The earth is home for countless species and has been for many millions of years. Man is probably one of the most recent arrivals, but in a remarkably short time has so changed the world to make its future uncertain.

It has been only about 400 years since this change appeared when science, using language differently, became a significant part of our intellectual make-up. At the same time language, in the hands of writers, became the manipulator of human consciousness, as David Lodge has discussed in Consciousness and the Novel.

This book attempts to establish a new platform to understand the nature of human consciousness based on language, without the need for the concept of ‘neural correlates’, for which many currently search.