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never known
to us. Further, Dr
Bucke makes an altogether arbitrary assumption concerning the
inevitability
of a further evolution of man. The unconscious evolution of the vegetable and
animal kingdoms (i.e. unconscious for the individual, directed by the con
sciousness of the species) is no longer possible with the appearance of
thinking in man. We must admit that human mind depends on itself much
more than the mind of the animal. Human mind has much more power over
itself and can help its own evolution, as well as
hinder
it. The general
question is: can unconscious evolution be maintained with the appearance of
thinking? It would be much more correct to think that the appearance of
thinking abolishes the possibility of an unconscious evolution. Power over
evolution passes from the spirit of the species (or from Nature) to the
individual. Further evolution (if it takes place) can no longer be the result of
primordial and unconscious causes, but will depend on
conscious efforts
towards growth.*
This is the most interesting thing in the whole process, but
Dr Bucke does not point it out.
A man
who does not strive towards evolution,
who is not conscious of its possibility and is not helping it, will not evolve.
And an individual who does not evolve does not remain in a static state, but
goes down,
degenerates
(i.e. certain of his elements begin their own
evolution, hostile to the
* See Chapter 10, quotation from Mabel Collins's book
The Story of the Year, a
Record of Feast and Ceremonies by the author of 'Light on the Path',
London, 1895, p.
63.
whole). This is a general law. And if we consider what a very small
percentage of men think and are capable of thinking about their evolution (or
of striving towards higher things), then we shall see that to talk of the
inevitability of
that evolution is at least naive.
3 Speaking of the formation of a higher faculty of perception and thinking,
Dr Bucke leaves out one very important circumstance. He himself remarks
previously that there takes place in the mind a blending of concepts with
emotional elements,
the result of which
is a new understanding, and then
cosmic consciousness. Thus it follows from his own words that cosmic
consciousness is not merely a blending of concepts with emotional elements,
or of ideas with feelings, but is
the result
of this blending. But Dr Bucke does
not give this point sufficient attention, and, further on, regards the funda
mental element of cosmic consciousness as the blending of percepts, recepts
and concepts with elements belonging to emotional nature. This, however, is
already wrong, because it is not simply a
blending of
thought and feeling, but
the result
of blending, or, in other words, it is — thought and feeling,
plus
something else
that is not to be found either in the intellect or in the
emotional nature.
But Dr Bucke regards the new faculties of understanding and feeling as the
product of the
evolution of the existing faculties
and thus deprives all his
deductions of value. Imagine that a scientist from another planet, who does
not suspect the existence of
man,
studies a horse and its 'evolution' from a
foal to a riding horse, and sees the highest degree of its evolution in a horse
with a man on its back. From our point of view it is clear that it is impossible
to regard the man in the saddle as a fact of
equine
evolution. But from the
point of view of a scientist who does not know about man, it will be only
logical. Dr Bucke is in exactly the same position when he takes as a fact of
human evolution that which transcends the domain of the human. A man who
possesses cosmic consciousness or approaches cosmic consciousness is no
longer simply a man but a man plus something higher. Dr Bucke, as also in
many instances Edward Carpenter, is hindered by a desire not to go too
sharply against the usual accepted views (although that is inevitable); by a
desire to reconcile the accepted views with the 'new thought', to smooth
down contradictions, to reduce everything to one - which of course is as
impossible as to reconcile the true and the false, the correct and the incorrect.
The greater part of Dr Bucke's book consists of examples and fragments from
the teachings and writings of 'men of cosmic con-
sciousness' in the world's history. He draws parallels between those teachings
and establishes the
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