Planetary Mortal Epochs

52:2.1With the ar­rival of the Plan­e­tary Prince a new dis­pen­sa­tion be­gins. Gov­ern­ment ap­pears on earth, and the ad­vanced tribal epoch is at­tained. Great so­cial strides are made dur­ing a few thou­sand years of this regime. Un­der nor­mal con­di­tions mor­tals at­tain a high state of civ­i­liza­tion dur­ing this age. They do not strug­gle so long in bar­barism as did the Uran­tia races. But life on an in­hab­ited world is so changed by re­bel­lion that you can have lit­tle or no idea of such a regime on a nor­mal planet.

52:2.2The av­er­age length of this dis­pen­sa­tion is around five hun­dred thou­sand years, some longer, some shorter. Dur­ing this era the planet is es­tab­lished in the cir­cuits of the sys­tem, and a full quota of se­raphic and other ce­les­tial helpers is as­signed to its ad­min­is­tra­tion. The Thought Ad­justers come in in­creas­ing num­bers, and the se­raphic guard­i­ans am­plify their regime of mor­tal super­vi­sion.

52:2.3When the Plan­e­tary Prince ar­rives on a prim­i­tive world, the evolved re­li­gion of fear and ig­no­rance pre­vails. The prince and his staff make the first rev­e­la­tions of higher truth and uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tion. These ini­tial pre­sen­ta­tions of re­vealed re­li­gion are very sim­ple, and they usu­ally per­tain to the af­fairs of the lo­cal sys­tem. Re­li­gion is wholly an evo­lu­tion­ary pro­cess prior to the ar­rival of the Plan­e­tary Prince. Sub­se­quently, re­li­gion pro­gresses by grad­u­ated rev­e­la­tion as well as by evo­lu­tion­ary growth. Each dis­pen­sa­tion, each mor­tal epoch, re­ceives an en­larged pre­sen­ta­tion of spir­i­tual truth and re­li­gious ethics. The evo­lu­tion of the re­li­gious ca­pac­ity of re­cep­tiv­ity in the in­hab­i­tants of a world largely de­ter­mines their rate of spir­i­tual ad­vance­ment and the ex­tent of re­li­gious rev­e­la­tion.

52:2.4This dis­pen­sa­tion wit­nesses a spir­i­tual dawn, and the dif­fer­ent races and their var­i­ous tribes tend to de­velop spe­cial­ized sys­tems of re­li­gious and philo­sophic thought. There uni­formly run through all of these racial re­li­gions two strains: the early fears of prim­i­tive men and the later rev­e­la­tions of the Plan­e­tary Prince. In some re­spects Uran­tians do not seem to have wholly emerged from this stage of plan­e­tary evo­lu­tion. As you pur­sue this study, you will the more clearly dis­cern how far your world de­parts from the av­er­age course of evo­lu­tion­ary prog­ress and de­vel­op­ment.

52:2.5But the Plan­e­tary Prince is not “the Prince of Peace.” Racial strug­gles and tribal wars con­tinue over into this dis­pen­sa­tion but with di­min­ish­ing fre­quency and sever­ity. This is the great age of racial dis­per­sion, and it cul­mi­nates in a pe­riod of in­tense na­tion­al­ism. Color is the ba­sis of tribal and na­tional group­ings, and the dif­fer­ent races of­ten de­velop sep­a­rate lan­guages. Each ex­pand­ing group of mor­tals tends to seek iso­la­tion. This seg­re­ga­tion is fa­vored by the ex­is­tence of many lan­guages. Be­fore the uni­fi­ca­tion of the sev­eral races their re­lent­less war­fare some­times re­sults in the oblit­er­a­tion of whole peo­ples; the or­ange and green men are par­tic­u­larly sub­ject to such ex­tinc­tion.

52:2.6On av­er­age worlds, dur­ing the lat­ter part of the prince’s rule, na­tional life be­gins to re­place tribal or­ga­ni­za­tion or rather to be super­im­posed upon the ex­ist­ing tribal group­ings. But the great so­cial achieve­ment of the prince’s epoch is the emer­gence of fam­ily life. Here­to­fore, hu­man re­la­tion­ships have been chiefly tribal; now, the home be­gins to ma­te­ri­al­ize.

52:2.7This is the dis­pen­sa­tion of the re­al­iza­tion of sex equal­ity. On some plan­ets the male may rule the fe­male; on oth­ers the re­verse pre­vails. Dur­ing this age nor­mal worlds es­tab­lish full equal­ity of the sexes, this be­ing pre­lim­i­nary to the fuller re­al­iza­tion of the ide­als of home life. This is the dawn of the golden age of the home. The idea of tribal rule grad­u­ally gives way to the dual con­cept of na­tional life and fam­ily life.

52:2.8Dur­ing this age agri­cul­ture makes its ap­pear­ance. The growth of the fam­ily idea is in­com­pat­i­ble with the rov­ing and un­set­tled life of the hunter. Grad­u­ally the prac­tices of set­tled habi­ta­tions and the cul­ti­va­tion of the soil be­come es­tab­lished. The do­mes­ti­ca­tion of an­i­mals and the de­vel­op­ment of home arts pro­ceed apace. Upon reach­ing the apex of bi­o­logic evo­lu­tion, a high level of civ­i­liza­tion has been at­tained, but there is lit­tle de­vel­op­ment of a me­chan­i­cal or­der; in­ven­tion is the char­ac­ter­is­tic of the suc­ceed­ing age.

52:2.9The races are pu­ri­fied and brought up to a high state of phys­i­cal per­fec­tion and in­tel­lec­tual strength be­fore the end of this era. The early de­vel­op­ment of a nor­mal world is greatly helped by the plan of pro­mot­ing the in­crease of the higher types of mor­tals with pro­por­tion­ate cur­tail­ment of the lower. And it is the fail­ure of your early peo­ples to thus dis­crim­i­nate be­tween these types that ac­counts for the pres­ence of so many de­fec­tive and de­gen­er­ate in­di­vid­u­als among the pres­ent-day Uran­tia races.

52:2.10One of the great achieve­ments of the age of the prince is this re­stric­tion of the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of men­tally de­fec­tive and so­cially un­fit in­di­vid­u­als. Long be­fore the times of the ar­rival of the sec­ond Sons, the Adams, most worlds se­ri­ously ad­dress them­selves to the tasks of race pu­rifi­ca­tion, some­thing which the Uran­tia peo­ples have not even yet se­ri­ously un­der­taken.

52:2.11This prob­lem of race im­prove­ment is not such an ex­ten­sive un­der­tak­ing when it is at­tacked at this early date in hu­man evo­lu­tion. The pre­ced­ing pe­riod of tribal strug­gles and rugged com­pe­ti­tion in race sur­vival has weeded out most of the ab­nor­mal and de­fec­tive strains. An id­iot does not have much chance of sur­vival in a prim­i­tive and war­ring tribal so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion. It is the false sen­ti­ment of your par­tially per­fected civ­i­liza­tions that fos­ters, pro­tects, and per­pet­u­ates the hope­lessly de­fec­tive strains of evo­lu­tion­ary hu­man stocks.

52:2.12It is nei­ther ten­der­ness nor al­tru­ism to be­stow fu­tile sym­pa­thy upon de­gen­er­ated hu­man be­ings, un­salv­able ab­nor­mal and in­fe­rior mor­tals. There ex­ist on even the most nor­mal of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds suf­fi­cient dif­fer­ences be­tween in­di­vid­u­als and be­tween nu­mer­ous so­cial groups to pro­vide for the full ex­er­cise of all those no­ble traits of al­tru­is­tic sen­ti­ment and un­selfish mor­tal min­istry with­out per­pet­u­at­ing the so­cially un­fit and the morally de­gen­er­ate strains of evolv­ing hu­man­ity. There is abun­dant op­por­tu­nity for the ex­er­cise of tol­er­ance and the func­tion of al­tru­ism in be­half of those un­for­tu­nate and needy in­di­vid­u­als who have not ir­re­triev­ably lost their moral her­itage and for­ever de­stroyed their spir­i­tual birthright.