And with the discovery that the velocity of light is the same, whatever the source is doing and whatever the observer is doing, and that there is no means of discovering whether the furthest galaxy is leaving us with a velocity approaching that of light, or whether we are leaving it, it is prudent to abandon absolute space too. So Newton’s hypothesis needed modification, even though it is still good enough to get men onto the moon. All of which leads, as Einstein has taught us, to a unified view of the whole of creation that is within our potential knowledge, and to a field theory of electro-magnetism and gravity, as opposed to Newton’s force theory. Besides absolute space and time depend on man thinking he is a detached observer of the Universe; and he isn’t. He is part of it.
More recently evolution has greatly modified our thoughts. Whether Darwin was right about the mechanism of evolution, and I would have thought it probable he was wrong at least in his emphasis, he was absolutely right that the entire created world has evolved from the incredible abyss of the past, and will continue to evolve into the future, so long as we allow it to continue. We are all immeshed in its structure, whether we like it or not. And it is hardly a coincidence that devotion to duty whatever the cost has been taught in many societies, for many centuries. It was a recognition that a man or woman only had significance insofar as they tried to play their effective part in society. My Theory of Consciousness only takes place in the world of relationships; it is meaningless apart from this. And this world of relationships is part of the mesh of creation as a whole. A life which is not woven into the tapestry of society is almost a wasted life.
Teilhard de Chardin in his “Vision of the Past” says much the same thing, but he develops the theme. When you study the morphology of living creatures back into the past, he says, you not only find that the past is an incredibly long time ago, you find that evolution itself is being swept along by a current in which it is continually changing. Not only is the abyss of time as fearsome as the contrast between the large distances of astronomy and the small distances of atomic particles, but evolution is not like a set preconceived plan; rather it is like a river with eddies near the banks, always changing and totally unpredictable, except that it seems always to head for ever greater and greater consciousness. If the grand plan of the Nature changes with every occasion on which it is thwarted, so as to remain completely adaptable, there is not going to be any permanence in subsidiary matters either. Of course Nature’s plan for inorganic chemistry is not going to change, at least not noticeably; but in the mental or spiritual world of our everyday life, which is part and parcel of the same world, the change is noticeable enough when someone of public significance fails to do what is manifestly their duty to do.