The Planetary Princes

50:5.1The loyal princes of the in­hab­ited worlds are per­ma­nently at­tached to the plan­ets of their orig­i­nal as­sign­ment. Par­a­dise Sons and their dis­pen­sa­tions may come and go, but a suc­cess­ful Plan­e­tary Prince con­tin­ues on as the ruler of his realm. His work is quite in­de­pen­dent of the mis­sions of the higher Sons, be­ing de­signed to fos­ter the de­vel­op­ment of plan­e­tary civ­i­liza­tion.

50:5.2The prog­ress of civ­i­liza­tion is hardly alike on any two plan­ets. The de­tails of the un­fold­ment of mor­tal evo­lu­tion are very dif­fer­ent on nu­mer­ous dis­sim­i­lar worlds. Not­with­stand­ing these many di­ver­si­fi­ca­tions of plan­e­tary de­vel­op­ment along phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial lines, all evo­lu­tion­ary spheres pro­gress in cer­tain well-de­fined di­rec­tions.

50:5.3Un­der the be­nign rule of a Plan­e­tary Prince, aug­mented by the Ma­te­rial Sons and punc­tu­ated by the pe­ri­odic mis­sions of the Par­a­dise Sons, the mor­tal races on an av­er­age world of time and space will suc­ces­sively pass through the fol­low­ing seven de­vel­op­men­tal epochs:

50:5.41. The nu­tri­tion epoch. The pre­hu­man crea­tures and the dawn races of prim­i­tive man are chiefly con­cerned with food prob­lems. These evolv­ing be­ings spend their wak­ing hours ei­ther in seek­ing food or in fight­ing, of­fen­sively or de­fen­sively. The food quest is paramount in the minds of these early an­ces­tors of sub­se­quent civ­i­liza­tion.

50:5.52. The se­cu­rity age. Just as soon as the prim­i­tive hunter can spare any time from the search for food, he turns this leisure to aug­ment­ing his se­cu­rity. More and more at­ten­tion is de­voted to the tech­nique of war. Homes are for­ti­fied, and the clans are so­lid­i­fied by mu­tual fear and by the in­cul­ca­tion of hate for for­eign groups. Self-preser­va­tion is a pur­suit which al­ways fol­lows self-main­te­nance.

50:5.63. The ma­te­rial-com­fort era. Af­ter food prob­lems have been par­tially solved and some de­gree of se­cu­rity has been at­tained, the ad­di­tional leisure is uti­lized to pro­mote per­sonal com­fort. Lux­ury vies with ne­ces­sity in oc­cu­py­ing the cen­ter of the stage of hu­man ac­tiv­i­ties. Such an age is all too of­ten char­ac­ter­ized by tyranny, in­tol­er­ance, glut­tony, and drunk­en­ness. The weaker el­e­ments of the races in­cline to­wards ex­cesses and bru­tal­ity. Grad­u­ally these plea­sure-seek­ing weak­lings are sub­ju­gated by the more strong and truth-lov­ing el­e­ments of the ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion.

50:5.74. The quest for knowl­edge and wis­dom. Food, se­cu­rity, plea­sure, and leisure pro­vide the foun­da­tion for the de­vel­op­ment of cul­ture and the spread of knowl­edge. The ef­fort to ex­e­cute knowl­edge re­sults in wis­dom, and when a cul­ture has learned how to profit and im­prove by ex­pe­ri­ence, civ­i­liza­tion has re­ally ar­rived. Food, se­cu­rity, and ma­te­rial com­fort still dom­i­nate so­ci­ety, but many for­ward-look­ing in­di­vid­u­als are hun­ger­ing for knowl­edge and thirst­ing for wis­dom. Ev­ery child is pro­vided an op­por­tu­nity to learn by do­ing; ed­u­ca­tion is the watch­word of these ages.

50:5.85. The epoch of phi­los­o­phy and broth­er­hood. When mor­tals learn to think and be­gin to profit by ex­pe­ri­ence, they be­come philo­sophical—they start out to rea­son within them­selves and to ex­er­cise dis­crim­i­na­tive judg­ment. The so­ci­ety of this age be­comes eth­i­cal, and the mor­tals of such an era are truly be­com­ing moral be­ings. Wise moral be­ings are ca­pa­ble of es­tab­lish­ing hu­man broth­er­hood on such a pro­gress­ing world. Eth­i­cal and moral be­ings can learn how to live in ac­cor­dance with the golden rule.

50:5.96. The age of spir­i­tual striv­ing. When evolv­ing mor­tals have passed through the phys­i­cal, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial stages of de­vel­op­ment, sooner or later they at­tain those lev­els of per­sonal in­sight which im­pel them to seek for spir­i­tual sat­is­fac­tions and cos­mic un­der­stand­ings. Re­li­gion is com­plet­ing the as­cent from the emo­tional do­mains of fear and su­per­sti­tion to the high lev­els of cos­mic wis­dom and per­sonal spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Ed­u­ca­tion as­pires to the at­tain­ment of mean­ings, and cul­ture grasps at cos­mic re­la­tion­ships and true val­ues. Such evolv­ing mor­tals are gen­uinely cul­tured, truly ed­u­cated, and ex­qui­sitely God-know­ing.

50:5.107. The era of light and life. This is the flow­er­ing of the suc­ces­sive ages of phys­i­cal se­cu­rity, in­tel­lec­tual ex­pan­sion, so­cial cul­ture, and spir­i­tual achieve­ment. These hu­man ac­com­plish­ments are now blended, as­so­ci­ated, and co-or­di­nated in cos­mic unity and un­selfish ser­vice. Within the lim­i­ta­tions of fi­nite na­ture and ma­te­rial en­dow­ments there are no bounds set upon the pos­si­bil­i­ties of evo­lu­tion­ary at­tain­ment by the ad­vanc­ing gen­er­a­tions who suc­ces­sively live upon these su­per­nal and set­tled worlds of time and space.

50:5.11Af­ter serv­ing their spheres through suc­ces­sive dis­pen­sa­tions of world his­tory and the pro­gress­ing epochs of plan­e­tary prog­ress, the Plan­e­tary Princes are el­e­vated to the po­si­tion of Plan­e­tary Sov­er­eigns upon the in­au­gu­ra­tion of the era of light and life.