Tertium Organum

in humanity 
is exactly similar to the appearance of all individual mental faculties. When a new 
faculty appears, it will be found, in the beginning, in a few exceptional individuals. 
After a time it becomes more frequent; 
still later it becomes capable of being developed and acquired by all and, finally, 
becomes an attribute of all men from birth. Moreover rare, exceptional faculties, 
faculties of a 
genius,
appear in man in his maturity, and at times even in old age. 
Becoming more common, more in the nature of 'talents', they begin to appear in 
younger men. Later, becoming 'abilities' they begin to appear even in children. And, 
finally, they become the common property of all from birth, and their absence is 
regarded as a defect. 
Such is the 
faculty of speech
(i.e. the faculty of forming concepts). Probably in the 
remote past, on the borderline of the appearance of human consciousness, this faculty 
belonged to only a few exceptional individuals and, very likely, began to manifest 
itself only in old age. Later it became more frequent and began to appear earlier. 
There probably was a period when 
speech
was not an attribute of all men, just as 
artistic talents - the musical sense, the sense of colour and lines - do not now belong to 
all men. Gradually it became 
possible
for all, and later inevitable and indispensable 
barring some physical defect.* 
Comments on the quotations from Dr Bucke's book 
1 I quoted Dr Bucke's opinion about the three coming revolutions, though I 
must say that I do not at all share his optimism regarding social life which, as 
he makes out, can and must change through material causes (conquest of the 
air and social revolution). The only possible basis for favourable changes in 
external life (if such changes are possible at all) can only be changes in the 
inner life, i.e. those changes which Dr Bucke calls the psychical revolution. 
This is the only thing that can create a better future for people. All cultural 
achievements in the domain of the material are double-edged and may 
equally serve either good or evil. Only a change in consciousness itself can be 
a guarantee that the abuse of powers given by culture will cease and culture 
will no longer be a 'growth of barbarism'. Demo­
* Dr R. M. Bucke, 
Cosmic Consciousness, 
Philadelphia, Innes & Sons, 1905, 
reprinted New York, Dutton, 1969. 

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cratic organization and the nominal rule of the majority guarantee nothing.
On the contrary, even now, wherever they are put into practice - if only in 
name - they immediately produce, and promise to produce on a still larger
scale in the future, violence, curtailment of individual rights and restriction of 
liberty.
2 Dr Bucke says that once human consciousness is attained, further evolution 
is inevitable. In assuming this Dr Bucke is making a mistake common to all 
people who dogmatize the idea of evolution. Having drawn a very correct 
sketch of the consecutive gradations of the observed forms of consciousness 
(of animal-vegetable, animal and man) Dr Bucke regards this gradation 
entirely in the light of the evolution of one form out of another, completely
ignoring the possibility of other points of view. For example, he ignores the 
possibility that each of the existing forms may be a link in a 
separate 
evolutionary chain, i.e. that the evolutions of animal-vegetables, of animals 
and of man are different evolutions, follow different courses and do not pass 
one into another. This point of view is entirely justifiable if we take into 
consideration the fact that transitory forms are