The Phenomenon of Man is a very remarkable work by a very remarkable human being. Pere Teilliard de Chardin was at the same time a Jesuit Father and a distinguished palaeontologist. In The Phenomenon of Man he has effected a threefold synthesis of the material and physical world with the world of mind and spirit; of the past with the future; and of variety with unity, the many with the one. He achieves this by examining every fact and every subject of his investigation 'sub specie evolutionis', with reference to its development in time and to its evolutionary position. Conversely, he is able to envisage the whole of knowable reality not as a static mechanism but as a process. In consequence, he is driven to search for human significance in relation to the trends of that enduring and comprehensive process; the measure of his stature is that he so largely succeeded in the search. I would like to introduce The Phenomenon of Man to English readers by attenipting a summary of its general thesis, and of what appear to me to be its more important conclusions.
