Why did evolution proceed all the way to man and not stop at an earlier stage? Do we owe our existence to a chain of coincidences over millions of years? Can life be explained from dead matter? And what is life at all? The answers that natural science gives to these fundamental questions cannot satisfy deeper thought. This book shows that in the naturalistic and Darwinian explanation of life and its evolution, a decisive factor is overlooked, namely the human mind. The questions about live and about the direction and meaning of evolution can be answered if the knowing mind is taken into account not as a spectator but as an integral part of reality. In the self-perception of cognition, the forces and laws of organic development can be observed and explored. It becomes apparent that evolution was not a random event, but the organic overall process of the becoming of man.