PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN (1947)

Philosopher and paleontologist known particularly for his theory that man is presently evolving mentally and socially toward a final spiritual unity.

Blending science and Christianity he declared that the human epic resembles "nothing so much as a way of the Cross".

Various theories of his brought reservations and objections from within the Roman Catholic Church and from the Jesuit order of which he was a member.

In 1962 the Holy Office issued a monitum or simple warning against uncritical acceptance of his ideas. His spiritual dedication was not questioned.

The son of a gentleman farmer with an interest in geology Teilhard devoted himself to that subject as well as to his prescribed studies at the Jesuit College of Mongré where he began boarding at the age of 10. When he was 18 he joined the Jesuit novitiate at Aix-en-Provence. At 24 he began a three-year professorship at the college in Cairo.

Although ordained a priest in 1911 he chose to be a strecher bearer rather than a chaplain in World War I. His courage on the battle lines earned him a military medal an the Legion of Honour.

In 1923 after teaching at the Catholic Institute of Paris he made the first of his paleontological and geological missions to China.

When World War II erupted he remained in China for its duration. He was involved in the discovery of Peking Man´s skull and enlarged the field of knowledge on Asia´s sedimentary deposits and stratigraphical correlations and on the dates of its fossils. Meditation on evolution was an outgrowth of these researches and in 1938 he finished the manuscript of his fundamental work Le Phénomène humain (1938-1940). Seeing evolution as an uncompleted process Teilhard coined words to convey its continuity: "cosmogenesis" for the development of a world in which man is central, "noögenesis" for the growth of man´s mind and "hominisation" and "ultra-hominisation" for the stages in his humanization.

Among his other writings were collections of philosophic essays such as L`Apparition de l´homme (1956) correspondence and reminiscences and scientific studies chiefly on mammalian paleontology.

Teilhar returned to France in 1946.
Frustrated in his desire to teach at the Collège de France and publish philosophy (all his major works were published posthumously) he moved to the United States spending the last years of his life at the Wenner-Gren Foundation New York City.

Teilhard was to win fame only after his death. Only a dozen persons attended his funeral.