¹ See Galton, Francis, Inquiries into the Human Faculty and Its Development (London: Macmillan, 1883).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² See, for example, Osborn, Henry Fairfield, “The Second International Congress of Eugenics Address of Welcome,” Science 54, no. 1397 (October 7 , 1921): .CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

³ There are many resources for this history. An excellent recent survey can be found in Bashford, Alison and Levine, Philippa, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ See Slattery, John P., “Dangerous Tendencies of Cosmic Theology: The Untold Legacy of Teilhard de Chardin,” Philosophy and Theology 29, no. 1 (2017): 69–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also published in a popular form online as Slattery, John P., “Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Legacy of Eugenics and Racism Can’t Be Ignored,” Religion Dispatches, May 21 , 2018, https://religiondispatches.org/pierre-teilhard-de-chardins-legacy-of-eugenics-and-racism-cant-be-ignored/.Google Scholar

⁵ See Haught, John, “Trashing Teilhard: How Not to Read a Great Religious Thinker,” Commonweal, February 12 , 2019, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/trashing-teilhard.Google Scholar A version of the essay has since been reprinted in Haught, John, The Cosmic Vision of Teilhard de Chardin (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2021): .Google Scholar

⁶ John Haught, “Trashing Teilhard.”

⁷ See Canzona, Joshua, “Teilhard’s Legacy Can’t Be Reduced to Racism: A Response to John Slattery,” Religion Dispatches, August 22 , 2018. https://religiondispatches.org/teilhards-legacy-cant-be-reduced-to-racism-a-response-to-john-slattery/.Google Scholar

⁸ See Slattery, John P., “Teilhard and Eugenics: A Response to John Haught,” Commonweal, March 12 , 2019, https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/teilhard-eugenics.Google Scholar

⁹ See Slattery, John P., “Author Responds to Criticism of Teilhard Eugenics Essay,” Religion Dispatches, August 22 , 2018, https://religiondispatches.org/author-responds-to-criticism-of-teilhard-eugenics-essay/.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The number is approximate. I automated word counts of each of the 247 essays minus front and back matter but had to estimate word counts for the four collections of letters for which I had only online search access. I did not include any works in French, nor did I include any of Teilhard’s strictly scientific works because I wanted to focus on the impact to his theological work.

¹¹ This is shorthand for my long process of using the Python programming language and running the entire corpus through a large number of machine learning and complex search algorithms, including overall word counts, word frequencies, word pairings, combinations, and trends over time. It was a tedious process that could go on forever even while giving extremely helpful results in the meantime, which is what this article represents.

¹² The word list is inherently arbitrary and may seem odd; it changed multiple times in my research because the context of each instance of each word mattered much more than the frequency of the words themselves. In any case, the final word list that I found most helpful was the following: Aborigines, Africaans, Africans, Africanus, Australian, Blacks, Chinaman, Chinese, ethnic, eugenics, exotic, nationalism, Native, Negroes, Negus, Oriental, overpopulation, Pharisees, race, savage, superhuman, tribe, unequal, UNESCO, Vatican. All variations of each word were considered (e.g., race = race, races, racial, etc).

¹³ For example, Morton, Samuel, Crania Americana; Or, A Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America: To Which Is Prefixed an Essay on the Varieties of the Human Species (Philadelphia, PA: J. Dobson, 1839).Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: Murray, 1871).Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Speaight, Robert, The Life of Teilhard de Chardin (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 21–25Google Scholar; Cuenot, Claude, Teilhard de Chardin (London: Burns & Oates, 1958), 1–4.Google Scholar

¹⁶ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “December 22, 1906,” in Letters from Egypt: 1905–1908 (New York: Herder & Herder, 1965), .Google Scholar

¹⁷ De Chardin, “November 22, 1907,” in Letters from Egypt, 204.

¹⁸ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “October 8, 1911,” in Letters from Hastings: 1908–1912 (New York: Herder & Herder, 1968), .Google Scholar

¹⁹ De Chardin, “October 8, 1911,” in Letters from Hastings, 169.

²⁰ De Chardin, “February 22, 1912,” in Letters from Hastings, 182; emphasis added.

²¹ The evidence for this will be clear as Teilhard’s scientific work becomes entangled with his theological writings. His scientific assumptions are firmly based in the ideologies discussed previously.

²² de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “April 24, 1916,” in Writings in a Time of War (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), .Google Scholar

²³ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “September 8, 1916,” in Making of a Mind: Letters from a Soldier Priest: 1914–1919 (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), .Google Scholar

²⁴ De Chardin, “November 17, 1918,” in Making of a Mind, 252.

²⁵ De Chardin, “September 8, 1918,” in Making of a Mind, 232; emphasis in original.

²⁶ Davenport, C. B., Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding (New York: Henry Holt, 1910), 31–34.Google Scholar

²⁷ Jordan, David Starr, The Human Harvest: A Study of the Decay of Races through the Survival of the Unfit (Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1907), .Google Scholar

²⁸ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “Fossil Men” (1921), in The Appearance of Man (New York: Harper, 1965), .Google Scholar

²⁹ De Chardin, “Fossil Men” (1921), in The Appearance of Man, 31.

³⁰ De Chardin, “Palaeontology and the Appearance of Man” (1923), in The Appearance of Man, 52.

³¹ De Chardin, “Palaeontology and the Appearance of Man” (1923), in The Appearance of Man, 52.

³² Similar arguments can be found in “The Natural History of the World” (1925) and “The Basis and Foundations of the Idea of Evolution” (1926), both in de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, The Vision of the Past (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).Google Scholar

³³ De Chardin, “Fossil Men” (1921), in The Appearance of Man, 31.

³⁴ De Chardin, “Palaeontology and the Appearance of Man” (1923), in The Appearance of Man, 51.

³⁵ De Chardin, “Palaeontology and the Appearance of Man” (1923), in The Appearance of Man, 51.

³⁶ For example, he cites heavily from Boule, Marcellin, L’Homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints, 2nd ed. (Paris: Masson, 1911)Google Scholar, and is in regular dialogue with many works of William King Gregory, the noted and widely published zoologist, primatologist, and paleontologist.

³⁷ See Grumet, David, Bentley, Paul, “Teilhard de Chardin, Original Sin, and the Six Propositions,” Zygon 53, no. 2 (June 2018): , https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/zygo.12398.Google Scholar

³⁸ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “October 23, 1923,” in Letters from a Traveller: 1923–1955 (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), .Google Scholar Teilhard continues, “And it seemed to me that it was no longer the fiery sun I saw, but the very focus of terrestrial life setting over the Mongolian desert—to rise again on us. And, from the whole of sleeping Asia I thought there rose a voice which whispered, Now, my brothers of the West, it is your turn…. It is our turn. Yes, I believe this more than ever…. This evening, as I watch the flight of wild geese showing black against the play of gold and red clouds above the river, I repeat to myself again and again: if we want to understand the Far East, we must not look at it at dawn, nor at high noon; we must look at it at dusk when the sun, bearing the spoils of Asia with it in its glory, rises in triumph over the skies of Europe.”

³⁹ De Chardin, “April 12, 1924,” in Letters from a Traveller, 111–13.

⁴⁰ This was a common yet pejorative term for Indigenous people of the Central Highlands region of Vietnam, literally meaning “savages.” They are referred to today as Montagnards (translated as “Mountain People”), a large group of people who speak more than thirty distinct languages. Montagnard peoples have migrated around the world, including many to the United States. Compare Dan Southerland, “An Update on The Montagnards of Vietnam’s Central Highlands,” Radio Free Asia, October 23, 2018, https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/vietnam-montagnards-10232018155849.html.

⁴¹ In case we worry that he says this without thinking, Teilhard notes that “temperamentally I am not disposed to think this way; it is through reflection and deliberation that I passionately welcome the life that is coming, without allowing myself to regret anything of the past. But it seems to me that this attitude succeeds and gives great strength.” de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “May 23, 1926,” in Letters to Two Friends: 1926–1952 (New York: New American Library, 1968), 27–28.Google Scholar

⁴² De Chardin, “April 6, 1927,” in Letters to Two Friends, 67.

⁴³ De Chardin, “April 6, 1927,” in Letters to Two Friends, 68; emphasis in original.

⁴⁴ Letter to Auguste Valensin, SJ, April 2, 1929, from Schiwy, Günther, Teilhard de Chardin: sein Leben und seine Zeit, vol 2. (Munich: Kösel, 1981), ;Google Scholar my translation.

⁴⁵ See Rosen, Christine, Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 16–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁶ See “Hominization” (1923) and “How the Transformist Question Presents Itself Today” (1921) in de Chardin, The Vision of the Past; De Chardin, “Fossil Men” (1921), and “Palaeontology and the Appearance of Man” (1923), in The Appearance of Man.

⁴⁷ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “A Note on Progress” (1921), in The Future of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 9–10.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ For example, “If this is so, then our individual mystical effort awaits an essential completion in its union with the mystical effort of all other men. The divine milieu which will ultimately be one in the Pleroma, must begin to become one during the earthly phase of our existence. So that although the Christian who hungers to live in God may have attained all possible purity of desire, faith in prayer, and fidelity in action, the divinisation of his universe is still open to vast possibilities.” de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, The Divine Milieu (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), .Google Scholar

⁴⁹ For example, the philosophies of biological postmillennialism remain a strong presence in the contemporary transhumanist movement.

⁵⁰ See “The Phenomenon of Man” (essay) (1930), 163–165, and “Man’s Place in Nature” (1932), 177–178, in Vision of the Past.

⁵¹ For example, “The Spirit of the Earth” (1931), in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Human Energy (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1971), 31–32.

⁵² de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “The Road of the West” (1932), in Toward the Future (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1975), 53, 55–56.Google Scholar

⁵³ De Chardin, “January 21, 1936,” in Letters from a Traveller, 219–20. Just before this quote, Teilhard shares a colonialist remark about the state of India: “As individuals, Indians are charming, but taken as a whole the country seems to be just as incapable of self-government as China or Malaya. Unfortunately, dislike of the English is general among the ‘natives.’ They want complete independence at all costs, even if it means death to the country. The English allow them as much rope as they can, but they don’t let go: and I imagine they’re quite right.”

⁵⁴ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “January 26, 1936,” in Letters to Leontine Zanta: 1923–1939 (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), .Google Scholar

⁵⁵ De Chardin, “January 26, 1936,” in Letters to Leontine Zanta, 116; emphasis in original.

⁵⁶ De Chardin, “January 26, 1936,” in Letters to Leontine Zanta, 116. This seems to be Teilhard’s way of continuing his division between colonialist racism and hateful racism.

⁵⁷ De Chardin, “January 26, 1936,” in Letters to Leontine Zanta, 117; emphasis in original.

⁵⁸ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “Human Energy” (1937), in Human Energy, .Google Scholar

⁵⁹ De Chardin, “Human Energy” (1937), in Human Energy, 127.

⁶⁰ De Chardin, “Human Energy” (1937), in Human Energy, 127.

⁶¹ De Chardin, “Human Energy” (1937), in Human Energy, 132.

⁶² De Chardin, “Human Energy” (1937), in Human Energy, 132–33.

⁶³ De Chardin, “Human Energy” (1937), in Human Energy, 133.

⁶⁴ De Chardin, “Human Energy” (1937), in Human Energy, 133.

⁶⁵ See the discussion following on Robert Speaight and Julian Huxley.

⁶⁶ de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), .Google Scholar

⁶⁷ De Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, 212.

⁶⁸ De Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, 244.

⁶⁹ De Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, 282–83.

⁷⁰ See Cowburn, John, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: A Selective Summary of His Life (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2013), 80–100.Google Scholar

⁷¹ See de Chardin, “The Natural Units of Humanity” (1939), in The Vision of the Past.

⁷² De Chardin, “The Natural Units of Humanity” (1939), in The Vision of the Past, 198, emphasis added.

⁷³ De Chardin, “The Natural Units of Humanity” (1939), in The Vision of the Past, 212.

⁷⁴ “The Question of the Fossil Men” (1942), “The Phyletic Structure of the Human Group” (1951), and “Africa and Human Origins” (1954) can be found in de Chardin, The Appearance of Man; “The Directions and Conditions of the Future” (1948), in The Future of Man; de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “The Human Zoological Group” (1949), in Man’s Place in Nature: The Human Zoological Group (London: Harper & Row, 1966).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ De Chardin, “Africa and Human Origins” (1954), in The Appearance of Man, 205.

⁷⁶ De Chardin, “Africa and Human Origins” (1954), in The Appearance of Man, 205–06.

⁷⁷ While most of Teilhard’s racist comments went ignored by his editors and biographers, this letter was so blatant as to require some comment. Jesuit Pierre Leroy (to whom Teilhard wrote this letter) excused Teilhard by arguing that “though no one appreciated the sanctity and worth of every human life better than did Teilhard, he objected to any definition that grouped all the branches of humanity in one homogeneous mass. Especially from a biological point of view, the error in the UNESCO proclamation was quite clear.” Leroy, Pierre, Letters from My Friend: Correspondence Between Teilhard de Chardin and Pierre Leroy: 1948–1955 (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), .Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Leroy, “July 29, 1950,” in Letters from My Friend, 59–60.

⁷⁹ Leroy, “January 1, 1951,” in Letters from My Friend, 83.

⁸⁰ This 1951 letter was cosigned by Teilhard’s friend, promoter, and eugenicist Julian Huxley. It dilutes the question of racial equality slightly while still maintaining the goal of the original document. UNESCO would codify a much stronger stance in 1964, and then, finally, their strongest and most lasting statement, in 1967. UNESCO, “Four Statements on the Race Question,” 1969, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000122962?posInSet=1&queryId=290f1335-c3f4-44b2-b71e-567f44cd28f9.

⁸¹ De Chardin, “The Human Rebound of Evolution” (1947), in The Future of Man, 195.

⁸² De Chardin, “My Fundamental Vision” (1948), in Toward the Future, 181–82.

⁸³ De Chardin, “My Fundamental Vision” (1948), in Toward the Future, 181.

⁸⁴ De Chardin, “My Fundamental Vision” (1948), in Toward the Future, 181n11.

⁸⁵ See de Chardin, “The Directions and Conditions of the Future” (1948), in The Future of Man; Osborn, Fairfield, Our Plundered Planet (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Osborn’s efforts would see a large following after the publication of Anne and Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb in 1968, which would borrow many of Osborn’s arguments and spur a national debate around population control. This masquerade of eugenics would prove to be the largest resurgence of eugenic ideas since the 1940s. See Desrochers, Pierre and Hoffbauer, Christine, “The Post War Intellectual Roots of the Population Bomb: Fairfield Osborn’s ‘Our Plundered Planet’ and William Vogt’s ‘Road to Survival’ in Retrospect,” Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development 1, no. 3 (2009): 37–61.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ De Chardin, “The Directions and Conditions of the Future” (1948), in The Future of Man, 230.

⁸⁸ De Chardin, “The Directions and Conditions of the Future” (1948), in The Future of Man, 231–32.

⁸⁹ De Chardin, “The Directions and Conditions of the Future” (1948), in The Future of Man, 232.

⁹⁰ De Chardin, “The Directions and Conditions of the Future” (1948), in The Future of Man, 235.

⁹¹ De Chardin, “Does Mankind Move Biologically Upon Itself? Galileo’s Question Restated” (1949), in The Future of Man, 255.

⁹² de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, “The Sense of the Species in Man” (1949), in The Activation of Energy (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1971), Google Scholar; emphasis in original.

⁹³ De Chardin, “The Convergence of the Universe” (1951), in The Activation of Energy, 295.

⁹⁴ De Chardin, “A Major Problem for Anthropology” (1951), in The Activation of Energy, 318; emphasis in original.

⁹⁵ De Chardin, “June 19, 1951,” in Letters from My Friend, 92.

⁹⁶ De Chardin, “Reflections on the Compression of Mankind” (1953), in The Activation of Energy, 345.

⁹⁷ De Chardin, “Reflections on the Compression of Mankind” (1953), in The Activation of Energy, 345.

⁹⁸ De Chardin, “May 31, 1953,” in Letters from My Friend, 170–73.

⁹⁹ De Chardin, “May 31, 1953,” in Letters from My Friend, 172.

¹⁰⁰ De Chardin, “May 31, 1953,” in Letters from My Friend, 173.

¹⁰¹ See Cowburn, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 73–75.

¹⁰² Cowburn, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 75.

¹⁰³ Limpitlaw, Amy, “The Kingdom of God as a Unity of Persons: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s Organic Model and John MacMurray’s Form of the Personal” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2000), .Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Limpitlaw, “The Kingdom of God as a Unity of Persons,” 135.

¹⁰⁵ Limpitlaw, “The Kingdom of God as a Unity of Persons,” 136.

¹⁰⁶ Limpitlaw, “The Kingdom of God as a Unity of Persons,” 140.

¹⁰⁷ Limpitlaw, “The Kingdom of God as a Unity of Persons,” 140.

¹⁰⁸ Hefner, Philip, The Promise of Teilhard: The Meaning of the Twentieth Century in Christian Perspective (New York, Lippincott, 1970), .Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Haught, John, “Teilhard and the Question of Life’s Suffering,” in Rediscovering Teilhard’s Fire, ed. Duffy, Kathleen SSJ (Philadelphia: St. Joseph’s University Press, 2010), .Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Cuénot, Claude, Teilhard de Chardin (Paris: Seuil, 1962), .Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Cuénot, Teilhard de Chardin, 300–02, 390.

¹¹² Speaight, The Life of Teilhard de Chardin, 296. See Speaight’s other mentions of Teilhard’s discussion of races on pages 159, 249, 296, and 316.

¹¹³ See Julian Huxley, “Introduction,” in de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, 11–28; Huxley, “The Thinker,” in de Chardin, Letters from a Traveller, 13–15.

¹¹⁴ For an excellent recent book on this complicated legacy, see Bashford, Alison, The Huxleys: an Intimate History of Evolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Bashford’s treatment of Huxley’s friendship with Teilhard, see 397–403.

¹¹⁵ See de Chardin, “March 19, 1947,” in Letters to Two Friends, 170.

¹¹⁶ De Chardin, “September 18, 1948,” in Letters to Two Friends, 186–187; emphasis in original.

¹¹⁷ Huxley, “The Thinker,” in de Chardin, Letters from a Traveller, 13.

¹¹⁸ Huxley, Julian, Essays of a Humanist (New York: Harper & Row, 1964): .Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Grumett, David, Teilhard de Chardin: Theology, Humanity, and Cosmos (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), .Google Scholar

¹²⁰ See Kassman Sack, Susan, America’s Teilhard: Christ and Hope in the 1960s (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹²¹ See Sack, America’s Teilhard, 48–49, 71n35.

¹²² See King, Ursula, Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015 [1998])Google Scholar; Delio, Ilia, Christ in Evolution (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008)Google Scholar; Fabel, Arthur and St. John, Donald, eds., Teilhard in the 21^st Century (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003)Google Scholar; Duffy, Kathleen, Rediscovering Teilhard’s Fire (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010).Google Scholar

¹²³ Slattery, John and Fenández de la Gala, Juan V., “Teilhard de Chardin, Racism and Eugenics: An Exchange,” America Magazine, August 9 , 2023, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/08/09/teilhard-slattery-fernandez-gala-eugenics-245757.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ See Cole-Turner, Ronald, ed., Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011).Google Scholar

¹²⁵ See Alison Bashford, “Epilogue: Where Did Eugenics Go?” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics, 539–52.