There are other aspects to FC's work that shine an intensely bright light on our understanding of what propels civilization, if not forward at least into an unyielding state of change. But before highlighting those, his idea of empathy, a pillar of his thought, deserves further attention.

He didn't regard empathy as a sociobiological tool or offshoot that aids in our preservation. His empathy had a teleological core. If not the end purpose of the biology of consciousness, then it was an elemental interim stage in its development beyond which none of us could see.

As noted, his definition of empathy had specific references to time and space. It was an experience, understood by reason but only ever achieved as the flux of psychological states would allow. Here, he argued that empathy was in no way materially distinguishable from the transcendence attained via religious contemplation or philosophical inquiry. That's a point theologians and many philosophers would deny, but FC nonetheless felt himself very much in league with them. Whether incited by passion, an ontological expedition, or a belief that we have a communion with God, empathy to FC was a union of neurobiology, physics, evolution, emotion, and an indivisible spiritual/biological drive.

It's interesting then that where his definition of empathy tripped up was, one, in what he posited would be the consequence of it spreading -- in other words its the ground for it as a guiding force; and two, on the question of whether philosophically empathy was attainable.