CHAPTER XXVI. 



CULMINATION OF THE LIFE-PROCESS IN A LIVING UNIT 

 WHICH IS CHARACTERIZED BY REFLECTIVE CON- 

 SCIOUSNESS. 



N the last chapter we considered some of the leading 

 aspects of the doctrine of Evolution with reference 

 to continuity of development in life-forms, and found 

 that this doctrine in its larger outlines presents nothing 

 to which reasonable objection can be urged, even when 

 it includes the doctrine of the descent of man from 

 lower orders of organisms. We have now finally to con- 

 sider briefly what may reasonably be regarded as the 

 culminating aspect of the life of Man, in whom the life- 

 forms of the world culminate. 



We have seen that in the physically constituted living 

 unit externality predominates, and that thus its dissolu- 

 tion sooner or later is inevitable. While, therefore, the 

 life-process exhibits or is characterized by universality, 

 yet that universality is by no means ultimate. In itself 

 it has no genuine vitality. It is only when considered 

 as a phase of the absolute universality of the World- 

 Energy itself, that the universality involved in any 

 special process presents its truth as an actual, concrete, 

 working principle. 



And to thus consider each specialized phase of uni- 

 versality is but to follow the obvious demand of reason. 



286 



