Cooperative System Amongst Lower xA.nimals 779 



him, and so might be termed the lower cogitic or mental plat- 

 form. The negritic, the primitive Egyptian, many primitive 

 Red Indian, and other nations are examples. In these a loose 

 social and semi-tribal life began to develop and so a transition 

 was made to the next higher or moral platform. This third 

 stage of advance may be said to have gradually evoh'ed as 

 the progenitors of the Iranian, the Aryan, the Egyptian, the 

 Minoan, the Babylonian, and other ancient nations grew into 

 ever larger groups. Principles for the general guidance of 

 the cooperative units of mankind that made up each nation- 

 ality gradually became laws or moral guides that all accepted. 

 With the advent of personalities in the pre-historic period 

 now lost to record, later with the advent of Zarathushtra, 

 Plato, Aristotle, Christ, and Paul, this platform became more 

 fully accepted, but is reaching its widest sphere of occupation 

 during our time. 



The fourth and highest platform is the spiritual, that had 

 its da\\Ti in animism, polytheism, and heliotheism, but advanced 

 rapidly with the perception and advent of monotheism under 

 Zarathushtra and other Iranian seers. This reaches out far 

 beyond the moral and social, in that it requires the recogni- 

 tion by each human organism of a Spirit Power or guiding 

 energy of the world and of the universe, that not only links 

 man to his fellow, but further raises him to a recognition of 

 his own oneness with all cosmic processes, and so stimulates 

 him to mold his life actions that these shall be attuned to the 

 liighest evolutionary progress. 



The knowledge we now have of the early Siunerian inhab- 

 itants of Mesopotamia, of the ancient but already civilized 

 Egyptians, of the Minoan and pre-Minoan civilizations of 

 Crete, as well as others less perfectly traced, all indicate that 

 man while retaining, or in some cases developing for himself, 

 cruel customs, had already discovered that the most striking, 

 most widespread, and most beneficial results could be secured, 

 only by closer and closer social organization. Toward this 

 result also religious proenvironal asi)iration constantly tended. 

 For, while as already stated (p. 700) unscrupulous and even 



