2.2.2 The Biotic: The beginning of life
Teilhard de Chardin turns his attention now to the planet
earth, with just the right sun, the right distance from its sun, the right
axial tilt, the right moon, the planet earth where life takes its first groping
steps. Radial energy propels evolution forward through precisely this mechanism
of groping. Teilhard's radial energy, whether on a molecular or
biological stage, does not advance along a straight line in the sort of crude
ortho genesis utterly rejected by modern science.I Rather, he
presents this energy as moving forward through a series of attempts, some
successful, some not. As Bernard TOWERS comments:
It would be astonishing if this `groping' did not lead,
more often than not, into byways and blind alleys, where the
radial-energy-potential slowly runs down. But if we think of the process, as
Teilhard always did, in terms of the whole rather than of the individual
element or group, then even the blind alleys become meaningful. For
complexity-consciousness to be possible, and to go on increasing, there must be
variety in the environment for consciousness to operate on.2
.
How many blind alleys there were? We do not know but Teilhard de
Chardin describes the surface of the early earth covered with
(...) a thickness of some miles, in water, in air, in
muddy deposits, ultra-microscopic grains of protein thickly strewn over the
surface of the earth. Our imaginations boggle at the mere thought of counting
the flakes of this snow.3
The tangential flow of energy continues as always, uniting and
dissipating, but the radial energy presses undauntedly onward, groping this way
and that, moving upward in intensity. There is a sound, as it were, of
crackling over surface of the deep. "Something is going to burst out upon
the early earth, and this thing is Life."4
I Bernard Towers. Teilhard de Chardin.
London: Lutterworth Press, I966, p. 35.
2 Id.
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Op. cit., p.
73.
4 Ibid., p. 74.
The transition from pre-life to life is, so to speak, organic;
the former grows out of the latter. How then, given Teilhard's
hypothesis of consciousness and pre-life present even in the smallest of
granules, can we differentiate one from the other? It must be understood that
although Teilhard de Chardin clearly delineates a series of stages, each
containing even more stages, he still views the entire drama, from the cosmic
to the Christic, as an organic whole. He recognizes differentiation in
evolutionary development without that leading to divorce. There is, as
Norbertus Maximilaan Wildiers notes, "a discontinuity in the
continuity."I Such differentiation is observed in cosmic,
organic and noetic thresholds or critical points. A critical point
occurs when an element's energy reaches a certain level after which it becomes
a qualitatively different element. Imagine the transition from water to gas
which occurs at the critical point of I00 degrees Celsius or, for that matter,
of water to ice at 0 degrees. As Teilhard de Chardin comments,
In every domain, when anything exceeds a certain
measurement, it suddenly changes its aspect, condition or nature... This is the
only way in which science can speak of a `first instant'. But it is
none-the-less a true way.2
The first instant of life, presaged by the complexification of
molecules and even the first viruses, occurs with the cell. Teilhard de Chardin
sees this too as an event in the evolution of consciousness, the "cellular
awakening" 3 as it were. Shortly after the emergence of the first
cell, or cells since they may have appeared almost simultaneously in large
numbers, the biosphere was established as life flooded over the whole
earth.4 Teilhard de Chardin in this light says that "Life no
sooner started, than it swarmed.°
Life ascends, radial energy propelling it to grope upwards,
though now with the help of life's own competitive struggle, that natural
selection to which Darwinism is so committed. Teilhard de Chardin grants this
some legitimacy, but stops short of
I Norbertus Maximilaan Wildiers, An Introduction
to Teilhard de Chardin, New York, I968, p. 7I.
2 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Op. cit., p.
78.
3 Ibid., p. 88.
4 The biosphere is the layer of living things covering
the earth's surface.
5 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Op. cit., p.
92.
44 Darwinism. He contends that 'natural selection' is one of
those vehicles seized upon by radial energy in its groping ortho genesis. He
points out that the advance of species, that is to say, their evolution as
opposed to just change, is not mere chance:
It would be a mistake to see it as mere chance. Groping is
directed chance. It means pervading everything so as to try
everything, and trying everything so as to find everything.I
What emerges from this vision of groping-ortho
genetic-evolution is a picture Teilhard de Chardin calls the tree of life.
Radial energy ramifies through the biosphere creating and exploring ever new
phyla. From our position we tend to look at these variegated species as all
possessing one and the same instinct. That is, we frequently speak as if each
animal consciousness was identical. Teilhard de Chardin maintains that this is
a mistake. "Life, he says, is the rise of
consciousness,"2 or as Joseph Kopp puts it, "biogenesis
(ramification of life) is in the first place psychogenesis (ramification of
spirit)."3 At every step along the way there is a change of
some sort in the psychism of the animal species. Instinct is not a single
thing; rather there are many instincts, each appropriate to that species:
The 'psychical' make-up of an insect is not and cannot be
that of a vertebrate; nor can the instinct of a squirrel be that of a cat or an
elephant: this in virtue of the position of each on the tree of
life.4
Teilhard de Chardin continues, describing these variations as an
evolution of consciousness, an ascending system:
They form as a whole a kind of fan-like structure in which
the higher terms on each nervure are recognized each time by a greater range of
choice and depending on a better defined centre of co-ordination and
consciousness... The mind (or
I Ibid., p. II0.
2 Ibid., p. I53.
3 Joseph Kopp, Teilhard de Chardin Explained,
Cork, I964, p. 35.
psyche) of a dog, despite all that may be said to the
contrary, is positively superior to that of a mole or a
fish.'
Still, despite these differences, internal and external,
Teilhard de Chardin is an advocate to the end for the unity of the biosphere.
Life appeared once and has since ramified itself throughout the tree of life.
Teilhard de Chardin speaks of the earth as a single growing organism.
The earth is after all something more than a sort of huge
breathing body. Admittedly it rises and falls, but more important is the fact
that it must have begun at a certain moment; that it is passing through a
consecutive series of moving equilibria; and that in all probability it is
tending towards some final state. It has a birth, a development, and presumably
a death ahead'.
The highest shoot of this organism at the top of the tree of
life is the mammalian branch3. Here we see complexity and
consciousness reaching levels achieved nowhere else. And it is here among the
mammals that one must look for the future of evolution. Teilhard de Chardin
concludes:
We already knew that everywhere the active phyletic lines
grow warm with consciousness towards the summit. But in one well-marked region
at the heart of the mammals, where the most powerful brains ever made by nature
are to be found, they become red hot. And right at the heart of that glow burns
a point of incandescence. We must not lose sight of that line crimsoned by the
dawn. After thousands of years rising below the horizon, a flame bursts forth
at a strictly localized point. Thought is born.4
I Id.
2 Ibid., p. I0I.
3 See appendix II.
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