| Introduction | 11 |
| Preface | 29 |
| Foreword: Seeing | 31 |
Book 1 | Before Life Came | |
Chapter I | The Stuff of the Universe | 39 |
1 | Elemental Matter | 40 |
A | Plurality | 40 |
B | Unity | 41 |
C | Energy | 42 |
2 | Total Matter | 43 |
A | The System | 43 |
B | The Totum | 44 |
C | The Quantum | 45 |
3 | The Evolution of Matter | 46 |
A | The Appearance | 47 |
B | The Numerical Laws | 50 |
Chapter II | The Within of Things | 53 |
1 | Existence | 54 |
2 | The Qualitative Laws of Growth | 58 |
A | First Observation | 58 |
B | Second Observation | 59 |
C | Third Observation | 60 |
3 | Spiritual Energy | 62 |
A | The Problem of the Two Energies | 63 |
B | A Line of Solution | 64 |
Chapter III | The Earth in its Early Stages | 67 |
1 | The Without | 68 |
A | The Crystallising World | 68 |
B | The Polymerising World | 70 |
2 | The Within | 71 |
Book 2 | Life | |
Chapter I | The Advent of Life | 77 |
1 | The Transit to Life | 79 |
A | Micro-organisms and Mega-molecules | 81 |
B | A Forgotten Era | 83 |
C | The Cellular Revolution | 86 |
2 | The Initial Manifestations of Life | 90 |
A | The Milieu | 90 |
B | Smallness and Number | 91 |
C | The Origin of Number | 92 |
D | Inter-relationship and Shape | 94 |
3 | The Season of Life | 96 |
Chapter II | The Expansion of Life | 103 |
1 | The Elemental Movements of Life | 104 |
A | Reproduction | 104 |
B | Multiplication | 104 |
C | Renovation | 105 |
D | Conjugation | 106 |
E | Association | 106 |
F | Controlled Additivity | 108 |
| A Corollary: The Ways of Life | 109 |
2 | The Ramifications of the Living Mass | 112 |
A | Aggregates of Growth | 113 |
B | The Flourishing of Maturity | 116 |
C | Effects of Distance | 119 |
3 | The Tree of Life | 122 |
A | The Main Lines | 122 |
B | The Dimensions | 133 |
C | The Evidence | 137 |
Chapter III | Demeter | 141 |
1 | Ariadne's Thread | 142 |
2 | The Rise of Consciousness | 147 |
3 | The Approach of Time | 152 |
Book 3 | Thought | |
Chapter I | The Birth of Thought | 163 |
1 | The Threshold of Reflection | 164 |
A | The Threshold of the Element: the Hominisation of the Individual | 164 |
B | The Threshold of the Phylum: the Hominisation of the Species | 174 |
C | The Threshold of the Terrestrial Planet: The Noosphere | 180 |
2 | The Original Forms | 184 |
Chapter II | The Deployment of the Noosphere | 191 |
1 | The Ramifying Phase of the Pre-Hominids | 191 |
2 | The Group of the Neanderthaloids | 197 |
3 | The Homo Sapiens Complex | 200 |
4 | The Neolithic Metamorphosis | 203 |
5 | The Prolongations of the Neolithic Age and the Rise of the West | 206 |
Chapter III | The Modern Earth | 213 |
1 | The Discovery of Evolution | 216 |
A | The Perception of Space-time | 216 |
B | The Envelopment in Duration | 219 |
C | The Illumination | 221 |
2 | The Problem of Action | 226 |
A | Modern Disquiet | 226 |
B | The Requirements of the Future | 229 |
C | The Dilemma and the Choice | 232 |
Book 4 | Survival | |
Chapter I | The Collective Issue | 237 |
1 | The Confluence of Thought | 239 |
A | Forced Coalescence | 239 |
B | Mega-Synthesis | 243 |
2 | The Spirit of the Earth | 245 |
A | Mankind | 245 |
B | Science | 248 |
C | Unanimity | 251 |
Chapter II | Beyond the Collective: the Hyper-Personal | 254 |
1 | The Convergence of the Person and the Omega Point | 257 |
A | The Personal Universe | 257 |
B | The Personalising Universe | 260 |
2 | Love as Energy | 264 |
3 | The Attributes of the Omega Point | 268 |
Chapter III | The Ultimate Earth | 273 |
1 | Prognostics to be Set Aside | 274 |
2 | The Approaches | 276 |
A | The Organisation of Research | 278 |
B | The Discovery of the Human Object | 280 |
C | The Conjunction of Science and Religion | 283 |
3 | The Ultimate | 285 |
| Epilogue: The Christian Phenomenon | 291 |
1 | Axes of Belief | 292 |
2 | Existence-Value | 294 |
3 | Power of Growth | 296 |
| Postscript: The Essence of the Phenomenon of Man | 300 |
1 | A World in Involution | 300 |
2 | The First Appearance of Man | 302 |
3 | The Social Phenomenon | 304 |
Appendix | Some Remarks on the Place and Part of Evil in a World in Evolution | 311 |
| Index | 315 |