C. Lloyd Morgan F.R.S., (1852-1936) Emergent evolution
The Gifford lectures delivered in the University of St. Andrews in the year 1922
Lecture I. Emergence
§ IV. Towards Space-time.
...Starting with time as, in the sense intended, the mind of space, Mr. Alexander regards each quality in the ascending hierarchy as a higher mind-aspect supervenient in the course of evolutionary progress; and that which lies below it-that which I speak of as involved-as playing to this mind the part of its body. Thus a secondary quality is, he says, the mind of its primary substrate (S.T.D. II. p. 60); life is the mind of physico-chemical events; consciousness is the mind of the living organism in which it emerges. Furthermore, if I mistake not, each higher quality plays also the part of deity to that which lies below it.
...It seems, as I think on the evidence, that the higher we ascend in the hierarchy - and especially when we reach human persons - the emergent complexity is such that it appears justifiable to say that no two persons are quite alike. Each person is an uniquely individual product along one of very many lines of advance-say Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton, and Darwin. If this be so, the nisus towards deity on its strictly central line should culminate in one unique person, at the very apex of the pyramid. If an impartial historical survey should lead to the conclusion that the nisus towards deity has culminated in one unique individual, there is, so far as I can see, nothing in the naturalistic interpretation of emergent evolution which precludes the acceptance of this conclusion.
Lecture I. Emergence
§ IV. Towards Space-time.
...Starting with time as, in the sense intended, the mind of space, Mr. Alexander regards each quality in the ascending hierarchy as a higher mind-aspect supervenient in the course of evolutionary progress; and that which lies below it-that which I speak of as involved-as playing to this mind the part of its body. Thus a secondary quality is, he says, the mind of its primary substrate (S.T.D. II. p. 60); life is the mind of physico-chemical events; consciousness is the mind of the living organism in which it emerges. Furthermore, if I mistake not, each higher quality plays also the part of deity to that which lies below it.
...It seems, as I think on the evidence, that the higher we ascend in the hierarchy - and especially when we reach human persons - the emergent complexity is such that it appears justifiable to say that no two persons are quite alike. Each person is an uniquely individual product along one of very many lines of advance-say Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton, and Darwin. If this be so, the nisus towards deity on its strictly central line should culminate in one unique person, at the very apex of the pyramid. If an impartial historical survey should lead to the conclusion that the nisus towards deity has culminated in one unique individual, there is, so far as I can see, nothing in the naturalistic interpretation of emergent evolution which precludes the acceptance of this conclusion.