An eminent Jesuit whose views incurred considerable official disfavour, who was an enthusiastic champion of evolution and has been introduced to the English public by one of secular humanism's most eminent representatives-all this adds up to a literary event; but it would be a poor compliment to the memory of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin if interest in his work were largely of the fashionable kind which these aspects of him encourage.
This book is a sympathetic but exacting critique of his ideas, mainly from the scientific standpoint which he him- self expressly favoured. For it is noteworthy that reservations about his views are not the monopoly of "angry old men"; they have been expressed by those who are just as concerned for the integrity of science as for that of theology. The picture that here emerges is that of an acute and brilliant intuitive mind, fascinated by insights which undoubtedly point towards major themes for the scientific and theological thought of the future; but a mind also prone to a certain amount of what must be frankly called Gallic waffle. This exercise in critical discrimination is no mere piece of debunking; it is a fitting tribute to a thinker whose weaknesses were bound up with powers that rightly command our admiration.