A note on the consistency operator

It is a well known empirical observation that natural axiomatic theories are pre-well-ordered by consistency strength. For any natural theory $T$, the next strongest natural theory is $T+{\mathsf{C}\mathsf{o}\mathsf{n}}_T$. We formulate and prove a statement to the effect that the consistency operator is the weakest natural way to uniformly extend axiomatic theories.