“I’ve at least drawn up a plan of moral studies (interpretation and justification, from the point of view of natural evolution — replenished by the light of faith — of morality, chastity and charity). . . . To grow and to fulfill oneself to the utmost — that is the law immanent in being. I do not believe that in allowing us glimpses of a more divine life God has excused us from pursuing, even on its natural plane, the work of creation. It would, I think, be ‘tempting God’ to let the world go its own way without trying to . . . understand it more fully. We must do all we can to lessen death and suffering. We must develop the significance of revealed dogma through a more searching criticism of truth. “

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Making of a Mind; Letters from a Soldier-Priest, 1914-1919 (p. 126) (from letter dated September 18, 1916)