io6 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



"What you do not like when done to yourself do not do to 

 others." Confucius saw about him a world of bad leadership. 

 He taught the necessity of benevolence and righteousness in 

 all who were in authority. Actual and sincere application of 

 his rules of conduct and his advice to the governing class, 

 although given almost 2,500 years ago, would eliminate 

 many of the evils of our day. 



Before and during the time of these teachers there was 

 gradually arising among the Jews the idea of one God, 

 Yahweh or Jehovah. Yahweh, in origin a tribal god, a jinni 

 inhabiting and animating a volcano in Arabia, was at first the 

 greatest of all tribal gods, then he was a god above all other 

 gods, and, finally, the only true God. Yahweh was a jealous 

 God and the Jews were his chosen people. It is possible, as 

 J. H. Breasted has pointed out, that the Jews were here in- 

 fluenced by the monotheism of the Egyptians as Moses 

 learned of it during his education in Pharaoh's court. 



Among these people 2,000 years ago, there appeared an- 

 other great teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. In spite of miracu- 

 lous and incredible additions from time to time to the story 

 of his life, Jesus emerges as a very great humanist. Historians 

 have pictured him as a lean and strenuous personality, a 

 penniless teacher, who wandered about the hot, dusty coun- 

 try of Judea, living on whatever gifts of food came his way, 

 and speaking to whomsoever would listen. Unquestionably 

 he had an intense personal magnetism; he attracted followers, 

 just as Gautama had done, and filled them with love and 

 courage. 



The teaching of Jesus gave great prominence to what he 

 called the Kingdom of Heaven which was to come through a 

 moral and social revolution in the hearts of men. There was 

 a political bent to much that he proposed: "It is easier for 

 a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich 

 man to enter the Kingdom of God," is the way he referred 

 to wealth. He had no patience for the bargaining righteous- 

 ness of the church of his day. He called into question both 



