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 Rh 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.


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 792 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As society emerged from savagery to barbarism, its human components tended to become grouped in classes for the following general reasons:

1. Natural—contact, kinship, and marriage; the first social distinctions were based on sex, age, and blood—kinship to the chief.

2. Personal—the recognition of ability, endurance, skill, and fortitude; soon followed by the recognition of language mastery, knowledge, and general intelligence.

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.

4. Economic—rich and poor. Wealth and the possession of slaves was a genetic basis for one class of society.

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.

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

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 Rh traders, common laborers, and slaves. The slave could never become a capitalist, though sometimes the wage earner could elect to join the capitalistic ranks.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

1. Biologic renovation of the racial stocks—the selective elimination of inferior human strains. This will tend to eradicate many mortal inequalities.

2. Educational training of the increased brain power which will arise out of such biologic improvement.

3. Religious quickening of the feelings of mortal kinship and brotherhood.

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.

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.

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.


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 794 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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


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 Rh was wholly disregarded; judgment was rendered in accordance with the injury done.

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.

It was very early believed that g. hosts 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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


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 796 life sweeter and more desirable. Hunger strikes are, however, a modern analogue of this old-time method of retaliation.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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


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 Rh 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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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


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 The New Zealand Agricultural Company has a splendid freehold estate in Southland, the province of which Invercargill is the capital; and some idea of the productive capacity of the soil, and the importance of the farming interest may be gathered from a bare recital of what that one estate has done this season. Mr. Valentine, the manager, a bright, intelligent Aberdonian, sowed over 6000 acres with oats, and did not lose an acre. It averaged about sixty bushels to the acre. In addition, he has 5000 acres sown with wheat, which usually averages forty bushels per acre. Mr. Valentine farms on scientific principles, not by "rule of thumb." The secret of his exemption from the vexatious losses that visit his neighbours, he attributes to his early autumn sowings. And yet his neighbours will not follow his lead.

How awfully conservative is the old farmer class! How terribly difficult to move out of the old routine! Even the gods fight in vain against stupidity.

Remenyi, the world-renowned violinist, with whom I had the good fortune to travel from the Bluff, gave me one or two admirable anecdotes bearing on this very point.

"Potatoes, for instance," said the maestro. "It is a plant that does delight in moisture; but the old-world farmers did always plant it on the top of the ridge. The American Farmer, he did notice that the best potatoes did grow in the hollow. He did reverse the old plan; and now everybody will see how much better is the new plan." This told

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 798 the representative type of civil government when there is maintained proper balance of power between the well-co-ordinated executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

These are the purposes and aims of constitutional tribunals acting as governors upon the engines of representative government on an evolutionary world.


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 Rh 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.

[Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]


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HE state is a useful evolution of civilization; it represents society's net gain from the ravages and sufferings of war. Even statecraft is merely the accumulated technique for adjusting the competitive contest of force between the struggling tribes and nations.

The modern state is the institution which survived in the long struggle for group power. Superior power eventually prevailed, and it produced a creature of fact—the state—together with the moral myth of the absolute obligation of the citizen to live and die for the state. But the state is not of divine genesis; it was not even produced by volitionally intelligent human action; it is purely an evolutionary institution and was wholly automatic in origin.

The state is a territorial social regulative organization, and the strongest, most efficient, and enduring state is composed of a single nation whose people have a common language, mores, and institutions.

The early states were small and were all the result of conquest. They did not originate in voluntary associations. Many were founded by conquering nomads, who would swoop down on peaceful herders or settled agriculturists to overpower and enslave them. Such states, resulting from conquest, were, perforce, stratified; classes were inevitable, and class struggles have ever been selective.

The northern tribes of the American red men never attained real statehood. They never progressed beyond a loose confederation of tribes, a very primitive form of state. Their nearest approach was the Iroquois federation, but this group of six nations never quite functioned as a state and failed to survive because of the absence of certain essentials to modern national life, such as:

1. Acquirement and inheritance of private property.

2. Cities plus agriculture and industry.

3. Helpful domestic animals.

4. Practical family organization. These red men clung to the mother-family and nephew inheritance.

5. Definite territory.

6. A strong executive head.

7. Enslavement of captives—they either adopted or massacred them.

8. Decisive conquests.

The red men were too democratic; they had a good government, but it failed. Eventually they would have evolved a state had they not prematurely en-


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 Rh countered the more advanced civilization of the white man, who was pursuing the governmental methods of the Greeks and the Romans.

The successful Roman state was based on:

1. The father-family.

2. Agriculture and the domestication of animals.

3. Condensation of population—cities.

4. Private property and land.

5. Slavery—classes of citizenship.

6. Conquest and reorganization of weak and backward peoples.

7. Definite territory with roads.

8. Personal and strong rulers.

The great weakness in Roman civilization, and a factor in the ultimate collapse of the empire, was the supposed liberal and advanced provision for the emancipation of the boy at twenty-one and the unconditional release of the girl so that she was at liberty to marry a man of her own choosing or to go abroad in the land to become immoral. The harm to society consisted not in these reforms themselves but rather in the sudden and extensive manner of their adoption. The collapse of Rome indicates what may be expected when a state undergoes too rapid extension associated with internal degeneration.

The embryonic state was made possible by the decline of the blood bond in favor of the territorial, and such tribal federations were usually firmly cemented by conquest. While a sovereignty that transcends all minor struggles and group differences is the characteristic of the true state, still, many classes and castes persist in the later state organizations as remnants of the clans and tribes of former days. The later and larger territorial states had a long and bitter struggle with these smaller consanguineous clan groups, the tribal government proving a valuable transition from family to state authority. During later times many clans grew out of trades and other industrial associations.

Failure of state integration results in retrogression to prestate conditions of governmental techniques, such as the feudalism of the European Middle Ages. During these dark ages the territorial state collapsed, and there was a reversion to the small castle groups, the reappearance of the clan and tribal stages of development. Similar semistates even now exist in Asia and Africa, but not all of them are evolutionary reversions; many are the embryonic nucleuses of states of the future.

Democracy, while an ideal, is a product of civilization, not of evolution. Go slowly! select carefully! for the dangers of democracy are:

1. Glorification of mediocrity.

2. Choice of base and ignorant rulers.

3. Failure to recognize the basic facts of social evolution.

4. Danger of universal suffrage in the hands of uneducated and indolent majorities.

5. Slavery to public opinion; the majority is not always right.


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 802 Public opinion, common opinion, has always delayed society; nevertheless, it is valuable, for, while retarding social evolution, it does preserve civilization. Education of public opinion is the only safe and true method of accelerating civilization; force is only a temporary expedient, and cultural growth will increasingly accelerate as bullets give way to ballots. Public opinion, the mores, is the basic and elemental energy in social evolution and state development, but to be of state value it must be nonviolent in expression.

The measure of the advance of society is directly determined by the degree to which public opinion can control personal behavior and state regulation through nonviolent expression. The really civilized government had arrived when public opinion was clothed with the powers of personal franchise. Popular elections may not always decide things rightly, but they represent the right way even to do a wrong thing. Evolution does not at once produce superlative perfection but rather comparative and advancing practical adjustment.

There are ten steps, or stages, to the evolution of a practical and efficient form of representative government, and these are:

1. Freedom of the person. Slavery, serfdom, and all forms of human bondage must disappear.

2. Freedom of the mind. Unless a free people are educated—taught to think intelligently and plan wisely—freedom usually does more harm than good.

3. The reign of law. Liberty can be enjoyed only when the will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in accordance with accepted fundamental law.

4. Freedom of speech. Representative government is unthinkable without freedom of all forms of expression for human aspirations and opinions.

5. Security of property. No government can long endure if it fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his personal property.

6. The right of petition. Representative government assumes the right of citizens to be heard. The privilege of petition is inherent in free citizenship.

7. The right to rule. It is not enough to be heard; the power of petition must progress to the actual management of the government.

8. Universal suffrage. Representative government presupposes an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise differentiated.

9. Control of public servants. No civil government will be serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants.

10. Intelligent and trained representation. The survival of democracy is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and for the people be preserved.


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 Rh

The political or administrative form of a government is of little consequence provided it affords the essentials of civil progress—liberty, security, education, and social co-ordination. It is not what a state is but what it does that determines the course of social evolution. And after all, no state can transcend the moral values of its citizenry as exemplified in their chosen leaders. Ignorance and selfishness will insure the downfall of even the highest type of government.

Much as it is to be regretted, national egotism has been essential to social survival. The chosen people doctrine has been a prime factor in tribal welding and nation building right on down to modern times. But no state can attain ideal levels of functioning until every form of intolerance is mastered; it is everlastingly inimical to human progress. And intolerance is best combated by the co-ordination of science, commerce, play, and religion.

The ideal state functions under the impulse of three mighty and co-ordinated drives:

1. Love loyalty derived from the realization of human brotherhood.

2. Intelligent patriotism based on wise ideals.

3. Cosmic insight interpreted in terms of planetary facts, needs, and goals.

The laws of the ideal state are few in number, and they have passed out of the negativistic taboo age into the era of the positive progress of individual liberty consequent upon enhanced self-control. The exalted state not only compels its citizens to work but also entices them into profitable and uplifting utilization of the increasing leisure which results from toil liberation by the advancing machine age. Leisure must produce as well as consume.

No society has progressed very far when it permits idleness or tolerates poverty. But poverty and dependence can never be eliminated if the defective and degenerate stocks are freely supported and permitted to reproduce without restraint.

A moral society should aim to preserve the self-respect of its citizenry and afford every normal individual adequate opportunity for self-realization. Such a plan of social achievement would yield a cultural society of the highest order. Social evolution should be encouraged by governmental supervision which exercises a minimum of regulative control. That state is best which co-ordinates most while governing least.

The ideals of statehood must be attained by evolution, by the slow growth of civic consciousness, the recognition of the obligation and privilege of social service. At first men assume the burdens of government as a duty, following the end of the administration of political spoilsmen, but later on they seek such ministry as a privilege, as the greatest honor. The status of any level of civilization is faithfully portrayed by the caliber of its citizens who volunteer to accept the responsibilities of statehood.

In a real commonwealth the business of governing cities and provinces is conducted by experts and is managed just as are all other forms of economic and commercial associations of people.

In advanced states, political service is esteemed as the highest devotion of the citizenry. The greatest ambition of the wisest and noblest of citizens is to


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 804 gain civil recognition, to be elected or appointed to some position of governmental trust, and such governments confer their highest honors of recognition for service upon their civil and social servants. Honors are next bestowed in the order named upon philosophers, educators, scientists, industrialists, and militarists. Parents are duly rewarded by the excellency of their children, and purely religious leaders, being ambassadors of a spiritual kingdom, receive their real rewards in another world.

Economics, society, and government must evolve if they are to remain. Static conditions on an evolutionary world are indicative of decay; only those institutions which move forward with the evolutionary stream persist.

The progressive program of an expanding civilization embraces:

1. Preservation of individual liberties.

2. Protection of the home.

3. Promotion of economic security.

4. Prevention of disease.

5. Compulsory education.

6. Compulsory employment.

7. Profitable utilization of leisure.

8. Care of the unfortunate.

9. Race improvement.

10. Promotion of science and art.

11. Promotion of philosophy—wisdom.

12. Augmentation of cosmic insight—spirituality.

And this progress in the arts of civilization leads directly to the realization of the highest human and divine goals of mortal endeavor—the social achievement of the brotherhood of man and the personal status of God-consciousness, which becomes revealed in the supreme desire of every individual to do the will of the Father in heaven.

The appearance of genuine brotherhood signifies that a social order has arrived in which all men delight in bearing one another's burdens; they actually desire to practice the golden rule. But such an ideal society cannot be realized when either the weak or the wicked lie in wait to take unfair and unholy advantage of those who are chiefly actuated by devotion to the service of truth, beauty, and goodness. In such a situation only one course is practical: The "golden rulers" may establish a progressive society in which they live according to their ideals while maintaining an adequate defense against their benighted fellows who might seek either to exploit their pacific predilections or to destroy their advancing civilization.

Idealism can never survive on an evolving planet if the idealists in each generation permit themselves to be exterminated by the baser orders of humanity. And here is the great test of idealism: Can an advanced society maintain that military preparedness which renders it secure from all attack by its war-loving neighbors without yielding to the temptation to employ this military


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 Rh strength in offensive operations against other peoples for purposes of selfish gain or national aggrandizement? National survival demands preparedness, and religious idealism alone can prevent the prostitution of preparedness into aggression. Only love, brotherhood, can prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.

Competition is essential to social progress, but competition, unregulated, breeds violence. In current society, competition is slowly displacing war in that it determines the individual's place in industry, as well as decreeing the survival of the industries themselves. (Murder and war differ in their status before the mores, murder having been outlawed since the early days of society, while war has never yet been outlawed by mankind as a whole.)

The ideal state undertakes to regulate social conduct only enough to take violence out of individual competition and to prevent unfairness in personal initiative. Here is a great problem in statehood: How can you guarantee peace and quiet in industry, pay the taxes to support state power, and at the same time prevent taxation from handicapping industry and keep the state from becoming parasitical or tyrannical?

Throughout the earlier ages of any world, competition is essential to progressive civilization. As the evolution of man progresses, co-operation becomes increasingly effective. In advanced civilizations co-operation is more efficient than competition. Early man is stimulated by competition. Early evolution is characterized by the survival of the biologically fit, but later civilizations are the better promoted by intelligent co-operation, understanding fraternity, and spiritual brotherhood.

True, competition in industry is exceedingly wasteful and highly ineffective, but no attempt to eliminate this economic lost motion should be countenanced if such adjustments entail even the slightest abrogation of any of the basic liberties of the individual.

Present-day profit-motivated economics is doomed unless profit motives can be augmented by service motives. Ruthless competition based on narrow-minded self-interest is ultimately destructive of even those things which it seeks to maintain. Exclusive and self-serving profit motivation is incompatible with Christian ideals—much more incompatible with the teachings of Jesus.

In economics, profit motivation is to service motivation what fear is to love in religion. But the profit motive must not be suddenly destroyed or removed; it keeps many otherwise slothful mortals hard at work. It is not necessary, however, that this social energy arouser be forever selfish in its objectives.

The profit motive of economic activities is altogether base and wholly unworthy of an advanced order of society; nevertheless, it is an indispensable factor throughout the earlier phases of civilization. Profit motivation must not be taken away from men until they have firmly possessed themselves of superior types of nonprofit motives for economic striving and social serving—the transcendent urges of superlative wisdom, intriguing brotherhood, and excellency of spiritual attainment.


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 806

The enduring state is founded on culture, dominated by ideals, and motivated by service. The purpose of education should be acquirement of skill, pursuit of wisdom, realization of selfhood, and attainment of spiritual values.

In the ideal state, education continues throughout life, and philosophy sometime becomes the chief pursuit of its citizens. The citizens of such a commonwealth pursue wisdom as an enhancement of insight into the significance of human relations, the meanings of reality, the nobility of values, the goals of living, and the glories of cosmic destiny.

Urantians should get a vision of a new and higher cultural society. Education will jump to new levels of value with the passing of the purely profit-motivated system of economics. Education has too long been localistic, militaristic, ego exalting, and success seeking; it must eventually become world-wide, idealistic, self-realizing, and cosmic grasping.

Education recently passed from the control of the clergy to that of lawyers and businessmen. Eventually it must be given over to the philosophers and the scientists. Teachers must be free beings, real leaders, to the end that philosophy, the search for wisdom, may become the chief educational pursuit.

Education is the business of living; it must continue throughout a lifetime so that mankind may gradually experience the ascending levels of mortal wisdom, which are:

1. The knowledge of things.

2. The realization of meanings.

3. The appreciation of values.

4. The nobility of work—duty.

5. The motivation of goals—morality.

6. The love of service—character.

7. Cosmic insights—spiritual discernment.

And then, by means of these achievements, many will ascend to the mortal ultimate of mind attainment, God-consciousness.

The only sacred feature of any human government is the division of statehood into the three domains of executive, legislative, and judicial functions. The universe is administered in accordance with such a plan of segregation of functions and authority. Aside from this divine concept of effective social regulation or civil government, it matters little what form of state a people may elect to have provided the citizenry is ever progressing toward the goal of augmented self-control and increased social service. The intellectual keenness, economic wisdom, social cleverness, and moral stamina of a people are all faithfully reflected in statehood.

The evolution of statehood entails progress from level to level, as follows:

1. The creation of a threefold government of executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

2. The freedom of social, political, and religious activities.


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 Rh 3. The abolition of all forms of slavery and human bondage.

4. The ability of the citizenry to control the levying of taxes.

5. The establishment of universal education—learning extended from the cradle to the grave.

6. The proper adjustment between local and national governments.

7. The fostering of science and the conquest of disease.

8. The due recognition of sex equality and the co-ordinated functioning of men and women in the home, school, and church, with specialized service of women in industry and government.

9. The elimination of toiling slavery by machine invention and the subsequent mastery of the machine age.

10. The conquest of dialects—the triumph of a universal language.

11. The ending of war—international adjudication of national and racial differences by continental courts of nations presided over by a supreme planetary tribunal automatically recruited from the periodically retiring heads of the continental courts. The continental courts are authoritative; the world court is advisory—moral.

12. The world-wide vogue of the pursuit of wisdom—the exaltation of philosophy. The evolution of a world religion, which will presage the entrance of the planet upon the earlier phases of settlement in light and life.

These are the prerequisites of progressive government and the earmarks of ideal statehood. Urantia is far from the realization of these exalted ideals, but the civilized races have made a beginning—mankind is on the march toward higher evolutionary destinies.

[Sponsored by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]


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Y PERMISSION of Lanaforge and with the approval of the Most Highs of Edentia, I am authorized to narrate something of the social, moral, and political life of the most advanced human race living on a not far-distant planet belonging to the Satania system.

Of all the Satania worlds which became isolated because of participation in the Lucifer rebellion, this planet has experienced a history most like that of Urantia. The similarity of the two spheres undoubtedly explains why permission to make this extraordinary presentation was granted, for it is most unusual for the system rulers to consent to the narration on one planet of the affairs of another.

This planet, like Urantia, was led astray by the disloyalty of its Planetary Prince in connection with the Lucifer rebellion. It received a Material Son shortly after Adam came to Urantia, and this Son also defaulted, leaving the sphere isolated, since a Magisterial Son has never been bestowed upon its mortal races.

Notwithstanding all these planetary handicaps a very superior civilization is evolving on an isolated continent about the size of Australia. This nation numbers about 140 million. Its people are a mixed race, predominantly blue and yellow, having a slightly greater proportion of violet than the so-called white race of Urantia. These different races are not yet fully blended, but they fraternize and socialize very acceptably. The average length of life on this continent is now ninety years, fifteen per cent higher than that of any other people on the planet.

The industrial mechanism of this nation enjoys a certain great advantage derived from the unique topography of the continent. The high mountains, on which heavy rains fall eight months in the year, are situated at the very center of the country. This natural arrangement favors the utilization of water power and greatly facilitates the irrigation of the more arid western quarter of the continent.

These people are self-sustaining, that is, they can live indefinitely without importing anything from the surrounding nations. Their natural resources are replete, and by scientific techniques they have learned how to compensate for their deficiencies in the essentials of life. They enjoy a brisk domestic commerce but have little foreign trade owing to the universal hostility of their less progressive neighbors.

This continental nation, in general, followed the evolutionary trend of the planet: The development from the tribal stage to the appearance of strong


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 Rh rulers and kings occupied thousands of years. The unconditional monarchs were succeeded by many different orders of government—abortive republics, communal states, and dictators came and went in endless profusion. This growth continued until about five hundred years ago when, during a politically fermenting period, one of the nation's powerful dictator-triumvirs had a change of heart. He volunteered to abdicate upon condition that one of the other rulers, the baser of the remaining two, also vacate his dictatorship. Thus was the sovereignty of the continent placed in the hands of one ruler. The unified state progressed under strong monarchial rule for over one hundred years, during which there evolved a masterful charter of liberty.

The subsequent transition from monarchy to a representative form of government was gradual, the kings remaining as mere social or sentimental figureheads, finally disappearing when the male line of descent ran out. The present republic has now been in existence just two hundred years, during which time there has been a continuous progression toward the governmental techniques about to be narrated, the last developments in industrial and political realms having been made within the past decade.

This continental nation now has a representative government with a centrally located national capital. The central government consists of a strong federation of one hundred comparatively free states. These states elect their governors and legislators for ten years, and none are eligible for re-election. State judges are appointed for life by the governors and confirmed by their legislatures, which consist of one representative for each one hundred thousand citizens.

There are five different types of metropolitan government, depending on the size of the city, but no city is permitted to have more than one million inhabitants. On the whole, these municipal governing schemes are very simple, direct, and economical. The few offices of city administration are keenly sought by the highest types of citizens.

The federal government embraces three co-ordinate divisions: executive, legislative, and judicial. The federal chief executive is elected every six years by universal territorial suffrage. He is not eligible for re-election except upon the petition of at least seventy-five state legislatures concurred in by the respective state governors, and then but for one term. He is advised by a supercabinet composed of all living ex-chief executives.

The legislative division embraces three houses:

1. The upper house is elected by industrial, professional, agricultural, and other groups of workers, balloting in accordance with economic function.

2. The lower house is elected by certain organizations of society embracing the social, political, and philosophic groups not included in industry or the professions. All citizens in good standing participate in the election of both classes of representatives, but they are differently grouped, depending on whether the election pertains to the upper or lower house.

3. The third house—the elder statesmen—embraces the veterans of civic service and includes many distinguished persons nominated by the chief execu-


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 810 tive, by the regional (subfederal) executives, by the chief of the supreme tribunal, and by the presiding officers of either of the other legislative houses. This group is limited to one hundred, and its members are elected by the majority action of the elder statesmen themselves. Membership is for life, and when vacancies occur, the person receiving the largest ballot among the list of nominees is thereby duly elected. The scope of this body is purely advisory, but it is a mighty regulator of public opinion and exerts a powerful influence upon all branches of the government.

Very much of the federal administrative work is carried on by the ten regional (subfederal) authorities, each consisting of the association of ten states. These regional divisions are wholly executive and administrative, having neither legislative nor judicial functions. The ten regional executives are the personal appointees of the federal chief executive, and their term of office is concurrent with his—six years. The federal supreme tribunal approves the appointment of these ten regional executives, and while they may not be reappointed, the retiring executive automatically becomes the associate and adviser of his successor. Otherwise, these regional chiefs choose their own cabinets of administrative officials.

This nation is adjudicated by two major court systems—the law courts and the socioeconomic courts. The law courts function on the following three levels:

1. Minor courts of municipal and local jurisdiction, whose decisions may be appealed to the high state tribunals.

2. State supreme courts, whose decisions are final in all matters not involving the federal government or jeopardy of citizenship rights and liberties. The regional executives are empowered to bring any case at once to the bar of the federal supreme court.

3. Federal supreme court—the high tribunal for the adjudication of national contentions and the appellate cases coming up from the state courts. This supreme tribunal consists of twelve men over forty and under seventy-five years of age who have served two or more years on some state tribunal, and who have been appointed to this high position by the chief executive with the majority approval of the supercabinet and the third house of the legislative assembly. All decisions of this supreme judicial body are by at least a two-thirds vote.

The socioeconomic courts function in the following three divisions:

1. Parental courts, associated with the legislative and executive divisions of the home and social system.

2. Educational courts—the juridical bodies connected with the state and regional school systems and associated with the executive and legislative branches of the educational administrative mechanism.

3. Industrial courts—the jurisdictional tribunals vested with full authority for the settlement of all economic misunderstandings.

The federal supreme court does not pass upon socioeconomic cases except upon the three-quarters vote of the third legislative branch of the national government, the house of elder statesmen. Otherwise, all decisions of the parental, educational, and industrial high courts are final.


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 Rh

On this continent it is against the law for two families to live under the same roof. And since group dwellings have been outlawed, most of the tenement type of buildings have been demolished. But the unmarried still live in clubs, hotels, and other group dwellings. The smallest homesite permitted must provide fifty thousand square feet of land. All land and other property used for home purposes are free from taxation up to ten times the minimum homesite allotment.

The home life of this people has greatly improved during the last century. Attendance of parents, both fathers and mothers, at the parental schools of child culture is compulsory. Even the agriculturists who reside in small country settlements carry on this work by correspondence, going to the near-by centers for oral instruction once in ten days—every two weeks, for they maintain a five-day week.

The average number of children in each family is five, and they are under the full control of their parents or, in case of the demise of one or both, under that of the guardians designated by the parental courts. It is considered a great honor for any family to be awarded the guardianship of a full orphan. Competitive examinations are held among parents, and the orphan is awarded to the home of those displaying the best parental qualifications.

These people regard the home as the basic institution of their civilization. It is expected that the most valuable part of a child's education and character training will be secured from his parents and at home, and fathers devote almost as much attention to child culture as do mothers.

All sex instruction is administered in the home by parents or by legal guardians. Moral instruction is offered by teachers during the rest periods in the school shops, but not so with religious training, which is deemed to be the exclusive privilege of parents, religion being looked upon as an integral part of home life. Purely religious instruction is given publicly only in the temples of philosophy, no such exclusively religious institutions as the Urantia churches having developed among this people. In their philosophy, religion is the striving to know God and to manifest love for one's fellows through service for them, but this is not typical of the religious status of the other nations on this planet. Religion is so entirely a family matter among these people that there are no public places devoted exclusively to religious assembly. Politically, church and state, as Urantians are wont to say, are entirely separate, but there is a strange overlapping of religion and philosophy.

Until twenty years ago the spiritual teachers (comparable to Urantia pastors), who visit each family periodically to examine the children to ascertain if they have been properly instructed by their parents, were under governmental supervision. These spiritual advisers and examiners are now under the direction of the newly created Foundation of Spiritual Progress, an institution supported by voluntary contributions. Possibly this institution may not further evolve until after the arrival of a Paradise Magisterial Son.

Children remain legally subject to their parents until they are fifteen, when the first initiation into civic responsibility is held. Thereafter, every five years for five successive periods similar public exercises are held for such age groups


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 812 at which their obligations to parents are lessened, while new civic and social responsibilities to the state are assumed. Suffrage is conferred at twenty, the right to marry without parental consent is not bestowed until twenty-five, and children must leave home on reaching the age of thirty.

Marriage and divorce laws are uniform throughout the nation. Marriage before twenty—the age of civil enfranchisement—is not permitted. Permission to marry is only granted after one year's notice of intention, and after both bride and groom present certificates showing that they have been duly instructed in the parental schools regarding the responsibilities of married life.

Divorce regulations are somewhat lax, but decrees of separation, issued by the parental courts, may not be had until one year after application therefor has been recorded, and the year on this planet is considerably longer than on Urantia. Notwithstanding their easy divorce laws, the present rate of divorces is only one tenth that of the civilized races of Urantia.

The educational system of this nation is compulsory and coeducational in the precollege schools that the student attends from the ages of five to eighteen. These schools are vastly different from those of Urantia. There are no classrooms, only one study is pursued at a time, and after the first three years all pupils become assistant teachers, instructing those below them. Books are used only to secure information that will assist in solving the problems arising in the school shops and on the school farms. Much of the furniture used on the continent and the many mechanical contrivances—this is a great age of invention and mechanization—are produced in these shops. Adjacent to each shop is a working library where the student may consult the necessary reference books. Agriculture and horticulture are also taught throughout the entire educational period on the extensive farms adjoining every local school.

The feeble-minded are trained only in agriculture and animal husbandry, and are committed for life to special custodial colonies where they are segregated by sex to prevent parenthood, which is denied all subnormals. These restrictive measures have been in operation for seventy-five years; the commitment decrees are handed down by the parental courts.

Everyone takes one month's vacation each year. The precollege schools are conducted for nine months out of the year of ten, the vacation being spent with parents or friends in travel. This travel is a part of the adult-education program and is continued throughout a lifetime, the funds for meeting such expenses being accumulated by the same methods as those employed in old-age insurance.

One quarter of the school time is devoted to play—competitive athletics—the pupils progressing in these contests from the local, through the state and regional, and on to the national trials of skill and prowess. Likewise, the oratorical and musical contests, as well as those in science and philosophy, occupy the attention of students from the lower social divisions on up to the contests for national honors.

The school government is a replica of the national government with its three correlated branches, the teaching staff functioning as the third or advisory legislative division. The chief object of education on this continent is to make every pupil a self-supporting citizen.


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 Rh Every child graduating from the precollege school system at eighteen is a skilled artisan. Then begins the study of books and the pursuit of special knowledge, either in the adult schools or in the colleges. When a brilliant student completes his work ahead of schedule, he is granted an award of time and means wherewith he may execute some pet project of his own devising. The entire educational system is designed to adequately train the individual.

The industrial situation among this people is far from their ideals; capital and labor still have their troubles, but both are becoming adjusted to the plan of sincere co-operation. On this unique continent the workers are increasingly becoming shareholders in all industrial concerns; every intelligent laborer is slowly becoming a small capitalist.

Social antagonisms are lessening, and good will is growing apace. No grave economic problems have arisen out of the abolition of slavery (over one hundred years ago) since this adjustment was effected gradually by the liberation of two per cent each year. Those slaves who satisfactorily passed mental, moral, and physical tests were granted citizenship; many of these superior slaves were war captives or children of such captives. Some fifty years ago they deported the last of their inferior slaves, and still more recently they are addressing themselves to the task of reducing the numbers of their degenerate and vicious classes.

These people have recently developed new techniques for the adjustment of industrial misunderstandings and for the correction of economic abuses which are marked improvements over their older methods of settling such problems. Violence has been outlawed as a procedure in adjusting either personal or industrial differences. Wages, profits, and other economic problems are not rigidly regulated, but they are in general controlled by the industrial legislatures, while all disputes arising out of industry are passed upon by the industrial courts.

The industrial courts are only thirty years old but are functioning very satisfactorily. The most recent development provides that hereafter the industrial courts shall recognize legal compensation as falling in three divisions:

1. Legal rates of interest on invested capital.

2. Reasonable salary for skill employed in industrial operations.

3. Fair and equitable wages for labor.

These shall first be met in accordance with contract, or in the face of decreased earnings they shall share proportionally in transient reduction. And thereafter all earnings in excess of these fixed charges shall be regarded as dividends and shall be prorated to all three divisions: capital, skill, and labor.

Every ten years the regional executives adjust and decree the lawful hours of daily gainful toil. Industry now operates on a five-day week, working four and playing one. These people labor six hours each working day and, like students, nine months in the year of ten. Vacation is usually spent in travel, and new methods of transportation having been so recently developed, the whole nation is travel bent. The climate favors travel about eight months in the year, and they are making the most of their opportunities.

Two hundred years ago the profit motive was wholly dominant in industry, but today it is being rapidly displaced by other and higher driving forces. Com-


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 814 petition is keen on this continent, but much of it has been transferred from industry to play, skill, scientific achievement, and intellectual attainment. It is most active in social service and governmental loyalty. Among this people public service is rapidly becoming the chief goal of ambition. The richest man on the continent works six hours a day in the office of his machine shop and then hastens over to the local branch of the school of statesmanship, where he seeks to qualify for public service.

Labor is becoming more honorable on this continent, and all able-bodied citizens over eighteen work either at home and on farms, at some recognized industry, on the public works where the temporarily unemployed are absorbed, or else in the corps of compulsory laborers in the mines.

These people are also beginning to foster a new form of social disgust—disgust for both idleness and unearned wealth. Slowly but certainly they are conquering their machines. Once they, too, struggled for political liberty and subsequently for economic freedom. Now are they entering upon the enjoyment of both while in addition they are beginning to appreciate their well-earned leisure, which can be devoted to increased self-realization.

This nation is making a determined effort to replace the self-respect-destroying type of charity by dignified government-insurance guarantees of security in old age. This nation provides every child an education and every man a job; therefore can it successfully carry out such an insurance scheme for the protection of the infirm and aged.

Among this people all persons must retire from gainful pursuit at sixty-five unless they secure a permit from the state labor commissioner which will entitle them to remain at work until the age of seventy. This age limit does not apply to government servants or philosophers. The physically disabled or permanently crippled can be placed on the retired list at any age by court order countersigned by the pension commissioner of the regional government.

The funds for old-age pensions are derived from four sources:

1. One day's earnings each month are requisitioned by the federal government for this purpose, and in this country everybody works.

2. Bequests—many wealthy citizens leave funds for this purpose.

3. The earnings of compulsory labor in the state mines. After the conscript workers support themselves and set aside their own retirement contributions, all excess profits on their labor are turned over to this pension fund.

4. The income from natural resources. All natural wealth on the continent is held as a social trust by the federal government, and the income therefrom is utilized for social purposes, such as disease prevention, education of geniuses, and expenses of especially promising individuals in the statesmanship schools. One half of the income from natural resources goes to the old-age pension fund.

Although state and regional actuarial foundations supply many forms of protective insurance, old-age pensions are solely administered by the federal government through the ten regional departments.

These government funds have long been honestly administered. Next to treason and murder, the heaviest penalties meted out by the courts are attached


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 Rh to betrayal of public trust. Social and political disloyalty are now looked upon as being the most heinous of all crimes.

The federal government is paternalistic only in the administration of old-age pensions and in the fostering of genius and creative originality; the state governments are slightly more concerned with the individual citizen, while the local governments are much more paternalistic or socialistic. The city (or some subdivision thereof) concerns itself with such matters as health, sanitation, building regulations, beautification, water supply, lighting, heating, recreation, music, and communication.

In all industry first attention is paid to health; certain phases of physical well-being are regarded as industrial and community prerogatives, but individual and family health problems are matters of personal concern only. In medicine, as in all other purely personal matters, it is increasingly the plan of government to refrain from interfering.

Cities have no taxing power, neither can they go in debt. They receive per capita allowances from the state treasury and must supplement such revenue from the earnings of their socialistic enterprises and by licensing various commercial activities.

The rapid-transit facilities, which make it practical greatly to extend the city boundaries, are under municipal control. The city fire departments are supported by the fire-prevention and insurance foundations, and all buildings, in city or country, are fireproof—have been for over seventy-five years.

There are no municipally appointed peace officers; the police forces are maintained by the state governments. This department is recruited almost entirely from the unmarried men between twenty-five and fifty. Most of the states assess a rather heavy bachelor tax, which is remitted to all men joining the state police. In the average state the police force is now only one tenth as large as it was fifty years ago.

There is little or no uniformity among the taxation schemes of the one hundred comparatively free and sovereign states as economic and other conditions vary greatly in different sections of the continent. Every state has ten basic constitutional provisions which cannot be modified except by consent of the federal supreme court, and one of these articles prevents levying a tax of more than one per cent on the value of any property in any one year, homesites, whether in city or country, being exempted.

The federal government cannot go in debt, and a three-fourths referendum is required before any state can borrow except for purposes of war. Since the federal government cannot incur debt, in the event of war the National Council of Defense is empowered to assess the states for money, as well as for men and materials, as it may be required. But no debt may run for more than twenty-five years.

Income to support the federal government is derived from the following five sources:

1. Import duties. All imports are subject to a tariff designed to protect the standard of living on this continent, which is far above that of any other


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 816 nation on the planet. These tariffs are set by the highest industrial court after both houses of the industrial congress have ratified the recommendations of the chief executive of economic affairs, who is the joint appointee of these two legislative bodies. The upper industrial house is elected by labor, the lower by capital.

2. Royalties. The federal government encourages invention and original creations in the ten regional laboratories, assisting all types of geniuses—artists, authors, and scientists—and protecting their patents. In return the government takes one half the profits realized from all such inventions and creations, whether pertaining to machines, books, artistry, plants, or animals.

3. Inheritance tax. The federal government levies a graduated inheritance tax ranging from one to fifty per cent, depending on the size of an estate as well as on other conditions.

4. Military equipment. The government earns a considerable sum from the leasing of military and naval equipment for commercial and recreational usages.

5. Natural resources. The income from natural resources, when not fully required for the specific purposes designated in the charter of federal statehood, is turned into the national treasury.

Federal appropriations, except war funds assessed by the National Council of Defense, are originated in the upper legislative house, concurred in by the lower house, approved by the chief executive, and finally validated by the federal budget commission of one hundred. The members of this commission are nominated by the state governors and elected by the state legislatures to serve for twenty-four years, one quarter being elected every six years. Every six years this body, by a three-fourths ballot, chooses one of its number as chief, and he thereby becomes director-controller of the federal treasury.

In addition to the basic compulsory education program extending from the ages of five to eighteen, special schools are maintained as follows:

1. Statesmanship schools. These schools are of three classes: national, regional, and state. The public offices of the nation are grouped in four divisions. The first division of public trust pertains principally to the national administration, and all officeholders of this group must be graduates of both regional and national schools of statesmanship. Individuals may accept political, elective, or appointive office in the second division upon graduating from any one of the ten regional schools of statesmanship; their trusts concern responsibilities in the regional administration and the state governments. Division three includes state responsibilities, and such officials are only required to have state degrees of statesmanship. The fourth and last division of officeholders are not required to hold statesmanship degrees, such offices being wholly appointive. They represent minor positions of assistantship, secretaryships, and technical trusts which are discharged by the various learned professions functioning in governmental administrative capacities.

Judges of the minor and state courts hold degrees from the state schools of statesmanship. Judges of the jurisdictional tribunals of social, educational,


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 in his broken English was more entertaining than any reproduction I can give.

To illustrate the proverbial grumbling of the average bucolic swain, he told a good anecdote which he heard Francis Deak, the Hungarian patriot statesman, tell.

Deak, whose nobility of soul would allow him to accept of no return for his splendid and disinterested services to his country, used occasionally to spend a few weeks' pleasant retirement from the cares of politics, at the farm of a well-to-do brother-in-law in the country.

On his arrival, on one occasion, he found his host and relative in a very bad humour—brow clouded, manner abrupt and unamiable; and on asking what was the matter, his query elicited a querulous burst of bewailing over his wretched bad fortune.

"Why, what's the matter?" queried the statesman; "potatoes failed?"

"Oh, no; potatoes are a good crop."

"Vines blighted, then?"

"No; the vineyards have borne well."

"Wheat a failure?"

"No; wheat and corn have given an abundant harvest."

"Well, what in the world are you bemoaning? Potatoes, vines, corn, wheat all excellent. What can have gone wrong? Are the cattle dying?"

"No, no!" responded the rich Hungarian; "but I tried a half acre of poppy this year, and it has turned out a dead failure."

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 Rh and industrial matters hold degrees from the regional schools. Judges of the federal supreme court must hold degrees from all these schools of statesmanship.

2. Schools of philosophy. These schools are affiliated with the temples of philosophy and are more or less associated with religion as a public function.

3. Institutions of science. These technical schools are co-ordinated with industry rather than with the educational system and are administered under fifteen divisions.

4. Professional training schools. These special institutions provide the technical training for the various learned professions, twelve in number.

5. Military and naval schools. Near the national headquarters and at the twenty-five coastal military centers are maintained those institutions devoted to the military training of volunteer citizens from eighteen to thirty years of age. Parental consent is required before twenty-five in order to gain entrance to these schools.

Although candidates for all public offices are restricted to graduates of the state, regional, or federal schools of statesmanship, the progressive leaders of this nation discovered a serious weakness in their plan of universal suffrage and about fifty years ago made constitutional provision for a modified scheme of voting which embraces the following features:

1. Every man and woman of twenty years and over has one vote. Upon attaining this age, all citizens must accept membership in two voting groups: They will join the first in accordance with their economic function—industrial, professional, agricultural, or trade; they will enter the second group according to their political, philosophic, and social inclinations. All workers thus belong to some economic franchise group, and these guilds, like the noneconomic associations, are regulated much as is the national government with its threefold division of powers. Registration in these groups cannot be changed for twelve years.

2. Upon nomination by the state governors or by the regional executives and by the mandate of the regional supreme councils, individuals who have rendered great service to society, or who have demonstrated extraordinary wisdom in government service, may have additional votes conferred upon them not oftener than every five years and not to exceed nine such superfranchises. The maximum suffrage of any multiple voter is ten. Scientists, inventors, teachers, philosophers, and spiritual leaders are also thus recognized and honored with augmented political power. These advanced civic privileges are conferred by the state and regional supreme councils much as degrees are bestowed by the special colleges, and the recipients are proud to attach the symbols of such civic recognition, along with their other degrees, to their lists of personal achievements.

3. All individuals sentenced to compulsory labor in the mines and all governmental servants supported by tax funds are, for the periods of such services, disenfranchised. This does not apply to aged persons who may be retired on pensions at sixty-five.

4. There are five brackets of suffrage reflecting the average yearly taxes paid for each half-decade period. Heavy taxpayers are permitted extra votes


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 818 up to five. This grant is independent of all other recognition, but in no case can any person cast over ten ballots.

5. At the time this franchise plan was adopted, the territorial method of voting was abandoned in favor of the economic or functional system. All citizens now vote as members of industrial, social, or professional groups, regardless of their residence. Thus the electorate consists of solidified, unified, and intelligent groups who elect only their best members to positions of governmental trust and responsibility. There is one exception to this scheme of functional or group suffrage: The election of a federal chief executive every six years is by nation-wide ballot, and no citizen casts over one vote.

Thus, except in the election of the chief executive, suffrage is exercised by economic, professional, intellectual, and social groupings of the citizenry. The ideal state is organic, and every free and intelligent group of citizens represents a vital and functioning organ within the larger governmental organism.

The schools of statesmanship have power to start proceedings in the state courts looking toward the disenfranchisement of any defective, idle, indifferent, or criminal individual. These people recognize that, when fifty per cent of a nation is inferior or defective and possesses the ballot, such a nation is doomed. They believe the dominance of mediocrity spells the downfall of any nation. Voting is compulsory, heavy fines being assessed against all who fail to cast their ballots.

The methods of this people in dealing with crime, insanity, and degeneracy, while in some ways pleasing, will, no doubt, in others prove shocking to most Urantians. Ordinary criminals and the defectives are placed, by sexes, in different agricultural colonies and are more than self-supporting. The more serious habitual criminals and the incurably insane are sentenced to death in the lethal gas chambers by the courts. Numerous crimes aside from murder, including betrayal of governmental trust, also carry the death penalty, and the visitation of justice is sure and swift.

These people are passing out of the negative into the positive era of law. Recently they have gone so far as to attempt the prevention of crime by sentencing those who are believed to be potential murderers and major criminals to life service in the detention colonies. If such convicts subsequently demonstrate that they have become more normal, they may be either paroled or pardoned. The homicide rate on this continent is only one per cent of that among the other nations.

Efforts to prevent the breeding of criminals and defectives were begun over one hundred years ago and have already yielded gratifying results. There are no prisons or hospitals for the insane. For one reason, there are only about ten per cent as many of these groups as are found on Urantia.

Graduates of the federal military schools may be commissioned as "guardians of civilization" in seven ranks, in accordance with ability and experience, by the president of the National Council of Defense. This council consists of twenty


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 Rh five members, nominated by the highest parental, educational, and industrial tribunals, confirmed by the federal supreme court, and presided over ex officio by the chief of staff of co-ordinated military affairs. Such members serve until they are seventy years of age.

The courses pursued by such commissioned officers are four years in length and are invariably correlated with the mastery of some trade or profession. Military training is never given without this associated industrial, scientific, or professional schooling. When military training is finished, the individual has, during his four years' course, received one half of the education imparted in any of the special schools where the courses are likewise four years in length. In this way the creation of a professional military class is avoided by providing this opportunity for a large number of men to support themselves while securing the first half of a technical or professional training.

Military service during peacetime is purely voluntary, and the enlistments in all branches of the service are for four years, during which every man pursues some special line of study in addition to the mastery of military tactics. Training in music is one of the chief pursuits of the central military schools and of the twenty-five training camps distributed about the periphery of the continent. During periods of industrial slackness many thousands of unemployed are automatically utilized in upbuilding the military defenses of the continent on land and sea and in the air.

Although these people maintain a powerful war establishment as a defense against invasion by the surrounding hostile peoples, it may be recorded to their credit that they have not in over one hundred years employed these military resources in an offensive war. They have become civilized to that point where they can vigorously defend civilization without yielding to the temptation to utilize their war powers in aggression. There have been no civil wars since the establishment of the united continental state, but during the last two centuries these people have been called upon to wage nine fierce defensive conflicts, three of which were against mighty confederations of world powers. Although this nation maintains adequate defense against attack by hostile neighbors, it pays far more attention to the training of statesmen, scientists, and philosophers.

When at peace with the world, all mobile defense mechanisms are quite fully employed in trade, commerce, and recreation. When war is declared, the entire nation is mobilized. Throughout the period of hostilities military pay obtains in all industries, and the chiefs of all military departments become members of the chief executive's cabinet.

Although the society and government of this unique people are in many respects superior to those of the Urantia nations, it should be stated that on the other continents (there are eleven on this planet) the governments are decidedly inferior to the more advanced nations of Urantia.

Just now this superior government is planning to establish ambassadorial relations with the inferior peoples, and for the first time a great religious leader has arisen who advocates the sending of missionaries to these surrounding nations. We fear they are about to make the mistake that so many others have made when they have endeavored to force a superior culture and religion upon


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 820 other races. What a wonderful thing could be done on this world if this continental nation of advanced culture would only go out and bring to itself the best of the neighboring peoples and then, after educating them, send them back as emissaries of culture to their benighted brethren! Of course, if a Magisterial Son should soon come to this advanced nation, great things could quickly happen on this world.

This recital of the affairs of a neighboring planet is made by special permission with the intent of advancing civilization and augmenting governmental evolution on Urantia. Much more could be narrated that would no doubt interest and intrigue Urantians, but this disclosure covers the limits of our permissive mandate.

Urantians should, however, take note that their sister sphere in the Satania family has benefited by neither magisterial nor bestowal missions of the Paradise Sons. Neither are the various peoples of Urantia set off from each other by such disparity of culture as separates the continental nation from its planetary fellows.

The pouring out of the Spirit of Truth provides the spiritual foundation for the realization of great achievements in the interests of the human race of the bestowal world. Urantia is therefore far better prepared for the more immediate realization of a planetary government with its laws, mechanisms, symbols, conventions, and language—all of which could contribute so mightily to the establishment of world-wide peace under law and could lead to the sometime dawning of a real age of spiritual striving; and such an age is the planetary threshold to the utopian ages of light and life.

[Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]


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 "Ah, me!" said Deak. "How many of us think only of our half-acre of poppies, forgetful of the myriad good things which fall daily to our lot."

The closing note I find recorded about Southland is that it contains the finest herd of black-polled Angus cattle in the southern hemisphere. These form the famous Waimea herd, near Gore, which has taken the first prize for this class wherever shown in Australia.

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HE cultural decadence and spiritual poverty resulting from the Caligastia downfall and consequent social confusion had little effect on the physical or biologic status of the Urantia peoples. Organic evolution proceeded apace, quite regardless of the cultural and moral setback which so swiftly followed the disaffection of Caligastia and Daligastia. And there came a time in the planetary history, almost forty thousand years ago, when the Life Carriers on duty took note that, from a purely biologic standpoint, the developmental progress of the Urantia races was nearing its apex. The Melchizedek receivers, concurring in this opinion, readily agreed to join the Life Carriers in a petition to the Most Highs of Edentia asking that Urantia be inspected with a view to authorizing the dispatch of biologic uplifters, a Material Son and Daughter.

This request was addressed to the Most Highs of Edentia because they had exercised direct jurisdiction over many of Urantia's affairs ever since Caligastia's downfall and the temporary vacation of authority on Jerusem.

Tabamantia, sovereign supervisor of the series of decimal or experimental worlds, came to inspect the planet and, after his survey of racial progress, duly recommended that Urantia be granted Material Sons. In a little less than one hundred years from the time of this inspection, Adam and Eve, a Material Son and Daughter of the local system, arrived and began the difficult task of attempting to untangle the confused affairs of a planet retarded by rebellion and resting under the ban of spiritual isolation.

On a normal planet the arrival of the Material Son would ordinarily herald the approach of a great age of invention, material progress, and intellectual enlightenment. The post-Adamic era is the great scientific age of most worlds, but not so on Urantia. Though the planet was peopled by races physically fit, the tribes languished in the depths of savagery and moral stagnation.

Ten thousand years after the rebellion practically all the gains of the Prince's administration had been effaced; the races of the world were little better off than if this misguided Son had never come to Urantia. Only among the Nodites and the Amadonites was there persistence of the traditions of Dalamatia and the culture of the Planetary Prince.

The Nodites were the descendants of the rebel members of the Prince's staff, their name deriving from their first leader, Nod, onetime chairman of the Dalamatia commission on industry and trade. The Amadonites were the descendants of those Andonites who chose to remain loyal with Van and Amadon.


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 822 "Amadonite" is more of a cultural and religious designation than a racial term; racially considered the Amadonites were essentially Andonites. "Nodite" is both a cultural and racial term, for the Nodites themselves constituted the eighth race of Urantia.

There existed a traditional enmity between the Nodites and the Amadonites. This feud was constantly coming to the surface whenever the offspring of these two groups would try to engage in some common enterprise. Even later, in the affairs of Eden, it was exceedingly difficult for them to work together in peace.

Shortly after the destruction of Dalamatia the followers of Nod became divided into three major groups. The central group remained in the immediate vicinity of their original home near the headwaters of the Persian Gulf. The eastern group migrated to the highland regions of Elam just east of the Euphrates valley. The western group was situated on the northeastern Syrian shores of the Mediterranean and in adjacent territory.

These Nodites had freely mated with the Sangik races and had left behind an able progeny. And some of the descendants of the rebellious Dalamatians subsequently joined Van and his loyal followers in the lands north of Mesopotamia. Here, in the vicinity of Lake Van and the southern Caspian Sea region, the Nodites mingled and mixed with the Amadonites, and they were numbered among the "mighty men of old."

Prior to the arrival of Adam and Eve these groups—Nodites and Amadonites—were the most advanced and cultured races on earth.

For almost one hundred years prior to Tabamantia's inspection, Van and his associates, from their highland headquarters of world ethics and culture, had been preaching the advent of a promised Son of God, a racial uplifter, a teacher of truth, and the worthy successor of the traitorous Caligastia. Though the majority of the world's inhabitants of those days exhibited little or no interest in such a prediction, those who were in immediate contact with Van and Amadon took such teaching seriously and began to plan for the actual reception of the promised Son.

Van told his nearest associates the story of the Material Sons on Jerusem; what he had known of them before ever he came to Urantia. He well knew that these Adamic Sons always lived in simple but charming garden homes and proposed, eighty-three years before the arrival of Adam and Eve, that they devote themselves to the proclamation of their advent and to the preparation of a garden home for their reception.

From their highland headquarters and from sixty-one far-scattered settlements, Van and Amadon recruited a corps of over three thousand willing and enthusiastic workers who, in solemn assembly, dedicated themselves to this mission of preparing for the promised—at least expected—Son.

Van divided his volunteers into one hundred companies with a captain over each and an associate who served on his personal staff as a liaison officer, keeping Amadon as his own associate. These commissions all began in earnest their preliminary work, and the committee on location for the Garden sallied forth in search of the ideal spot.

Although Caligastia and Daligastia had been deprived of much of their power for evil, they did everything possible to frustrate and hamper the work