If man is capable of having abstract thought and abstract by its nature is not electrochemical, then man must have an abstractor. This is the qualitation that arose outside the line of Darwinian quantitative progression. How could it have arisen? The answer to this question assumes the validity of a metaphysical analysis, an analysis that examines the nature of existence: that which makes it what it is.

Duns Scotus, a medieval Cambridge man, might have asked that if two things have a relationship, does the relationship exist independently of the two things? If exist is what it says it is, then the relationship must exist, otherwise there is no relationship. Can the relationship have effects outside the distance between the two things? If we look at music then the answer must be yes, if the relationship is combined with complexity. One note alone is not music. When it is put in relation with another, something is made that is different from the two alone. When a million notes are put into relationship with each other and the totality then perhaps a symphony is created. The symphony is qualitatively different from the collection of all the single notes involved. It has an existence independently of the notes. It has the ability to cause change in the listener that would not have happened by the collection of notes without the specific symphonic relationship. Is it possible that a similar process caused the existence of the human abstractor? Could the increasing complexity of the relationships within the individual between the elements of the quantitative linear progression of evolution have caused a symphonic change that had a causal effect independent of the individual molecular, cellular, tissue and organ elements that are the product of the quantitative progression? Would such a symphonic change be the abstractor? Metaphysically, it would have its own existence, but would require the biological elements of man to cause its totality, just as the symphony requires the notes but is not the notes. 

Why in this hypothesis is man unique? Surely increasing complexity of relationship would have given a tendency towards an abstractor as evolution progressed? The existence of the abstractor implies a threshold effect, a leap, which is the qualitative change, just as the sudden immensity of the symphony arises from its notes, stanzas, bars and movements. And this immensity causes change at a time and place distant from its performance. It exists in itself. Thus, perhaps the soul is a product of Darwinian evolution.

The existence of the abstractor can be argued from observing its effects even though the metaphysical mechanism of qualitative change is not clear. Just as the ultimate causes of gravity or magnetism are not clear even though they can be described. (What comes out of the fridge to hold the magnet on the fridge door?)

Shakespeare understood that man's inner conflict with his flaws can be given cosmic significance because of his consciousness of his self-inflicted suffering and freedom to choose his destiny. There is no evidence that the chimpanzee is capable of this. The tradition of abstraction is exemplified by Wagner. So perhaps the evolution from Bach to Wagner is a qualitatively superior sort of evolution.