유란시아 책
III 부. 유란시아의 역사
68:0.1 (763.1)
THIS is the beginning of the narrative of the long, long forward struggle of the human species from a status that was little better than an animal existence, through the intervening ages, and down to the later times when a real, though imperfect, civilization had evolved among the higher races of mankind.
68:0.2 (763.2)
Civilization is a racial acquirement; it is not biologically inherent; hence must all children be reared in an environment of culture, while each succeeding generation of youth must receive anew its education. The superior qualities of civilization—scientific, philosophic, and religious—are not transmitted from one generation to another by direct inheritance. These cultural achievements are preserved only by the enlightened conservation of social inheritance.
68:0.3 (763.3)
Social evolution of the co-operative order was initiated by the Dalamatia teachers, and for three hundred thousand years mankind was nurtured in the idea of group activities. The blue man most of all profited by these early social teachings, the red man to some extent, and the black man least of all. In more recent times the yellow race and the white race have presented the most advanced social development on Urantia.
68:1.1 (763.4)
When brought closely together, men often learn to like one another, but primitive man was not naturally overflowing with the spirit of brotherly feeling and the desire for social contact with his fellows. Rather did the early races learn by sad experience that “in union there is strength”; and it is this lack of natural brotherly attraction that now stands in the way of immediate realization of the brotherhood of man on Urantia.
68:1.2 (763.5)
Association early became the price of survival. The lone man was helpless unless he bore a tribal mark which testified that he belonged to a group which would certainly avenge any assault made upon him. Even in the days of Cain it was fatal to go abroad alone without some mark of group association. Civilization has become man’s insurance against violent death, while the premiums are paid by submission to society’s numerous law demands.
원시 인간은, 독립된 개인들의 단순한 집합보다 집단이 훨씬 훌륭하고 강하다는 것을 일찍부터 배웠다. 100명의 남자가 결합해 힘을 합쳐서 일하면 거대한 돌도 움직일 수 있으며;잘 훈련된 다수의 평화 수호자는 흥분한 군중을 자제시킬 수 있다. 그리하여 사회가 생겨났는데, 개인들을 단순히 연합시키는 것이 아니라, 영리하게 협동하는 자들을 조직한 결과였다. 그러나 협동은 사람의 선천적 특징이 아니며;처음에는 두려움을 통해서 협동하기를 배우고, 나중에는 시간상 어려움을 극복하기에 그리고 영원한 위기라고 생각되는 것에 대비하여 조심하기에 협동이 가장 유익하다는 것을 깨닫기 때문에 협동하기를 배운다.
68:1.4 (763.7)
Primitive human beings early learned that groups are vastly greater and stronger than the mere sum of their individual units. One hundred men united and working in unison can move a great stone; a score of well-trained guardians of the peace can restrain an angry mob. And so society was born, not of mere association of numbers, but rather as a result of the organization of intelligent co-operators. But co-operation is not a natural trait of man; he learns to co-operate first through fear and then later because he discovers it is most beneficial in meeting the difficulties of time and guarding against the supposed perils of eternity.
68:1.5 (764.1)
The peoples who thus early organized themselves into a primitive society became more successful in their attacks on nature as well as in defense against their fellows; they possessed greater survival possibilities; hence has civilization steadily progressed on Urantia, notwithstanding its many setbacks. And it is only because of the enhancement of survival value in association that man’s many blunders have thus far failed to stop or destroy human civilization.
오스트랄리아 원주민과 아프리카의 부시먼 인종과 피그미 인종의 특징인 원시 사회 상황이 오늘날에도 남아있다는 사실이, 현대 문화 사회가 상당히 최근 현상임을 잘 보여준다. 진보가 늦은 이 민족들 가운데서, 초기의 집단적 호전성과 개인적 의심 그리고 모든 원시 종족의 전반적인 특질이었던 매우 반사회적{反社會的}인 기타 특징들이 발견될 수 있다. 사회성이 없는 고대의 민족 중에서 초라한 모습으로 살아남아있는 이 사람들을 통해서, 선천적으로 개인주의적 성향을 지닌 사람은, 사회적 진행에 훨씬 더 능력 있고 힘 있는 조직체 및 연합체들과 성공적으로 경쟁할 수 없다는 사실이 뚜렷하게 증명됐다. 40내지 50마일마다 서로 다른 사투리를 구사하고 진보가 느리고 의심 많은 이 반사회적 인종들은, 행성 왕자의 육체전환 참모진이 연합하여 가르치는 교육과, 인종을 개량시키는 아담 후예 무리들의 후기 활동이 없었다면, 너희가 지금 어떤 모습으로 살고 있을 것인지를 예증{例證}하고 있다.
68:1.6 (764.2)
That contemporary cultural society is a rather recent phenomenon is well shown by the present-day survival of such primitive social conditions as characterize the Australian natives and the Bushmen and Pygmies of Africa. Among these backward peoples may be observed something of the early group hostility, personal suspicion, and other highly antisocial traits which were so characteristic of all primitive races. These miserable remnants of the nonsocial peoples of ancient times bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the natural individualistic tendency of man cannot successfully compete with the more potent and powerful organizations and associations of social progression. These backward and suspicious antisocial races that speak a different dialect every forty or fifty miles illustrate what a world you might now be living in but for the combined teaching of the corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince and the later labors of the Adamic group of racial uplifters.
68:1.7 (764.3)
The modern phrase, “back to nature,” is a delusion of ignorance, a belief in the reality of the onetime fictitious “golden age.” The only basis for the legend of the golden age is the historic fact of Dalamatia and Eden. But these improved societies were far from the realization of utopian dreams.
68:2.1 (764.4)
Civilized society is the result of man’s early efforts to overcome his dislike of isolation. But this does not necessarily signify mutual affection, and the present turbulent state of certain primitive groups well illustrates what the early tribes came up through. But though the individuals of a civilization may collide with each other and struggle against one another, and though civilization itself may appear to be an inconsistent mass of striving and struggling, it does evidence earnest striving, not the deadly monotony of stagnation.
68:2.2 (764.5)
While the level of intelligence has contributed considerably to the rate of cultural progress, society is essentially designed to lessen the risk element in the individual’s mode of living, and it has progressed just as fast as it has succeeded in lessening pain and increasing the pleasure element in life. Thus does the whole social body push on slowly toward the goal of destiny—extinction or survival—depending on whether that goal is self-maintenance or self-gratification. Self-maintenance originates society, while excessive self-gratification destroys civilization.
68:2.4 (765.1)
The herd instinct in natural man is hardly sufficient to account for the development of such a social organization as now exists on Urantia. Though this innate gregarious propensity lies at the bottom of human society, much of man’s sociability is an acquirement. Two great influences which contributed to the early association of human beings were food hunger and sex love; these instinctive urges man shares with the animal world. Two other emotions which drove human beings together and held them together were vanity and fear, more particularly ghost fear.
역사는, 오랜 세월에 걸쳐서 사람이 양식을 얻으려고 투쟁한 기록에 불과하다. 원시인은 자기가 배고플 때에야 겨우 생각했으며;식량 저장은, 첫 금욕 곧 자기-훈련이었다. 사회가 성장함에 따라서, 식욕만이 상호 연합을 유일하게 자극하던 시대는 지나갔다. 수많은 다른 종류의 굶주림, 즉 다양한 필요성을 깨닫게 되면서, 인류는 더 긴밀하게 연합했다. 그러나 오늘날 사회는, 인류에게 필요하다고 가정되는 것보다 너무 커져서 불안정하다. 20세기 서양 문명은 지나친 사치의 부담 그리고 지나치게 배가{倍加}된 인간적 욕구와 동경에 짓눌려서 신음하고 있다. 현대 사회는, 광범한 상호연합과 매우 복잡한 상호의존이라는 가장 위험한 국면의 긴장상태를 견디고 있다.
68:2.5 (765.2)
History is but the record of man’s agelong food struggle. Primitive man only thought when he was hungry; food saving was his first self-denial, self-discipline. With the growth of society, food hunger ceased to be the only incentive for mutual association. Numerous other sorts of hunger, the realization of various needs, all led to the closer association of mankind. But today society is top-heavy with the overgrowth of supposed human needs. Occidental civilization of the twentieth century groans wearily under the tremendous overload of luxury and the inordinate multiplication of human desires and longings. Modern society is enduring the strain of one of its most dangerous phases of far-flung interassociation and highly complicated interdependence.
굶주림과 허영심과 유령에 대한 두려움은 그들의 사회에 계속해서 압력을 가했지만, 성욕의 만족은 일시적이고 돌발적이었다. 원시인 남녀가 가정을 유지하는 무거운 짐을 지게 된 것은, 오직 성적 충동 때문만은 아니었다. 초기의 가정은, 성욕의 만족감을 자주 채우지 못함으로 인한 남성의 불만, 그리고 인간 여성의 헌신적 모성애를 바탕으로 만들어졌는데, 모성애는 모든 고등동물 암컷에게도 어느 정도 있다. 연약한 어린 아기가 태어남에 따라, 남자와 여자의 활동에서 일찍 분화{分化}되는 현상이 나타났으며;여자는 정착된 주거지를 유지해야했고, 거기서 땅을 일굴 수 있었다. 그리고 아주 초기부터, 여자가 사는 곳이 항상 가정으로 간주돼왔다.
68:2.6 (765.3)
Hunger, vanity, and ghost fear were continuous in their social pressure, but sex gratification was transient and spasmodic. The sex urge alone did not impel primitive men and women to assume the heavy burdens of home maintenance. The early home was founded upon the sex restlessness of the male when deprived of frequent gratification and upon that devoted mother love of the human female, which in measure she shares with the females of all the higher animals. The presence of a helpless baby determined the early differentiation of male and female activities; the woman had to maintain a settled residence where she could cultivate the soil. And from earliest times, where woman was has always been regarded as the home.
68:2.7 (765.4)
Woman thus early became indispensable to the evolving social scheme, not so much because of the fleeting sex passion as in consequence of food requirement; she was an essential partner in self-maintenance. She was a food provider, a beast of burden, and a companion who would stand great abuse without violent resentment, and in addition to all of these desirable traits, she was an ever-present means of sex gratification.
68:2.9 (765.6)
The function of marriage in evolution is the insurance of race survival, not merely the realization of personal happiness; self-maintenance and self-perpetuation are the real objects of the home. Self-gratification is incidental and not essential except as an incentive insuring sex association. Nature demands survival, but the arts of civilization continue to increase the pleasures of marriage and the satisfactions of family life.
68:2.10 (765.7)
If vanity be enlarged to cover pride, ambition, and honor, then we may discern not only how these propensities contribute to the formation of human associations, but how they also hold men together, since such emotions are futile without an audience to parade before. Soon vanity associated with itself other emotions and impulses which required a social arena wherein they might exhibit and gratify themselves. This group of emotions gave origin to the early beginnings of all art, ceremonial, and all forms of sportive games and contests.
68:2.11 (766.1)
Vanity contributed mightily to the birth of society; but at the time of these revelations the devious strivings of a vainglorious generation threaten to swamp and submerge the whole complicated structure of a highly specialized civilization. Pleasure-want has long since superseded hunger-want; the legitimate social aims of self-maintenance are rapidly translating themselves into base and threatening forms of self-gratification. Self-maintenance builds society; unbridled self-gratification unfailingly destroys civilization.
68:3.1 (766.2)
Primitive desires produced the original society, but ghost fear held it together and imparted an extrahuman aspect to its existence. Common fear was physiological in origin: fear of physical pain, unsatisfied hunger, or some earthly calamity; but ghost fear was a new and sublime sort of terror.
68:3.2 (766.3)
Probably the greatest single factor in the evolution of human society was the ghost dream. Although most dreams greatly perturbed the primitive mind, the ghost dream actually terrorized early men, driving these superstitious dreamers into each other’s arms in willing and earnest association for mutual protection against the vague and unseen imaginary dangers of the spirit world. The ghost dream was one of the earliest appearing differences between the animal and human types of mind. Animals do not visualize survival after death.
이런 유령 요소를 제외하면, 모든 사회는 근본적인 필요성과 기본적인 생물학상 충동 위에 세워졌다. 그러나 유령에 대한 두려움은 새 요소를 문명에 선보였는데, 이 두려움은, 개인의 기본적 필요를 멀리 벗어났고, 집단을 유지하기 위한 투쟁조차 훨씬 심각하게 뛰어넘었다. 죽은 시체에서 떠난 영에 대한 두려움은, 새롭고 놀라운 형태의 두려움 곧 무시무시하고 강렬한 공포심을 드러내게 됐는데, 초기 시대의 산만한 사회체제가 더 철저히 단련되도록, 그리고 고대의 원시 집단들을 더 효과적으로 통제하도록 기여했다. 이 어리석은 미신 가운데 일부가 여전히 존속하는데, 실재하지 않는 초자연적인 것에 대한 미신적 두려움을 통해서, 후대에 “지혜의 근원인 주께 대한 두려움”을 발견하도록 사람들의 정신을 준비시켰다. 진화로 생긴 근거 없는 두려움은, 계시로 영감{靈感}받는 신격에 대한 경외심으로 대체되도록 고안돼있다. 유령에 대한 두려움에 의거한 초기 의식{儀式}은 강력한 사회적 구속력이 됐고, 인류는 먼 옛날부터 항상 영성{靈性}을 달성하려고 다소 애써왔다.
68:3.3 (766.4)
Except for this ghost factor, all society was founded on fundamental needs and basic biologic urges. But ghost fear introduced a new factor in civilization, a fear which reaches out and away from the elemental needs of the individual, and which rises far above even the struggles to maintain the group. The dread of the departed spirits of the dead brought to light a new and amazing form of fear, an appalling and powerful terror, which contributed to whipping the loose social orders of early ages into the more thoroughly disciplined and better controlled primitive groups of ancient times. This senseless superstition, some of which still persists, prepared the minds of men, through superstitious fear of the unreal and the supernatural, for the later discovery of “the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom.” The baseless fears of evolution are designed to be supplanted by the awe for Deity inspired by revelation. The early cult of ghost fear became a powerful social bond, and ever since that far-distant day mankind has been striving more or less for the attainment of spirituality.
68:3.4 (766.5)
Hunger and love drove men together; vanity and ghost fear held them together. But these emotions alone, without the influence of peace-promoting revelations, are unable to endure the strain of the suspicions and irritations of human interassociations. Without help from superhuman sources the strain of society breaks down upon reaching certain limits, and these very influences of social mobilization—hunger, love, vanity, and fear—conspire to plunge mankind into war and bloodshed.
68:4.1 (767.1)
All modern social institutions arise from the evolution of the primitive customs of your savage ancestors; the conventions of today are the modified and expanded customs of yesterday. What habit is to the individual, custom is to the group; and group customs develop into folkways or tribal traditions—mass conventions. From these early beginnings all of the institutions of present-day human society take their humble origin.
68:4.2 (767.2)
It must be borne in mind that the mores originated in an effort to adjust group living to the conditions of mass existence; the mores were man’s first social institution. And all of these tribal reactions grew out of the effort to avoid pain and humiliation while at the same time seeking to enjoy pleasure and power. The origin of folkways, like the origin of languages, is always unconscious and unintentional and therefore always shrouded in mystery.
유령에 대한 두려움은, 초자연적 존재를 상상하도록 원시인에게 강요했고, 그리하여 종교와 윤리라는 강력한 사회 세력이 형성되도록 기초를 마련해줬으며, 이것들은 역으로 신성불가침의 사회관행과 관습이 한 세대에서 다음 세대로 계속 보존되게 했다. 초기에 사회관행을 형성하고 구체화시킨 한 가지는, 죽은 자가 어떻게 살다가 죽었든지, 그 방식을 고수하려고 애쓸 것이라는 믿음이었으며;그래서 그들은, 죽은 자가 살아있던 동안에 공경했던 생활 법도를, 감히 경솔하게 경멸하는 태도로 다루려는 살아있는 인간들에게 무시무시한 형벌을 가하기 위하여, 그가 찾아올 것이라고 믿었다. 이 모든 것은 오늘날 황인종의 조상숭배에서 잘 예증된다. 나중에 발달된 원시 종교는 사회관행을 안정시키면서 유령에 대한 두려움을 크게 강화시켰으나, 진보하는 문명은 두려움의 속박과 미신의 노예 상태에서 인류를 점점 해방시켜왔다.
68:4.3 (767.3)
Ghost fear drove primitive man to envision the supernatural and thus securely laid the foundations for those powerful social influences of ethics and religion which in turn preserved inviolate the mores and customs of society from generation to generation. The one thing which early established and crystallized the mores was the belief that the dead were jealous of the ways by which they had lived and died; therefore would they visit dire punishment upon those living mortals who dared to treat with careless disdain the rules of living which they had honored when in the flesh. All this is best illustrated by the present reverence of the yellow race for their ancestors. Later developing primitive religion greatly reinforced ghost fear in stabilizing the mores, but advancing civilization has increasingly liberated mankind from the bondage of fear and the slavery of superstition.
사람을 해방시키고 개방적이 되게 하는 지침을 달라마시아 선생들이 제시하기 전에는, 고대 인간은 사회관행이라는 제례식의 무기력한 희생자 상태를 벗어나지 못했으며;원시 미개인은 끝없는 예식절차에 둘러싸여있었다. 아침에 깨는 시간부터 밤에 동굴로 돌아가 잠드는 순간까지, 그가 하는 모든 것은 바로 그렇게--곧 그 부족의 민속에 일치되도록-- 이뤄져야만 했다. 미개인은 관례의 횡포에 노예가 됐고;그의 삶에는 자유롭거나 자발적이거나 독창적인 것이 전혀 없었다. 그런 상태에서는 더 높은 정신적, 도덕적, 또는 사회적 실존을 향해서 자연스럽게 진보할 수 없었다.
68:4.4 (767.4)
Prior to the liberating and liberalizing instruction of the Dalamatia teachers, ancient man was held a helpless victim of the ritual of the mores; the primitive savage was hedged about by an endless ceremonial. Everything he did from the time of awakening in the morning to the moment he fell asleep in his cave at night had to be done just so—in accordance with the folkways of the tribe. He was a slave to the tyranny of usage; his life contained nothing free, spontaneous, or original. There was no natural progress toward a higher mental, moral, or social existence.
68:4.5 (767.5)
Early man was mightily gripped by custom; the savage was a veritable slave to usage; but there have arisen ever and anon those variations from type who have dared to inaugurate new ways of thinking and improved methods of living. Nevertheless, the inertia of primitive man constitutes the biologic safety brake against precipitation too suddenly into the ruinous maladjustment of a too rapidly advancing civilization.
68:4.6 (767.6)
But these customs are not an unmitigated evil; their evolution should continue. It is nearly fatal to the continuance of civilization to undertake their wholesale modification by radical revolution. Custom has been the thread of continuity which has held civilization together. The path of human history is strewn with the remnants of discarded customs and obsolete social practices; but no civilization has endured which abandoned its mores except for the adoption of better and more fit customs.
68:4.7 (767.7)
The survival of a society depends chiefly on the progressive evolution of its mores. The process of custom evolution grows out of the desire for experimentation; new ideas are put forward—competition ensues. A progressing civilization embraces the progressive idea and endures; time and circumstance finally select the fitter group for survival. But this does not mean that each separate and isolated change in the composition of human society has been for the better. No! indeed no! for there have been many, many retrogressions in the long forward struggle of Urantia civilization.
68:5.1 (768.1)
Land is the stage of society; men are the actors. And man must ever adjust his performances to conform to the land situation. The evolution of the mores is always dependent on the land-man ratio. This is true notwithstanding the difficulty of its discernment. Man’s land technique, or maintenance arts, plus his standards of living, equal the sum total of the folkways, the mores. And the sum of man’s adjustment to the life demands equals his cultural civilization.
68:5.3 (768.3)
1. The collection stage. Food coercion, hunger, led to the first form of industrial organization, the primitive food-gathering lines. Sometimes such a line of hunger march would be ten miles long as it passed over the land gleaning food. This was the primitive nomadic stage of culture and is the mode of life now followed by the African Bushmen.
68:5.4 (768.4)
2. The hunting stage. The invention of weapon tools enabled man to become a hunter and thus to gain considerable freedom from food slavery. A thoughtful Andonite who had severely bruised his fist in a serious combat rediscovered the idea of using a long stick for his arm and a piece of hard flint, bound on the end with sinews, for his fist. Many tribes made independent discoveries of this sort, and these various forms of hammers represented one of the great forward steps in human civilization. Today some Australian natives have progressed little beyond this stage.
목축 이전의 사회는 남녀가 협동하는 사회였지만, 축산업이 널리 보급되면서, 여자는 사회에서 노예가 되는 처지로 점차 떨어졌다. 초기에는, 동물성 양식 준비가 남자의 의무였고, 식물성 식품 제공은 여자의 일이었다. 그러므로 남자가 목축시대 생활에 들어가자, 여자의 위신은 크게 떨어졌다. 여자는 생활에 필요한 야채를 가꾸려고 여전히 수고해야했으나, 남자는 풍부한 동물성 식품을 제공하기 위해 가축 떼를 돌보기만 하면 됐다. 이렇게 해서 남자가 여자에게 비교적 덜 의존하게 됐으며;목축시대 내내, 여자의 지위는 꾸준히 낮아졌다. 이 시대가 끝날 무렵에는, 여자가 인간 동물이나 다름없었고, 일하기와 인간 자손 낳기를 맡았고, 가축 떼에게 노동하고 새끼 낳기를 바라는 것과 다를 바 없었다. 목축시대의 남자는 자기 가축을 무척 소중히 다뤘으며;너무 아낀 나머지, 아내에게 더 깊은 애정을 쏟을 수 없을 정도였다.
68:5.8 (768.8)
Prepastoral society was one of sex co-operation, but the spread of animal husbandry reduced women to the depths of social slavery. In earlier times it was man’s duty to secure the animal food, woman’s business to provide the vegetable edibles. Therefore, when man entered the pastoral era of his existence, woman’s dignity fell greatly. She must still toil to produce the vegetable necessities of life, whereas the man need only go to his herds to provide an abundance of animal food. Man thus became relatively independent of woman; throughout the entire pastoral age woman’s status steadily declined. By the close of this era she had become scarcely more than a human animal, consigned to work and to bear human offspring, much as the animals of the herd were expected to labor and bring forth young. The men of the pastoral ages had great love for their cattle; all the more pity they could not have developed a deeper affection for their wives.
68:5.9 (769.1)
4. The agricultural stage. This era was brought about by the domestication of plants, and it represents the highest type of material civilization. Both Caligastia and Adam endeavored to teach horticulture and agriculture. Adam and Eve were gardeners, not shepherds, and gardening was an advanced culture in those days. The growing of plants exerts an ennobling influence on all races of mankind.
68:5.11 (769.3)
There has always been friction between the herders and the tillers of the soil. The hunter and herder were militant, warlike; the agriculturist is a more peace-loving type. Association with animals suggests struggle and force; association with plants instills patience, quiet, and peace. Agriculture and industrialism are the activities of peace. But the weakness of both, as world social activities, is that they lack excitement and adventure.
68:5.13 (769.5)
And now is industry supplementing agriculture, with consequently increased urbanization and multiplication of nonagricultural groups of citizenship classes. But an industrial era cannot hope to survive if its leaders fail to recognize that even the highest social developments must ever rest upon a sound agricultural basis.
68:6.1 (769.6)
Man is a creature of the soil, a child of nature; no matter how earnestly he may try to escape from the land, in the last reckoning he is certain to fail. “Dust you are and to dust shall you return” is literally true of all mankind. The basic struggle of man was, and is, and ever shall be, for land. The first social associations of primitive human beings were for the purpose of winning these land struggles. The land-man ratio underlies all social civilization.
인간 사회는, 인구가 땅을 경작하는 기술에 정비례로, 그리고 주어진 생활수준에 반비례로 바뀌어야한다고 선언하는 법칙에 지배된다. 이런 초기 시대 내내, 사람과 땅의 관계에서 공급과 수요 법칙은, 심지어 오늘날보다 더 심하게 양쪽 예상 가치를 결정했다. 풍부한 땅--즉 점령되지 않은 지역--이 있던 시대에는, 사람의 필요성이 컸고, 그렇기 때문에 인간의 생명에 대한 가치는 더욱 증대됐으며;따라서 생명을 잃는 것은 매우 끔찍한 일이었다. 땅이 부족해서 그에 따라 인구가 과밀{過密}하게 된 기간에는, 인간의 생명이 비교적 가치가 떨어지게 되어, 전쟁이나 기근이나 역병{疫病}이 별로 중요시되지 않았다.
68:6.3 (769.8)
Human society is controlled by a law which decrees that the population must vary directly in accordance with the land arts and inversely with a given standard of living. Throughout these early ages, even more than at present, the law of supply and demand as concerned men and land determined the estimated value of both. During the times of plentiful land—unoccupied territory—the need for men was great, and therefore the value of human life was much enhanced; hence the loss of life was more horrifying. During periods of land scarcity and associated overpopulation, human life became comparatively cheapened so that war, famine, and pestilence were regarded with less concern.
68:6.4 (770.1)
When the land yield is reduced or the population is increased, the inevitable struggle is renewed; the very worst traits of human nature are brought to the surface. The improvement of the land yield, the extension of the mechanical arts, and the reduction of population all tend to foster the development of the better side of human nature.
68:6.5 (770.2)
Frontier society develops the unskilled side of humanity; the fine arts and true scientific progress, together with spiritual culture, have all thrived best in the larger centers of life when supported by an agricultural and industrial population slightly under the land-man ratio. Cities always multiply the power of their inhabitants for either good or evil.
68:6.7 (770.4)
All down through the ages the standards of living have determined the quality of a surviving population in contrast with mere quantity. Local class standards of living give origin to new social castes, new mores. When standards of living become too complicated or too highly luxurious, they speedily become suicidal. Caste is the direct result of the high social pressure of keen competition produced by dense populations.
초기 인종들은, 인구 제한을 위하여 고안된 풍습에 종종 의존했으며;모든 원시 부족은 불구자와 허약한 아이를 죽였다. 여자아이는 아내로 구매되기 전에 종종 살해됐다. 때로는 아이가 태어날 때 목 졸리기도 했으나, 버리는 방법을 선호했다. 둘 이상이 동시에 태어나는 것은 마술 또는 부정{不貞} 때문이라고 믿었으므로, 쌍둥이의 아버지는 대개 그 가운데 하나를 죽여야한다고 고집했다. 그러나 일반적으로 동성{同性} 쌍둥이는 살렸다. 쌍둥이에 대한 이런 금기{禁忌}가 한때 보편적으로 퍼졌으나, 안돈족속의 사회관행에는 전혀 포함되지 않았으며;이 사람들은 쌍둥이를 항상 행운의 징조로 여겼다.
68:6.8 (770.5)
The early races often resorted to practices designed to restrict population; all primitive tribes killed deformed and sickly children. Girl babies were frequently killed before the times of wife purchase. Children were sometimes strangled at birth, but the favorite method was exposure. The father of twins usually insisted that one be killed since multiple births were believed to be caused either by magic or by infidelity. As a rule, however, twins of the same sex were spared. While these taboos on twins were once well-nigh universal, they were never a part of the Andonite mores; these peoples always regarded twins as omens of good luck.
68:6.9 (770.6)
Many races learned the technique of abortion, and this practice became very common after the establishment of the taboo on childbirth among the unmarried. It was long the custom for a maiden to kill her offspring, but among more civilized groups these illegitimate children became the wards of the girl’s mother. Many primitive clans were virtually exterminated by the practice of both abortion and infanticide. But regardless of the dictates of the mores, very few children were ever destroyed after having once been suckled—maternal affection is too strong.
68:6.10 (770.7)
Even in the twentieth century there persist remnants of these primitive population controls. There is a tribe in Australia whose mothers refuse to rear more than two or three children. Not long since, one cannibalistic tribe ate every fifth child born. In Madagascar some tribes still destroy all children born on certain unlucky days, resulting in the death of about twenty-five per cent of all babies.
세계의 관점에서 보면, 과잉인구 현상이 과거에 심각하게 일어난 적이 없었으나, 전쟁이 줄어들고 과학이 인간의 질병을 더욱 통제하게 되면, 가까운 미래에 과잉인구가 심각한 문제로 대두될 것이다. 그런 때가 되면, 세계를 이끄는 지혜자들에게 엄청난 시험이 임할 것이다. 보통 이상{以上}의 사람들과, 엄청나게 증가하는 보통 이하의 집단들이라는 양극단 대신에, 평범하거나 안정된 인간을 육성할 수 있는 통찰력과 용기를, 유란시아 통치자들이 갖게 될 것인가? 보통 사람은 육성돼야만 할 것이며;보통 사람은 문명의 중심이고, 종족에서 돌연변이 천재성이 나타나는 근원이다. 보통 이하의 사람은 사회의 통제를 받아야하며;낮은 수준의 산업, 즉 동물 수준보다는 높은 지성을 필요로 하지만, 상류 유형의 인류를 위하여 진정한 노예가 되고 속박되는 것처럼 보이는, 그런 낮은 등급의 노동에 필요한 인구 이상으로 증가돼서는 안 된다.
68:6.11 (770.8)
From a world standpoint, overpopulation has never been a serious problem in the past, but if war is lessened and science increasingly controls human diseases, it may become a serious problem in the near future. At such a time the great test of the wisdom of world leadership will present itself. Will Urantia rulers have the insight and courage to foster the multiplication of the average or stabilized human being instead of the extremes of the supernormal and the enormously increasing groups of the subnormal? The normal man should be fostered; he is the backbone of civilization and the source of the mutant geniuses of the race. The subnormal man should be kept under society’s control; no more should be produced than are required to administer the lower levels of industry, those tasks requiring intelligence above the animal level but making such low-grade demands as to prove veritable slavery and bondage for the higher types of mankind.