From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



retrogression ; but the development of consciousness as 

 a whole is continuous. There is more general conscious- 

 ness in the reptiles of the secondary epoch, than in the 

 invertebrates and fish of the primary epoch; still more 

 general consciousness in the mammals of the 

 tertiary; and yet more in the quaternary when man 

 appears. 



Comparing one species with another, there is only 

 one certain criterion of evolutionary superiority the 

 degree of consciousness acquired. That superiority 

 consists neither in organic complexity nor in its perfec- 

 tion; it is not physical power; nor adaptation to some 

 privileged function such as flight; it is only the degree 

 of consciousness acquired. 



To evolve is really to develop consciousness of one's 

 real state, of the state of the environing world, of the 

 relations established between the living being and his 

 surroundings, between the immediate surroundings and 

 the whole environment. 



The development of the arts and sciences, the 

 perfecting of the means to diminish pain or to satisfy 

 human needs, are not in themselves the purposes of 

 evolution. They are but consequences of the realisation 

 of the essential aim, which is the acquisition of a larger 

 and larger sphere of consciousness; and all general 

 progress has the enlargement of the field of consciousness 

 as its preliminary condition. 



All this is undeniable and undenied, and it is only 

 a perfectly legitimate inference that the summit of 

 evolution, in the measure that we can conceive of this 

 summit, should be the realisation of a general conscious- 

 ness unbounded and quasi-omniscient a consciousness 

 truly divine and bringing with it the solution of all 

 problems. 



It is the province of the Conscious to subdue to 

 itself, little by little, the vast area of the Unconscious 

 from which it arose. 



300 



