Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's book The Phenomenon of Man treats
the question of how mankind, with its capacity for consciousness
fits into the physical world as well as into that of the mind and
spirit. Mankind is a phenomenon, or an artifact of the advent of
life on Earth, just as other animals are a phenomenon. Mankind
seems to have different mental and spiritual capacities than
animals do, and so it is a phenomenon which merits special
study.