"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."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
A Sketch of a Personalistic Universe (1936)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, philosopher, and a paleontologist present at the discovery of Peking Man.
68 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin →
Related Quotes
"Christ has a cosmic body that extends throughout the universe."
"The future is more beautiful than all the pasts."
"Science will, in all probability, be increasingly impregnated by mysticism."
"I am far from denying the destructive and disintegrating forces of passion. I will go so far as to agree that apart f…"
"The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe. Beyond the vibrations with which we are familia…"
"The radical defect in all forms of belief in progress, as they are expressed in positivist credos, is that they do no…"
"The reality of spirit-matter is inevitably translated into and confirmed by a structure of the spirit."
"Through the incarnation God descended into nature in order to super-animate and take it back to him."
"Personally, I stick to my idea that we are watching the birth, more than the death, of a World. The scandal for you, …"
"What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity. The difficulty lies not in solving problems but expressing…"