The evolution of consciousness, from the simple, undifferentiated _moneron_ to the differentiated cell and from that to the cell-colony and from the cell-colony to the organism, traversing in successive paces through all the stages of lower life--mineral, vegetable and animal--to the stages of the simple, communal consciousness of the higher animals, to the self or individual consciousness of the human being, each requiring millions of years for its perfection before a more advanced stage is entered, has been one continuous relinquishment of the lower and less complicate for the higher and more complex expression of itself through the given media. When a newer and higher stage of consciousness is being entered by humanity its appearance or manifestation is first made in the most advanced of the race and that only in a dim, vague way. This rudimentary condition persists for some time, perhaps many thousands of years, then the faculty becomes more general in appearance, the number of advanced individuals increases, and consequently, as in the case of the intuitive faculty, it becomes universally prevalent in all humanity; becomes transmissible as so-called "acquired characters," and then appears as the normal faculty of the entire human family cropping out in each individual. Thus, in passing from the few advanced ones in the beginning to that stage where it becomes the common possession of all, a faculty requires many thousands of years for its perfection, and especially has this been true in the past history of the development of human faculties. But it is believed that the sweep of the life current as it proceeds from form to form, from faculty to faculty, gains in momentum as it proceeds, so that in these latter years due to the already highly developed vehicular mechanisms at its disposal not so great a period of time as formerly is required for the _out-bringing_ of a new faculty. It might well be that while in the past hundreds of thousands of years were necessary in the perfection of organs and faculties, in these latter days only a few thousand, perhaps hundreds, may be necessary and that in the days of the future not even so many years may be required to universalize a faculty. And especially does this appear to be true in a state of affairs where so large a number of persons are beginning consciously to take their evolution in hand and by volitional activities are supplying greatly increased impetus to their psychic processes which under ordinary, natural methods would be considerably slower in their development. It is quite obvious that all cultural efforts when applied to the betterment of a given plant, animal or faculty result in a corresponding hastening of the process of growth far in excess of what that growth would be under normal, natural conditions. All the present faculties possessed by man are remarkably susceptible to cultural influences; in fact, the standing edict of