Case 2

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter (London: Collins, 1978) trans. René Hauge, 17--119.

In The Heart of Matter, Teilhard de Chardin defines the "the cosmic sense" or "Christic sense" as the story of a slow unfolding or evolving within him of this fundamental and "Protean" element which takes on ever richer and purer forms." He first envisioned the idea of a universal plenitude in geology--the world of Rocks. This evolved during his theological training and entry in "the Society of Jesus" into his awakening to the Cosmic Life. Teilhard de Chardin came to this vision of the Cosmic Life while traveling in the East, when he linked the Animal World with the Energy World on the Foundation of the Rock World. Two things allowed him to bring together his field work and laboratory work into "a naturally harmonious pattern" he called the Biosphere. and to envision a "totalized Mankind--the Noosphere." The first was his biological research and the second was the spiritual shock of World War II.