The Future of Mankind by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Chapter 3: The Grand Option
I. On the Threshold of Human Socialization
5. The True Environment of Human Action
only course we can pursue which conforms to the evolutionary past of the world; it is the course that embraces, in its essence, every other constructive act in which we might look for an alternative. Not only does this road offer a positive outlet for the diminished or specialized form of consciousness -- a victory dearly paid for by Life -- but consciousness as a whole must follow it, with all the accumulation of riches which, at each turning-point, we had thought to abandon. Which amounts to saying that the world is wellmade! In other words, the choice which Life requires of our considered action is a great deal less complex than at first seemed to be the case; for it is reduced to a simple choice between the first and last stages of the successive alternatives which we have been able to define: the rejection of Being, which
returns us to dust, or the acceptance of Being, which leads us, by way of socialization, to faith in a Supreme Unity -- opposite directions along a single road.
But if, as history suggests, there is really a quality of the inevitable in the forward march of the Universe -- if, in truth, the world cannot turn back -- then it must mean that individual acts are bound to follow, in the majority and freely, the sole direction capable of satisfying all their aspirations towards every imaginable form of higher consciousness.
Having been initially the fundamental choice of the individual, the Grand Option, that which decides in favor of a convergent Universe, is destined sooner or later to become the common choice of the mass of Mankind. Thus a particular and generalized state of consciousness is presaged for our species in the future: a ‘conspiracy’ in terms of perspective and intention.
Which brings us in conclusion to the consideration of an especial phenomenon arising directly out of this approaching unanimity -- the more or less early establishment on earth of a new atmosphere, or better, a new environment of action.
According to the nature of this space properties change or are generalized, and certain transformations and movements become
possible. Space in itself is something that overflows any formula; yet it is m terms of this inexpressible that a whole expressible world is
interpreted and developed. But what is true and clearly apparent in the abstract field of geometry may also be found, and should be examined with no less care, in the general systematization of phenomena which we call philosophy. To philosophize is to put in order the lines of reality around us. What first emerges from any philosophy is a coherent whole of harmonized relationships. But this whole, if we look closely, is always intuitively conceived in terms of a Universe endowed with certain fixed properties which are not a thing in themselves but a general condition of knowledge. If these properties should change, the whole philosophy, without necessarily breaking down, must adapt itself and readjust the relation between its parts; like a design on a sheet of paper which undergoes modification when the paper is curved. Indeed the past history of human intelligence is full of ‘mutations’ of this kind, more or less abrupt, indicating, in addition to the shift of human ideas, an evolution of the ‘space’ in which the ideas took shape -- which is clearly very much more suggestive and profound.
Let me cite a single instance, the most recent, of this sort of transformation.
Until the sixteenth century men in general thought of space and time as though they were limited compartments in which objects were
juxtaposed and interchangeable. They believed that a geometrical envelope could be traced round the totality of the stars. They talked, thinking they understood, of a first and last moment discernible in the past and the future. They argued as though every element could be arbitrarily moved, without changing the world, to any point along the axis of time. The human mind believed itself to be perfectly at home in this universe, within which it tranquilly wove its patterns of
metaphysics. And then one day, influenced by a variety of internal and external causes, this attitude began to change.
Spatially our awareness of the world was extended to embrace the Infinitesimal and the Immense. Later, in temporal terms, there came the unveiling, behind us and ahead, of the abysses of Past and Future.
Finally, to complete the structure we became aware of the fact that, within this indefinite extent of space-time. the position of each element was so intimately bound up with the genesis of the whole that it was
impossible to alter it at random without rendering it ‘incoherent’, or without having to readjust the distribution and history of the whole around it. To accommodate this expansion of our thought the restricted field of static juxtaposition was replaced by a field of evolutionary organization which was limitless in all directions (except forward, in the direction of its pole of convergence). It became necessary to transpose our physics, biology and ethics, even our religion, into this new sphere, and this we are in process of doing. We can no more return to that sphere which we recently left than a three-dimensional object can enter a two-dimensional plane. The general and also the irreversible
modification of perceptions, ideas, problems: these are two indications that the spirit has acquired an added dimension.
Let us now turn to the psychological effects of this Grand Option in virtue of which, as we have said, Mankind must elect to adopt a general perspective and habit of mind appropriate to its participation isi a
Universe of convergent consciousness. What may we expect to be the inner consequences of the change? Hitherto Man as a whole has lived practically speaking without attempting any far-going analysis of the conditions proper to and ensuing from his activities. He has lived from hand to mouth in the pursuit of more or less immediate and limited aims, more by instinct than by reason. But now the atmosphere around him becomes sustaining, consistent and warm. As he awakens to a sense of ‘universal unification’ a wave of new life penetrates to the fiber and marrow of the least of his undertakings, the least of his desires.
Everything glows, expands, is impregnated with an essential savior of the Absolute. Even more, everything is animated with a flow of
Presence and of Love -- the spirit which, emanating from the supreme pole of personalization, fosters and nourishes the mutual affinity of individualities in process of convergence. Will it be possible for us, having savored this climate, to turn back and tolerate any other? A general and irreversible readjustment of the values of existence: again two indications (this time not in terms of vision but in the field of action) showing our accession, beyond all ideologies and systems, to a different and higher sphere, a new spiritual dimension.
It truly seems that for Man this is the greatness of the present moment.
Further ideological clashes and moral dissentions lie in wait for us as we go forward; and also further unions and further triumphs. But the succeeding acts of the drama must take place on another level; they must occur in a new world into which, at this moment, we are being born: a world in which each thinking unit upon earth will only act (if he
agrees to act) in the consciousness, become natural and instinctive to all, of furthering a work of total personalization.
When it has passed beyond what we called at the beginning its ‘critical point of socialization’ the mass of Mankind, let this be my conclusion, will penetrate for the first time into the environment which is
biologically requisite for the wholeness of its task.
Paris, 3 March, 1939. Cahiers du Monde Nouveau, 1945.
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The Future of Mankind by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., was professor of geology at the Catholic Institute in Paris, director of the National Geologic Survey of China, and director of the
National Research Center of France. He died in New York City in 1955. Published by Harper & Row, New York and Evanston, 1959. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.