The unfolding involves a development of connections from Matter to Mind, to Spirit, and perhaps to God. The author believes Man has a spark, conation, and that he is looking beyond himself for the meaning of life and his particular existence. The history of humanity through the various eras and cultural periods of human development is discussed. Emphasis is given to the rise of civilizations, which is placed at approximately 10,000 B.C., when humanity split into cultural divisions which later became national and political divisions. Civilization is the totality of a people's consciousness, language, ethics, art, music, politics, cuisine, their rituals of birth, marriage, and death, and the relationship of these to their belief systems.
Philosophers play a major role in the swelling tide of consciousness.
There is a parallel between the development of the history of Man and the development of consciousness. This history involves the contribution of the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Scholastics. Modern philosophy includes the theories of Descartes, Hegel, Bacon, Hume, and Kant. The rise of practical philosophy is advanced by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Mill, Bentham, Peirce, James, Skinner, Brentano, and Husserl. Alfred N. Whitehead, British mathematician and philosopher, criticized positivistic science.