THE CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN IO7 



ritual and tradition. In his Kingdom there were to be no 

 privileged classes excused from social service, no insincerity 

 in the practice of the "law and the prophets": "Therefore 

 all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, 

 do ye even so to them." In his Kingdom there was to be no 

 special privilege of property or pride or precedence— no 

 reward but love. 



Man has not lacked for ideas about a better society. We 

 find them expressed even in his folklore, and he has often had 

 the teaching and example of good men. He is quite well 

 aware of the necessity of better and more mutually coopera- 

 tive behavior toward his fellows. But his conscious and un- 

 conscious fears for self and for his group make it easy to 

 mislead him. Great thinkers have been able to envision the 

 better society, the society of brotherly love, but their ideas 

 are too readily befogged and altered and even lost by sel- 

 fish interests. Perhaps part of the fault lies in a misconcep- 

 tion of the real origin of man, and of the evolutionary trends 

 which have produced him. As will be brought out in Chap- 

 ter 16 on ethical process, an understanding of evolution is 

 of the utmost importance to the development of a true Sci- 

 ence of Man, one aspect of which would be the freeing of 

 ethics from any background of blind, unreasoning authority. 



