobility when sufficiently slowed down. But on a different
scale, or at a different intensity, there will become visible some
phenomenon that spreads over the horizon, blots out the other
distinctions, and gives its own particular tonality to the whole
picture.
It is the same with the within of things.
For a reason that will soon appear, objects in the realm of
physico-chemistry arc only made manifest by their outward
determinisms.
In the eyes of the physicist, nothing exists legitimately, at
least up to now, except the without of things. The same intel-
lectual attitude is still permissible in the bacteriologist, whose
cultures (apart from some substantial difficulties) are treated as
laboratory reagents. But it is already more difficult in the realm
of plants. It tends to become a gamble in the case of a biologist
studying the behaviour of insects or coclcnterates. It seems merely
futile with regard to the vertebrates. Finally, it breaks down
completely with man, in whom the existence of a within can
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
eliminating it from its models of the universe. A queer exception,
an aberrant function, an epiphenomenon — thought was classed
under one or other of these heads in order to get rid of it. But
what would have happened to modern physics if radium had been
classified as an ' abnormal substance ' without further ado ?
Clearly, the activity of radium had not been neglected, and could
not be neglected, because, being measurable, it forced its way
into the external web of matter — whereas consciousness, in order
to be integrated into a world-system, necessitates consideration
of the existence of a new aspect or dimension in the stuff of the
universe. We shrink from the attempt, but which of us does not
in both cases see an identical problem facing research workers,
55
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
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 is only the sharp exacer-
bation, to the point of perceptible disclosure, of a property of
things diffused throughout the universe, in a state which eludes
our recogmtion of its presence. Properly observed, even if only
in one spot, a phenomenon necessarily has an omnipresent value
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
human ' self-knowledge ' ?
' Consciousness is completely evident only in man ' we are
tempted to say, ' therefore it is an isolated instance of no interest
to science.'
' Consciousness is evident in man,' we must continue, correct-
ing ourselves, ' therefore, half-seen in this one flash of light, it has
a cosmic extension, and as such is surrounded by an aura of
indefinite spatial 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 it.
It is impossible to deny that, deep within ourselves, an
' interior ' appears at the heart of beings, as it were seen through
a rent. This is enough to ensure that, in one degree or another,
this ' interior ' should obtrude itself as existing everywhere in
nature from all time. Since the stuff of the universe has an inner
aspect at one point of itself, there is necessarily a double aspect to
its structure, that is to say in every region of space and time — in
the same way, for instance, as it is granular : co-extensiv e with their
Without, there is a Within to things.
The consequent picture of the world daunts our imagination,
but it is in fact the only one acceptable to our reason. Taken at
its lowest point, exactly where we put ourselves at the beginning
of these pages, primitive matter is something more than the
particulate swarming so marvellously analysed by modern physics.
Beneath this mechanical layer we must think of a ' biological '
56
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
layer that is attenuated to the uttermost, but yet is absolutely
necessary to explain the cosmos in succeeding ages. The within,
consciousness 1 and then spontaneity — three expressions 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.
In a coherent perspective of the world : life inevitably assumes a
' pre-life 'for as far back before it as the eye can see}
In that case — and the objection will come from material-
ists and upholders of spirituality alike — if everything in
nature is basically living, or at least pre-living, how is it possible
for a mechanistic science of matter to be built up and to
triumph ?
Determinate without, and ' free ' within — would the two
aspects of things be irreducible and incommensurable ? If so,
where is your solution ?
The answer to this difficulty is already implicit in what we
1 Here, and throughout this book, the term ' consciousness ' is 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-
tive thought.
8 These pages had been written for some time when I was surprised to find
their substance in some masterly lines recently written by J. B. S. Haldane :
' We do not find obvious evidence of life or ruiiid in so-called inert matter,
and we naturally study them most easily where they arc most completely
manifested ; but if die scientific point of view is correct, we shall ultimately
find them, at least in rudimentary forms, alJ through the universe.'
And he goes on to add these words which my readers would do well to
recall when I come to unveil (with all due reservations and corrections) the
perspective of the ' Omega Point ' :
' Now, if the co-operation of some thousands of millions of cells in our
brain can produce our consciousness, the idea becomes vastly more plausible
that the co-operation of humanity, or some sections of it, may determine
what Comte calls a Great Being.' (Essay on Science and Ethics in The
Inequality oj Man, Chatto, 1932, p. 113.)
What 1 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 first very rough approximation of
our experience.
57
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
have said above about the diversity of ' spheres of experience '
superposed in the interior of the world. It will appear more
clearly when we have discerned the qualitative laws that govern
in their growth and variation the manifestations of what we have
just called the within of things.
2. THE QUALITATIVE LAWS OF GROWTH
To harmonise objects in time and space, without presuming to
determine the conditions that can rule their deepest being : to
establish an experimental chain of succession in nature, not a
union of ontological ' causality ; to see, in other words, and not
to explain — this, let it not be forgotten, 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 ' external face, which alone is commonly
considered by science. Can we go further and define the rules
according to which this second face, for the most part entirely
hidden, suddenly shows itself, and then as suddenly bursts through
into certain other regions of our experience ?
Yes, so it seems, and even quite easily, provided there are
placed one after the other dirce observations that each one of us
could have made, but which do not take on their true value until
wc think of linking them together.
A. First Observation
Considered in its pre-vital state, the within of things, whose
reality even in the nascent forms of matter we have just admitted,
must not be thought of as forming a continuous film, but as
assuming the same granulation as matter itself.
58
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
Soon we shall have to return to this essential point. As far
back as we began to descry them, the first living things reveal
themselves to our experience as kinds of ' mega- ' or ' ultra- '
molecules, both in size and in number: a bewildering multitude
of microscopic nuclei. Which means 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 pro-
perties of the world. Looked at from within, as well as observed
from without, the stuff of the universe thus tends likewise to be
resolved backwardly into a dust of particles that are (i) perfectly
alike among themselves (at least if they are observed from a
great distance) ; (ii) each co-extensive with the whole of the
cosmic realm ; (iii) mysteriously connected among themselves,
finally, by a global energy. In these depths the world's two
aspects, external and internal, correspond point by point. So
much is this so that one may pass from the one to the other on the
sole condition that ' mechanical interaction ' in the definition
of the partial centres of the universe given above is replaced by
' consciousness '.
Atomicity is a common property oj the Within and the Without of
things.
B. Second Observation
Virtually homogeneous among themselves in the beginning, the
elements of consciousness, exacdy as the elements of matter
which they subtend, complicate and differentiate their nature,
little by little, with the passage of duration. From this point
of view and considered solely from the experimental aspect, con-
sciousness reveals itself as a cosmic property of variable size
subject to a global transformation. Taken on the ascent, this huge
phenomenon that wc shall have to follow all along the develop-
ment of life right up to the appearance of thought, has ended by
appearing commonplace. Followed in the opposite direction, it
leads us, as wc have already seen, to the less familiar idea of
59
THE PHENOMENON OP MAN
inferior states that are ever less well defined and, as it were, dis-
tended.
Refracted rearwards along the course oj evolution, consciousness
displays itself qualitatively as a spectrum of shifting shades whose lower
terms are lost in the night.
c.
Third Observation
Finally, let us take from two different regions of this spectrum
two particles of consciousness that are at unlike stages ot evolu-
tion. As we have seen, there corresponds to each of them, by
construction, a certain definite material grouping of which they
form the within. Let us compare these two external groupings
the one with the other and ask ourselves how they are arranged
with regard to each other and with regard to the portion ot
consciousness that each of them encloses.
The answer comes at once.
Whatever instance we may think of, we may be sure that
every time a richer and better organised structure will correspond
to the more developed consciousness.
The simplest form of protoplasm is already a substance of
unheard-of complexity. This complexity increases in geometrical
progression as we pass from the protozoon higher and higher up
the scale of the metazoa. And so it is for all the rest always and
everywhere. Here again, the phenomenon is so obvious that we
have long since ceased to be astonished by it. Yet its importance is
decisive. For thanks to it we possess a tangible ' parameter '
allowing us to connect both the internal and the external hlms of
the world, not only in their position (point by point), but also, as
we shall verify later on, in their motion.
The degree of concentration of a consciousness varies in
inverse ratio to the simplicity of the material compound lined by
it Or again : a consciousness is that much more perfected
according as it lines a richer and better organised material edifice.
Spiritual perfection (or conscious ' centreity ') and material syn-
60
THE WITHIN OP THINGS
thesis (or complexity) are hut the two aspects or connected parts of one
and the same phenomenon. 1
And now we have arrived, ipso facto, at the solution 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
number of very simple material elements (that is to say, with a
very poor within), to State B defined by a smaller number of
very complex groupings (that is to say, with a much richer
within).
Ln State A, the centres of consciousness, because they are
extremely numerous and extremely loose at the same time, only
reveal themselves by overall effects which arc subject to the laws
of statistics. Collectively, that is, they obey the laws of mathe-
matics. This is the proper field of physico-chemistry.
In State B, on the other hand, these Jess numerous 2 and at
the same time more highly individualised elements gradually
escape from the slavery of large numbers. They allow their basic
non-measurable spontaneity to break through and reveal itself.
We can begin to see them and follow them one by one, and in so
doing we have access to the 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 unorganised multitude : the application throughout of the
great Law of complexity and consciousness : a law that itself implies
a psychically convergent structure and curvature of the world.
But we must not go too quickly, and since we are still con-
1 From this aspect one might say that, on the phenomenal plane, each being
is constructed like an ellipse on two conjugate foci : 1 tocus ot material organi-
sation and a tocus ot psychic centering — the two loci varying solidarity and in
the same sense.
1 As we shall see, this is despite the specifically vital mechanism of multipli-
cation.
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THE PHENOMENON OP MAN
cerned with pre-life let us only keep in mind that, from the
qualitative viewpoint, there is no kind of contradiction involved
in admitting that a universe of mechanistic appearance may
be built up of ' liberties ' — provided that the liberties are therein
contained in a sufficiently fine state of division and imperfection.
3. SPIRITUAL ENERGY
There is no concept more familiar to us than that of spiritual
energy, yet there is none that is more opaque scientifically. On
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
other hand, the nature of this inner power is so intangible that
the whole description of the universe in mechanical terms has had
no need to take account of it, but has been successfully completed
in deliberate disregard of its reality.
The difficulties we still encounter in trying to hold together
spirit and matter in a reasonable perspective are nowhere more
harshly revealed. Nowhere either is the need more urgent of
building a bridge between the two banks of our existence — the
physical and the moral — if we wish the material and spiritual
sides of our activities to be mutually enlivened.
To connect the two energies, of the body and the soul, in a
coherent manner: science has provisionally decided to ignore
the question, and it would be very convenient for us to do the
same. Unfortunately, or fortunately, caught up as we are here in
the logic of a system where the within of things has just as much
or even more value than their without, we collide with the diffi-
culty head on. It is impossible to avoid the clash : we must
advance.
Naturally the following considerations do not pretend to be
a truly satisfactory solution of the problem of spiritual energy.
Their aim is merely to show by means of one example what, in
my opinion, an integral science of nature should adopt as its line
of research, and the kind of interpretation it should follow.
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THE WITHIN OF THINGS
A. The Problem of the Two Energies
Since the inner face of the world is manifest deep within our
human consciousness, and there reflects upon itself, it would
seem that we have only got to look at ourselves in order to
understand the dynamic relationships existing between the within
and the without of things at a given point in the universe.
In fact so to do is one of the most difficult of all things.
We are perfectly well 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
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 of all, the dependence. This is depressingly and magnifi-
cently obvious. ' To think, we must eat.' That blunt statement
expresses a whole economy, and reveals, according to the way
we look at it, either the tyranny 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
physical energy. Sometimes we need bread, sometimes wine,
sometimes a drug or a hormone injection, sometimes die stimula-
tion of a colour, sometimes the magic of a sound which goes in
at our ears as a vibration and reaches our brains in the form of
inspiration.
Without the slightest doubt there is something through which
material and spiritual energy hold together and are comple-
mentary. In last analysis, somehow or other, there must be a single
energy operating in the world. And the first idea that occurs to
us is that the ' soul ' must be as it were a focal point of transforma-
tion at which, from all the points of nature, the forces of bodies
converge, to become intcriorised and sublimated in beauty and
truth.
Yet, seductive though it be, the idea of the direct transforma-
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THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
tion of one of these two energies into the other is no sooner
glimpsed than it has to be abandoned. As soon as we try to
couple them together, their mutual independence becomes as
clear as their interrelation.
Once again : ' To think, we must eat.' But what a variety of
thoughts we get out of one slice of bread ! Like the letters of the
alphabet, which can equally well be assembled into nonsense as
into the most beautiful poem, the same calories seem as indifferent
as they are necessary to the spiritual values they nourish.
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
constandy associated and in some way pass into each other. But
it seems impossible to establish a simple correspondence between
their curves. On the one hand, only a minute fraction of
' physical ' energy is used up in the highest exercise of spiritual
energy ; on the other, this minute fraction, once absorbed, results
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 trans-
formation) — and hence all hope of discovering a ' mechanical
equivalent ' for will or thought. Between the within and the
without of things, the interdependence of energy is incontestable.
But it can in all probability only be expressed by a complex sym-
bolism in which terms of a different order are employed.
B. A Line of Solution
To avoid a fundamental dualism, at once impossible and anti-
scientific, and at the same time to safeguard the natural complexity
of the stuff of the universe, I accordingly propose the following
as a basis for all that is to emerge later.
We shall assume that, essentially, all energy is psychic in
nature ; but add that in each particular element this fundamental
energy is divided into two distinct components : a tangential
64
THE WITHIN OF THINGS
energy which links the element with all others of the same order
(that is to say, of the same complexity and the same centricity)
as itself in the universe ; and a radial energy which draws it towards
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
association with neighbouring particles, and thereupon (since its
centricity is automatically increased) to augment its radial energy.
The latter will then be able to react in its turn in the form of a
new arrangement in the tangential field. And so on.
In this view, whereby tangential energy represents ' energy '
as such, as generally understood by science, the only difficulty is
to explain the interplay of tangential arrangements in terms of
the laws of thermo-dynamics. As regards this we may remark
the following :
a. First of all, since the variation of radial energy in function of
tangential energy is effected, according to our hypothesis, by the
intervention of an arrangement, it follows that as much as you like
of the first may be linked with as little as you like of the second —
for a highly perfected arrangement may only require an extremely
small amount of work. This fits in with the facts noted in section
A above.
h. Moreover, in the system here proposed, we are paradoxically
led to admit that cosmic energy is constantly increasing, not only
in its radial form, but — which is much more serious — in its
tangential one (for the tension between elements increases with
1 Let it be noted in passing that the less an element is ' centred ' (i.e. the
feebler its radial energy) the more wiU its tangential energy reveal itself in
powerful mechanical effects. Between strongly ' centred ' particle* (i.e. of
high radial energy) the tangential seems to become ' interiorised ' and to disap-
pear 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
values, as in the atom), the other of arrangement (only appreciable with the
highest radial values, as in living creatures, man in particular).
65
THE PHENOMENON OF MAN
their ccntricity itself). This would seem to be in direct contra-
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 man, for instance, and social
tensions). Below this level, and for an approximately constant
number of initial particles in the universe, the sum of the cosmic
tangential energies remains practically and statistically invariable
in the course of transformations. And this is all that science
requires.
c. Lastly, since according to our reading, the entire edifice of
the universe is constantly supported at every phase of its pro-
gressive ' centration ' by its primary arrangements, it is plain that
its achievement will be conditioned up to the highest stages by a
certain primordial quantum of free tangential energy, which will
gradually exhaust itself, following the principle of entropy.
Looked at as a whole, this picture satisfies the requirements of
reality.
Three questions remain still unanswered, however :
a. By virtue of what special energy does the universe propagate
itself along its main axis in the less probable direction of the higher
forms of complexity and centricity ?
b. Is there a definite limit and end to the ' elemental ' value and
to the sum total of the radial energies developed in the course of
transformation ?
c. Is this final and resultant form of radial energies, supposing it
exists, subject to reversal ? Is it destined one day to start disinte-
grating so as to satisfy the principle of entropy, and fall back
indefinitely into pre-living and still lower centres, by the exhaus-
tion and gradual levelling-down of the free tangential energy
contained in the successive envelopes of the universe from which
it has emerged ?
To be answered satisfactorily, these three questions must
await a much later chapter, when the study of man will have led
us to the concept of a superior pole to the world — the omega
point.
66
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