The Evolution of Human Government

70:12.1The great strug­gle in the evo­lu­tion of gov­ern­ment has con­cerned the con­cen­tra­tion of power. The uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tors have learned from ex­pe­ri­ence that the evo­lu­tion­ary peo­ples on the in­hab­ited worlds are best reg­u­lated by the rep­re­sen­ta­tive type of civil gov­ern­ment when there is main­tained proper bal­ance of power be­tween the well-co-or­di­nated ex­ec­u­tive, leg­isla­tive, and ju­di­cial branches.

70:12.2While prim­i­tive au­thor­ity was based on strength, phys­i­cal power, the ideal gov­ern­ment is the rep­re­sen­ta­tive sys­tem wherein lead­er­ship is based on abil­ity, but in the days of bar­barism there was en­tirely too much war to per­mit rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment to func­tion ef­fec­tively. In the long strug­gle be­tween di­vi­sion of au­thor­ity and unity of com­mand, the dic­ta­tor won. The early and dif­fuse pow­ers of the prim­i­tive coun­cil of el­ders were grad­u­ally con­cen­trated in the per­son of the ab­so­lute monarch. Af­ter the ar­rival of real kings the groups of el­ders per­sisted as quasi-leg­isla­tive-ju­di­cial ad­vi­sory bod­ies; later on, leg­is­la­tures of co-or­di­nate sta­tus made their ap­pear­ance, and even­tu­ally su­preme courts of ad­ju­di­ca­tion were es­tab­lished sep­a­rate from the leg­is­la­tures.

70:12.3The king was the ex­ecu­tor of the mores, the orig­i­nal or un­writ­ten law. Later he en­forced the leg­isla­tive en­act­ments, the crys­tal­liza­tion of pub­lic opin­ion. A pop­u­lar as­sem­bly as an ex­pres­sion of pub­lic opin­ion, though slow in ap­pear­ing, marked a great so­cial ad­vance.

70:12.4The early kings were greatly re­stricted by the mores—by tra­di­tion or pub­lic opin­ion. In re­cent times some Uran­tia na­tions have cod­i­fied these mores into doc­u­men­tary bases for gov­ern­ment.

70:12.5Uran­tia mor­tals are en­ti­tled to lib­erty; they should cre­ate their sys­tems of gov­ern­ment; they should adopt their con­sti­tu­tions or other char­ters of civil au­thor­ity and ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dure. And hav­ing done this, they should se­lect their most com­pe­tent and wor­thy fel­lows as chief ex­ec­u­tives. For rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the leg­isla­tive branch they should elect only those who are qual­i­fied in­tel­lec­tu­ally and morally to ful­fill such sa­cred re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. As judges of their high and su­preme tri­bu­nals only those who are en­dowed with nat­u­ral abil­ity and who have been made wise by re­plete ex­pe­ri­ence should be cho­sen.

70:12.6If men would main­tain their free­dom, they must, af­ter hav­ing cho­sen their char­ter of lib­erty, pro­vide for its wise, in­tel­li­gent, and fear­less in­ter­pre­ta­tion to the end that there may be pre­vented:

70:12.71. Usurpa­tion of un­war­ranted power by ei­ther the ex­ec­u­tive or leg­isla­tive branches.

70:12.82. Machi­na­tions of ig­no­rant and su­per­sti­tious ag­i­ta­tors.

70:12.93. Re­tar­da­tion of sci­en­tific prog­ress.

70:12.104. Stale­mate of the dom­i­nance of medi­ocrity.

70:12.115. Dom­i­na­tion by vi­cious mi­nori­ties.

70:12.126. Con­trol by am­bi­tious and clever would-be dic­ta­tors.

70:12.137. Dis­as­trous dis­rup­tion of pan­ics.

70:12.148. Ex­ploita­tion by the un­scrupu­lous.

70:12.159. Tax­a­tion en­slave­ment of the cit­i­zenry by the state.

70:12.1610. Fail­ure of so­cial and eco­nomic fair­ness.

70:12.1711. Union of church and state.

70:12.1812. Loss of per­sonal lib­erty.

70:12.19These are the pur­poses and aims of con­sti­tu­tional tri­bu­nals act­ing as gov­er­nors upon the en­gines of rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment on an evo­lu­tion­ary world.

70:12.20Man­kind’s strug­gle to per­fect gov­ern­ment on Uran­tia has to do with per­fect­ing chan­nels of ad­min­is­tra­tion, with adapt­ing them to ever-chang­ing cur­rent needs, with im­prov­ing power dis­tri­bu­tion within gov­ern­ment, and then with se­lect­ing such ad­min­is­tra­tive lead­ers as are truly wise. While there is a di­vine and ideal form of gov­ern­ment, such can­not be re­vealed but must be slowly and la­bo­ri­ously dis­cov­ered by the men and women of each planet through­out the uni­verses of time and space.

70:12.21[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of Neb­a­don.]