Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 to 1955): A geologist priest in Hastings

Ken Brooks (UK)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was born in the Auvergne region of France on 1 May 1881. His enthusiasm for science developed in his childhood, partly through the influence and encouragement of his father, who was a keen naturalist.

In 1899, at the age of 18 and having completed secondary education, he joined the Society of Jesus as a novice. While severe intellectual discipline was a characteristic of his Jesuit Order, it also included instruction in all branches of science, particularly geology and zoology.

Shortly after and as a result of legislation in France directed against the religious orders, the Jesuits moved to the Channel Islands and, in 1901, transferred their juniorate to the institution Notre Dame de Bon-Secours at Maison St Louis in Jersey. Teilhard stayed here for three years studying theology and philosophy, but he was also able to spend time developing his interest in geology. In fact, it is said that he never went for a walk without a hammer and a magnifying glass.

In 1905, Teilhard was sent to Egypt to gain teaching experience at the Jesuit College of St Francis in Cairo, where he studied and taught physics. For the next three years, his naturalist inclinations were developed through field trips into the countryside near Cairo studying the existing flora and fauna as well as fossils from Egypt’s very ancient past. He also made time for extensive collecting of fossils and for correspondence with palaeontologists in Egypt and France. In 1907, he heard that, due to his finds of shark teeth in the Fayum and in the quarries around Cairo, a new species named Teilhardia and three new varieties of shark had been presented to the Geological Society of France.

In September 1908, Teilhard travelled to England to complete his theological studies at the Jesuit Seminary in Ore Place, Hastings. Despite his strictly disciplined and structured life, Teilhard still found time for geological activities. He would make field trips to the cliffs at Rock-a-Nore, Fairlight and Pett Level, often accompanied by a fellow student, Felix Pelletier. Here, they would search for fossils in rocks from the Ashdown and Wadhurst Formations of the Lower Cretaceous Hastings Beds (140 to 138 myrs old).

The following year, during a trip to Fairlight, Teilhard met Charles Dawson, who was also an enthusiastic fossil collector. This meeting led to an introduction to Arthur Smith Woodward, Curator of Geology at the British Museum.

A few months later, Dawson visited Teilhard at Ore Place with some fossil remains – “an elephant’s tooth, and one from a hippopotamus, and even some fragments of a human skull”. In return Teilhard showed Dawson a dinosaur’s footprint in the cliffs near Hastings. This was later followed by a visit to a local quarry where they were delighted to discover the fossilised bones of an Iguanodon.

In 1911, during a field trip with Dawson to the beach at Pett Level, Teilhard and Felix Pelletier found two very rare multituberculate (rodent-like) mammal teeth from Loxaulax valdensis in the Cliff End ‘bone bed’. This is a hard, coarse-grained rock found in lenticular deposits 10cm to 13cm thick, which occur in Wadhurst shales above the Cliff End Sandstone. It contains an abundance of small fossil bones, scales and teeth of fish and reptiles.

In August of that year, Teilhard’s parents and younger brothers came to Hastings for his ordination as a priest by the Bishop of Southwark at Ore Place.

On one occasion Teilhard, assisted Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith Woodward in their excavations of the remains of early man in gravel pits near Uckfield. It was this field trip that resulted in his involvement in the discovery of the controversial Piltdown skull (Eoanthropus dawsoni). In a letter to his parents in June 1912, he described the event: “We worked for several hours and finally had success. Dawson discovered a new fragment of the famous human skull; he already had three pieces of it . . .”.

Although questioning the validity of this fossil ‘evidence’ from the very beginning, one positive result was that Teilhard then became particularly interested in the study of fossil hominids. However, it was not until 41 years later that the Piltdown skull was exposed as a forgery. It was proved by the fluorine dating technique that the mandible and canine tooth were from a modern ape and had been artificially ‘fossilised’ by surface-staining and mechanical working – a hoax of extraordinary skill. Today, most archaeologists believe that Teilhard was not involved in the scandal.

He closely studied the evidence provided by local rocks and fossils, but it was Henri Bergson’s book, Creative Evolution (1907), that had the greatest influence on Teilhard, since it resulted in his lifelong commitment to the fact of evolution. It is worth emphasising that it was Bergson’s interpretation of evolution, rather than Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), that convinced Teilhard that species are mutable throughout organic history. He was also influenced byCardinalJohn Henry Newman who declared “I cannot imagine why Darwinism should be considered inconsistent with catholic doctrine.”

When his four-year theology course at Ore Place ended in July 1912, Teilhard presented his extensive collection of local fossils to the Hastings Museum. Among over 150 specimens were bivalves (Unio, Neomiodon, and Paludina), gastropods (Viviparus), the scales, teeth and bones of fish (Lepidotes) (Fig. 2), sharks(Hybodus), crocodiles (Goniopholis), pterosaursand other unidentified reptiles.

There were also 74 plant fossils, including horsetails (Equisetites), ferns (Cladophlebis, Onychiopsis, Ruffordia, Hausmannia (Fig. 3),and Matonidium), cones (Pinites) and bennettitales (Williamsonia).

Today, some of these specimens are still attached to his original cardboard panels with his own hand-written notes on them (Fig. 4).

Teilhard and Pelletier also donated “a valuable gift of Wealden fossils” to the British Museum (Natural History).

In the summer of 1912, Teilhard returned to France. He moved into the little Jesuit community in Paris and was accepted as a student in palaeontology under Marcellin Boule at the Paris Museum of Natural History. It was here that his scientific career started with the study of the Middle Tertiary mammals of Europe.

During the First World War Teilhard served as a stretcher-bearer with a French infantry division taking part in major battles, including Verdun. In 1917, he was cited for displaying “the greatest self-sacrifice and contempt for danger” and was later awarded the ‘Military Medal’ and ‘Legion of Honour’ for gallantry in action. After demobilisation, he continued his scientific work at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Teilhard also lectured in geology at the Catholic Institute where, through observations made in his study of fossils, he tried to reconcile religion with evolution. As a result of his research, he eventually qualified as a doctor of science and professor of geology.

In 1923, the museum sent Teilhard to China to search for the remains of prehistoric man. During the next 15 years, as adviser to the National Geological Survey, he travelled the country studying and recording the geology of areas that were completely unknown to science. He also took an active part in the discovery and study of Peking Man. Through these experiences, he became an undisputed authority on the quaternary geology and palaeontology of south-east Asia.

On his return to France in 1938, Teilhard began giving public lectures on the process of biological evolution. He also started writing a synthesis, which would bring together his geological knowledge and religious beliefs. After two years, he completed his major work, The Phenomenon of Man, in which he argued that mankind has a special place within the spiritual universe and that we are evolving towards an end goal that he called the ‘Omega Point’ – ultimate unity with God. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis – the idea that evolution occurs in a controlled direction (which is very different from the version of evolution put forward by Charles Darwin).

Unfortunately, because Teilhard’s radical ideas were seen as a threat to the traditional beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church, his book was consequently denied publication. He was also banned from teaching his theological views and was even ‘exiled’ from France by his own Jesuit order, the Society of Jesus. Despite this, Teilhard’s faith in the Church and the Society never wavered. Twelve years later, his unpublished writings were still deemed so threatening that they were attacked in Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII’s encyclical against dangerous opinions about the evolution of mankind.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Teilhard, returned to China where he remained, cut off from Europe, until 1945. In May, 1950, he was elected as a Foreign Member of the Linnean Society of London “for his distinguished contributions to the study of the fossil mammalian faunas of China and the Far East, and for his studies in the philosophy of science.”

In spite of a serious cardiac illness in 1947, Teilhard led an active life. It was in 1955, during dinner at the French Consulate in New York, that he said, “If in my life I haven’t been wrong, I beg God to allow me to die on the Day of the Resurrection.” His wish was granted when he died quite suddenly a few days later on 10 April, Easter Sunday, at the age of 74. He was buried in the local Jesuit cemetery in New York.

Teilhard’s death deprived the scientific world of a very distinguished geologist and palaeontologist. As a Christian thinker of great originality and vision, many people have been influenced by his ideas. However, it was not until 20 years later that his philosophical works were printed. These included The Phenomenon of Man and Christianity and Evolution.

Although during his lifetime he failed to persuade the Catholic Church to accommodate evolutionary theory, years later, in October 1996, Pope John Paul II issued a statement to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which he endorsed evolution as being “more than just a theory”.

Teilhard made a deep impression on those who came into contact with him. He was described as “a tall, distinguished figure, whose keenly intelligent face and vivid eyes were lit by an inner flame of enthusiasm”. And it is a fascinating concept that one of the great philosophical thinkers of the 20th century was inspired by fossils found on the beach in Hastings.

On 8th October 2008, a plaque (Fig. 5) was unveiled at the entrance to Ore Place to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Teilhard de Chardin’s stay in Hastings.

References and sources

Birx, H. James. The Phenomenon of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. (Excerpt of a presentation by Dr. H. James Birx in May 1997 as part of The Harbinger symposium, “Religion and Science: The Best of Enemies – The Worse of Friends”).

Clemens, William A. Wealden mammalian fossils. Palaeontology, 1963b, 6: 55-69.

Hopwood, Prof. A. Tindell. Obituary notice. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.

Lukas, Mary & Lukas, Ellen. Teilhard: A Biography. Collins. 1977.

MAN (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute). Obituary notice. May 1955.

Seward, A.C. A Contribution to our Knowledge of Wealden Floras, with especial reference to a Collection of Plants from Sussex. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 1913, vol. 69, 85-116.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. Christianity and Evolution. Mariner Books, 2002. ISBN-10: 0156028182

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. Letters from Hastings 1908-1912. Herder & Herder, N.Y. 1968.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Phenomenon of Man. Harper & Row, N.Y. 1959, Harper Perennial 1976: ISBN 0-06-090495-X.

Website of the American Teilhard Association.

Westminster Abbey and New College, London and Edinburgh. The Teilhard de Chardin Centenary Exhibition catalogue. 1983.