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After the strong climatic shocks which happened over and over again, which made the hands free and which started the biological and cultural development of Hominoids, everything depended on the brains of the species concerned and their ability to correlate and invent, because of the constant pressure of their natural and social environment. We are less interested in describing 15 steps here, than in specifying, for each reference mark in a non-stop process, the level reached by mental ability as much cognizantly as affectingly and the neurological bases, which allowed them to occur. This progression was based on the complexification (through epigenesis) of intracerebral connections at different levels allowing us to have large conscience and language, which are the bases of our freedom (via feelings, re-entries and mental pictures). Consequently, men could progressively have control of natural powers, inert ones first (tools), then moving ones (fire), living (hunting) and social ones (slavery); at last, men could free himself from them and perceive them objectively, dominate them, and conceive them in time and abstraction. Writing, then philosophy, then counting and logic have only recently crowned the progress towards the conquest of abstract and humanism through reversive action. The whole show phyletical gradualism, which is still progressing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]