Le temps, la durée et l'éternité : Réflexions d'un biologiste

This article is a study of the respective roles of time and duration. Clocktime, either that of physic or biology, runs onwards, not backwards, whereas duration has an all-pervasive effect : the past is the foundation of the present. The age-long time, that has been flowing by since the origin of man, life and even universe, is stored up and completed in each of us. On the one hand, our genes, perfectly organized and regulated, our body with numberless cells containing a large series of enzymes and organites, our brain and its billions of neurones carefully interconnected are the result of a long evolution spreading over several thousands of millions of years. On the other hand, our cultural wealth, that relates ourselves to all generations, past and present, has required millenaries to accumulate. We now inherit all the technical, intellectual and affective data created by mankind from the beginning. We also bear the consequences of the evil perpetrated by our ancestors. Duration, as measured by solal time, is not an imperfect reality as over against eternity. All that life and mankind have been creating over the boundless duration flowing on from the origin unceasingly accumulates and progresses towards God, the all-encompassing one, as Teilhard de Chardin foreshadowed it. Each of us, as he relies on his roots, contributes his share to the pleroma, as the apostle Paul put it