DIVISIONS OF THE BIOCOSMOS. 



the product of a retrospective power which 

 has arisen through Nature and is looking 

 back at her, unfolding her stages which are 

 also its own. Thus the self-returning Self (or 

 Ego), in accord with its deepest character, 

 returns upon itself, and sets forth its life- 

 history. Without this rounding-out in its 

 process the Biocosmos would not be complete. 

 The Psyche, hitherto implicit, has now become 

 explicit, and is to unfold its own evolution 

 through all Life up to this final retrogressive 

 act, which may for the present be deemed its 

 culmination. The movement is indeed psy- 

 chical, though its content is still Nature (or 

 the Physis), but not merely in her individual 

 shapes ; these are now united in one universal 

 sweep from the lowest organism to the high- 

 est, forming an interconnected whole which 

 ends in man with the aforesaid psychical 

 power. Such is essentially the Darwin deed : 

 the Psyche grappling the Physis in the lat- 

 ter 's entirety, which is simply its own evolu- 

 tion up to this self-returning historic act of 

 itself. 



Such are some preliminary hints of the 

 scope of the Biocosmos, which indeed seems 

 small compared to the extent of the Cosmos 

 and Diacosmos. Still the goal and consum- 

 mation of the latter must be deemed this one 

 little vital dot in the universe, though there 



