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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 70
THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN GOVERNMENT
70:0.1
NO SOONER had man partially solved the problem of making
a living than he was confronted with the task of
regulating human contacts. The development of industry
demanded law, order, and social adjustment; private
property necessitated government.
70:0.2
On an evolutionary world, antagonisms are natural; peace
is secured only by some sort of social regulative
system. Social regulation is inseparable from social
organization; association implies some controlling
authority. Government compels the co-ordination of the
antagonisms of the tribes, clans, families, and
individuals.
70:0.3
Government is an unconscious development; it evolves by
trial and error. It does have survival value; therefore
it becomes traditional. Anarchy augmented misery;
therefore government, comparative law and order, slowly
emerged or is emerging. The coercive demands of the
struggle for existence literally drove the human race
along the progressive road to civilization.
1. THE GENESIS OF WAR
70:1.1
War is the natural state and heritage of evolving man;
peace is the social yardstick measuring civilization's
advancement. Before the partial socialization of the
advancing races man was exceedingly individualistic,
extremely suspicious, and unbelievably quarrelsome.
Violence is the law of nature, hostility the automatic
reaction of the children of nature, while war is but
these same activities carried on collectively. And
wherever and whenever the fabric of civilization becomes
stressed by the complications of society's advancement,
there is always an immediate and ruinous reversion to
these early methods of violent adjustment of the
irritations of human interassociations.
70:1.2
War is an animalistic reaction to misunderstandings and
irritations; peace attends upon the civilized solution
of all such problems and difficulties. The Sangik races,
together with the later deteriorated Adamites and
Nodites, were all belligerent. The Andonites were early
taught the golden rule, and, even today, their Eskimo
descendants live very much by that code; custom is
strong among them, and they are fairly free from violent
antagonisms.
70:1.3
Andon taught his children to settle disputes by each
beating a tree with a stick, meanwhile cursing the tree;
the one whose stick broke first was the victor. The
later Andonites used to settle disputes by holding a
public show at which the disputants made fun of and
ridiculed each other, while the audience decided the
winner by its applause.
70:1.4
But there could be no such phenomenon as war until
society had evolved sufficiently far to actually
experience periods of peace and to sanction warlike
practices. The very concept of war implies some degree
of organization.
70:1.5
With the emergence of social groupings, individual
irritations began to be submerged in the group feelings,
and this promoted intratribal tranquillity but at the
expense of intertribal peace. Peace was thus first
enjoyed by the in-group, or tribe, who always disliked
and hated the out-group, foreigners. Early man regarded
it a virtue to shed alien blood.
70:1.6
But even this did not work at first. When the early
chiefs would try to iron out misunderstandings, they
often found it necessary, at least once a year, to
permit the tribal stone fights. The clan would divide up
into two groups and engage in an all-day battle. And
this for no other reason than just the fun of it; they
really enjoyed fighting.
70:1.7
Warfare persists because man is human, evolved from an
animal, and all animals are bellicose. Among the early
causes of war were:
70:1.8
1. Hunger,
which led to food raids. Scarcity of land has always
brought on war, and during these struggles the early
peace tribes were practically exterminated.
70:1.9
2. Woman scarcity
-- an attempt to relieve a shortage of domestic help.
Woman stealing has always caused war.
70:1.10
3. Vanity --
the desire to exhibit tribal prowess. Superior groups
would fight to impose their mode of life upon inferior
peoples.
70:1.11
4. Slaves --
need of recruits for the labor ranks.
70:1.12
5. Revenge
was the motive for war when one tribe believed that a
neighboring tribe had caused the death of a fellow
tribesman. Mourning was continued until a head was
brought home. The war for vengeance was in good standing
right on down to comparatively modern times.
70:1.13
6. Recreation
-- war was looked upon as recreation by the young men of
these early times. If no good and sufficient pretext for
war arose, when peace became oppressive, neighboring
tribes were accustomed to go out in semifriendly combat
to engage in a foray as a holiday, to enjoy a sham
battle.
70:1.14
7. Religion
-- the desire to make converts to the cult. The
primitive religions all sanctioned war. Only in recent
times has religion begun to frown upon war. The early
priesthoods were, unfortunately, usually allied with the
military power. One of the great peace moves of the ages
has been the attempt to separate church and state.
70:1.15
Always these olden tribes made war at the bidding of
their gods, at the behest of their chiefs or medicine
men. The Hebrews believed in such a "God of battles";
and the narrative of their raid on the Midianites is a
typical recital of the atrocious cruelty of the ancient
tribal wars; this assault, with its slaughter of all the
males and the later killing of all male children and all
women who were not virgins, would have done honor to the
mores of a tribal chieftain of two hundred thousand
years ago. And all this was executed in the "name of the
Lord God of Israel."
70:1.16
This is a narrative of the evolution of society -- the
natural outworking of the problems of the races -- man
working out his own destiny on earth. Such atrocities
are not instigated by Deity, notwithstanding the
tendency of man to place the responsibility on his gods.
70:1.17
Military mercy has been slow in coming to mankind. Even
when a woman, Deborah, ruled the Hebrews, the same
wholesale cruelty persisted. Her general in his victory
over the gentiles caused "all the host to fall upon the
sword; there was not one left."
70:1.18
Very early in the history of the race, poisoned weapons
were used. All sorts of mutilations were practiced. Saul
did not hesitate to require one hundred Philistine
foreskins as the dowry David should pay for his daughter
Michal.
70:1.19
Early wars were fought between tribes as a whole, but in
later times, when two individuals in different tribes
had a dispute, instead of both tribes fighting, the two
disputants engaged in a duel. It also became a custom
for two armies to stake all on the outcome of a contest
between a representative chosen from each side, as in
the instance of David and Goliath.
70:1.20
The first refinement of war was the taking of prisoners.
Next, women were exempted from hostilities, and then
came the recognition of noncombatants. Military castes
and standing armies soon developed to keep pace with the
increasing complexity of combat. Such warriors were
early prohibited from associating with women, and women
long ago ceased to fight, though they have always fed
and nursed the soldiers and urged them on to battle.
70:1.21
The practice of declaring war represented great
progress. Such declarations of intention to fight
betokened the arrival of a sense of fairness, and this
was followed by the gradual development of the rules of
"civilized" warfare. Very early it became the custom not
to fight near religious sites and, still later, not to
fight on certain holy days. Next came the general
recognition of the right of asylum; political fugitives
received protection.
70:1.22
Thus did warfare gradually evolve from the primitive man
hunt to the somewhat more orderly system of the
later-day "civilized" nations. But only slowly does the
social attitude of amity displace that of enmity.
2. THE SOCIAL VALUE OF WAR
70:2.1
In past ages a fierce war would institute social changes
and facilitate the adoption of new ideas such as would
not have occurred naturally in ten thousand years. The
terrible price paid for these certain war advantages was
that society was temporarily thrown back into savagery;
civilized reason had to abdicate. War is strong
medicine, very costly and most dangerous; while often
curative of certain social disorders, it sometimes kills
the patient, destroys the society.
70:2.2
The constant necessity for national defense creates many
new and advanced social adjustments. Society, today,
enjoys the benefit of a long list of useful innovations
which were at first wholly military and is even indebted
to war for the dance, one of the early forms of which
was a military drill.
70:2.3
War has had a social value to past civilizations because
it:
1. Imposed discipline, enforced co-operation.
2. Put a premium on fortitude and courage.
3. Fostered and solidified nationalism.
4. Destroyed weak and unfit peoples.
5. Dissolved the illusion of primitive equality and
selectively stratified society.
70:2.4
War has had a certain evolutionary and selective value,
but like slavery, it must sometime be abandoned as
civilization slowly advances. Olden wars promoted travel
and cultural intercourse; these ends are now better
served by modern methods of transport and communication.
Olden wars strengthened nations, but modern struggles
disrupt civilized culture. Ancient warfare resulted in
the decimation of inferior peoples; the net result of
modern conflict is the selective destruction of the best
human stocks. Early wars promoted organization and
efficiency, but these have now become the aims of modern
industry. During past ages war was a social ferment
which pushed civilization forward; this result is now
better attained by ambition and invention. Ancient
warfare supported the concept of a God of battles, but
modern man has been told that God is love. War has
served many valuable purposes in the past, it has been
an indispensable scaffolding in the building of
civilization, but it is rapidly becoming culturally
bankrupt -- incapable of producing dividends of social
gain in any way commensurate with the terrible losses
attendant upon its invocation.
70:2.5
At one time physicians believed in bloodletting as a
cure for many diseases, but they have since discovered
better remedies for most of these disorders. And so must
the international bloodletting of war certainly give
place to the discovery of better methods for curing the
ills of nations.
70:2.6
The nations of Urantia have already entered upon the
gigantic struggle between nationalistic militarism and
industrialism, and in many ways this conflict is
analogous to the agelong struggle between the
herder-hunter and the farmer. But if industrialism is to
triumph over militarism, it must avoid the dangers which
beset it. The perils of budding industry on Urantia are:
70:2.7
1. The strong drift toward materialism, spiritual
blindness.
70:2.8
2. The worship of wealth-power, value distortion.
70:2.9
3. The vices of luxury, cultural immaturity.
70:2.10
4. The increasing dangers of indolence, service
insensitivity.
70:2.11
5. The growth of undesirable racial softness, biologic
deterioration.
70:2.12
6. The threat of standardized industrial slavery,
personality stagnation. Labor is ennobling but drudgery
is benumbing.
70:2.13
Militarism is autocratic and cruel -- savage. It
promotes social organization among the conquerors but
disintegrates the vanquished. Industrialism is more
civilized and should be so carried on as to promote
initiative and to encourage individualism. Society
should in every way possible foster originality.
70:2.14
Do not make the mistake of glorifying war; rather
discern what it has done for society so that you may the
more accurately visualize what its substitutes must
provide in order to continue the advancement of
civilization. And if such adequate substitutes are not
provided, then you may be sure that war will long
continue.
70:2.15
Man will never accept peace as a normal mode of living
until he has been thoroughly and repeatedly convinced
that peace is best for his material welfare, and until
society has wisely provided peaceful substitutes for the
gratification of that inherent tendency periodically to
let loose a collective drive designed to liberate those
ever-accumulating emotions and energies belonging to the
self-preservation reactions of the human species.
70:2.16
But even in passing, war should be honored as the school
of experience which compelled a race of arrogant
individualists to submit themselves to highly
concentrated authority -- a chief executive.
Old-fashioned war did select the innately great men for
leadership, but modern war no longer does this. To
discover leaders society must now turn to the conquests
of peace: industry, science, and social achievement.
3. EARLY HUMAN ASSOCIATIONS
70:3.1
In the most primitive society the
horde is
everything; even children are its common property. The
evolving family displaced the horde in child rearing,
while the emerging clans and tribes took its place as
the social unit.
70:3.2
Sex hunger and mother love establish the family. But
real government does not appear until superfamily groups
have begun to form. In the prefamily days of the horde,
leadership was provided by informally chosen
individuals. The African Bushmen have never progressed
beyond this primitive stage; they do not have chiefs in
the horde.
70:3.3
Families became united by blood ties in clans,
aggregations of kinsmen; and these subsequently evolved
into tribes, territorial communities. Warfare and
external pressure forced the tribal organization upon
the kinship clans, but it was commerce and trade that
held these early and primitive groups together with some
degree of internal peace.
70:3.4
The peace of Urantia will be promoted far more by
international trade organizations than by all the
sentimental sophistry of visionary peace planning. Trade
relations have been facilitated by development of
language and by improved methods of communication as
well as by better transportation.
70:3.5
The absence of a common language has always impeded the
growth of peace groups, but money has become the
universal language of modern trade. Modern society is
largely held together by the industrial market. The gain
motive is a mighty civilizer when augmented by the
desire to serve.
70:3.6
In the early ages each tribe was surrounded by
concentric circles of increasing fear and suspicion;
hence it was once the custom to kill all strangers,
later on, to enslave them. The old idea of friendship
meant adoption into the clan; and clan membership was
believed to survive death -- one of the earliest
concepts of eternal life.
70:3.7
The ceremony of adoption consisted in drinking each
other's blood. In some groups saliva was exchanged in
the place of blood drinking, this being the ancient
origin of the practice of social kissing. And all
ceremonies of association, whether marriage or adoption,
were always terminated by feasting.
70:3.8
In later times, blood diluted with red wine was used,
and eventually wine alone was drunk to seal the adoption
ceremony, which was signified in the touching of the
wine cups and consummated by the swallowing of the
beverage. The Hebrews employed a modified form of this
adoption ceremony. Their Arab ancestors made use of the
oath taken while the hand of the candidate rested upon
the generative organ of the tribal native. The Hebrews
treated adopted aliens kindly and fraternally. "The
stranger that dwells with you shall be as one born among
you, and you shall love him as yourself."
70:3.9
"Guest friendship" was a relation of temporary
hospitality. When visiting guests departed, a dish would
be broken in half, one piece being given the departing
friend so that it would serve as a suitable introduction
for a third party who might arrive on a later visit. It
was customary for guests to pay their way by telling
tales of their travels and adventures. The storytellers
of olden times became so popular that the mores
eventually forbade their functioning during either the
hunting or harvest seasons.
70:3.10
The first treaties of peace were the "blood bonds." The
peace ambassadors of two warring tribes would meet, pay
their respects, and then proceed to prick the skin until
it bled; whereupon they would suck each other's blood
and declare peace.
70:3.11
The earliest peace missions consisted of delegations of
men bringing their choice maidens for the sex
gratification of their onetime enemies, the sex appetite
being utilized in combating the war urge. The tribe so
honored would pay a return visit, with its offering of
maidens; whereupon peace would be firmly established.
And soon intermarriages between the families of the
chiefs were sanctioned.
4. CLANS AND TRIBES
70:4.1
The first peace group was the family, then the clan, the
tribe, and later on the nation, which eventually became
the modern territorial state. The fact that the
present-day peace groups have long since expanded beyond
blood ties to embrace nations is most encouraging,
despite the fact that Urantia nations are still spending
vast sums on war preparations.
70:4.2
The clans were blood-tie groups within the tribe, and
they owed their existence to certain common interests,
such as:
1. Tracing origin back to a common ancestor.
2. Allegiance to a common religious totem.
3. Speaking the same dialect.
4. Sharing a common dwelling place.
5. Fearing the same enemies.
6. Having had a common military experience.
70:4.3
The clan headmen were always subordinate to the tribal
chief, the early tribal governments being a loose
confederation of clans. The native Australians never
developed a tribal form of government.
70:4.4
The clan peace chiefs usually ruled through the mother
line; the tribal war chiefs established the father line.
The courts of the tribal chiefs and early kings
consisted of the headmen of the clans, whom it was
customary to invite into the king's presence several
times a year. This enabled him to watch them and the
better secure their co-operation. The clans served a
valuable purpose in local self-government, but they
greatly delayed the growth of large and strong nations.
5. THE BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT
70:5.1
Every human institution had a beginning, and civil
government is a product of progressive evolution just as
much as are marriage, industry, and religion. From the
early clans and primitive tribes there gradually
developed the successive orders of human government
which have come and gone right on down to those forms of
social and civil regulation that characterize the second
third of the twentieth century.
70:5.2
With the gradual emergence of the family units the
foundations of government were established in the clan
organization, the grouping of consanguineous families.
The first real governmental body was the
council of the
elders. This regulative group was composed of old
men who had distinguished themselves in some efficient
manner. Wisdom and experience were early appreciated
even by barbaric man, and there ensued a long age of the
domination of the elders. This reign of the oligarchy of
age gradually grew into the patriarchal idea.
70:5.3
In the early council of the elders there resided the
potential of all governmental functions: executive,
legislative, and judicial. When the council interpreted
the current mores, it was a court; when establishing new
modes of social usage, it was a legislature; to the
extent that such decrees and enactments were enforced,
it was the executive. The chairman of the council was
one of the forerunners of the later tribal chief.
70:5.4
Some tribes had female councils, and from time to time
many tribes had women rulers. Certain tribes of the red
man preserved the teaching of Onamonalonton in following
the unanimous rule of the "council of seven."
70:5.5
It has been hard for mankind to learn that neither peace
nor war can be run by a debating society. The primitive
"palavers" were seldom useful. The race early learned
that an army commanded by a group of clan heads had no
chance against a strong one-man army. War has always
been a kingmaker.
70:5.6
At first the war chiefs were chosen only for military
service, and they would relinquish some of their
authority during peacetimes, when their duties were of a
more social nature. But gradually they began to encroach
upon the peace intervals, tending to continue to rule
from one war on through to the next. They often saw to
it that one war was not too long in following another.
These early war lords were not fond of peace.
70:5.7
In later times some chiefs were chosen for other than
military service, being selected because of unusual
physique or outstanding personal abilities. The red men
often had two sets of chiefs -- the sachems, or peace
chiefs, and the hereditary war chiefs. The peace rulers
were also judges and teachers.
70:5.8
Some early communities were ruled by medicine men, who
often acted as chiefs. One man would act as priest,
physician, and chief executive. Quite often the early
royal insignias had originally been the symbols or
emblems of priestly dress.
70:5.9
And it was by these steps that the executive branch of
government gradually came into existence. The clan and
tribal councils continued in an advisory capacity and as
forerunners of the later appearing legislative and
judicial branches. In Africa, today, all these forms of
primitive government are in actual existence among the
various tribes.
6. MONARCHIAL GOVERNMENT
70:6.1
Effective state rule only came with the arrival of a
chief with full executive authority. Man found that
effective government could be had only by conferring
power on a personality, not by endowing an idea.
70:6.2
Rulership grew out of the idea of family authority or
wealth. When a patriarchal kinglet became a real king,
he was sometimes called "father of his people." Later
on, kings were thought to have sprung from heroes. And
still further on, rulership became hereditary, due to
belief in the divine origin of kings.
70:6.3
Hereditary kingship avoided the anarchy which had
previously wrought such havoc between the death of a
king and the election of a successor. The family had a
biologic head; the clan, a selected natural leader; the
tribe and later state had no natural leader, and this
was an additional reason for making the chief-kings
hereditary. The idea of royal families and aristocracy
was also based on the mores of "name ownership" in the
clans.
70:6.4
The succession of kings was eventually regarded as
supernatural, the royal blood being thought to extend
back to the times of the materialized staff of Prince
Caligastia. Thus kings became fetish personalities and
were inordinately feared, a special form of speech being
adopted for court usage. Even in recent times it was
believed that the touch of kings would cure disease, and
some Urantia peoples still regard their rulers as having
had a divine origin.
70:6.5
The early fetish king was often kept in seclusion; he
was regarded as too sacred to be viewed except on feast
days and holy days. Ordinarily a representative was
chosen to impersonate him, and this is the origin of
prime ministers. The first cabinet officer was a food
administrator; others shortly followed. Rulers soon
appointed representatives to be in charge of commerce
and religion; and the development of a cabinet was a
direct step toward depersonalization of executive
authority. These assistants of the early kings became
the accepted nobility, and the king's wife gradually
rose to the dignity of queen as women came to be held in
higher esteem.
70:6.6
Unscrupulous rulers gained great power by the discovery
of poison. Early court magic was diabolical; the king's
enemies soon died. But even the most despotic tyrant was
subject to some restrictions; he was at least restrained
by the ever-present fear of assassination. The medicine
men, witch doctors, and priests have always been a
powerful check on the kings. Subsequently, the
landowners, the aristocracy, exerted a restraining
influence. And ever and anon the clans and tribes would
simply rise up and overthrow their despots and tyrants.
Deposed rulers, when sentenced to death, were often
given the option of committing suicide, which gave
origin to the ancient social vogue of suicide in certain
circumstances.
7. PRIMITIVE CLUBS AND SECRET SOCIETIES
70:7.1
Blood kinship determined the first social groups;
association enlarged the kinship clan. Intermarriage was
the next step in group enlargement, and the resultant
complex tribe was the first true political body. The
next advance in social development was the evolution of
religious cults and the political clubs. These first
appeared as secret societies and originally were wholly
religious; subsequently they became regulative. At first
they were men's clubs; later women's groups appeared.
Presently they became divided into two classes:
sociopolitical and religio-mystical.
70:7.2
There were many reasons for the secrecy of these
societies, such as:
1. Fear of incurring the displeasure of the rulers
because of the violation of some taboo.
2. In order to practice minority religious rites.
3. For the purpose of preserving valuable "spirit" or
trade secrets.
4. For the enjoyment of some special charm or magic.
70:7.3
The very secrecy of these societies conferred on all
members the power of mystery over the rest of the tribe.
Secrecy also appeals to vanity; the initiates were the
social aristocracy of their day. After initiation the
boys hunted with the men; whereas before they had
gathered vegetables with the women. And it was the
supreme humiliation, a tribal disgrace, to fail to pass
the puberty tests and thus be compelled to remain
outside the men's abode with the women and children, to
be considered effeminate. Besides, noninitiates were not
allowed to marry.
70:7.4
Primitive people very early taught their adolescent
youths sex control. It became the custom to take boys
away from parents from puberty to marriage, their
education and training being intrusted to the men's
secret societies. And one of the chief functions of
these clubs was to keep control of adolescent young men,
thus preventing illegitimate children.
70:7.5
Commercialized prostitution began when these men's clubs
paid money for the use of women from other tribes. But
the earlier groups were remarkably free from sex laxity.
70:7.6
The puberty initiation ceremony usually extended over a
period of five years. Much self-torture and painful
cutting entered into these ceremonies. Circumcision was
first practiced as a rite of initiation into one of
these secret fraternities. The tribal marks were cut on
the body as a part of the puberty initiation; the tattoo
originated as such a badge of membership. Such torture,
together with much privation, was designed to harden
these youths, to impress them with the reality of life
and its inevitable hardships. This purpose is better
accomplished by the later appearing athletic games and
physical contests.
70:7.7
But the secret societies did aim at the improvement of
adolescent morals; one of the chief purposes of the
puberty ceremonies was to impress upon the boy that he
must leave other men's wives alone.
70:7.8
Following these years of rigorous discipline and
training and just before marriage, the young men were
usually released for a short period of leisure and
freedom, after which they returned to marry and to
submit to lifelong subjection to the tribal taboos. And
this ancient custom has continued down to modern times
as the foolish notion of "sowing wild oats."
70:7.9
Many later tribes sanctioned the formation of women's
secret clubs, the purpose of which was to prepare
adolescent girls for wifehood and motherhood. After
initiation girls were eligible for marriage and were
permitted to attend the "bride show," the coming-out
party of those days. Women's orders pledged against
marriage early came into existence.
70:7.10
Presently nonsecret clubs made their appearance when
groups of unmarried men and groups of unattached women
formed their separate organizations. These associations
were really the first schools. And while men's and
women's clubs were often given to persecuting each
other, some advanced tribes, after contact with the
Dalamatia teachers, experimented with coeducation,
having boarding schools for both sexes.
70:7.11
Secret societies contributed to the building up of
social castes chiefly by the mysterious character of
their initiations. The members of these societies first
wore masks to frighten the curious away from their
mourning rites -- ancestor worship. Later this ritual
developed into a pseudo seance at which ghosts were
reputed to have appeared. The ancient societies of the
"new birth" used signs and employed a special secret
language; they also forswore certain foods and drinks.
They acted as night police and otherwise functioned in a
wide range of social activities.
70:7.12
All secret associations imposed an oath, enjoined
confidence, and taught the keeping of secrets. These
orders awed and controlled the mobs; they also acted as
vigilance societies, thus practicing lynch law. They
were the first spies when the tribes were at war and the
first secret police during times of peace. Best of all
they kept unscrupulous kings on the anxious seat. To
offset them, the kings fostered their own secret police.
70:7.13
These societies gave rise to the first political
parties. The first party government was "the strong"
vs. "the
weak." In ancient times a change of administration only
followed civil war, abundant proof that the weak had
become strong.
70:7.14
These clubs were employed by merchants to collect debts
and by rulers to collect taxes. Taxation has been a long
struggle, one of the earliest forms being the tithe, one
tenth of the hunt or spoils. Taxes were originally
levied to keep up the king's house, but it was found
that they were easier to collect when disguised as an
offering for the support of the temple service.
70:7.15
By and by these secret associations grew into the first
charitable organizations and later evolved into the
earlier religious societies -- the forerunners of
churches. Finally some of these societies became
intertribal, the first international fraternities.
8. SOCIAL CLASSES
70:8.1
The mental and physical inequality of human beings
insures that social classes will appear. The only worlds
without social strata are the most primitive and the
most advanced. A dawning civilization has not yet begun
the differentiation of social levels, while a world
settled in light and life has largely effaced these
divisions of mankind, which are so characteristic of all
intermediate evolutionary stages.
70:8.2
As society emerged from savagery to barbarism, its human
components tended to become grouped in classes for the
following general reasons:
70:8.3
1. Natural --
contact, kinship, and marriage; the first social
distinctions were based on sex, age, and blood --
kinship to the chief.
70:8.4
2. Personal
-- the recognition of ability, endurance, skill, and
fortitude; soon followed by the recognition of language
mastery, knowledge, and general intelligence.
70:8.5
3. Chance --
war and emigration resulted in the separating of human
groups. Class evolution was powerfully influenced by
conquest, the relation of the victor to the vanquished,
while slavery brought about the first general division
of society into free and bond.
70:8.6
4. Economic
-- rich and poor. Wealth and the possession of slaves
was a genetic basis for one class of society.
70:8.7
5. Geographic
-- classes arose consequent upon urban or rural
settlement. City and country have respectively
contributed to the differentiation of the
herder-agriculturist and the trader-industrialist, with
their divergent viewpoints and reactions.
70:8.8
6. Social --
classes have gradually formed according to popular
estimate of the social worth of different groups. Among
the earliest divisions of this sort were the
demarcations between priest-teachers, ruler-warriors,
capitalist-traders, common laborers, and slaves. The
slave could never become a capitalist, though sometimes
the wage earner could elect to join the capitalistic
ranks.
70:8.9
7. Vocational
-- as vocations multiplied, they tended to establish
castes and guilds. Workers divided into three groups:
the professional classes, including the medicine men,
then the skilled workers, followed by the unskilled
laborers.
70:8.10
8. Religious
-- the early cult clubs produced their own classes
within the clans and tribes, and the piety and mysticism
of the priests have long perpetuated them as a separate
social group.
70:8.11
9. Racial --
the presence of two or more races within a given nation
or territorial unit usually produces color castes. The
original caste system of India was based on color, as
was that of early Egypt.
70:8.12
10. Age --
youth and maturity. Among the tribes the boy remained
under the watchcare of his father as long as the father
lived, while the girl was left in the care of her mother
until married.
70:8.13
Flexible and shifting social classes are indispensable
to an evolving civilization, but when
class becomes
caste, when social levels petrify, the enhancement of
social stability is purchased by diminishment of
personal initiative. Social caste solves the problem of
finding one's place in industry, but it also sharply
curtails individual development and virtually prevents
social co-operation.
70:8.14
Classes in society, having naturally formed, will
persist until man gradually achieves their evolutionary
obliteration through intelligent manipulation of the
biologic, intellectual, and spiritual resources of a
progressing civilization, such as:
70:8.15
1. Biologic renovation of the racial stocks -- the
selective elimination of inferior human strains. This
will tend to eradicate many mortal inequalities.
70:8.16
2. Educational training of the increased brain power
which will arise out of such biologic improvement.
70:8.17
3. Religious quickening of the feelings of mortal
kinship and brotherhood.
70:8.18
But these measures can bear their true fruits only in
the distant millenniums of the future, although much
social improvement will immediately result from the
intelligent, wise, and
patient
manipulation of these acceleration factors of cultural
progress. Religion is the mighty lever that lifts
civilization from chaos, but it is powerless apart from
the fulcrum of sound and normal mind resting securely on
sound and normal heredity.
9. HUMAN RIGHTS
70:9.1
Nature confers no rights on man, only life and a world
in which to live it. Nature does not even confer the
right to live, as might be deduced by considering what
would likely happen if an unarmed man met a hungry tiger
face to face in the primitive forest. Society's prime
gift to man is security.
70:9.2
Gradually society asserted its rights and, at the
present time, they are:
1. Assurance of food supply.
2. Military defense -- security through preparedness.
3. Internal peace preservation -- prevention of personal
violence and social disorder.
4. Sex control -- marriage, the family institution.
5. Property -- the right to own.
6. Fostering of individual and group competition.
7. Provision for educating and training youth.
8. Promotion of trade and commerce -- industrial
development.
9. Improvement of labor conditions and rewards.
10. The guarantee of the freedom of religious practices
to the end that all of these other social activities may
be exalted by becoming spiritually motivated.
70:9.3
When rights are old beyond knowledge of origin, they are
often called
natural rights. But human rights are not really
natural; they are entirely social. They are relative and
ever changing, being no more than the rules of the game
-- recognized adjustments of relations governing the
ever-changing phenomena of human competition.
70:9.4
What may be regarded as right in one age may not be so
regarded in another. The survival of large numbers of
defectives and degenerates is not because they have any
natural right thus to encumber twentieth-century
civilization, but simply because the society of the age,
the mores, thus decrees.
70:9.5
Few human rights were recognized in the European Middle
Ages; then every man belonged to someone else, and
rights were only privileges or favors granted by state
or church. And the revolt from this error was equally
erroneous in that it led to the belief that all men are
born equal.
70:9.6
The weak and the inferior have always contended for
equal rights; they have always insisted that the state
compel the strong and superior to supply their wants and
otherwise make good those deficiencies which all too
often are the natural result of their own indifference
and indolence.
70:9.7
But this equality ideal is the child of civilization; it
is not found in nature. Even culture itself demonstrates
conclusively the inherent inequality of men by their
very unequal capacity therefor. The sudden and
nonevolutionary realization of supposed natural equality
would quickly throw civilized man back to the crude
usages of primitive ages. Society cannot offer equal
rights to all, but it can promise to administer the
varying rights of each with fairness and equity. It is
the business and duty of society to provide the child of
nature with a fair and peaceful opportunity to pursue
self-maintenance, participate in self-perpetuation,
while at the same time enjoying some measure of
self-gratification, the sum of all three constituting
human happiness.
10. EVOLUTION OF JUSTICE
70:10.1
Natural justice is a man-made theory; it is not a
reality. In nature, justice is purely theoretic, wholly
a fiction. Nature provides but one kind of justice --
inevitable conformity of results to causes.
70:10.2
Justice, as conceived by man, means getting one's rights
and has, therefore, been a matter of progressive
evolution. The concept of justice may well be
constitutive in a spirit-endowed mind, but it does not
spring full-fledgedly into existence on the worlds of
space.
70:10.3
Primitive man assigned all phenomena to a person. In
case of death the savage asked, not
what killed
him, but who?
Accidental murder was not therefore recognized, and in
the punishment of crime the motive of the criminal was
wholly disregarded; judgment was rendered in accordance
with the injury done.
70:10.4
In the earliest primitive society public opinion
operated directly; officers of law were not needed.
There was no privacy in primitive life. A man's
neighbors were responsible for his conduct; therefore
their right to pry into his personal affairs. Society
was regulated on the theory that the group membership
should have an interest in, and some degree of control
over, the behavior of each individual.
70:10.5
It was very early believed that ghosts administered
justice through the medicine men and priests; this
constituted these orders the first crime detectors and
officers of the law. Their early methods of detecting
crime consisted in conducting ordeals of poison, fire,
and pain. These savage ordeals were nothing more than
crude techniques of arbitration; they did not
necessarily settle a dispute justly. For example: When
poison was administered, if the accused vomited, he was
innocent.
70:10.6
The Old Testament records one of these ordeals, a
marital guilt test: If a man suspected his wife of being
untrue to him, he took her to the priest and stated his
suspicions, after which the priest would prepare a
concoction consisting of holy water and sweepings from
the temple floor. After due ceremony, including
threatening curses, the accused wife was made to drink
the nasty potion. If she was guilty, "the water that
causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter,
and her belly shall swell, and her thighs shall rot, and
the woman shall be accursed among her people." If, by
any chance, any woman could quaff this filthy draught
and not show symptoms of physical illness, she was
acquitted of the charges made by her jealous husband.
70:10.7
These atrocious methods of crime detection were
practiced by almost all the evolving tribes at one time
or another. Dueling is a modern survival of the trial by
ordeal.
70:10.8
It is not to be wondered that the Hebrews and other
semicivilized tribes practiced such primitive techniques
of justice administration three thousand years ago, but
it is most amazing that thinking men would subsequently
retain such a relic of barbarism within the pages of a
collection of sacred writings. Reflective thinking
should make it clear that no divine being ever gave
mortal man such unfair instructions regarding the
detection and adjudication of suspected marital
unfaithfulness.
70:10.9
Society early adopted the paying-back attitude of
retaliation: an eye for an eye, a life for a life. The
evolving tribes all recognized this right of blood
vengeance. Vengeance became the aim of primitive life,
but religion has since greatly modified these early
tribal practices. The teachers of revealed religion have
always proclaimed, "`Vengeance is mine,' says the Lord."
Vengeance killing in early times was not altogether
unlike present-day murders under the pretense of the
unwritten law.
70:10.10
Suicide was a common mode of retaliation. If one were
unable to avenge himself in life, he died entertaining
the belief that, as a ghost, he could return and visit
wrath upon his enemy. And since this belief was very
general, the threat of suicide on an enemy's doorstep
was usually sufficient to bring him to terms. Primitive
man did not hold life very dear; suicide over trifles
was common, but the teachings of the Dalamatians greatly
lessened this custom, while in more recent times
leisure, comforts, religion, and philosophy have united
to make life sweeter and more desirable. Hunger strikes
are, however, a modern analogue of this old-time method
of retaliation.
70:10.11
One of the earliest formulations of advanced tribal law
had to do with the taking over of the blood feud as a
tribal affair. But strange to relate, even then a man
could kill his wife without punishment provided he had
fully paid for her. The Eskimos of today, however, still
leave the penalty for a crime, even for murder, to be
decreed and administered by the family wronged.
70:10.12
Another advance was the imposition of fines for taboo
violations, the provision of penalties. These fines
constituted the first public revenue. The practice of
paying "blood money" also came into vogue as a
substitute for blood vengeance. Such damages were
usually paid in women or cattle; it was a long time
before actual fines, monetary compensation, were
assessed as punishment for crime. And since the idea of
punishment was essentially compensation, everything,
including human life, eventually came to have a price
which could be paid as damages. The Hebrews were the
first to abolish the practice of paying blood money.
Moses taught that they should "take no satisfaction for
the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death; he shall
surely be put to death."
70:10.13
Justice was thus first meted out by the family, then by
the clan, and later on by the tribe. The administration
of true justice dates from the taking of revenge from
private and kin groups and lodging it in the hands of
the social group, the state.
70:10.14
Punishment by burning alive was once a common practice.
It was recognized by many ancient rulers, including
Hammurabi and Moses, the latter directing that many
crimes, particularly those of a grave sex nature, should
be punished by burning at the stake. If "the daughter of
a priest" or other leading citizen turned to public
prostitution, it was the Hebrew custom to "burn her with
fire."
70:10.15
Treason -- the "selling out" or betrayal of one's tribal
associates -- was the first capital crime. Cattle
stealing was universally punished by summary death, and
even recently horse stealing has been similarly
punished. But as time passed, it was learned that the
severity of the punishment was not so valuable a
deterrent to crime as was its certainty and swiftness.
70:10.16
When society fails to punish crimes, group resentment
usually asserts itself as lynch law; the provision of
sanctuary was a means of escaping this sudden group
anger. Lynching and dueling represent the unwillingness
of the individual to surrender private redress to the
state.
11. LAWS AND COURTS
70:11.1
It is just as difficult to draw sharp distinctions
between mores and laws as to indicate exactly when, at
the dawning, night is succeeded by day. Mores are laws
and police regulations in the making. When long
established, the undefined mores tend to crystallize
into precise laws, concrete regulations, and
well-defined social conventions.
70:11.2
Law is always at first negative and prohibitive; in
advancing civilizations it becomes increasingly positive
and directive. Early society operated negatively,
granting the individual the right to live by imposing
upon all others the command, "you shall not kill." Every
grant of rights or liberty to the individual involves
curtailment of the liberties of all others, and this is
effected by the taboo, primitive law. The whole idea of
the taboo is inherently negative, for primitive society
was wholly negative in its organization, and the early
administration of justice consisted in the enforcement
of the taboos. But originally these laws applied only to
fellow tribesmen, as is illustrated by the later-day
Hebrews, who had a different code of ethics for dealing
with the gentiles.
70:11.3
The oath originated in the days of Dalamatia in an
effort to render testimony more truthful. Such oaths
consisted in pronouncing a curse upon oneself. Formerly
no individual would testify against his native group.
70:11.4
Crime was an assault upon the tribal mores, sin was the
transgression of those taboos which enjoyed ghost
sanction, and there was long confusion due to the
failure to segregate crime and sin.
70:11.5
Self-interest established the taboo on killing, society
sanctified it as traditional mores, while religion
consecrated the custom as moral law, and thus did all
three conspire in rendering human life more safe and
sacred. Society could not have held together during
early times had not rights had the sanction of religion;
superstition was the moral and social police force of
the long evolutionary ages. The ancients all claimed
that their olden laws, the taboos, had been given to
their ancestors by the gods.
70:11.6
Law is a codified record of long human experience,
public opinion crystallized and legalized. The mores
were the raw material of accumulated experience out of
which later ruling minds formulated the written laws.
The ancient judge had no laws. When he handed down a
decision, he simply said, "It is the custom."
70:11.7
Reference to precedent in court decisions represents the
effort of judges to adapt written laws to the changing
conditions of society. This provides for progressive
adaptation to altering social conditions combined with
the impressiveness of traditional continuity.
70:11.8
Property disputes were handled in many ways, such as:
1. By destroying the disputed property.
2. By force -- the contestants fought it out.
3. By arbitration -- a third party decided.
4. By appeal to the elders -- later to the courts.
70:11.9
The first courts were regulated fistic encounters; the
judges were merely umpires or referees. They saw to it
that the fight was carried on according to approved
rules. On entering a court combat, each party made a
deposit with the judge to pay the costs and fine after
one had been defeated by the other. "Might was still
right." Later on, verbal arguments were substituted for
physical blows.
70:11.10
The whole idea of primitive justice was not so much to
be fair as to dispose of the contest and thus prevent
public disorder and private violence. But primitive man
did not so much resent what would now be regarded as an
injustice; it was taken for granted that those who had
power would use it selfishly. Nevertheless, the status
of any civilization may be very accurately determined by
the thoroughness and equity of its courts and by the
integrity of its judges.
12. ALLOCATION OF CIVIL AUTHORITY
70:12.1
The great struggle in the evolution of government has
concerned the concentration of power. The universe
administrators have learned from experience that the
evolutionary peoples on the inhabited worlds are best
regulated by the representative type of civil government
when there is maintained proper balance of power between
the well-co-ordinated executive, legislative, and
judicial branches.
70:12.2
While primitive authority was based on strength,
physical power, the ideal government is the
representative system wherein leadership is based on
ability, but in the days of barbarism there was entirely
too much war to permit representative government to
function effectively. In the long struggle between
division of authority and unity of command, the dictator
won. The early and diffuse powers of the primitive
council of elders were gradually concentrated in the
person of the absolute monarch. After the arrival of
real kings the groups of elders persisted as
quasi-legislative-judicial advisory bodies; later on,
legislatures of co-ordinate status made their
appearance, and eventually supreme courts of
adjudication were established separate from the
legislatures.
70:12.3
The king was the executor of the mores, the original or
unwritten law. Later he enforced the legislative
enactments, the crystallization of public opinion. A
popular assembly as an expression of public opinion,
though slow in appearing, marked a great social advance.
70:12.4
The early kings were greatly restricted by the mores --
by tradition or public opinion. In recent times some
Urantia nations have codified these mores into
documentary bases for government.
70:12.5
Urantia mortals are entitled to liberty; they should
create their systems of government; they should adopt
their constitutions or other charters of civil authority
and administrative procedure. And having done this, they
should select their most competent and worthy fellows as
chief executives. For representatives in the legislative
branch they should elect only those who are qualified
intellectually and morally to fulfill such sacred
responsibilities. As judges of their high and supreme
tribunals only those who are endowed with natural
ability and who have been made wise by replete
experience should be chosen.
70:12.6
If men would maintain their freedom, they must, after
having chosen their charter of liberty, provide for its
wise, intelligent, and fearless interpretation to the
end that there may be prevented:
1. Usurpation of unwarranted power by either the
executive or legislative branches.
2. Machinations of ignorant and superstitious agitators.
3. Retardation of scientific progress.
4. Stalemate of the dominance of mediocrity.
5. Domination by vicious minorities.
6. Control by ambitious and clever would-be dictators.
7. Disastrous disruption of panics.
8. Exploitation by the unscrupulous.
9. Taxation enslavement of the citizenry by the state.
10. Failure of social and economic fairness.
11. Union of church and state.
12. Loss of personal liberty.
70:12.7
These are the purposes and aims of constitutional
tribunals acting as governors upon the engines of
representative government on an evolutionary world.
70:12.8
Mankind's struggle to perfect government on Urantia has
to do with perfecting channels of administration, with
adapting them to ever-changing current needs, with
improving power distribution within government, and then
with selecting such administrative leaders as are truly
wise. While there is a divine and ideal form of
government, such cannot be revealed but must be slowly
and laboriously discovered by the men and women of each
planet throughout the universes of time and space.
70:12.9
Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
*
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