H2 THE BIOCOSMOS PRELIMINARY. 



exclusive possession of bis spiritual estate 

 (which it has been sometimes inclined to do.) 



Coming back to the' process of the cell, we 

 observe that it has already within itself the 

 process of the Ego, which it is to unfold 

 through a long line of evolutionary shapes, 

 of Nature till just that process of the Ego 

 becomes explicit, self-active, having itself as 

 its own content consciousness. Thus it 

 emerges from the Physis, creates and re-cre- 

 ates its own form at will, is indeed itself sim- 

 ple will. The purposive end of all Life ac- 

 cordingly Plant-life, Animal-life, Earth- 

 life is the evolution of the pure Psyche or 

 Ego. Herein we may note that the generative 

 process is wholly in the individual, is in fact 

 his mind, producing its other in itself and as 

 a part of its total activity self-separating 

 and self-returning. So it is our Self which 

 can now separate from the organism, turn 

 back and look at the same. But when such a 

 Self has evolved not only to the point that it 

 can behold its own individuated form, but the 

 whole ladder of forms evolving up to its own 

 from the cell, then we have reached the stage 

 of a Darwin, not merely as tins individual 

 consciousness, but as the consciousness of his 

 century. 



Moreover such an act we are to conceive 

 as the supreme overreaching act of the Bicos- 



