¹ It needed contact with the author himself (senior research fellow in biochemistry at the University of Otago) to establish that this material has not been published under that title in English, but that a variant version has been published as Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Nature Reveal Purpose in the Universe(New York “c.1998”.)

² v. Schelling's Philosophie der Mythologie(SW II, 2): ‘Always the first task of philosophy is research of what is possible. After the identification of possibilities, there is the further task of seeing whether there is a corresponding reality’(ib., p. 439). But especially the end of his 29th lecture: the objects of nature, as also the constructions of the spirit, must be explained from themselves [aus sich selbst erklärt werden müsse], by the appreciation of their ‘inner necessity’(p. 671). He claims that he has given, through the development of the cosmic potencies evident in the mythological process, ‘an example of the power of scientific method’, with ‘thoughts developing organically from a first seed’, which is of ‘universal significance’, and which must always draw on ‘the richest knowledge of individual things’(p. 672).

³ cf. preceding note.

⁴ The distinction between ‘genus … physice loquendo’ and ‘… logice loquendo’ was perfectly familiar to Thomas: cf. his In Duodecim Libros Metaphysicorum Expositio(ed. Cathala, Turin 1977³) 2142, and, self‐evidently, a similar facility could be thought up for species.

⁵ Ribonucleic acid: a complex compound of high molecular weight that functions in cellular protein synthesis and replaces DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) as a carrier of genetic codes in some viruses.

⁶ All the genes contained in a single set of chromosomes. Each parent contributes its genome to its offspring.

⁷ Père Maldamé's gallicism here is virtually impenetrable: ‘par diversification et ramification d’un même niveau de complexité, analogue aux variations sur un thème musical – c’est la radiation adaptive ou rayonnement adaptif’.

⁸ Père Maldamé's remark may have been written innocent of an old Platonic tradition, picked up by Schelling, perhaps stemming from the Phaedo(cf., e.g., 99): ‘God is the cause not of the good, but of the better’. [Gott sey die Ursache nicht der Guten, sondern des Besseren]. The only place I have to hand is in a MS transcript of a course of Introduction to Philosophy in the Berlin Schelling Nachlass: MS 109/1, p. 13 [sic! a notebook], beginning of lecture XXIV.

⁹ A mode of causality, frequently invoked by Thomas.

¹⁰ One must consider seriously Hegel's critique of the notion of ‘infinite’: the moment it is considered as, in any sense, being ‘beyond’(or, here, ‘besides’) the finite, it has become finite.

¹¹ As the places referred to are easily findable, the page referencing will be dispensed with in this section.

¹² There may be a confusion here. Lucy was discovered by D. Johanson and T Gray in November 1974, and it seems that the discovery was first definitively written up by D Johanson and M. Edey in Lucy: the Beginnings of Humankind(New York 1981). D. Johanson cooperated with M. Taieb in an article in Nature 260 (1976) pp. 233–7, and an article in Jolly, C.J. (ed.)Early Hominids in Africa(London 1978), pp. 29–44Google Scholar

¹³ The French expression fits the context perfectly, but the English ‘humanisation’(and even the archaic, ‘humanification’) carries overtones of culturalisation.

¹⁴ A modern conception of a science of animal behaviour, which can range from ants to humans.

¹⁵ For a strict definition of ‘heterochrony’, v. next note.

¹⁶ An American dictionary definition of ‘neoteny’ shows the ambiguity (evident from the more scientific French and German literature): ‘1. Retention of juvenile characteristics in the adults of a species, as among certain amphibians. 2. The attainment of sexual maturity by an organism still in its larval stage’. Both sides (regression and anticipation) are contained in the notion of ‘heterochrony’: ‘The dissociation, during development, of factors of shape, size, and maturity, so that organisms mature in these respects at earlier or later growth stages’(Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences).

¹⁷ ’Individuality’ refers to his unique being; ‘particularity’ to his being an instance of the species, ‘man’: men are identical in their particularity.

¹⁸ This seems to be the reason why he gives little attention to the theory of Anne Dambricourt‐Malassé, with her succession of six periods from pre‐apes to homo sapiens.

¹⁹ He adds: ‘What mathematicians call a singularity’. But this seems imprecise. If ‘singularity theory lies at the crossroads of the paths connecting the most important areas of applications of mathematics with its most abstract parts’, this would impose on an otherwise empirically derived evolution theory a too abstract element, But père Maldamé has been contesting the relevance of a strictly logical element – unless he means singularity to be no more than a depotentialised metaphor. A similar disproportion is to be found in A. Dambricourt‐Malassé's use of ‘attractors’, which should not give rise to the impression that she has introduced (strict) mathematical theory.

²⁰ The French ‘hominidés’ seems more specific than the English: ‘the family of mammiferous biped primates’. ‘Hominoids’ include hyloblatids (gibbons) and pongids, as well as hominids.

²¹ Once again we see the wisdom of Schelling's appreciation of the presence of possibilities, whose realisation depended on the way in which the basic potencies adjusted themselves to each other.

²² Père Maldamé refers to Pascal's Pensées(Brunschricg.77 Lafuma 1001) with its criticism of Descartes: ‘Je ne puis pardonner à Descartes; il aurait bien voulu dans sa philosophie, se pouvoir passer de Dieu; mais il n’a pu s’empêcher de lui faire donner une chiquenaude, pour mettre le monde en mouvement; après cela, il n’a plus que faire de Dieu.’(‘Chiquenaude’ is a flick of the fingers, with an impact and sound of the third finger on the upper thumb (rightly translated by the archaic ‘fillip’). The word passed into philosophical circulation in France: ‘En effet, en dépit des contorsions métaphysiques de Descartes, sa conception mécaniste du monde ne sera que l’anticipation de ce que les athées du XVIIIème siècle, comme Voltaire, appelleront la chiquenaude originelle de l’horloger qui est à l’origine du mouvement, de la vie mécanique du monde’(Roger Garaudy, L’Avenir: mode d’emploi(Paris 1998), Annexe II, 2e Secession b)‘ … de Descartes à l’ordinanthrope. (De la philosophie française)’. To be found on the web under at least two addresses).