Book Reviews

GENERAL AND ETHNOLOGY

The Phenomenoia of M a n . PIERRETEILHARD de CHARDIN.Introduction by JULIAN
HUXLEY. Translated into English by BERNARD WALL. New York: Harper and
Brothers Publishers, 1959. 318 pp. appendix, 4 diagrams, index. $5.00.
Keviewed by PAULFRIEDRICH,
Uwivrrsity of Pennsylvania
For the entire year following its publication in December, 1955, Le Ph&aom&ie
Huncaine sold more copies in France than any other work of nonfiction; the original
and the present translation by B. Wall were extensively treated in American journals
ranging from Time to the metaphysical reviews and were widely read by American
intellectuals in all walks of life except, perhaps, some anthropological ones. These
pragmatic indices place Le Phe‘trombne in the extremely small class of works which, like
Kon T i k i and Patterns of Culture, have stirred a n echo in the hearts and thought of a
vast international audience. The book’s status as a succts de saison was due in no small
part to its nearly approaching a succts de scandal; as widely advertised in the reviews,
Father Teilhard had continued in the Jesuit order mhile writing it and had given orders
lor its publication just before his death despite definite orders to the contrary from his
ecclesiastical superiors.
Following Huxley’s rather personalized theoretical introduction, we read in the
foreword: “Seeing. We might say that the whole of life lies in that verb-if not in the
end, a t least in essence. Fuller being is closer union; such is the kernel and conclusion of
this book” (p. 31). Then come chapters entitled ‘*The Stuff of the Universe,” “The
Within of Things,” “Demeter,” “The Deployment of the Noosphere,” “Love as En-
ergy,” “The Ultimate Earth,” “The Christian Phenomenon,” and so forth, with a con-
cluding appendix on cvil in evolution. A sweeping and imaginative survey, in short, of
the events leading lrom gaseous, galactic energies to the first living cells to primates
with memories to Christian love. Presumably, Christians who are not active in science
may acquire here a sense of our contemporary knowledge of evolution and some respect
for the exploration of its depths. And thc anthropologist, whether or not a Christian,
can get some inkling of the significance to other humans, especially the French con-
servative kind, of the evolutionary horizons that he is wont to think of in the clipped,
technical terms of “solutions to problems.”
Among the book’s merits is the author’s challenging personal synthesis of diverse
currents in the human knowlcdge whose dignity he so hopefully affirms. The substratum
is a primitive poetic mode reminiscent at times of the Vedic hymns. Second, while
hailed as an attempt to reconcile Thomistic theology with the scientific theory of evolu-
tion, the book is actually more concerned with certain Augustinian ideas of memory
and conceptualization and, by implication, with doctrinal conflicts that began early
in the Christian era. Third, a t many points one recognizes the style of French human-
ism, notably of Blaise Pascal; both writers were preoccupied with man’s fate in a uni-
verse of infinite vastness. But Teilhard’s optimism about our moral condition and
about the future “Omega point” where the subjective and the objective side of things
become identical seems naive and simple-minded to this reviewer when contrasted
with the awesome humility of his predecessor. Figuring prominently as a fourth theme
381
382 A merican Anlhropologisi [64, 19621
is Father Teilhard’s interpretation of modern science and, most concretely, the British
manner of evolutionary studies to which he was so closely linked.
On the negative side, Teilhard fails to reconcile two antithetical or a t best comple-
mentary positions. He asserts that the soul is a biochemical process and that the phys-
ical elements are suffused with psychic stuff: the within and the without of things. Now
the former premise is scientifically fruitful because it leads to a cumulative, tested
knowledge about the biochemistry of psychic phenomena. The second premise may lead
to a psychologically sophisticated sociology of knowledge or to the poetry of Loren
Eiseley. I n Teilhard’s case it conduces to the following (fairly typical) sentence: “The
coalescence of elements and the coalescence of systems, the spherical geometry of the
earth and the psychical curvature of the mind harmonizing to counterbalance the i n -
dividual and collective forces of dispersion in the world and to impose unification-
there a t last we find the spring and secret of hominization” (p. 213).
Second, much of Le PhCnombne is pointed toward the evolution of human self-
awareness and sensitivity, a domain supposedly not subject to the second law of
thermodynamics. But Teilhard’s adumbration of this so-called “noosphere” (contrast-
ing with lithosphere, and so forth), totally ignores the wealth of trenchant and general
ideas about social organization and personality constructs, that is, of culture, which
have been accumulating ever since Morgan. Teilhard, then, is a physical anthropologist
in a less complementary sense of the word.
M y final objection is essentially ethical. Since the great part of Le Phdnombne is
based on the naturalistic premise, that evolution is explicable through natural law
without reference to divine law, the final portions come as a non sequitur. How does
Christianity hold priority over other ethical systems? Buddhism might actually fit
Teilhard’s over-all scheme much better. In light of certain rudimentary Kantian argu-
ments, it seems highly doubtful that one could ever develop a workable science of ethics.
Father ‘Teilhard, like his Protestant contemporaries, has failed to do so.
I n the context of what we have learned to know in this century it has become a bit
obsolete to “reconcile Christian theology with evolutionary theory” and somehow
morally trivial even to regard the question as particularly significant. Because the
crucial issues now are neither epistemic nor lheological, but ethical. Or, as Camus has
so powerfully insisted, the glaring human phenomenon of this century is: mass torture
and mass murder. To an understanding of this stage in evolution, Teilhard’s solipsistic
vision contributes precious little.

Darwin and the Modern World View. JOHN C . GREENE.(Rockwell Lectures, Rice Uni-
versity.) Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1961. viii, 141 pp., notes.
$3.50.
Reviewed by MORTONH. FRIED,Colunibia Universily
Barely a year ago I had the pleasure of reviewing John C. Greene’s admirable The
Death of Adam (AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST 63 :392-93) and therefore approached the
present volume with high expectations. Greene’s talents seemed eminently suited to
the task of reviewing the interrelations between Darwinism and certain modern world
views. His role of historian of science (he is Professor of History a t Iowa State Uni-
versity) and particular interests in the development of theories of evolution seemed to
qualify him for the important task of unravelling the many strands in the fiber of
modern evolutionism in the social sciences. T o be sure, there were signs in the earlier
book that Greene was discontented with science as ideology, but these were interpreted