TEILHARD DE CHARDIN "The future lies in the hands of those who are able to give the coming generation good reasons to live and hope."

You asked about a quote from M. Teilhard de Chardin involving the relationship between Spirit and Matter, so here's one from "A Sketch of a Personalistic Universe." De Chardin was, as most of you know, a Jesuit priest who was exiled to China for his revolutionary writings in relating science to theology...once in China, he helped unearth the Peking Man. Some individuals just can't be held down.

"In a concrete sense there is not matter and spirit. All that exists is matter becoming spirit. There is neither spirit nor matter in the world; the stuff of the universe is *spirit-matter*. No other substance but this could produce the human molecule. I know very well that this idea of spirit-matter is regarded as a hybrid monster, a verbal exorcism of a duality which remains unresolved in its terms. But I remain convinced that the objections made to it arise from the mere fact that few people can make up their minds to abandon an old point of view and take the risk of a new idea. ... Biologists or philosophers cannot conceive a biosphere or noosphere because they are unwilling to abandon a certain narrow conception of individuality. Nevertheless, the step must be taken. For in fact, pure spirituality is as unconceivable as pure materiality. Just as, in a sense, there is no geometrical point, but as many structurally different points as there are methods of deriving them from different figures, so every spirit derives its reality and nature from a particular type of universal synthesis. Whatever its "purity", however great its purity, it is the crown and expression of a genesis. The "higher" a being is in duration, the greater and more finely unified the complexity that it contains in its solid parts. The reality of spirit-matter is inevitably translated into and confirmed by a *structure of the spirit*."

"That the personalization of the universe, having at this moment reached the human stage in ourselves, is irreversible we shall soon recognize, step by step, as the conditions of internal coherence particular to a personal universe yield to our analysis. In this way, the "inalterability" of the person, so rightly defended by spiritualist philosophers, will at the same time be preserved and attached to an intelligible physical theory."

A final quote from "The Phenomenon of Spirituality":

"Life represents the goal of a *transformation* of great breadth, in the course of which what we call "matter" turns about, furls in on itself, *interiorizes* the operation covering, so far as we are concerned, the whole history of the earth. The phenomenon of spirit is not therefore a sort of brief flash in the night; it reveals a gradual and systematic passage from the unconscious to the conscious, and from the conscious to the self-conscious. It is a cosmic *change of state*. This irrefutably explains the links and also the contradictions between spirit and matter."

I apologize for the random nature of these quotes as a full explication of De Chardin's theory far exceeds these disparate citations. The most complete version is the well-known *Phenomenon of Man* and the *Divine Milieu*.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was an paleontologist and Catholic priest who also served as a stretcher bearer in WWI. His single, integrated and evolutionary view of reality, together with his deep faith, have made him a "giant" in the eyes of PROVENZANO & SONS. He is the major influence and inspiration for our work.

This portrait of Teilhard was painted by Caroline Cowell (1993) of the British Teilhard Association, photographed by John Anderson, and scanned by Dan Provenzano.

There are many associations dedicated to exploring and spreading the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin. Addresses of three important ones are listed below. Please join PRO & SONS in encouraging them to get on the Internet.

The American Teilhard Association
c/o Iona Spirituality Institute
Iona College
715 North Avenue
New Rochelle, New York 10801

The British Teilhard Association
Plas Maelog
Beaumaris
Ynys Mon LL58 8BH
United Kingdom

The French Teilhard Association
38, rue Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire
75005 Paris

For anyone interested in a lexicon covering all of Teilhard's works, with short explanations, quotes and references, please write for information about the "Pierre Teilhard de Chardin --- Lexicon," by Sion Cowell. Mr. Cowell is the former president of the European Teilhard de Chardin Centre and current Chairman of the British Teilhard Association. He can be reached at the above address.

By the way, Teilhard would have loved the Internet. In fact, "Teilhard saw the Net coming more than a half century before it arrived." See Connect 19.

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