object:1.05 - THE NEW SPIRIT
book class:The Future of Man
author class:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
subject class:Christianity
subject class:Science
class:chapter
CHAPTER 5
THE NEW SPIRIT
Introduction
during recent years I have sought in a long
series of essays, 1 not to philosophize in the Absolute,
but as a naturalist or physicist to discover a general
significance in the events in which we are materially
involved. A great many internal and external por-
tents (political and social upheaval, moral and reli-
gious unease) have caused us all to feel, more or less
confusedly, that something tremendous is at present
taking place in the world. But what is it?
What I wish to offer here is the outcome of my
own thinking, expressed in a simple and clarified
form so that everyone may be able to understand
it without ambiguity, and may criticize and (this is
my great hope) correct and amplify it.
The present state of the world seems to me to
be substantially determined and explained by the
influence of two progressive changes affecting hu-
man consciousness at the deepest level.
1 Le Milieu Divin, L'Esprit de la Terre, Comment je crois, IJEnergie
humaine, LUnivers personnel, The Phenomenon of Man, etc.
THE NEW SPIRIT 75
The first change, already far advanced, is taking place in the
field of our vision of the world. It amounts to the acquirement by
the human mind of a new faculty, the perception of Time; or more
precisely the perception of what I would call "the conic curvature
of Time. 55
The second change, related to the first but less advanced, di-
rectly affects our Action. It arises out of the gradual adjustment of
human values in terms of this reappraisal of Time.
1. The Cone of Time.
2. The "conic 55 transposition of Action.
I deal with these in separate sections.
I. THE CONE OF TIME
1. The Organic Depth of Time and of the Spirit
TO understand the spiritual events which are so convulsing
the age we live in we need to be constantly looking back (I shall re-
peat this) to their common origin — the discovery of Time.
At first sight the concept of Time appears so complete in its
simplicity that one wonders how it can possibly be modified or im-
proved upon. Is it not one of the solid facts on which our con-
sciousness is based? Yet we have only to glance over the past two
centuries to see that within these few generations our temporal
view of the world has come to differ greatly from that of our an-
cestors.
This does not mean that men had to wait till the nineteenth
century before seeing how events, grouped in long series, were ab-
76 THE FUTURE OF MAN
sorbed into the past. They talked of Time long before our day, and
even measured it, so far as their instruments permitted, as we do
now. But Time remained for them a homogeneous quantity, capa-
ble of being divided into parts. The course of centuries lying
ahead and behind us could be conceived of in theory as abruptly
stopping or beginning at a given moment, the real and total dura-
tion of the Universe being supposed not to exceed a few thousand
years. On the other hand, it appeared that within those few mil-
lennia any object could be arbitrarily displaced and removed to an-
other point without undergoing any change in its environment or
in itself. Socrates could have been born in the place of Descartes,
and vice versa. Temporally (no less than spatially) human beings
were regarded as interchangeable.
This, broadly, is what was accepted by the greatest minds up to
and including Pascal.
But since then, under the influence, unconcerted but conver-
gent, of the natural, historical and physical sciences, an entirely
new concept has almost imperceptibly shaped itself in our minds.
We have in the first place realized that every constituent ele-
ment of the world (whether a being or a phenomenon) has of ne-
cessity emerged from that which preceded it — so much so that it is
as physically impossible for us to conceive of a thing in Time with-
out "something before it" as it would be to imagine the same thing
in Space without "something beside it." In this sense every particle
of reality, instead of constituting an approximate point in itself, ex-
tends from the previous fragment to the next in an indivisible
thread running back into infinity.
Secondly we have found that the threads or chains of elements
thus formed are not homogeneous over their extent, but that each
represents a naturally ordered series in which the links can no
more be exchanged than can the successive states of infancy, ado-
lescence, maturity and senility in our own lives.
THE NEW SPIRIT 77
Finally, we have gradually come to understand that no ele-
mental thread in the Universe is wholly independent in its growth
of its neighboring threads. Each forms part of a sheaf; and the
sheaf in turn represents a higher order of thread in a still larger
sheaf — and so on indefinitely So that, Time acting on Space and
incorporating it within itself, the two together constitute a single
progression in which Space represents a momentary section of the
flow which is endowed with depth and coherence by Time.
This is the organic whole of which today we find ourselves to
be a part, without being able to escape from it. On the one hand,
following an interlinked system of lines of indefinite length, the
Stuff of the Universe spreads and radiates outwardly from our-
selves, without limit, spatially from the Immense to the Infinitesi-
mal and temporally from the abyss of the past to the abyss of the
future. On the other hand, in this endless and indivisible network,
everything has a particular position defined by the develop-
ment (free or predetermined) of the entire system in movement.
Whereas for the last two centuries our study of science, history and
philosophy has appeared to be a matter of speculation, imagina-
tion and hypothesis, we can now see that in fact, in coundess sub-
tle ways, the concept of Evolution has been weaving its web
around us. We believed that we did not change; but now, like in-
fants whose eyes are opening to the light, we are becoming aware
of a world in which neo-Time, organizing and conferring a dy-
namic upon Space, is endowing the totality of our knowledge and
beliefs with a new structure and a new direction.
Before studying the implications of this, we must look more
closely at the nature and properties of the new environment into
which we are being born.
78 THE FUTURE OF MAN
2. The Convergence of Organic Time and
the Upward Growth of the Spirit
within THE limits I have outlined, our new awareness of
Time may now be regarded as an accomplished fact. Excepting a
few ultraconservative groups, it would not occur to any present-
day thinker or scientist — it would be psychologically inadmissible
and impossible — to pursue a line of thought which ignores the
concept of a world in evolution.
But if the Space-Time continuum is now generally accepted as
the only framework within which our thought can continue to
progress, it becomes the more necessary that we should agree upon
the nature and general direction of the flow on which we are
borne. Is it a closed vortex, an indefinite spiral, a spreading explo-
sion? . . . What is it that has us in its grip? Moreover, immersed in
its movement as we are, do we possess any point of perspective
from which we may see in what direction the cosmic stream is
bearing us?
The majority of people personally known to me still regard the
direction and purpose of Evolution as a riddle that is scientifically
unanswerable.
But it is here, in my view, that the importance becomes mani-
fest of an intuitive notion which, timidly evolved less than fifty
years ago by a small group of human minds, is now beginning to
pervade twentieth-century thought as rapidly as did the idea of
evolution in the nineteenth century. The discovery of the great
phenomena buried in the past opened our fathers' eyes to the
vague, generalized perception of a process of evolution of Life on
earth. To gain a clearer idea of the precise nature of this vast bio-
logical movement, is it not enough for us simply to open our eyes
(are we not already beginning to do so?) to the extraordinary and
present greatness of the phenomenon of Man?
THE NEW SPIRIT 79
I believe this to be the case, and I wish to show why.
It seemed, following the revolutionary ideas of first Galileo
and then Lamarck and Darwin, that for the "lord of creation"
little was left of his past grandeur. The demolishing of the geo-
centric theory, leading two centuries later to the end of anthro-
pocentrism, left Man to think of himself as finally submerged and
flattened by the "temporal" flow which his intelligence had discov-
ered. But now he seems to be again emerging in the forefront of
Nature. Evolution, so they said at the end of the last century, has
simply swallowed Man up, since we have proved that it extends to
Man. But observing the progress of science during recent years we
can see that what is happening suggests precisely the opposite. Far
from being swallowed up by Evolution, Man is now engaged in
transforming our earlier idea of Evolution in terms of himself, and
thereafter plotting its new outline.
Let me explain.
The three characteristics which make the human individual a
truly unique object in the eyes of Science, once we have made up
our minds to regard Man not merely as a chance arrival but as an
integral element of the physical world, are as follows:
a an extreme physicochemical complexity (particularly ap-
parent in the brain) which permits us to consider him the most
highly synthesized form of matter known to us in the Universe;
b arising out of this, an extreme degree of organization
which makes him the most perfecdy and deeply centered of all cos-
mic particles within the field of our experience;
c finally, and correlative with the above, the high degree of
psychic development (reflection, thought) which places him head
and shoulders above all other conscious beings known to us.
80 THE FUTURE OF MAN
To these may be added a fourth particularity which is also of
great significance: that of being the latest product of Evolution.
It is difficult to consider these four attributes, relating them to
Space-Time, without becoming aware of a prospect which, how-
ever we may seek to describe it, comes essentially to this:
Science has lately been very much preoccupied with the
changing properties of Matter as we follow it in either of the two
spatial directions — toward the Infinitesimal or toward the Im-
mense. Yet progress in either direction does not bring us a step
nearer to the explanation of Life. Why should we not make room
in our physics for the organic axis of Time? Following this axis in
the downward direction of entropy we find that matter becomes
diffused and energy is neutralized. This is something that we have
long known. But why should we not take into specific account the
cosmic movement operating in the reverse sense, toward the
higher forms of synthesis, which is so strikingly apparent? Beneath
our eyes, extending from the electron to Man by way of the pro-
teins, viruses, bacteria, protozoa and metazoa, a long chain of
composites is forming and unfolding, eventually attaining an as-
tronomical degree of complexity and arrangement, and centered
pari passu upon itself while at the same time it animates itself. Why
should we not simply define Life as the specific property of Mat-
ter, the Stuff of the Universe, carried by evolution into the zone of
highest complexity? And why not define Time itself as precisely
the rise of the Universe into those high latitudes where complex-
ity, concentration, centration and consciousness grow and increase,
simultaneously and correlatively?
A cosmogenesis embracing and expanding the laws of our in-
dividual ontogenesis on a universal scale, in the form of Noogene-
sis: a world that is being born instead of a world that is: that is what
the phenomenon of Man suggests, indeed compels us to accept, if
THE NEW SPIRIT 81
we are to find a place for Man in this process of evolution in which
we are obliged to make room for him.
We still hesitate, as I have said, over the form which we may
conveniently attribute to Space-Time. But the fact is that we have
no more time for quibbling. If it is to be adjusted to Man, the high
point and effective spearhead of evolution; if it is to contain and
propagate the Noogenesis through which the march of events ex-
presses itself with an increasing clarity, Space-Time must be given
whatever form is most appropriate. Caught within its curve the lay-
ers of Matter (considered as separate elements no less than as a
whole) tighten and converge in Thought, by synthesis. Therefore it
is as a cone, in the form of a cone, that it can best be depicted.
And it is within this cone, newly shaped in our consciousness,
in terms of it and in accordance with its requirements, that we
must look to see how the transposition of all human values is irre-
sistibly proceeding.
II. THE "CONIC" TRANSPOSITION OF ACTION
1. Toward a New Humanism
to accept that Space-Time is convergent in its nature is
equally to admit that Thought on earth has not achieved the ulti-
mate point of its evolution.
Indeed, if in virtue of its especial curvature the Universe, fol-
lowing the line of its principal axis, is really moving toward a state
of maximal synthesis; and if furthermore, as practical observation
shows, its human particles, taken as a whole, still possess a formi-
dable potential of synthesis: then our present situation cannot be
anything but "energetically" unstable. We cannot stay where we
82 THE FUTURE OF MAN
are at present, either physically or psychically; but looking far
ahead we may descry an ultimate state in which, organically asso-
ciated with one another (more closely than the cells of a single brain)
we shall form in our entirety a single system, ultracomplex and, in
consequence, ultracentered. . . . We thought that we had reached
the limit of ourselves. Now we see Mankind extending within the
cone of Time beyond the individual; it coils in collectively upon it-
self above our heads, in the direction of some sort of higher
Mankind.
Let us enumerate and assess the changes of outlook and atti-
tude that are inescapable for any person who has become aware of
this prospect. I maintain that for such as he the Universe emerges
from the shadows. It shows its true face, acquires its true value,
glows with a new warmth and finally is illumined from within.
Let us look rapidly, one by one, at these phases of the trans-
formation.
a Firstly, the Universe emerges from the shadows. That is to
say, it clarifies itself to the eye of reason, and precisely in those re-
gions where it threatened to plunge most deeply into darkness. On
the one hand the overwhelming vastness of the Cosmos need no
longer appall us, since the indefinite layers of Time and Space, far
from being the lifeless desert in which we seemed to be lost, show
themselves to be the bosom which gathers together the separate
fragments of a huge Consciousness in process of growth. On the
other hand Evil, in all its forms — injustice, inequality, suffering,
death itself — ceases theoretically to be outrageous from the mo-
ment when, Evolution becoming a Genesis, the immense travail of the
world displays itself as the inevitable reverse side — or better, the
condition — or better still, the price — of an immense triumph. And
in its turn Earth, that microscopic planet on which we are crushed
together, is seen to be no longer the meaningless prison in which
THE NEW SPIRIT 83
we thought we must suffocate: for if its limits were less narrow and
impenetrable could it be the matrix in which our unity is being
forged?
b Secondly, the Universe shows its true face: that is to say it
traces its oudine for our liberated gaze. In its present state Moral-
ity offers a painful spectacle of confusion. Apart from a few ele-
mentary laws of individual justice, empirically established and
blindly followed, who can say what is good and what is evil? Can
we even maintain that Good and Evil exist while the evolutionary
course on which we are embarked has no clear direction? Is striv-
ing really a better thing than enjoyment, disinterest better than
self-interest, kindness better than compulsion? Lacking a lookout
point in the Universe, the most sharply opposed doctrines on these
vital matters can be plausibly defended. Meanwhile human energy,
being without orientation, is lamentably dissipated upon earth. But
this disorder comes logically to an end, all the agitation is polar-
ized, directly the spiritual reality of Mankind is revealed, above
and ahead of each human being, at the apex of the Cone of Time.
The best way of reaching this objective has still to be found. But is
it not in itself a consolation and a source of strength to know that
Life has an objective; and that the objective is a summit; and that
this summit, toward which all our striving must be directed, can
only be attained by our drawing together, all of us, more and more
closely and in every sense — individually, socially, nationally and
racially?
c Thirdly, the Universe acquires its true value: that is to say, it
grows, even to the least of its elements, limitlessly in our esteem. For
the man who sees nothing at the end of the world, nothing higher
than himself, daily life can only be filled with pettiness and boredom.
So much fruidess effort, so many wasted moments! But to those who
84 THE FUTURE OF MAN
see the synthesis of the Spirit continuing on earth beyond their own
brief existence, every act and event is charged with interest and
promise. Indeed, it does not matter what we do each day, or what we
undergo, provided we keep a steady hand on the tiller — for are we
not steering toward the fulfillment of the World? In the New Time
there is no longer any distinction between those things that we clas-
sified on other levels as physical or moral, natural or artificial, or-
ganic or collective, biological or juridical. All things are seen to be
supremely physical, supremely natural, supremely organic and
supremely vital — according to how far they contribute to the con-
struction and closing of the time-space cone above us.
d Fourthly, the world glows with a new warmth: that is to say, it
opens wholly to the power of Love. To love is to discover and com-
plete one's self in someone other than oneself, an act impossible of
general realization on earth so long as each man can see in his
neighbor no more than a closed fragment following its own course
through the world. It is precisely this state of isolation that will end if
we begin to discover in each other not merely the elements of one
and the same thing, but of a single Spirit in search of itself. Then the
medium will be established in which a basic affinity may be born
and grow, springing from one seed of thought to the next, canalizing
in a single direction the swarm of individual trajectories. In the old
Time and Space a universal attraction of souls was inconceivable.
The existence of such a power becomes possible, even inevitable, in
the curvature of a world capable of noogenesis.
e Fifthly, and lastly, the Universe is illumined from within:
that is to say, it shows itself to be capable of fulfilling the highest of
our mystical aspirations. By virtue of the convergence of the cos-
mic lines, as I have said, we must surmise the existence of a higher
THE NEW SPIRIT 85
center of consciousness ahead of us, at the apogee of Evolution.
But if we seek to determine the position and analyze the proper-
ties of this Supreme Center it soon becomes clear that we must
look far beyond and far above any mere aggregation of perfected
Mankind. If it is to be capable of joining together in itself the pro-
longed fibers of the world, the apex of the cone within which we
move can be conceived only as something that is ultraconscious,
ultrapersonalized, ultrapresent. It must reach and act upon us, not
only indirectly, through the universal network of physical synthe-
sis, but also, and even more, directly, from center to center (that is
to say, from consciousness to consciousness) by touching the most
sensitive point in ourselves.
Thus it is that our humanity, renewed in its love of living and
spurred on in its aspirations by the discovery that there is a peak to
the arrow-course of Time, comes logically to perfect itself in an at-
titude of self-abandonment and adoration.
2. Toward a Christian Renewal
AS recently AS yesterday Christianity represented the highest
point attained by the consciousness of Mankind in its striving to
humanize itself. But does it still hold this position, or at the best can
it continue to hold it for long? Many people think not; and to ac-
count for this slackening impulse in the highest and most complete
of human mystical beliefs they argue that the evangelical flowering
is ill-adapted to the critical and materialist climate of the modern
world. They hold that the time of Christianity is past, and that
some other shoot must grow in the field of religion to take its place.
But if, as I maintain, the event that characterizes our epoch is
86 THE FUTURE OF MAN
a growing awareness of the convergent nature of Space-Time,
then nothing can be more ill-founded than this pessimism. Trans-
ferred within the cone of Time, and there transmuted, the Chris-
tian system is neither disorganized nor deformed. On the contrary,
sustained by the new environment, it more than ever develops its
main lines, acquiring an added coherence and clarity.
This is what, in conclusion, I wish to show.
What is finally the most revolutionary and fruitful aspect of
our present age is the relationship it has brought to light between
Matter and Spirit: spirit being no longer independent of matter, or
in opposition to it, 2 but laboriously emerging from it under the at-
traction of God by way of synthesis and centration.
But what is the effect, for Christian faith and mysticism, of this
redefinition of the Spirit? It is simply to confer absolute reality and
absolute urgency upon the double dogma on which the whole of
Christianity rests, and by which it is summed up: the physical pri-
macy of Christ and the moral primacy of Charity.
Let us see.
a The Primacy of Christ. In the narrow, partitioned and static
Cosmos wherein our fathers believed themselves to dwell, Christ
was "lived" and loved by His followers, as He is today, as the Be-
ing on whom all things depend and in whom the Universe finds
its "consistence." But this Chris tological function was not easily
defended on rational grounds, at least if the attempt was made to
interpret it in a full, organic sense. Accordingly Christian thinking
did not especially seek to incorporate it in any precise cosmic or-
der. At that time the Kingship of Christ could be readily ex-
pressed in terms of juridical ascendancy; or else it was sufficient
2 Provided, of course, that we do not understand "matter" in a "reduplicative"
and restricted sense to mean that portion of the Universe which "redescends,"
escaping the rising stream of Noogenesis.
THE NEW SPIRIT 87
that He should prevail in the nonexperimental, extracosmic
sphere of the supernatural. Theology, in short, did not seem to re-
alize that every kind of Universe might not be "compossible" with
the idea of an Incarnation. But with the concept of Space-Time,
as we have defined it, there comes into effect a harmonious and
fruitful conjunction between the two spheres of rational experi-
ence and of faith. In a Universe of "Conical" structure Christ has
a place (the apex!) ready for Him to fill, when His Spirit can radi-
ate through all the centuries and all beings; and because of the
genetic links running through all the levels of Time and Space be-
tween the elements of a convergent world, the Christ-influence,
far from being restricted to the mysterious zones of "grace,"
spreads and penetrates throughout the entire mass of Nature in
movement. In such a world Christ cannot sanctify the Spirit with-
out (as the Greek Fathers intuitively perceived) uplifting and sav-
ing the totality of Matter. Christ becomes truly universal to the
full extent of Christian needs, and in conformity with the deepest
aspirations of our age the Cross becomes the Symbol, the Way,
the very Act of progress.
b The Primacy of Charity. What the modern mind finds discon-
certing in Christian charity is its negative or at least static aspect,
and also the "detached" quality of this great virtue. "Love one an-
other ..." Hitherto the gospel precept has seemed simply to mean,
"Do not harm one another," or, "Seek with all possible care and
devotion to diminish injustice, heal wounds and soften enmities in
the world around you." Hitherto, also, the "supernatural" gift of
ourselves which we were required to make to God and to our
neighbor appeared to be something opposed to and destructive of
the bonds of feeling attaching us to the things of this world.
But if Charity is transplanted into the cone of Time nothing
remains of these apparent limitations and restrictions. Within a
88 THE FUTURE OF MAN
Universe of convergent structure the only possible way in which an
element can draw closer to its neighboring elements is by tightening
the cone — that is to say, by causing the whole layer of the world of
which it is a part to move toward the apex. In such an order of
things no man can love his neighbor without drawing nearer to
God — and, of course, reciprocally (but this we knew already). But
it is also impossible (this is newer to us) to love either God or our
neighbor without assisting the progress, in its physical entirety, of
the terrestrial synthesis of the spirit: since it is precisely the
progress of this synthesis which enables us to draw closer together
among ourselves, while at the same time it raises us toward God.
Because we love, and in order that we may love even more, we find
ourselves happily and especially compelled to participate in all the
endeavors, all the anxieties, all the aspirations and also all the af-
fections of the earth — in so far as these embody a principle of ascension
and synthesis.
Christian detachment subsists wholly in this wider attitude
of mind: but instead of "leaving behind" it leads on; instead of
cutting off, it raises. It is no longer a breakaway but a way
through; no longer a withdrawal but an act of emerging. Without
ceasing to be itself, Charity spreads like an ascending force, like a
common essence at the heart of all forms of human activity,
whose diversity is finally synthesized in the rich totality of a sin-
gle operation. Like Christ Himself, and in His image, it is uni-
versalized, it acquires a dynamic and is humanized by the fact of
doing so.
To sum up, in order to match the new curve of Time Chris-
tianity is led to discover the values of this world below the level of
God, while Humanism finds room for a God above the level of this
world. Inverse and complementary movements: or rather, the two
THE NEW SPIRIT 89
faces of a single event which perhaps marks the beginning of a
new era for Mankind.
THIS DOUBLE transformation is something more than a
speculation of my own. Throughout the world at this moment,
without distinction of country, class, calling or creed, men are ap-
pearing who have begun to reason, to act and to pray in terms of
the limitless and organic dimensions of Space-Time. To the out-
side observer such men may still seem isolated. But they are aware
of one another among themselves, they recognize each other
whenever their paths cross. They know that tomorrow, rejecting
old concepts, divisions and forms, the whole world will see what
they see and think as they do.
PEKING, FEBRUARY 13, 1942. PSYCHE, NOVEMBER 1946.
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