The author of this book, the British writer and thinker Samuel Butler, was a proponent of the theory of evolution but rejected the Darwinian idea of the selection of species. As a result of his attempts to unite the theory of evolution with his philosophy of humanity, Butler wrote a series of works from the position of a philosopher who looked for biological foundations for his work. He tried to find a bridge to a philosophy of life that sought a scientific basis for religion and endowed a naturalistically conceived universe with a soul. In this book, we have a chance to try Butler's philosophy of life and evolution in the domain of the mental activity of a human.