THE LIVING AND THE DIVINE
Part 3: Human Consciousness and the Hall-Mark of the Divine
Chapter 5

Consciousness as Cosmic Factor
The Field Theory of Life and Consciousness

The view of the cosmos that we have tried to outline so far shows the world as structurally biocentric, not geocentric, based on matter, with a preponderance of mass that is not living although focused on life. Life is the essence of this mass of matter, whether located on earth or anywhere else in the universe. Only thus can one think about a unity of nature and history. Without the notion of unity, both nature and history lose their meaning and thinking becomes impossible. If life is the sphere on the basis of which we understand the concept 'dead', and not the other way around, we shall have to look again on that plateau of the cosmos that we have spoken of before. It rises above that which is not living in a cosmic temporal perspective. We spoke of life forces initially acquiring corporeality in 'Ur' forms of living species and carrying within themselves the totality of being alive; encompassing, once differentiated, the emerging eons of individuals. 'Ur' forms constitute the reservoirs of the entire potential life-span of the species. We tried to show how this was manifest, how that which emerged did so and how it did not.

Looking at this first phase of the development of life in the world or, to be more exact, of the life of the world, taking form out or 'Ur' matter and alive in some sense, we are faced with the question of the material unity of all life forms being already present. These life forms would constitute the actual life of the world. It seems to us to follow rationally, from our conceptualizing of cosmic categories that all living, material 'Ur' formations from which there then emerge the many forms of life (many of which are still with us), must go back to a cosmic unit structure of life.

There are aspects of cosmic concreteness that allow us to ask the principles of thought itself to interpret and pronounce on a given state of affairs. This applies to those aspects of cosmic concreteness where there is a necessary connection between the basic structure of thought and that of being. When, for example, Spinoza demonstrates that there cannot 'be' two absolute, infinite substances, he is legitimately applying this ontological principle. If we say that everything which exists must be in a mutual relationship, i.e., must have an impact one on the other, we too are applying that principle. Given this situation of an all-transcending cosmic mutuality, if we then see identical formations appearing in different locations, we see evidence of identity of the hallmarks of life underlying the various manifestations. The unity of the world and the unity of that universal feature do not constitute a merely conceptual synthesis of things that are factually different. It denotes a real connection to something concrete. This cosmic category, this cosmic fact or fact of the objective totality signifies a real connection between whatever falls within its definition; such a connection is created whenever we have a partial perspective such as that available to our apprehension observing and making a justifiable connection between the disconnected manifestations of identity or similarity.

When we see something similar appearing 'in the world', the question of relationship leads to the question of unity. In the section of reality provided by an apprehending experience, there does not need to be a real connection between similar phenomena; That is because, within apprehending experience, lines to origins can run in parallel. The cosmos, however, is necessarily the region of all origins, a sphere in which, since it has no bounds, all lines of the origin of things that are conceptually connected must converge. That means that all things similar can and must be traced back until an identity is reached to which all the similar phenomena point. Similarity denotes an identity altered; every cosmic situation where things, similar in nature, can stand disconnected next to one another, provides further examples of lines receding and coinciding and this, in itself, has to be a satisfactory explanation of the existence of things that are similar in kind. I stated earlier that the 'same' conditions appearing at different points of the universe lead to the same manifestations. That sameness of conditions shows the sought-for world factor, the oneness.

A range of manifestations in the cosmos of the condition of living thus points to an original, unified totality of the phenomenon of life in the world. Very different is the question whether that totality is identical with what we have termed 'Ur' living matter; there may, perhaps, have existed a single 'Ur' organism or an organism-like totality of life of the cosmos, which itself arose from 'Ur' matter and from which the 'Ur' forms of different types of life separated out. We do not need to enter into that question here. We shall stop at the physical totality of life in the cosmos, whatever form that may have taken. We need to envision that totality as a unified fact, and that makes impossible demands on our imagination. The latter can, however, still provide a partial perspective of some part or another of reality, one that has drawn man's spiritual gaze towards itself far less than has the world's matter appearing in the star-studded heavens.

The impression made by the starry sky, filling the soul with ever new wonder, can be explained by the fact that the illuminated section is visible to the physical eye. However, to envision the reality of a oneness of cosmic life, a world phenomenon that probably has a much more profound effect on us, entails painfully obtaining a partial view by means of various devices, structured and imposed on the inner eye by reason. And even then, the character of unitary being can only be shown in the 'Ur' past of life. Yet we need the imagination, steered by thought, to bring us closer to an inherently cosmic materiality; that constitutes the total life-dynamic of the world - or at least it did constitute it once upon a time.

The concept of life in a biological sense takes us thus far. If we now dare take one step further in the 'Ur' history of living, we can, it would seem, reach a sphere that suddenly sets before us circumstances that have present and future relevance: the sphere of the real relationship between living matter and the factor of conscious life, of consciousness within the animate. We must not lose sight of this when we discuss the question of living forms and their original generation.

We have already said that 'life' can mean 'experience' in a sense, conscious experience and value. Life means experiencing matter and, in some way, wanting control and value. With this state of mind, we have reached the fact of consciousness or of the spiritual; following the direction our analysis has taken, we would like to see this, too, as a cosmic fact.

We now enter into a new area of cosmic reality, one where the label, 'spiritual' or 'conscious' acquires independence in the world; it need not have a factual, independent reality in and of itself, although it must surely constitute a factor that is clearly distinct from every other aspect of reality. Whether consciousness is a manifestation or even a product of life or whether life is a manifestation or even a product of a cosmic phenomenon, consciousness, it is at all events unavoidable that we must go back to consciousness if we wish to understand how living forms came into being. That is so because we need to set the 'experience' of consciousness alongside substantive matter in order to provide an explanation for the target manifestation and therefore also for one of the prime causal factors of a living being.

The word 'consciousness' as a manifestation of life may well designate features that are very different from the hallmarks that characterize that manifestation of life in an already formed physical living being. It may be viewed as an impulse, equivalent to a wakening consciousness, implicitly involved in the birth of forms in living matter.

But there has to be an internal phenomenon of matter and of life at work here, directed towards the 'experience', the enjoyment of having form, since that is the goal. It does not matter at the moment whether we say that physical life is itself the ultimate driving force towards material form, simply giving rise to consciousness and to the impulse that would seem to be driving it or whether we envision the inner drive as something autonomous, albeit only actual and effective in and with living matter. The fact is that we cannot ultimately explain how this or that form comes about if we keep facing living matter from the outside only, without, that is, an awareness of an inner perspective of living matter, without the urge to experience and to enjoy form.

The Kantian 'as if' functionality, which he sees as vital in an explanation of living forms, can only apply in a supposed modality of life as long as we look at life exclusively 'from outside'. Such a restriction is not tenable in any deeper understanding of living matter. Life and consciousness are an example of the paradoxical principle outlined above, of things being independent yet bound to one another, which has to come about whenever phenomena relate to one another in conditions on a world scale; as so-called one sided, infinite entities or, as Spinoza might have it, as infinite 'in their way'.

The cosmic relationship between matter and consciousness has to be different from the one that obtains within a living being that is fully formed and capable of conscious experience. Seen from a cosmic, i.e., from a philosophical perspective, both matter and consciousness factors undergo inevitable modifications, albeit conditioned by the content of experience. As cosmic entities, neither is simply an empirical given, only 'quantitatively magnified' or 'added together'. As is characteristic of every genesis - and here the location of the origin is the cosmos - and consequently of every completed product, something that appears as a fringe or background phenomenon in the finished form was once the main, focal phenomenon when that product came into being. Things that appeared as regular manifestations during the period of becoming turn into exceptional occurrences in the finished stage; something that was external moves inwards and vice versa etc. Consequently, in the domain of apprehending empirical phenomena, it is only exceptionally possible to speak of a material impact of consciousness on physiological matter ( as e.g. in the area of hysterical manifestations). Physical evidence of movement in living beings on the basis of consciousness can only come about where there is an organic structure present for such movement.

However, before organic structures were fashioned, the consciousness allotted to matter must have been minted differently from the consciousness of the finished organism; matter must have had an aspect that differs from the one familiar to us, different, that is, from the aspect apprehended by the senses of the finished organism. By 'the inner aspect of matter' we do not mean the physical structure of matter, a so-called 'objective' entity, but rather an aspect that connects matter to consciousness directly, without any mediating means of apprehending; we mean that aspect of matter, difficult to see in the finished organism because it is 'too close' to consciousness, lying, as it were, this side of the sense limit, in an immediate sensing of the 'given' matter of our own organism, matter that we experience as our body, from inside, not from outside.

Imagining this inner view of matter is possible given an appropriate description, though the image may be fragmented. It is equally possible to construe the 'inner space' of the affective world of our own physicality. However, the image will be constantly disturbed and distorted by the interference of the sight of our own body forms and spaces provided to us by our external senses. Not that it would be possible to have a more correct or even a more objective view of this structure of matter and space known to us through our external senses if we excluded those senses ( sight touch etc.) And yet, this 'lesser' knowledge of the structure of matter and space based only on general sense perceptions surely has the advantage of greater immediacy; so much so that its intense impact sometimes makes it impossible to distinguish between 'external' and 'internal', between sense-perceived and sense perceiving. The something which I sense ( not: see) to be my hand without my touching anything is a sense datum experiencing the matter of my hand. We cannot clearly or easily locate that sense datum because we cannot easily set up a 'centre of sensation', the place from where consciousness senses, the place where consciousness is 'most present', nor can we construe the pattern of coordinates of a particular space. There is, at all events, a partial identity of sense perceived and sense perception. To a large extent, mere attention will either cause the sensation or call it up.

The corresponding 'space' would seem to be a discontinuous pattern of sense locations of varying intensities. On closer analysis and after long experience, we ascertain that there is a barely noticeable whole, fashioned by sense locations that are structurally related and have a connecting point to a highly intensive consciousness. The sensation that penetrates, coming from inside - the only case where our experience is three dimensional and is identical with our physical experience - also constitutes such a space, different from external space. It is not based on conclusions that are external, nor is its space directed towards external space. In this domain of sensations, consciousness dominates. It calls forth sensations or increases their intensity, depending on the focus which, itself, depends on the 'movement' of our own body and the organs that have developed to enable it to move. Physical movement requires conscious envisioning and an urge for movement. Because of the presence of this organized system of movement in the physical domain, nothing more can be moved, i.e. constituted in the remainder of the field of inner physical experience.

It follows that this is not the case at a stage when organized movement and mere conscious experience of matter are not yet distinct from one another, a stage where matter, although it is a 'living' whole of a special kind, is not yet organized and where consciousness is not yet the newly awakened consciousness of individually formed beings, but is still something given, as it were, to the whole of matter - in short, at the stage of the cosmic relation of matter and consciousness. At this point, the seemingly conscious drive to motion in matter to which it is linked is undeniably an internal aspect, seen from consciousness. This results when all of world matter and the consciousness linked to it does not yet constitute an organism, being a pre-form, a prior stage of organic structure. Consciousness, which belongs to living matter, experiences it in a way that is analogous to the experience of empirical consciousness of its own physicality, penetrating matter 'from inside' (1)

(1) In the philosophy of religion elaborated by O. Goldberg, whom we have already referred to, we find a brief outline of a metaphysical cosmology, where matter and spirit, two independent world phenomena, originate in a domain of infinity that is juxtaposed to the finite world. Like the location of the coincidentia oppositorum of Cusanus, a location signifying non-differentiation and hence also the non-differentiation of matter and spirit. Apart from this non-differentiation of matter and spirit that obtains in infinity, Goldberg posits a gradual adaptation of these two attributes of reality to one another at different layers of the cosmic system,; the closer they are to their common origin, the more alike they are.. This means that conscious processes that take place in a layer close to the area of common origin play out like material realizations of notions.

As we already explained, we assume that the world's components, the current equivalent of which we term consciousness, do, by virtue of a cosmic impact on matter, create something that we can compare to a 'field'. This concept, known to us from physics, has also been applied in biology (Gurwitsch, Rudy). Consciousness can also be understood as a phenomenon closely related to a 'field phenomenon'. The old notion, one that can be traced back to Aristotle, which sees consciousness and form as parallel, as opposed to substance and matter, points to an essential relationship between the principles of order in forming and selection on the one hand and the principle of consciousness on the other. The understanding that consciousness ( or soul) is the 'form' of the body, or that this form is to be traced back to the form-giving agent of the soul, is simply another way of describing the same thought, as is our defining 'idea' as image or as a figure.

It would, however, seem to be more correct to say that consciousness without a formed being is unthinkable; and that this formed being is not only the bodily form of a consciousness, but also the bodily form of that which 'appears', envisioned by that body, a selected section of outside reality, the content of consciousness. It is, perhaps, more correct to look for consciousness in the effective mutual impact of these two 'forms': the bodily form (which has to include its inner form or organized structure) and the form of outer reality. Naturally, we cannot therefore explain consciousness in terms of impact or of mutual impact, because the term 'impact' is in no way associated with the specificity of consciousness. We should, rather, stress that life in living 'Ur' matter exists in a relationship with the sections of world matter and that this differs from the mutual physical impact of those same sections.

Thinking systematically, the likelihood is that the animate relationship is one of time whereas the material relationship is an interaction in space. To see this kind of connectedness between the various sections of matter, a specifically in-between phenomenon, as the basis or as the objective aspect of the consciousness factor, seems more appropriate than anything else that might be seen as objective - a similar connectedness is not found in the relationship of 'things'.

We have to realize that there can be no material objective explanation of consciousness and that we can only arrive at a constructive view of consciousness once we have successfully dealt with the basic structure of concepts as regards matter, as e.g., concerning the 'thing'ness of physical energy. If we view consciousness in this way, as in a 'real' relationship, then a living being cannot be seen as one aspect of an isolated organism, but as the whole, consisting of organism-matter and environment-matter. The division into animate and inanimate must look to the end product of a development and thus to a situation of empirical awareness; it must not be seen as part of the original situation, the cosmic stage. Understanding consciousness as in an 'in-between' situation also finds support in the psychological reasoning that locates sensing at the point of our awareness (Bergson).

Let us hold fast to the idea that form and form relationships are defined as being there where matter and consciousness come closest together; also, if consciousness is the expression of life on the one hand, it is, on the other hand 'structure' or the inner form of animate matter, a relic of that original determined drive towards living. Clearly, in whatever way it is associated to formed living matter, consciousness can only 'awaken' when it appears as linked to formed living matter. It is conditioned by form and probably, in the cosmic situation, causes form, being the pre-form stage.

An understanding of form opens up for analysis further means of inquiry into the nature of consciousness. There is, first, the connection between 'form' and 'individual' that counters a formless continuity of matter. The 'awakening' of consciousness would certainly seem to be conditioned by individualization; individualizations would, in a certain sense, be a synonym for consciousness, a least for an awake consciousness. However, individuation would seem to be a gradual process; protozoa would seem to be less individualized than higher forms of life. Since form and consciousness although in close relationship, are not identical and since consciousness, notwithstanding the close structural relationship, cannot be 'explained' by the form, the fact remains that the ultimate purpose of formation and therefore also the ultimate cause cannot be seen in the form, but only in the factor consciousness, experiencing matter. Whatever the psycho/physical relationship may be, it does seem to be essentially form related, even if that form presents itself as varying albeit with an identical structure, as in the phenomena of consciousness and matter. We do not intend to enter into this here.

Our reasoning may appear to be somewhat vague at this point ( although philosophy often entails holding fast to single features while leaving open all those that simply constitute experience). The content, however, finds support in the consequences that it leads up to, just as the parameters of a pattern or system agree and mutually support that pattern. It agrees with the form aspect of consciousness if we assume, as we did, that, in the cosmic process of living forms coming into being in living 'Ur' matter, a consciousness-like factor stimulated something akin to a 'field'. That field is, as it were, a copy in a different substance of that which consciousness is in its own sphere.

A number of considerations arise when we envision such a field. First, once again, how do we think about the field; in particular, what is its relation to matter on the one hand and consciousness on the other? The answer to the first question calls forth the consideration that, as long as a productive process of development is taking place, there must also necessarily be something 'other' than the actual real form in potential that is driving the development on and towards which the development is directed. As to its relation to matter, the field must be understood exactly like the energy that mechanically moves a body and is yet differentiated from that body, since the latter also exists when motionless. (1)

(1) Perhaps one could also see the mechanical energy as a field potential, distinct from the biological field in view of the way it is associated with matter an in view of its structure. The tension that moves the living form need not, in the first instance, be defined as a specifically vitalistic energy - though we do not propose to argue this; it may also be interpreted as being a complex system, a whole, consisting of a physico-chemical center of energy plus tracks or directions

The 'other', the field, can perhaps be understood as a 'pattern of impulse directions ' in space and this leads us to ask about the origin of these directions. Only the original order of the impulse directions constitutes the real field and as such it is a cosmic phenomenon. The fact that the life impulse makes use of properties and reactions of inanimate matter for its directions, that it 'chooses' them, can only be understood if animate and inanimate reactions of directional movement did at one point lie along one line of direction. We then have to think of that which we term life in terms of a continuation of the direction originally set in inanimate matter together with its events and reactions. Matter, functioning in the formation or organisms and reacting in accordance with its own properties, is already found in the direction allocated to it from the outset. The properties of matter and their function constitute part of the direction.

The direction is thus already a realization of the cosmic field. One needs to make a clear distinction between the cosmic system or systems, the originally allotted directions and, located within the matter of organisms, an empirical biological field of the rhythm of reproduction. We are not here entering into a discussion of the relationship between the original cosmic tension of matter and the empirical experience of organisms. We simply note that all questions concerned with pre-formation, formation and the dissolution of the field and its relationships to matter and consciousness require different answers according to whichever of the two views on the field is adopted.

We must distinguish between the reproduction field in an empirical organism, which we experience from its starting point to its reproduction, and the field of production which exists as long as development or change occur in the species in the course of natural history. How, we ask, does it exist in the species? We understand that the dynamic that coordinates and orders the parts and the substances of an organism constitute the field; we can explain, however inadequately, the significance of the lungs in an organism, the function of the digestive system cells, the glands and hormones as well as the functions of the heart and blood with reference to their physical and chemical properties and to the interactions of the substances present and combined in the organism. What we cannot explain about the relation of the lungs to the digestive system and of both to the heart are the location, the requirements, interference and conditions in terms of the substances of the organ and its parts, in terms of physical and chemical reactions.

There has, therefore, to be a further agent that grades and combines elements. This must not be thought of as something that positions and brings into an active relationship a fully formed lung with a fully formed skeleton structure, together with every other functioning organ and these in relation to one another. Rather, the sum total of organs itself forms an organ (of a higher potency), the ultimate purpose of which is 'the sensing control of matter', 'controlling the experience of matter'. It has to come to terms, for good or ill, with the properties of matter, animate and inanimate; i.e., it has to act in accordance with the manifold and multiform variations of matter. The variations are the organs sensu proprio. These various formations need to be coordinated and brought into a system in statu nascendi or even earlier. Although the system is partly determined by the variety of properties of matter in its environment - organs of movement must face the earth, organs of respiration must be directed to air space - one might be able to 'explain' a further aspect of the organism with reference to a kind of mutual adaptations of some organs to other ones. However, all functions cannot be seen as consequent on the organs' phenomena, rather as merely an interactivity that all takes place at the same time. It is this interactivity that creates the field. Living can be defined as energy that appears at an organ-functioning location as location-energy. And that is termed a 'field'. (1)

(1) Goldberg's definition, 'To live means to stand at a given value-determined place', is a different formulation of the same idea

The field is itself a link, an intermediate reality between an organism and the world outside, the environment; the points of contact are organ places on the inner organs, in other words, they are organs for organs. This is where the relationship between the field and the phenomenon of consciousness become manifest, as already indicated above. Consciousness, too, is a reality of relationship. The field is the induction of energy that organs apply to one another; more specifically, it is the seed structure (if we trace the development back), live locations realized by the simple fact of their mutuality, their correlation, their co-existence.

The 'Ur' organism comes into being - out of the pre-organism of living 'Ur' matter - together with its environment. The first division is between living and non-living. The non-living, i.e., the cast off, decaying living substance becomes the environment. Life takes form through a constant contact with the - nascent - environment, to become the 'actual' organism.

Matter is unthinkable without dynamic processes within and roundabout (whether it also lends itself to an analysis in terms of its own dynamic is not being considered here). The most basic property affecting matter, independent of all physicality determined by the properties of substances, is gravity. It affects the inter- relationship of the parts of world matter in terms of mass and space. We have already said that, not taking into account its relation to consciousness and seen only in terms of its own dynamic, living can be understood as the most general, mutual time-dynamic of the particles of matter: time is 'stored' and spatial states, i.e. matter in formation, is penetrated in accordance with nature's laws. The field is thus brought about at every location where matter divides or adapts, in the process of becoming an organ in something living as well as the matter of an environment. The carrier is, indeed, living 'Ur' matter and this latter can be seen, once the field and its environment are in being, as the germ form of the 'Ur' organism.

There is a very close connection between that field and the field of individuation, where individuation is the delimitation of a part within the totality of pre-organic, living 'Ur' matter that forms an 'Ur' organism, finite in space, although of undetermined duration, perhaps even infinite (The absence of a temporal limitation results from the fact that reproduction of that 'Ur' form is not yet functional; the organization of reproduction is still in the process of constituting itself within the 'Ur' being).

Within the creation of this 'Ur' organism, circumscribed in space but not in time, comes an 'awakening' of actual consciousness, so-called. The urge towards becoming conscious and to experience matter, first made possible in that delimited organism, should be seen as the final cause of the individuation. The principium individuationis which some Medieval thinkers trace back to matter itself and which others see as inherent in the principle of formation is here closer to the latter view, seeing it in the drive towards a conscious - growing being that allows for increasing differentiation in terms of spatial and material circumscribing.

The vaster the area of living material, the dimmer and the more 'sleepy' is the consciousness within it. Animistic matter that was wholly shot through would have a relationship to consciousness more or less equal; the same would seem to be the case for a tiny live organism. Thus, here too, there is a quantitative optimum, although, of course, quantity is only one factor among many.

The field thus comes about through the drive of an awakening consciousness seeking to experience distinct matter, the drive to bring about the circumscribing of a specific part of living 'Ur' matter. If you wish, you can glimpse the field in the process of separation and the boundaries of separation in 'Ur' matter. It is doing something that living matter always does from the outset whenever a form comes into being, it divides. The excluded section immediately develops a field structure; the latter is determined both by the matter that has been excluded and now constitutes an environment with its own specific properties on the one hand and, on the other, by the interaction of the specific properties of the differentiated parts (future organs) with the excluded section.

The development of the field structure is thus in accordance with the multi-faceted environment and also with the interior which parallels that multifaceted character in the 'Ur' organism that is in the process of taking form. In one sense, the field is also the consequence of the new material situation, altered by the process of dividing. In another sense, the field structure is the expression of that which consciousness 'wills'.

A question arises that really belongs to the philosophy of organs - we shall not address it now - namely, whether the will to live and the experience of consciousness originally concerned all or only some organs; are there any organs that are merely 'means for other organs', responsible for certain properties of matter but having no real significance for consciousness, as e.g., organs of movement, reproduction, nourishment etc.

As we have already emphasized, the field concept that we have now arrived at does not constitute a situation like one that we can perceive empirically and can determine in a biological field; it is a cosmic phenomenon. It is the original blue-print of being live in the cosmos which, at some point, rose out of 'Ur' matter, driven to move in those indeterminate worlds of matter. Nonetheless, at the very outset, it must have constituted the whole of live being of the world and must have started to 'gather', i.e., to embark on the path leading to organic form; it has to be seen as having cosmic dimensions, originally.

Being alive cannot be explained as such, unless it is seen as coming out of something-that-is-more-that-simply-being-alive, as having originated in the essence of consciousness, - even though the latter needs to refer to a few features of being alive to explain its own self. The least plausible explanation would be one that refers back to something-less-than-living, to some inanimate origin. The latter must come from the former. If we seek to resolve the mutuality of cosmic conditions, we need have in mind a general principle: whenever the account of one factor of magnitude entails complementary factors of magnitude, the direction an explanation has to take must always be from the higher to the lower. I say this because the 'explaining' here entails understanding or deducing in a genetic context. Obviously, that which is lower, as e.g., matter, will always be 'clearer' than that which is higher and, to our way of thinking, harder to grasp, more obscure. Hence our inclination, in our endless and compulsive urge for knowledge, always to start from that which is relatively clear,. i.e., here, matter. However, the genetic domain in nature is not remotely concerned whether something is clearer to us or not, not even in this case where we are minded to recognise that something clear originated in something less clear. That which is less accessible is richer in sources of origin. And so it seems to be mandatory to see the fact of living, even though it is inseparable from matter, as a certain modification, a pre-organic, original given. And if we wish to trace it even further back, we must suppose that it emerges from 'that which is more than mere living'. The original given is living 'Ur' matter. Everything that is living within it moves at some point towards specific form. That event constitutes the creation of a cosmic living field, equal in significance to the creation of the actual, 'inanimate' cosmos, those vast areas of massed matter and space, deprived of the living element with its drive towards confinement.