Telefinality

"Man would accept the hardest disciplines if he could be convinced that there is no conflict between religion and science; if his intellectual, rational self did not always enter into collision with his sentimental, intuitive self."

France's Pierre Lecomte du Nouey (rhymes roughly with dewey), a topflight biophysicist, is so convinced. Published last week was a 277-page record of his own internal "collision": Human Destiny (Longmans, Green; $3.50).

Paris-born Scientist du Nouey, 63, has served as an associate member of the Rockefeller Institute, head of the biophysics division of the Pasteur Institute, director of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne. Three of his previous books* won the University of Lausanne's 1944 Arnold Reymond Prize as the most important contribution to scientific philosophy in a decade.

Christians and agnostics--and certainly scientists--will find Dr. du Nouey's book stimulating, though it may inspire few to "the hardest disciplines." Excerpts:

P:"We must not forget that the activities of the brain are far from being all known, and that rational thinking may very well be only one of them, conceivably not the most reliable or the fastest."

P:"Evolution continues in our time, no longer on the physiological or anatomical plane but on the spiritual and moral plane. We are at the dawn of a new phase of evolution and the violent eddies due to this change in the order of things still conceal that fact from . . . the majority.. . . In comparison, the social revolutions we witness . . . will leave no trace in the future."

P:"Up to the birth of conscience, the being who was to become man only differed from his ancestors morphologically. He was subject to the laws of nature, to the laws of evolution, he had to obey, and that was right. The moment he asked himself the question as to whether an act was 'good' or whether another was 'better,' he acquired a liberty denied to the animals. . . . Henceforth ... in order to evolve he must no longer obey Nature. He must criticize and control his desires which were previously the only Law."

P:"For the Church, the effort of man is motivated by the redemption of the original sin which was permitted by God. Whereas for us it is made necessary by the survival in man of the ancestral memories against which he alone can fight. As the 'original sin' was nothing but the animal obedience to appetites, and the disregard of human dignity, the similarity is striking."

But there are few other similarities between Dr. du Nouey's private religion and that of Christians. As is common among God-seeking scientists, the Deity becomes a Hypothesis with an odd name (in this case: telefinality). Christ seems to be a man born ahead of his time and Salvation is the evolution of the human species into a superrace. Scientist du Nouey regards the second chapter of Genesis as an esoteric presentation of his own view of creation.

*Le Temps et la Vie, L'homme devant la Science, and L'Avenir de L'Esprit (which ran through 22 French editions in eight months during the occupation).

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