Death into Life

Death into Life is a 1946 novel by Olaf Stapledon. The novel is presented as the experience of the soul of a WWII rear gunner, after his death. His soul emerges with successively more and more souls, coming to greater and greater understanding, becoming eventually the spirit of mankind, and an even greater cosmic spirit.

Prehistoric Content
Once the spirit of mankind is joined, it recalls and surveys its past. It formed when the first being with human intellect was born, millions of years ago, referred to as Adam. Though physically similar to its non-human parents, he possessed a higher level of awareness. Through his intelligence he became the leader of his people, but being raised without language or any discernible culture left his spirit malformed, but he still sometimes yearned for something greater. The spirit of mankind was born when he died, and obscure yearnings continued to haunt the early human beings who were still a small minority among their people. The spirit of mankind reminisces about the growth of mankind spreading across the world, and the development of their intellect in creating language, learning to use objects as tools, creating the first arts of painting, sculpture, dance and others. The spirit of mankind looks back on this million year period as Edenic, since all communities were tightly bound and related, and no kings or slaves existed. The growth and expansion of cities leads to the development of states, and the spirit of mankind's recollections move out of the prehistoric and into the historic.