유란시아 책
III 부. 유란시아의 역사
Paper 70
The Evolution of Human Government
The Evolution of Human Government
Sections
- Introduction
- § 1. The Genesis of War
- § 2. The Social Value of War
- § 3. Early Human Associations
- § 4. Clans and Tribes
- § 5. The Beginnings of Government
- § 6. Monarchial Government
- § 7. Primitive Clubs and Secret Societies
- § 8. Social Classes
- § 9. Human Rights
- § 10. Evolution of Justice
- § 11. Laws and Courts
- § 12. Allocation of Civil Authority
70:0.2 (783.2)
On an evolutionary world, antagonisms are natural; peace is secured only by some sort of social regulative system. Social regulation is inseparable from social organization; association implies some controlling authority. Government compels the co-ordination of the antagonisms of the tribes, clans, families, and individuals.
70:0.3 (783.3)
Government is an unconscious development; it evolves by trial and error. It does have survival value; therefore it becomes traditional. Anarchy augmented misery; therefore government, comparative law and order, slowly emerged or is emerging. The coercive demands of the struggle for existence literally drove the human race along the progressive road to civilization.
전쟁은 진화하는 사람의 자연스런 형편과 유산이며;평화는 문명의 발전 정도를 재는 사회 척도다. 진보하는 인종들이 부분적인 사회화를 이루기 전에, 사람은 대단히 이기적이고, 지나치게 의심이 많고, 믿을 수 없을 정도로 호전적{好戰的}이었다. 폭력은 자연 법칙이고, 적개심은 자연인의 자동 반응이며, 한편 전쟁은 바로 이런 활동을 집단으로 일으킨 것에 불과하다. 그리고 문명의 구조가 사회 발전에 따른 혼란에 시달릴 때에는 언제 어디서나, 인간의 상호 관계에서 생기는 초조감을 폭력으로 조정하려는, 이런 초기 방법으로 반드시 역행하는데, 즉시 파멸을 초래한다.
70:1.1 (783.4)
War is the natural state and heritage of evolving man; peace is the social yardstick measuring civilization’s advancement. Before the partial socialization of the advancing races man was exceedingly individualistic, extremely suspicious, and unbelievably quarrelsome. Violence is the law of nature, hostility the automatic reaction of the children of nature, while war is but these same activities carried on collectively. And wherever and whenever the fabric of civilization becomes stressed by the complications of society’s advancement, there is always an immediate and ruinous reversion to these early methods of violent adjustment of the irritations of human interassociations.
70:1.2 (783.5)
War is an animalistic reaction to misunderstandings and irritations; peace attends upon the civilized solution of all such problems and difficulties. The Sangik races, together with the later deteriorated Adamites and Nodites, were all belligerent. The Andonites were early taught the golden rule, and, even today, their Eskimo descendants live very much by that code; custom is strong among them, and they are fairly free from violent antagonisms.
70:1.3 (783.6)
Andon taught his children to settle disputes by each beating a tree with a stick, meanwhile cursing the tree; the one whose stick broke first was the victor. The later Andonites used to settle disputes by holding a public show at which the disputants made fun of and ridiculed each other, while the audience decided the winner by its applause.
70:1.5 (784.1)
With the emergence of social groupings, individual irritations began to be submerged in the group feelings, and this promoted intratribal tranquillity but at the expense of intertribal peace. Peace was thus first enjoyed by the in-group, or tribe, who always disliked and hated the out-group, foreigners. Early man regarded it a virtue to shed alien blood.
70:1.6 (784.2)
But even this did not work at first. When the early chiefs would try to iron out misunderstandings, they often found it necessary, at least once a year, to permit the tribal stone fights. The clan would divide up into two groups and engage in an all-day battle. And this for no other reason than just the fun of it; they really enjoyed fighting.
70:1.13 (784.9)
6. Recreation—war was looked upon as recreation by the young men of these early times. If no good and sufficient pretext for war arose, when peace became oppressive, neighboring tribes were accustomed to go out in semifriendly combat to engage in a foray as a holiday, to enjoy a sham battle.
70:1.14 (784.10)
7. Religion—the desire to make converts to the cult. The primitive religions all sanctioned war. Only in recent times has religion begun to frown upon war. The early priesthoods were, unfortunately, usually allied with the military power. One of the great peace moves of the ages has been the attempt to separate church and state.
70:1.15 (784.11)
Always these olden tribes made war at the bidding of their gods, at the behest of their chiefs or medicine men. The Hebrews believed in such a “God of battles”; and the narrative of their raid on the Midianites is a typical recital of the atrocious cruelty of the ancient tribal wars; this assault, with its slaughter of all the males and the later killing of all male children and all women who were not virgins, would have done honor to the mores of a tribal chieftain of two hundred thousand years ago. And all this was executed in the “name of the Lord God of Israel.”
70:1.19 (785.2)
Early wars were fought between tribes as a whole, but in later times, when two individuals in different tribes had a dispute, instead of both tribes fighting, the two disputants engaged in a duel. It also became a custom for two armies to stake all on the outcome of a contest between a representative chosen from each side, as in the instance of David and Goliath.
70:1.20 (785.3)
The first refinement of war was the taking of prisoners. Next, women were exempted from hostilities, and then came the recognition of noncombatants. Military castes and standing armies soon developed to keep pace with the increasing complexity of combat. Such warriors were early prohibited from associating with women, and women long ago ceased to fight, though they have always fed and nursed the soldiers and urged them on to battle.
70:1.21 (785.4)
The practice of declaring war represented great progress. Such declarations of intention to fight betokened the arrival of a sense of fairness, and this was followed by the gradual development of the rules of “civilized” warfare. Very early it became the custom not to fight near religious sites and, still later, not to fight on certain holy days. Next came the general recognition of the right of asylum; political fugitives received protection.
70:2.1 (785.6)
In past ages a fierce war would institute social changes and facilitate the adoption of new ideas such as would not have occurred naturally in ten thousand years. The terrible price paid for these certain war advantages was that society was temporarily thrown back into savagery; civilized reason had to abdicate. War is strong medicine, very costly and most dangerous; while often curative of certain social disorders, it sometimes kills the patient, destroys the society.
70:2.2 (785.7)
The constant necessity for national defense creates many new and advanced social adjustments. Society, today, enjoys the benefit of a long list of useful innovations which were at first wholly military and is even indebted to war for the dance, one of the early forms of which was a military drill.
전쟁은 진화적이고 선택적인 어떤 가치를 갖지만, 노예제도처럼, 문명화가 서서히 진척됨에 따라서 언젠가 반드시 사라진다. 옛 전쟁은 여행과 문화 교류를 증진시켰으며;이런 목적이 이제는 현대적 운송 방법과 통신 방법으로 더 잘 이뤄지고 있다. 옛 전쟁은 국가를 강화시켰으나, 현대의 투쟁은 개화{開化}된 문화를 붕괴시켰다. 고대의 전쟁은, 열등한 민족들이 멸절되는 결과를 낳았으며;현대 전투의 최종 결과는, 가장 우수한 인간 혈통들이 선택적으로 파괴되는 것이다. 초기의 전쟁은 조직과 효율성을 증진시켰으나, 이것은 이제 현대 산업의 목표가 됐다. 지난 시대 동안, 전쟁은 문명을 앞으로 밀어내는 일종의 사회 효소{酵素}였으며;이제는 야망과 발명이 이런 결과를 더 잘 달성한다. 고대의 전쟁은 싸우시는 하나님이라는 개념을 뒷받침했으나, 현대인은 하나님은 사랑이시라고 표현하고 있다. 전쟁은 과거에 가치 있는 많은 목적을 만족시켰지만, 즉 문명 건설에서 필요 불가결한 발판이 됐지만, 곧 문화적 파산을 가져오게 한다--전쟁을 불러일으키는 데 따르는 비참한 손실에 비례하는 이익을, 어떤 면으로도 사회에 배당할 수 없다.
70:2.9 (785.14)
War has had a certain evolutionary and selective value, but like slavery, it must sometime be abandoned as civilization slowly advances. Olden wars promoted travel and cultural intercourse; these ends are now better served by modern methods of transport and communication. Olden wars strengthened nations, but modern struggles disrupt civilized culture. Ancient warfare resulted in the decimation of inferior peoples; the net result of modern conflict is the selective destruction of the best human stocks. Early wars promoted organization and efficiency, but these have now become the aims of modern industry. During past ages war was a social ferment which pushed civilization forward; this result is now better attained by ambition and invention. Ancient warfare supported the concept of a God of battles, but modern man has been told that God is love. War has served many valuable purposes in the past, it has been an indispensable scaffolding in the building of civilization, but it is rapidly becoming culturally bankrupt—incapable of producing dividends of social gain in any way commensurate with the terrible losses attendant upon its invocation.
70:2.10 (786.1)
At one time physicians believed in bloodletting as a cure for many diseases, but they have since discovered better remedies for most of these disorders. And so must the international bloodletting of war certainly give place to the discovery of better methods for curing the ills of nations.
70:2.11 (786.2)
The nations of Urantia have already entered upon the gigantic struggle between nationalistic militarism and industrialism, and in many ways this conflict is analogous to the agelong struggle between the herder-hunter and the farmer. But if industrialism is to triumph over militarism, it must avoid the dangers which beset it. The perils of budding industry on Urantia are:
70:2.18 (786.9)
Militarism is autocratic and cruel—savage. It promotes social organization among the conquerors but disintegrates the vanquished. Industrialism is more civilized and should be so carried on as to promote initiative and to encourage individualism. Society should in every way possible foster originality.
70:2.19 (786.10)
Do not make the mistake of glorifying war; rather discern what it has done for society so that you may the more accurately visualize what its substitutes must provide in order to continue the advancement of civilization. And if such adequate substitutes are not provided, then you may be sure that war will long continue.
70:2.20 (786.11)
Man will never accept peace as a normal mode of living until he has been thoroughly and repeatedly convinced that peace is best for his material welfare, and until society has wisely provided peaceful substitutes for the gratification of that inherent tendency periodically to let loose a collective drive designed to liberate those ever-accumulating emotions and energies belonging to the self-preservation reactions of the human species.
70:2.21 (786.12)
But even in passing, war should be honored as the school of experience which compelled a race of arrogant individualists to submit themselves to highly concentrated authority—a chief executive. Old-fashioned war did select the innately great men for leadership, but modern war no longer does this. To discover leaders society must now turn to the conquests of peace: industry, science, and social achievement.
70:3.2 (787.2)
Sex hunger and mother love establish the family. But real government does not appear until superfamily groups have begun to form. In the prefamily days of the horde, leadership was provided by informally chosen individuals. The African Bushmen have never progressed beyond this primitive stage; they do not have chiefs in the horde.
70:3.3 (787.3)
Families became united by blood ties in clans, aggregations of kinsmen; and these subsequently evolved into tribes, territorial communities. Warfare and external pressure forced the tribal organization upon the kinship clans, but it was commerce and trade that held these early and primitive groups together with some degree of internal peace.
70:3.4 (787.4)
The peace of Urantia will be promoted far more by international trade organizations than by all the sentimental sophistry of visionary peace planning. Trade relations have been facilitated by development of language and by improved methods of communication as well as by better transportation.
70:3.6 (787.6)
In the early ages each tribe was surrounded by concentric circles of increasing fear and suspicion; hence it was once the custom to kill all strangers, later on, to enslave them. The old idea of friendship meant adoption into the clan; and clan membership was believed to survive death—one of the earliest concepts of eternal life.
70:3.7 (787.7)
The ceremony of adoption consisted in drinking each other’s blood. In some groups saliva was exchanged in the place of blood drinking, this being the ancient origin of the practice of social kissing. And all ceremonies of association, whether marriage or adoption, were always terminated by feasting.
70:3.8 (787.8)
In later times, blood diluted with red wine was used, and eventually wine alone was drunk to seal the adoption ceremony, which was signified in the touching of the wine cups and consummated by the swallowing of the beverage. The Hebrews employed a modified form of this adoption ceremony. Their Arab ancestors made use of the oath taken while the hand of the candidate rested upon the generative organ of the tribal native. The Hebrews treated adopted aliens kindly and fraternally. “The stranger that dwells with you shall be as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself.”
70:3.9 (787.9)
“Guest friendship” was a relation of temporary hospitality. When visiting guests departed, a dish would be broken in half, one piece being given the departing friend so that it would serve as a suitable introduction for a third party who might arrive on a later visit. It was customary for guests to pay their way by telling tales of their travels and adventures. The storytellers of olden times became so popular that the mores eventually forbade their functioning during either the hunting or harvest seasons.
70:3.11 (788.2)
The earliest peace missions consisted of delegations of men bringing their choice maidens for the sex gratification of their onetime enemies, the sex appetite being utilized in combating the war urge. The tribe so honored would pay a return visit, with its offering of maidens; whereupon peace would be firmly established. And soon intermarriages between the families of the chiefs were sanctioned.
70:4.1 (788.3)
The first peace group was the family, then the clan, the tribe, and later on the nation, which eventually became the modern territorial state. The fact that the present-day peace groups have long since expanded beyond blood ties to embrace nations is most encouraging, despite the fact that Urantia nations are still spending vast sums on war preparations.
70:4.10 (788.12)
The clan peace chiefs usually ruled through the mother line; the tribal war chiefs established the father line. The courts of the tribal chiefs and early kings consisted of the headmen of the clans, whom it was customary to invite into the king’s presence several times a year. This enabled him to watch them and the better secure their co-operation. The clans served a valuable purpose in local self-government, but they greatly delayed the growth of large and strong nations.
70:5.1 (788.7)
Every human institution had a beginning, and civil government is a product of progressive evolution just as much as are marriage, industry, and religion. From the early clans and primitive tribes there gradually developed the successive orders of human government which have come and gone right on down to those forms of social and civil regulation that characterize the second third of the twentieth century.
70:5.2 (788.8)
With the gradual emergence of the family units the foundations of government were established in the clan organization, the grouping of consanguineous families. The first real governmental body was the council of the elders. This regulative group was composed of old men who had distinguished themselves in some efficient manner. Wisdom and experience were early appreciated even by barbaric man, and there ensued a long age of the domination of the elders. This reign of the oligarchy of age gradually grew into the patriarchal idea.
70:5.3 (789.1)
In the early council of the elders there resided the potential of all governmental functions: executive, legislative, and judicial. When the council interpreted the current mores, it was a court; when establishing new modes of social usage, it was a legislature; to the extent that such decrees and enactments were enforced, it was the executive. The chairman of the council was one of the forerunners of the later tribal chief.
70:5.5 (788.11)
It has been hard for mankind to learn that neither peace nor war can be run by a debating society. The primitive “palavers” were seldom useful. The race early learned that an army commanded by a group of clan heads had no chance against a strong one-man army. War has always been a kingmaker.
70:5.6 (788.12)
At first the war chiefs were chosen only for military service, and they would relinquish some of their authority during peacetimes, when their duties were of a more social nature. But gradually they began to encroach upon the peace intervals, tending to continue to rule from one war on through to the next. They often saw to it that one war was not too long in following another. These early war lords were not fond of peace.
70:5.7 (788.13)
In later times some chiefs were chosen for other than military service, being selected because of unusual physique or outstanding personal abilities. The red men often had two sets of chiefs—the sachems, or peace chiefs, and the hereditary war chiefs. The peace rulers were also judges and teachers.
70:5.9 (788.15)
And it was by these steps that the executive branch of government gradually came into existence. The clan and tribal councils continued in an advisory capacity and as forerunners of the later appearing legislative and judicial branches. In Africa, today, all these forms of primitive government are in actual existence among the various tribes.
70:6.2 (789.9)
Rulership grew out of the idea of family authority or wealth. When a patriarchal kinglet became a real king, he was sometimes called “father of his people.” Later on, kings were thought to have sprung from heroes. And still further on, rulership became hereditary, due to belief in the divine origin of kings.
70:6.3 (789.10)
Hereditary kingship avoided the anarchy which had previously wrought such havoc between the death of a king and the election of a successor. The family had a biologic head; the clan, a selected natural leader; the tribe and later state had no natural leader, and this was an additional reason for making the chief-kings hereditary. The idea of royal families and aristocracy was also based on the mores of “name ownership” in the clans.
70:6.4 (790.1)
The succession of kings was eventually regarded as supernatural, the royal blood being thought to extend back to the times of the materialized staff of Prince Caligastia. Thus kings became fetish personalities and were inordinately feared, a special form of speech being adopted for court usage. Even in recent times it was believed that the touch of kings would cure disease, and some Urantia peoples still regard their rulers as having had a divine origin.
70:6.5 (790.2)
The early fetish king was often kept in seclusion; he was regarded as too sacred to be viewed except on feast days and holy days. Ordinarily a representative was chosen to impersonate him, and this is the origin of prime ministers. The first cabinet officer was a food administrator; others shortly followed. Rulers soon appointed representatives to be in charge of commerce and religion; and the development of a cabinet was a direct step toward depersonalization of executive authority. These assistants of the early kings became the accepted nobility, and the king’s wife gradually rose to the dignity of queen as women came to be held in higher esteem.
사악한 통치자들은 독약을 발견함으로써 엄청난 권력을 획득했다. 초기의 궁정{宮廷} 마술은 악마적이었고;왕에게 대적하는 자는 곧 죽게 됐다. 그러나 가장 악랄한 폭군도 어느 정도 제한 받았는데, 어쨌든 항상 도사리고 있는 암살에 대한 공포가 그를 억제시켰다. 주술사나 의사나 사제{司祭}는 왕에게 반드시 상당한 견제세력이 됐다. 나중에는 땅을 소유한 자들 곧 귀족이, 압박하는 영향력을 행사했다. 그리고 때때로 씨족과 부족들이 단순한 의도로 봉기해서, 독재자와 폭군을 타도하기도 했다. 폐위{廢位}된 통치자들이 사형 선고를 받게 되면, 자살할 수 있는 기회가 제공되기도 했는데, 이것으로 인해, 특별한 상황에 봉착했을 때 자살하는 유행이 고대 사회에서 시작됐다.
70:6.6 (790.3)
Unscrupulous rulers gained great power by the discovery of poison. Early court magic was diabolical; the king’s enemies soon died. But even the most despotic tyrant was subject to some restrictions; he was at least restrained by the ever-present fear of assassination. The medicine men, witch doctors, and priests have always been a powerful check on the kings. Subsequently, the landowners, the aristocracy, exerted a restraining influence. And ever and anon the clans and tribes would simply rise up and overthrow their despots and tyrants. Deposed rulers, when sentenced to death, were often given the option of committing suicide, which gave origin to the ancient social vogue of suicide in certain circumstances.
혈연관계가 첫 사회 집단들을 확정했으며;연합을 통해서 친척 관계의 씨족이 확대됐다. 씨족 간 결혼은 그다음 단계로 집단 확대를 이룩했고, 그 결과로 생긴 복합적인 부족은 참된 첫 정치 기구였다. 사회 발전에서 다음 단계는, 종교적 예찬집단{禮讚集團 cult}과 정치 동호회{同好會}의 출현이었다. 처음에는 이것들이 비밀 공동체로서 결성됐고, 원래는 전적으로 종교적인 것이었는데;나중에는 통제 단체가 됐다. 처음에는 이런 공동체들이 남자의 동호회였으며;나중에는 여자의 모임도 나타났다. 이윽고 그것들은 두 부류로 나뉘었는데:사회정치적인 부류와 종교적이고-신비적인 부류였다.
70:7.1 (790.4)
Blood kinship determined the first social groups; association enlarged the kinship clan. Intermarriage was the next step in group enlargement, and the resultant complex tribe was the first true political body. The next advance in social development was the evolution of religious cults and the political clubs. These first appeared as secret societies and originally were wholly religious; subsequently they became regulative. At first they were men’s clubs; later women’s groups appeared. Presently they became divided into two classes: sociopolitical and religio-mystical.
70:7.7 (790.10)
The very secrecy of these societies conferred on all members the power of mystery over the rest of the tribe. Secrecy also appeals to vanity; the initiates were the social aristocracy of their day. After initiation the boys hunted with the men; whereas before they had gathered vegetables with the women. And it was the supreme humiliation, a tribal disgrace, to fail to pass the puberty tests and thus be compelled to remain outside the men’s abode with the women and children, to be considered effeminate. Besides, noninitiates were not allowed to marry.
70:7.8 (791.1)
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.
사춘기에 입문하는 의식{儀式}은 대개 5년간 계속됐다. 많은 고행{苦行}과 고통스럽게 상처 내는 행위가 이 의식에 포함됐다. 이런 단체 가운데 하나의 가입 제례로서, 할례가 처음 실행됐다. 사춘기 입문식의 일부로 부족의 표지{標識}를 피부에 새겼으며;문신{文身}은 그런 회원을 상징하는 표시에서 기원됐다. 이와 같은 심한 고문은, 오랫동안의 궁핍과 함께 이 젊은이들을 단련시키기 위하여, 즉 삶의 현실과 그 필연적 어려움을 그들의 마음에 새겨주기 위하여 고안됐다. 후대에 나타난 운동 경기와 육체적 경연이 이런 목적을 더 훌륭하게 성취한다.
70:7.10 (791.3)
The puberty initiation ceremony usually extended over a period of five years. Much self-torture and painful cutting entered into these ceremonies. Circumcision was first practiced as a rite of initiation into one of these secret fraternities. The tribal marks were cut on the body as a part of the puberty initiation; the tattoo originated as such a badge of membership. Such torture, together with much privation, was designed to harden these youths, to impress them with the reality of life and its inevitable hardships. This purpose is better accomplished by the later appearing athletic games and physical contests.
70:7.12 (791.5)
Following these years of rigorous discipline and training and just before marriage, the young men were usually released for a short period of leisure and freedom, after which they returned to marry and to submit to lifelong subjection to the tribal taboos. And this ancient custom has continued down to modern times as the foolish notion of “sowing wild oats.”
70:7.13 (791.6)
Many later tribes sanctioned the formation of women’s secret clubs, the purpose of which was to prepare adolescent girls for wifehood and motherhood. After initiation girls were eligible for marriage and were permitted to attend the “bride show,” the coming-out party of those days. Women’s orders pledged against marriage early came into existence.
70:7.14 (791.7)
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.
비밀 공동체들은, 주로 신비스런 입회식 특징으로 말미암아, 사회 신분계층이 형성되도록 기여했다. 이 공동체 회원들은, 애도하는 제례--곧 조상숭배-- 현장에서 호기심 있는 자들을 놀라게 하여 쫓아내려고, 처음으로 가면을 썼다. 이런 종교 제례식이 나중에는 사이비 강신회{降神會}로 발전했는데, 유령들이 나타났다는 소문이 그것에서 퍼져나갔다. “새로 출현한” 고대 공동체들은 기호를 사용했고, 특별한 은어{隱語}를 이용했으며;특정한 음식과 음료수를 거부했다. 그들은 야간 경비원으로서 활동했고, 그밖에도 다양한 사회 활동에서 역할을 했다.
70:7.15 (791.8)
Secret societies contributed to the building up of social castes chiefly by the mysterious character of their initiations. The members of these societies first wore masks to frighten the curious away from their mourning rites—ancestor worship. Later this ritual developed into a pseudo seance at which ghosts were reputed to have appeared. The ancient societies of the “new birth” used signs and employed a special secret language; they also forswore certain foods and drinks. They acted as night police and otherwise functioned in a wide range of social activities.
70:7.16 (792.1)
All secret associations imposed an oath, enjoined confidence, and taught the keeping of secrets. These orders awed and controlled the mobs; they also acted as vigilance societies, thus practicing lynch law. They were the first spies when the tribes were at war and the first secret police during times of peace. Best of all they kept unscrupulous kings on the anxious seat. To offset them, the kings fostered their own secret police.
70:7.18 (792.3)
These clubs were employed by merchants to collect debts and by rulers to collect taxes. Taxation has been a long struggle, one of the earliest forms being the tithe, one tenth of the hunt or spoils. Taxes were originally levied to keep up the king’s house, but it was found that they were easier to collect when disguised as an offering for the support of the temple service.
70:8.1 (792.5)
The mental and physical inequality of human beings insures that social classes will appear. The only worlds without social strata are the most primitive and the most advanced. A dawning civilization has not yet begun the differentiation of social levels, while a world settled in light and life has largely effaced these divisions of mankind, which are so characteristic of all intermediate evolutionary stages.
70:8.8 (792.12)
6. Social—classes have gradually formed according to popular estimate of the social worth of different groups. Among the earliest divisions of this sort were the demarcations between priest-teachers, ruler-warriors, capitalist-traders, common laborers, and slaves. The slave could never become a capitalist, though sometimes the wage earner could elect to join the capitalistic ranks.
70:8.13 (793.5)
Flexible and shifting social classes are indispensable to an evolving civilization, but when class becomes caste, when social levels petrify, the enhancement of social stability is purchased by diminishment of personal initiative. Social caste solves the problem of finding one’s place in industry, but it also sharply curtails individual development and virtually prevents social co-operation.
70:8.18 (793.10)
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.
70:9.1 (793.11)
Nature confers no rights on man, only life and a world in which to live it. Nature does not even confer the right to live, as might be deduced by considering what would likely happen if an unarmed man met a hungry tiger face to face in the primitive forest. Society’s prime gift to man is security.
70:9.13 (794.8)
When rights are old beyond knowledge of origin, they are often called natural rights. But human rights are not really natural; they are entirely social. They are relative and ever changing, being no more than the rules of the game—recognized adjustments of relations governing the ever-changing phenomena of human competition.
70:9.14 (794.9)
What may be regarded as right in one age may not be so regarded in another. The survival of large numbers of defectives and degenerates is not because they have any natural right thus to encumber twentieth-century civilization, but simply because the society of the age, the mores, thus decrees.
70:9.15 (794.10)
Few human rights were recognized in the European Middle Ages; then every man belonged to someone else, and rights were only privileges or favors granted by state or church. And the revolt from this error was equally erroneous in that it led to the belief that all men are born equal.
70:9.16 (794.11)
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.
그러나 평등이라는 이 이상{理想}은 문명의 산물이며;자연 속에서 발견되는 것이 아니다. 문화를 받아들일 사람의 바로 그 능력이 균등하지 않다는 점에서, 문화 자체도 사람의 선천적 불평등을 단호하게 증명한다. 자연스런 평등이라고 생각되는 상태를 갑자기 비진화적으로 실현하면, 문명화된 사람은 원시 시대의 미숙{未熟}한 관습으로 신속히 돌아갈 것이다. 공동체는, 모든 사람에게 똑같은 권리를 부여할 수 없으나, 각자의 서로 다른 권리가 공평하고 공정하게 경영할 것을 약속할 수 있다. 자아-유지를 추구하고, 자아-영속에 참여하게 하는 한편, 동시에 어느 정도 자기-만족을 누리도록, 공평하고 평화로운 기회를 자연인에게 제공하는 것이, 바로 공동체의 일이고 의무이며, 이 세 가지 전체가 인간 행복의 총합이다.
70:9.17 (794.12)
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.
70:10.3 (794.15)
Primitive man assigned all phenomena to a person. In case of death the savage asked, not what killed him, but who? Accidental murder was not therefore recognized, and in the punishment of crime the motive of the criminal was wholly disregarded; judgment was rendered in accordance with the injury done.
70:10.4 (795.1)
In the earliest primitive society public opinion operated directly; officers of law were not needed. There was no privacy in primitive life. A man’s neighbors were responsible for his conduct; therefore their right to pry into his personal affairs. Society was regulated on the theory that the group membership should have an interest in, and some degree of control over, the behavior of each individual.
70:10.5 (795.2)
It was very early believed that ghosts administered justice through the medicine men and priests; this constituted these orders the first crime detectors and officers of the law. Their early methods of detecting crime consisted in conducting ordeals of poison, fire, and pain. These savage ordeals were nothing more than crude techniques of arbitration; they did not necessarily settle a dispute justly. For example: When poison was administered, if the accused vomited, he was innocent.
이런 시죄법 가운데 하나 곧 부부관계의 죄에 대한 시험이 구약 성경에 기록돼있다:남자가 자기 아내의 비행을 의심하게 되면, 아내를 사제에게 데려가서 자신이 의심하는 바를 말했고, 그후에 사제는 성전 바닥의 먼지와 성수{聖水}로 만들어진 음료수를 준비했다. 험악한 저주를 퍼부으면서 적당한 예식을 치른 후에, 고소당한 아내는 그 더러운 음료수를 마셔야했다. 여자가 잘못을 범했으면, “저주를 임하게 하는 물이 여자 속에 들어가서 쓴맛을 내고, 내장이 부풀어 오르고, 허벅다리가 썩게 되고, 여자는 자기 민족 가운데서 저주를 받게 될 것이라”고 했다. 만에 하나, 여자가 이 더러운 물을 마신 후에 몸이 아픈 증상을 보이지 않으면, 그 여자는 남편이 질투심으로 고소했던 죄에서 풀려났다.
70:10.6 (795.3)
The Old Testament records one of these ordeals, a marital guilt test: If a man suspected his wife of being untrue to him, he took her to the priest and stated his suspicions, after which the priest would prepare a concoction consisting of holy water and sweepings from the temple floor. After due ceremony, including threatening curses, the accused wife was made to drink the nasty potion. If she was guilty, “the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thighs shall rot, and the woman shall be accursed among her people.” If, by any chance, any woman could quaff this filthy draught and not show symptoms of physical illness, she was acquitted of the charges made by her jealous husband.
70:10.8 (795.5)
It is not to be wondered that the Hebrews and other semicivilized tribes practiced such primitive techniques of justice administration three thousand years ago, but it is most amazing that thinking men would subsequently retain such a relic of barbarism within the pages of a collection of sacred writings. Reflective thinking should make it clear that no divine being ever gave mortal man such unfair instructions regarding the detection and adjudication of suspected marital unfaithfulness.
70:10.9 (795.6)
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.
자살은 보복을 위한 비정한 방법이었다. 어떤 사람이 자기 생전에 직접 보복할 수 없게 되면, 귀신이 되어 돌아와서 원수에게 복수할 수 있다는 믿음을 간직하면서 죽었다. 그리고 이런 믿음이 매우 일반화된 후로, 원수의 문지방 위에서 자결하겠다고 협박하는 방법은, 흔히 상대방을 굴복시키기에 충분했다. 원시인은 생명을 별로 소중히 여기지 않았으며;사소한 일로 자살하는 것이 일반적이었지만, 달라마시아 사람들의 교훈으로 말미암아 이런 관습이 현저히 감소됐고, 최근에는, 여가시간과 안락함과 종교 및 철학이 결합해서 인생을 더 감미롭고 매력 있게 만들었다. 아무튼, 단식투쟁은 이런 고대 보복방법의 현대판 방식이다.
70:10.10 (795.7)
Suicide was a common mode of retaliation. If one were unable to avenge himself in life, he died entertaining the belief that, as a ghost, he could return and visit wrath upon his enemy. And since this belief was very general, the threat of suicide on an enemy’s doorstep was usually sufficient to bring him to terms. Primitive man did not hold life very dear; suicide over trifles was common, but the teachings of the Dalamatians greatly lessened this custom, while in more recent times leisure, comforts, religion, and philosophy have united to make life sweeter and more desirable. Hunger strikes are, however, a modern analogue of this old-time method of retaliation.
70:10.11 (796.1)
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.
또 다른 진보는, 금기를 어겼을 경우에 대한 벌금 부과 곧 형벌에 대한 규칙이었다. 이 벌금은 최초 공공{公共} 재산을 형성했다. “피 값”을 지불하는 풍습 역시, 피로 갚는 복수 대신 성행하게 됐다. 그런 손해는 대개 여자 또는 가축으로 갚았으며;실제 벌금, 즉 범죄에 대한 형벌 대신 화폐로 갚는 일은 훨씬 후대에 이뤄졌다. 그리고 형벌 관념이 근본적으로 배상{賠償} 관념으로 바뀐 후부터, 인간의 생명을 포함한 모든 것이, 결국 배상금으로 지불될 수 있는 가치를 갖게 됐다. 히브리인은 피 값을 지불하는 풍습을 처음으로 폐지한 민족이었다. 모세는, “사형에 해당하는 살인자는 그의 생명 대신 배상금을 받을 수 없으며;반드시 그를 죽여야 한다”고 가르쳤다.
70:10.12 (796.2)
Another advance was the imposition of fines for taboo violations, the provision of penalties. These fines constituted the first public revenue. The practice of paying “blood money” also came into vogue as a substitute for blood vengeance. Such damages were usually paid in women or cattle; it was a long time before actual fines, monetary compensation, were assessed as punishment for crime. And since the idea of punishment was essentially compensation, everything, including human life, eventually came to have a price which could be paid as damages. The Hebrews were the first to abolish the practice of paying blood money. Moses taught that they should “take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death; he shall surely be put to death.”
70:10.14 (796.4)
Punishment by burning alive was once a common practice. It was recognized by many ancient rulers, including Hammurabi and Moses, the latter directing that many crimes, particularly those of a grave sex nature, should be punished by burning at the stake. If “the daughter of a priest” or other leading citizen turned to public prostitution, it was the Hebrew custom to “burn her with fire.”
70:10.15 (796.5)
Treason—the “selling out” or betrayal of one’s tribal associates—was the first capital crime. Cattle stealing was universally punished by summary death, and even recently horse stealing has been similarly punished. But as time passed, it was learned that the severity of the punishment was not so valuable a deterrent to crime as was its certainty and swiftness.
70:11.1 (796.7)
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.
법률은 언제나 처음에는 부정적이고 금지하는 내용이지만;문명이 진보됨에 따라서 점점 더 긍정적이고 지시하는 내용이 된다. 초기 공동체는 부정적으로 운영됐는데, “살인하지 말라”는 명령을 다른 모든 사람에게 부과함으로써, 개인에게 살 권리를 부여했다. 개인에게 부여된 모든 권리와 자유를 위해서는, 다른 모든 사람의 자유가 삭감될 필요가 있으며, 원시 율법인 금기가 이것을 가능하게 했다. 금기의 전체 관념은 본래 부정적인데, 이는 원시 공동체가 그 체제에서 전적으로 부정적이었고, 초기의 처벌 시행이 금기를 집행하는 것이었기 때문이다. 그러나 이 율법은 원래, 후대의 히브리인이 보여줬다시피, 오직 동료 부족민에게만 적용됐는데, 히브리인은 이방인을 다룰 때에는 다른 윤리 규범을 적용했다.
70:11.2 (796.8)
Law is always at first negative and prohibitive; in advancing civilizations it becomes increasingly positive and directive. Early society operated negatively, granting the individual the right to live by imposing upon all others the command, “you shall not kill.” Every grant of rights or liberty to the individual involves curtailment of the liberties of all others, and this is effected by the taboo, primitive law. The whole idea of the taboo is inherently negative, for primitive society was wholly negative in its organization, and the early administration of justice consisted in the enforcement of the taboos. But originally these laws applied only to fellow tribesmen, as is illustrated by the later-day Hebrews, who had a different code of ethics for dealing with the gentiles.
70:11.5 (797.3)
Self-interest established the taboo on killing, society sanctified it as traditional mores, while religion consecrated the custom as moral law, and thus did all three conspire in rendering human life more safe and sacred. Society could not have held together during early times had not rights had the sanction of religion; superstition was the moral and social police force of the long evolutionary ages. The ancients all claimed that their olden laws, the taboos, had been given to their ancestors by the gods.
70:11.6 (797.4)
Law is a codified record of long human experience, public opinion crystallized and legalized. The mores were the raw material of accumulated experience out of which later ruling minds formulated the written laws. The ancient judge had no laws. When he handed down a decision, he simply said, “It is the custom.”
70:11.13 (797.11)
The first courts were regulated fistic encounters; the judges were merely umpires or referees. They saw to it that the fight was carried on according to approved rules. On entering a court combat, each party made a deposit with the judge to pay the costs and fine after one had been defeated by the other. “Might was still right.” Later on, verbal arguments were substituted for physical blows.
70:11.14 (797.12)
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.
70:12.1 (797.13)
The great struggle in the evolution of government has concerned the concentration of power. The universe administrators have learned from experience that the evolutionary peoples on the inhabited worlds are best regulated by the representative type of civil government when there is maintained proper balance of power between the well-co-ordinated executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
원시의 권위는 힘 곧 육체의 능력을 바탕으로 했지만, 이상적인 정부는, 역량에 따라서 지도자가 선정되는 대의정치체제이며, 야만적 시대에는 한결같이 너무 많은 전쟁 때문에, 대의정치를 하는 정부가 효과적으로 기능을 발휘할 수 없었다. 권위의 분할과 지휘계통의 통합 사이에 있었던 오랜 갈등에서 독재자체제가 선택됐다. 원로들로 구성된 원시 협의회가 가졌던 초기의 산만한 권력이, 절대 군주라는 인물에게 점점 더 집중됐다. 실제 왕들이 출현한 후로, 원로 집단은 유사{類似}-입법-사법 자문 기관으로서 계속 명맥을 유지했으며;나중에는 대등한 입장의 입법 기관들이 생겨났고, 결국 최고 판결 법정이 입법기관에서 분리되어 확립됐다.
70:12.2 (798.1)
While primitive authority was based on strength, physical power, the ideal government is the representative system wherein leadership is based on ability, but in the days of barbarism there was entirely too much war to permit representative government to function effectively. In the long struggle between division of authority and unity of command, the dictator won. The early and diffuse powers of the primitive council of elders were gradually concentrated in the person of the absolute monarch. After the arrival of real kings the groups of elders persisted as quasi-legislative-judicial advisory bodies; later on, legislatures of co-ordinate status made their appearance, and eventually supreme courts of adjudication were established separate from the legislatures.
70:12.5 (798.4)
Urantia mortals are entitled to liberty; they should create their systems of government; they should adopt their constitutions or other charters of civil authority and administrative procedure. And having done this, they should select their most competent and worthy fellows as chief executives. For representatives in the legislative branch they should elect only those who are qualified intellectually and morally to fulfill such sacred responsibilities. As judges of their high and supreme tribunals only those who are endowed with natural ability and who have been made wise by replete experience should be chosen.
70:12.20 (799.1)
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.