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object:1.13 - THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
book class:The Future of Man
author class:Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
subject class:Christianity
subject class:Science
class:chapter



CHAPTER 13

THE HUMAN REBOUND

OF EVOLUTION AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES

1. Introduction: The Rebounding of Evolution

A YEAR AGO I argued in this journal that, ob-
served in a certain aspect (the truly scientific as-
pect, in my view), the human social phenomenon
affords evidence that the evolution of Life on
earth, far from having come to a stop, is on the
contrary now entering a new phase. 1

I maintained that, contrary to the commonly
expressed or tacidy accepted view, the era of active
evolution did not end with the appearance of the
human zoological type: for by virtue of his ac-
quirement of the gift of individual reflection Man
displays the extraordinary quality of being able to
totalize himself collectively upon himself, thus ex-
tending on a planetary scale the fundamental vital
process which causes matter, under certain condi-
tions, to organize itself in elements which are ever
more complex physically, and psychologically ever

1 Cf. chapter io, The Formation of the Noosphere. Revue des
Questions Scientifiques, January 1947.



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 193

more centered. Thus (provided always that we accept the organic
nature of the social phenomenon) we see being woven around us,
beyond any unity hitherto acknowledged or even foreseen by biol-
ogy the network and consciousness of a Noosphere. 2

Following upon this I argued that biological evolution is not
only being extended beneath our gaze through the development of
the human social group, but that it gives the impression of re-
bounding upon itself. And indeed although in the prehuman stages
of evolution the gradual growth of consciousness in animals (see
Section 2, later) does not appear to have had any appreciable effect
on the course or speed of their zoological evolution, from the time
of Man the evolutionary mechanism undergoes a radical change.
For Man, by the act of "noospherically" concentrating himself
upon himself, not only becomes reflectively aware of the ontolog-
ical current on which he is borne, but also gains control of certain
of the springs of energy which dictate this advance: above all, col-
lective springs, in so far as he consciously realizes the value, bio-
logical efficiency and creative nature of social organization; but
also individual springs in as much as, through the collective work
of science, he feels himself to be on the verge of acquiring the
power of physicochemical control of the operations of heredity
and morphogenesis in the depths of his own being. So we may say
that since by a sort of chain-reaction consciousness, itself born of
complexity, finds itself in a position to bring about "artificially" a
further increase of complexity in its material dwelling (thus en-

2 It should be noted here that by its very nature as a centered, "reflective" col-
lectivity, the Noosphere, while occupying the same spatial dimensions as the
Biosphere, differs from it profoundly in its structure and quality of vital com-
pletion. Whereas the Biosphere in its essence is complexity linked but divergent
and diffused, the Noosphere combines in itself the properties of a planetary
zone (or sphere) and those of a sort of higher individuality endowed with
something in the nature of a superconsciousness.



194 THE FUTURE OF MAN

gendering or liberating a further growth of reflective conscious-
ness, and so on . . .) the terrestrial evolution of Life, following its
main axis of hominization, is not only completely altering the scale
of its creations but is also entering an "explosive" phase of an en-
tirely new kind.

To me this appears the most satisfactory interpretation of the
present state of Life on the surface of the earth; despite a regret-
table recrudescence of racialism and nationalism which, impres-
sive though it may be, and disastrous in its effect upon our private
postwar lives, seems to have no scientific importance in the overall
process: for the reason that any human tendency to fragmentation,
regardless of its extent and origin, is clearly of an order of magnitude
inferior to the planetary forces (geographic, demographic, eco-
nomic and psychic) whose constantly and naturally growing pres-
sure must sooner or later compel us willy-nilly to unite in some
form of human whole organized on the basis of human solidarity. 3

I shall not here attempt the perilous and fruitless task of prog-
nosticating the stages, or the probable duration, or the terminal
modalities of this inevitable unification of the human species. I will
only recall that, by virtue of its convergent nature, hominization is
scarcely conceivable (seen from the point at which we find ourselves)
except as terminating, whatever road it follows, in a point of collective
reflexion where Mankind, having achieved within and around itself,
technically and intellectually, the greatest possible coherence, will
find itself raised to a higher critical point — one of instability, ten-
sion, interpenetration and metamorphosis — coinciding, it would
seem, with what for us are the phenomenal limits of the world.

But I wish, on the other hand, to insist upon certain conse-
quences, of an immediately practical kind, ensuing from what I

3 See later, under "Conclusion," remarks on "the critical lines of attraction" be-
tween human particles.



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 195

have called the "reflective rebound" of evolution upon itself; con-
sequences which all converge in a single generalized phenome-
non — namely, a certain irresistible functional incorporation of the
psychic within the physicochemical which occurs in the process of
evolution from the time of the coming of Man.
Let me explain.



2. Emergence of Purposive Thinking

from the early beginnings of biological evolutionary theory in
the nineteenth century two trends of thought have prevailed in sci-
entific circles, developing side by side without mingling to any ap-
preciable extent. No one doubts any longer that the world of living
forms is the outcome of increasingly complex associations between
the material particles of which the universe is composed. 4 But how
are we to envisage the generative mechanism of this "complexifica-
tion"? It is very certain that matter on Earth is involved in a process
which causes it to arrange itself starting with relatively simple ele-
ments, in ever larger and more complex units. But how are we to ac-
count for the origin and growth of this process of arrangement?
Does it proceed from within, being conceived and developed further
by psychic forces analogous to our human power of invention? Or
does it simply come from outside, through the automatic selection of
the more stable (or progressive) groupings among the immense
number of combinations fortuitously and incessantly produced in
Nature? It is curious to note how since the time of Lamarck and
Darwin these two theories, while deepening in their respective ways,
have become more sharply opposed. And with varying fortunes.

4 cf. Les Etudes, May 1946 — here pages 103^.



196 THE FUTURE OF MAN

Neo-Darwinism at present holds the ascendancy in the eyes of biol-
ogists, partly owing to a clearer and more statistically substantiated
definition of "the fittest," but principally because of the immense
part, now recognized by modern genetics, played by the "action of
large numbers" in the formation of species.

It is to this conflict of opinion — so apparently unyielding that
one is inclined to wonder if it has not escaped from the realm of
fact to become a simple clash of metaphysical or temperamental
preferences — that the hypothesis of a human rebounding of Evo-
lution does, I believe, if Science will accept it, bring a solution and
a satisfactory issue. And in the following manner.

That Man displays powers of invention in the creative use of
his reflective faculties, that is to say, acts in accordance with an in-
ner sense of purpose, is so apparent that no one has ever thought
of denying it. But this fact remained suspended in a void, and
without precise significance, while Man and his activities ap-
peared to be isolated and as it were unattached in the bosom of
Nature. The whole situation changes if, for reasons solidly bound
up with the general structure of the Universe, we regard the
process of hominization, with all its accoutrement of social and
"artificial" arrangements, as a prolongation and organic continu-
ance of the grand cosmic phenomenon of the vitalization of mat-
ter. It then appears that if the neo-Darwinians are right (as they
possibly and indeed probably are) in claiming that in the prehu-
man zones of Life there is nothing but the play of chance
arrangement or selection to be detected in the advance of the or-
ganized world, from the time of Man, on the contrary, it is the
neo-Lamarckians who have the better of the argument, since at
this level the forces of internal arrangement begin to be clearly
manifest in the process of evolution. Which amounts to saying
that biological purposiveness (as with so many other physical pa-



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 197

rameters of the universe) is not everywhere apparent in the living
world, but that it only shows itself above a certain level — its ap-
pearance coinciding, not with any particular stage between the
Immense and the Infinitesimal but (as in the case of Life itself)
with the attainment of a certain value in the "axis of complexi-
ties." Below this critical point everything happens (perhaps?) as
though the rise of Life were automatic. But above it the forces of
free choice and inner direction come to light, and from this mo-
ment it is they that tend to take charge.

The point I wish to make is this. In the present state of hom-
inization, as we see it in progress today, the statistical influence of
chance and the part played by natural selection certainly continue
to be enormous. Compared with this immense passive field (the
Darwinian) it may seem that the (Lamarckian) ground gained by
our inventive efforts amounts to very little. But let us make no mis-
take about it. However minute the bud may be, however small the
seed, it is precisely here that the power of renewal and rebounding
of the living world is concentrated. Born under the appearance
and the sign of Chance, it is only through reflective purposiveness,
slowly acquired, that Life can henceforth hope to raise itself yet
higher, by autoevolution, in the twofold direction of greater com-
plexity and fuller consciousness. Indeed, from now on all the hopes
and future of the Universe are dependent on the propitious and
stubborn working of this scarcely born power of internal "self-
arrangement."

And this means, if we are not to regard the world as having be-
come suddenly meaningless and contradictory, that we are entitled
to attribute the value of experimental and physical reality to every-
thing, within us and around us, which shows itself to be a necessary

5 Teilhard uses the English word.



198 THE FUTURE OF MAN

condition for the preservation and heightening in Man of his pow-
ers of invention and purposive thinking.

3. The Control and Preservation of Purposive Thinking

AFTER A SHORT period of untroubled proprietorship every new
source of energy, as we know by experience, gives rise to two re-
lated problems, that of the limitations to be imposed on it and
that of its preservation. The new force must not be allowed to get
out of hand or to exhaust itself. The same applies (although we
have thought less about it) to the source of energy abrupdy re-
leased by Nature through Man which I have called the "force of
purposive thinking." In its early forms human inventive power, as
we still see in children, may be likened to a game. In those first
manifestations of the power of reflective arrangement, everything
appears simple, harmless and even beneficent, giving no hint of a
moment to come when we can no longer go on playing. But as the
phenomenon spreads and develops within a Mankind in process
of becoming adult, what once looked like a game is suddenly
found to be deadly earnest. On the one hand the "sorcerer's ap-
prentice" by dint of fumbling has laid hands on forces of such
power that he begins to be afraid of causing some disaster in Na-
ture. And on the other, finding that by his discoveries he has ac-
quired certain keys to the mastery of the world, he begins to
realize that if he is to be equal to the situation he is bound, in his
role of "quasi-demiurge," to establish principles and a faith re-
garding the future and the value of the task that is henceforth im-
posed upon him.

Two roads, as I shall seek to show, by which certain energies
and certain radiations, moral and mystical in their nature, in-



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 199

evitably make their appearance at the heart of the biological flux
of evolution.

a The Moral Ordering of Invention. By "invention" I mean to des-
ignate, in the widest sense of the word, everything in human
activity which in one way or another contributes to the organico-
social construction of the Noosphere and the development within
it of new powers for the arrangement of matter. From the "mate-
rialist" point of view the progress of invention in this sense will be
entirely governed by the pressure of external necessities, primarily
economic. But it has become plain (in particular since the last war)
that however urgent may be the planetary pressures driving us to
unite, they cannot operate effectively in the long run except under
certain psychic conditions, some of which arise out of the human
neomystique to be discussed in the next paragraph, but the rest of
which merely recall and reexpress, with a precise biological foun-
dation, the broad lines of the empirical and traditional Ethics
which has been evolved in some ten millennia of civilization. It is
enough for me to cite the twofold respect for things and for per-
sonality in the individual. Clearly whatever we may seek to build
will crumble and turn to dust if the workmen are without con-
science and professional integrity. And it is even more abundantly
clear that the greater our power of manipulating inert and living
matter, the greater proportionately must be our anxiety not to fal-
sify or outrage any part of the reflective consciousness that sur-
rounds us. Within a short space of time, owing to the acceleration

6 In this connection it is interesting to note the extent to which the lie (a rela-
tively minor evil in more restricted groups) is fast becoming an inhibiting ma-
jor vice in large social organisms, so that one might say that (like hatred — and
the taedium vitae) it tends to constitute a major obstacle to the formation of a
Noosphere.



200 THE FUTURE OF MAN

of social and scientific developments, this twofold necessity has be-
come so clearly urgent that to refer to it is to utter a commonplace.
In recent years voices of alarm have been raised periodically in
many quarters pointing to the fast-growing gulf between technical
and moral progress in the world today The perils of the situation
are plain to everyone. But do we not underestimate and misunder-
stand its deep significance?

Many people, I am convinced, still regard the higher morality
which they look for and advocate as no more than a sort of compen-
sation or external counterbalance, to be applied to the human ma-
chine from outside in order to adroitly offset the overflow of Matter
within it. But to me the phenomenon seems to display much more
intrinsic and fundamental harmony and much closer affiliations.
The ethical principles which hitherto we have regarded as an ap-
pendage, superimposed more or less by our own free will upon the
laws of biology, are now showing themselves — not metaphorically
but literally — to be a condition of survival for the human race. In
other words Evolution in rebounding reflectively upon itself, acquires
morality for the purpose of its further advance. In yet other terms, and
whatever anyone may say, above a certain level, technical progress
necessarily and functionally adds moral progress to itself. All this is
surely proof that the two events are interdependent. In fact, the pur-
suit of human knowledge cannot be carried in concrete terms be-
yond a certain stage without this power of reflective arrangement
becoming automatically charged with internal obligations which
curb and direct it; while at the same time, as we shall see, it engen-
ders around itself an entirely new atmosphere of spiritual needs.

b The Spiritual Nourishment of Human Endeavor. It is surprising to
note, among the increasingly numerous theorists who, under the
pressure of events, are beginning to speculate on the future of the



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 201

phenomenon of man, a sort of tacit agreement whereby vital en-
ergy is treated as though it were a constant, both in quality and
quantity, like solar radiation or the force of gravity. This postulate
of invariability seems at first sight to be admissible in the "Dar-
winian" zones of Life, where the instinct of self-preservation pre-
dominates (this seeming by its nature to be more or less constant
among organized beings), but it certainly loses all value in the
"Lamarckian" or human zone, where biological evolution, from
being passive, becomes active in the pursuit of its purpose. As we
know very well in ourselves, and as every leader of men has dis-
covered, human creative energy, according to the degree of tem-
perature generated within it (on a scale, that is to say, between
enthusiasm and revulsion) can in a matter of instants jump "from
plus to minus infinity."

If, therefore, we accept the idea of a reflective rebounding of
evolution, it is not enough to reckon the future of the world in terms
of reserves of mechanical energy and food supplies, or the probable
longevity of the earth. As I have said elsewhere, 7 the evolutionary
vigor of Mankind can wither away although it be surrounded by
mountains of coal, oceans of petroleum and limitless stocks of
wheat; it can do so as surely as in a desert of ice, if Man should lose
his impulse, or worse, develop a distaste for ever-increased growth
"in complexity and consciousness." With all respect to the material-
ist school, which still refuses to examine human biology, it is undeni-
able that in Man the external drive of Life tends to be transformed
and turn inward to become an ardor for Life. Try to get productive
work out of a workman, an engineer or a scientist who is "pissed
off"! So in the first place, if Evolution is to continue, it is dais impe-
tus which must be maintained in the heart of Man and encouraged

7 UEnergie Humaine, 1937.



202 THE FUTURE OF MAN

to grow at all costs. Failing that upward current, almost nothing will
move; whereas with it, everything will happen almost of its own ac-
cord in the higher zones, those that are truly progressive, of inven-
tion and discovery. But how are we to tap this deep, primordial well?

If the problem of sustaining this human impetus does not trou-
ble the theorists I have referred to, it is, I suppose, because they as-
sume that cases of revulsion will be as exceptional in the future as
they have been in the past — that a sufficient degree of physical
health or euphoria will maintain vital pressure at a positive level,
moderate but adequate, within the human mass. But is not this to
beg the whole question? Not only have powers of reflection and in-
vention been added to Life through hominization, but so has the
formidable endowment of criticism. However exuberant our vital-
ity, however rich and sanguine our temperament, it is already be-
coming impossible, and must inevitably become more so, for us to
give ourselves wholly to any creative undertaking if we cannot jus-
tify it in rational terms. That is why if Man at this moment finds
himself faced with the burden not merely of submitting to the evo-
lutionary process but of consciously furthering it, we may be sure
that he will seek, and righdy, to avoid the responsibility and pangs
which this entails if the objective does not seem to be worth the effort.
Which amounts to saying that the Universe, of psychic or psycho-
logical necessity (here they come to the same thing) must possess
properties fulfilling the functional needs of reflective action. Other-
wise apathy and even disgust will pervade the human mass, neu-
tralizing or reversing every vigorous impulse at the heart of Life.

What and how many are these basic properties, these sine qua
non conditions, which we are bound to postulate and presume to be
incorporated in the structure of the surrounding world if Evolu-
tion, henceforth hominized, is to continue?

In our present state (or more exacdy, stage) of psychic aware-



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 203

ness it seems to me that they can be brought down to two, very
closely related.

The first, as I have argued at length in my chapter on the Noo-
sphere, is that in one way or another Consciousness, the flowering
of Complexity, must survive the ultimate dissolution from which
nothing can save the corporeal and planetary stem which bears it.
From the moment when Evolution begins to think itself it can no
longer live with or further itself except by knowing itself to be irre-
versible — that is to say, immortal. For what point can there be in liv-
ing with eyes fixed constantly and laboriously upon the future, if
this future, even though it take the form of a Noosphere, must fi-
nally become a zero? Better surely to give up and die at once. In
terms of this Absolute it is sacrifice, not egotism, that becomes odi-
ous and absurd. Irreversibility, then, is the first condition.

The second condition, no more than an amplification of the
first, is that the irreversibility, thus revealed and accepted, must ap-
ply not to any one part, but to all that is deepest, most precious and
most incommunicable in our consciousness. So that the process of
vitalization in which we are engaged may be defined at its upper
limit (whether we envisage the system as a whole or the destiny of
each separate element within it) in terms of "ultrapersonalization."
The necessity of this must be stressed, since the degree of person-
alization (or "centration," which comes to the same thing) of a cos-
mic element being finally the sole parameter by which we can
measure its absolute biological value, a world presumed to be head-
ing toward the Impersonal (the word being interpreted in its
normal sense of "infrapersonal") becomes both unthinkable and
unliveable.

An irreversible rise toward the personal: unless it satisfies one or
other of these two conjoined attributes, the Universe (psychoana-
lytically dosed, if I may put it that way) can only become stifling



204 THE FUTURE OF MAN

for all reflective activity, that is to say, radically unsuited to any re-
bound of Evolution. But we are agreed that such a rebound is
preparing and indeed has already begun. So we must conclude,
unless we favor the idea of a world destined to miscarry through a
fault in its construction, that evolutionary irreversibility and per-
sonalization (despite their implied anticipation of the future) are
realities not of a metaphysical but of a physical order, in the sense
that, like the dimensions of Time and Space, they represent gen-
eral conditions to which the totality of our proceedings must con-
form.

Failing these conditions, as I have said, everything at the level
of Man will cease to move. On the other hand it seems to me that,
provided they are fulfilled, nothing can seriously interfere with our
natural taste, our impulse, that is to say, toward invention and re-
search. The world will have become habitable for Thought. But is
it enough for the world as we are now picturing it to be simply live-
able, capable, all things considered, of fostering some degree of
taste for life? Must it not rather be wholly delectable, if it is to be
wholly consistent with itself?

Strange though it may seem, we are here confronted, if we
seek to define our Universe in relation to other imaginable kinds
of universe, with the necessity and importance of determining
what may be called its "coefficient of activation," that is to say,
the degree in which it possesses the quality of stimulating the cen-
ters of reflective activity contained within it. Theoretically, in
virtue of what I have said, a whole series of activations (provided
they are positive) is conceivable, each in itself sufficing to create a
liveable world. But in practice — does not some sixth sense warn
us of this? — one value alone is admissible in the experienced real-
ity of action, one alone can truly satisfy us: namely, the greatest of



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 205

all, in relation to what we are. I do not propose to embark upon
any analysis or defense of the very particular kind of optimism
which does not for a moment claim that we are living in the best
of all possible worlds, but only (a quite different matter!) the most
"activating." Let me simply observe that here perhaps we have a
basis for prognosticating, in the broadest outline, the religious evo-
lution of the world of tomorrow. From the strictly "noodynamic" 8
viewpoint which I had adopted, it may be said that the historic ri-
valry of mysticisms and creeds, each striving to conquer the earth,
represents nothing but a prolonged groping of the human soul in
search of a conception of the world in which it will feel itself to
be more sensitized, more free and active. This surely means that
the faith which finally triumphs must be the one which shows it-
self to be more capable than any other of inspiring Man to ac-
tion. And it is here, irrespective of all philosophical or theological
considerations, that Christianity decisively takes the lead with its
extraordinary power of immortalizing and personalizing in
Christ, to the extent of making it lovable, the time-space totality
of Evolution.



4. Conclusion: Something New under the Sun

IN short, AS I said at the beginning, the terrestrial evolution of
Life, if it is really to continue as hominization extended to the scale
of the Noosphere, cannot rebound in a new spring forward with-
out acquiring a morality and, to the extent that it needs a "faith,"

8 "Noodynamic": the dynamic of spiritual energy, dynamic of the Spirit. I have
ventured to use this neologism because it is clear, expressive and convenient;
also because it affirms the necessity for incorporating human psychism,
Thought, in a true "physics" of the World.



206 THE FUTURE OF MAN

without becoming "mysticized." Which amounts to saying that the
complexification of Matter, at the point it has now reached in the
human social organism, is physically incapable of advancing fur-
ther if the Mind does not play a part, not only with its capacity for
technical organization, but with its purposive and affective powers
of arrangement and inner tension. Which again amounts to saying
in another way that from the time of Man (above all, modern
Man) the factor consciousness, which for a long time perhaps repre-
sented no more than a secondary and accessory effect in Nature, a
simple superstructure of the factor complexify, is finally becoming
individualized in the form of an autonomous spiritual principle.
For its reflective and inventive forward spring it is in some sort nec-
essary that Life, duplicating its evolutionary motive center, should
henceforth be sustained by two centers of action, separate and con-
joined, one of consciousness and the other of complexity. And
herein, if I am right, we may find a bridge of an experimental kind
flung across a gap which has hitherto been held to be scientifically
unbridgeable. In hominized evolution the Physical and the Psy-
chic, the Without and the Within, Matter and Consciousness, are
all found to be functionally linked in one tangible process. Setting
aside all metaphysics, the two terms in each of these pairs are ar-
ticulated in a quasi-measurable fashion one with the other; with the
twofold result not only of at last affording us a unified concept of
the Universe, but also of breaking down the two barriers behind
which Man was coming to believe himself to be for ever impris-
oned — the magic circle of phenomenalism and the infernal circle
of egocentrism.

Gone, first of all, the magic circle of phenomenalism, which,
we have been assured, must inexorably restrict our gaze to a
limited horizon beyond which lies not merely the unknown but
the absolutely unknowable. How much has been said even



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 207

recently 9 about our powerlessness to penetrate in this sense beyond
the primitive vision shared by the earliest human minds; that is to
say the impossibility of our advancing a step toward the direct or
indirect perception of all that is hidden behind the veil of tangible
experience! But it is just this supposedly impenetrable envelope of
pure "phenomenon" which the rebounding thrust of human evo-
lution pierces, at least at one point, since by its nature it is irre-
versible. This does not mean that we can see what lies beyond and
behind that transphenomenal zone of which we now have an
inkling, any more than, having discerned the shape of the earth,
we can foresee the landscape lying below the horizon. But at least
we know that something exists beyond the circle which restricts
our view, something into which we shall eventually emerge. It is
enough to ensure that we no longer feel imprisoned.

Gone, too, (at least virtually and in aspiration), is the infernal
circle of egocentrism, meaning the isolation, in some sort ontolog-
ical, which prohibits our escape from self to share the point of
view even of those we love best: as though the Universe were com-
posed of as many fragmentary universes, repelling each other, as the
sum total of the centers of consciousness which it embraces. 'Who
can measure the long chain of harmful, closely interlinked effects
which this elemental separatism automatically creates and fosters,
by an effect of mass and resonance, within the process of totaliza-
tion now taking place in Mankind? The iron laws binding eco-

9 "It is perhaps inevitable that, having reached the limit beyond which the sure
basis of experience fails us. the human spirit, in its impotence, can do no more
than revolve in the magic circle of traditional interpretations." (Betti. Director
of the Chemical Institute of Bologna.) "When it comes to those questions on
the border-line of the unknowable, all the accumulated knowledge of twenty-
five centuries has done no more than feed the argument, without advancing us
a single step toward the solution." (Tannery. Pour la Science Hellene; quoted by
J. Benda in La Tradition de UExistentialisme.)



208 THE FUTURE OF MAN

nomic factors, the irrepressible recurrence of nationalisms, the ap-
parent inevitability of war, the insoluble Hegelian conflicts "of
master and slave"; what are these supposedly unalterable necessi-
ties of the human condition, except, finally, the diverse expression
and outcome of exteriority and a mutual antagonism between the
individual seeds of thought which we are? . . . Here again let us
throw back our heads and breathe freely! For if it be true that the
tide of evolutionary totalization sweeping us along requires, for its
viability, not only that we must progress toward some form of ir-
reversible unity, but also that this progress must be in the personal
sphere, is not this a positive reason for believing that sooner or later
something must happen in the world whereby certain basic condi-
tions of the human phenomenon will undergo modification? If
our "person" is not to be lost in the vast plurality of Mankind
within which it is gradually, and of inescapable physical necessity,
becoming integrated; if totalization is to set us free instead of sim-
ply mechanizing us; then we must look for and allow for a change
of regime. We must assume that under the rapidly mounting pres-
sures forcing them upon one another the human molecules will ul-
timately succeed in finding their way through the critical barrier of
mutual repulsion to enter the inner zone of attractive. 10

From that point on we shall be entering a new world of rela-
tionships where the hitherto impossible may become simple, being
enacted in other dimensions and another environment.

If such a vista still seems to us fantastic, it is simply that we lack
imagination. But scientific reason is there to sustain and guide us.
Some hundreds of thousands of years ago, upon the first emer-
gence of reflective consciousness, the Universe was surely and
beyond question transformed in the very laws of its internal devel-

10 This is an old idea which I advanced nearly twenty years ago in an unpub-
lished essay entitled The Spirit of the Earth. (Now printed in UEnergie Humaine, pp.
25-570



THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION 209

opment. Why, then, should we suppose that nothing entirely new
will appear under the sun of tomorrow, when the rebounding of
Evolution is in full flood?

To sum up.

If social totalization and scientific technology are regarded as
they should be, as constituting a direct prolongation, in a human
context, of the grand process of the vitalization of Matter, it follows
that, from the coming of Man, biological evolution not only re-
bounds (on a new scale and with new resources) but that it rebounds
reflectively upon itself. The Darwinian era of survival by Natural Se-
lection (the vital thrust) is thus succeeded by a Lamarckian era of
Super-Life brought about by calculated invention (the vital impulse).
In Man evolution is interiorized and made purposeful; and at the
same time, in the degree in which the strivings of human inventive-
ness need to be controlled in their operation and sustained in their
energies, it imposes upon itself a moral order and "mysticizes" itself.
In abstracto or in individuo, technical achievement and moral virtue, sci-
ence and faith (faith in the future) may seem to be things that are not
only separate but even opposed to one another. But in the concrete real-
ity of Total Evolution, and beyond a certain degree of Complexity and
Consciousness, each of necessity requires the other, because Matter,
once hominized, can positively not continue the superarrangement
of itself upon itself except in a specific psychic atmosphere.

Thus a precise functional interlocking of physical and spiritual
energy may be discerned. And thus is revealed the necessity for the
Universe to present itself to our experience as an irreversible
medium of personalization, if the human rebounding of Evolu-
tion is not to be stifled at birth.

SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, 23 SEPTEMBER, 1947.
REVUE DES QUESTIONS SCIENTIFIQUES, APRIL 20, 1948.




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