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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – Phenomenon of Man

Man's capacity, it may seem, is confined to giving his affection to one human being or to very few.  Beyond that radius the heart does not carry, and there is only room for cold justice and cold reason.  To love all and everyone is a contradictory and false gesture which can only lead in the end to loving no one.  To that I would answer that if, as you claim, a universal love is impossible, how can we account for that irresistible instinct in our hearts which leads us towards unity whenever and in whatever direction our passions are stirred?  A sense of the universe, a sense of the all, the nostalgia which seizes us when confronted by nature, beauty, music – these seem to be an expectation and awareness of a Great Presence...a fundamental vibration whose ring can be heard by every practised ear at the... summit of every great emotion?  .....Universal love is not only psychologically possible; it is the only complete and final way in which we are able to love.

…..... But.. how are we to explain the appearance all around us of mounting hate and repulsion?  If such a strong potentiality is besieging us from within and urging us to union, what is it waiting for to pass from potentiality to action? Just this.. that we should overcome the anti-person complex which paralyses us, and make up our minds to accept the possibility, indeed the reality, of some source of love and object of love at the summit of the world above our heads.  So long as it absorbs or appears to absorb the person, collectivity kills the love that is trying to come to birth.  As each collectivity is essentially unlovable.  That is where philanthropic systems break down.  Common sense is right.  It is impossible to give oneself to an anonymous number.  But if the universe ahead of us assumes a face and heart .. then in the atmosphere created by this focus the elemental attraction will immediately blossom.