Consisting of two parts which the author calls essays, this book deals with a very fundamental problem, namely, the place of man in his biosociological and cosmological context. The answers to the questions raised during the attempts of the author to develop his theme reveal the need for a synoptic integration of the various scientific disciplines, so that something can be gleaned from the somewhat compartmentalized studies which prevail today.

In the first essay the author reviews the problem from the viewpoint of the physical sciences, after which he ventures beyond the boundaries of formal science into the territory of mystics, the thought processes of primitive man, and the study of aesthetics. His search for the ultimate Being of all things, which indeed he regards as being God, leads him to postulate something outside spatiotemporal relationships. He regards this phenomenon as being in the nature of a matrix or medium from which matter can be crystallized and redissolved, but, while in the form of matter, spatiotemporal