Races and nations as functions of the world whole

abandon every issue to mere force. That would then be right which succeeded in establishing itself”.

He saw the only alternative to force in

‘the conception in the highest minds of all races of a common world-psychology, in which each of them shares responsibility according to their respective functions; in a phrase, the application of the functional principle to the conception of the world as a single developing organism, mainly psychologically realised’.

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From early times in the history of human culture we find an intuitive awareness of Mankind as One, and this has been at the foundations of the most universal world religions and of many world-creation myths. It would perhaps be true to say that as population has grown and nations and states have taken shape this sense of the unity of humanity has declined and has been more confined to the advanced thinkers of their time. We have to recognise that this is not the popular assumption in the Western world of our day; and in general our thought and actions are much more determined by the differences between the different parts of humanity than by our membership of one human race. Yet this knowledge, as we may call it, of the oneness of humanity has never been entirely lost, and just as we see evidence of it in Plato and Aristotle, so in the modern world it is considered axiomatic by profound thinkers like Auguste Comte! and Vladimir Solovyov?.

To enter into the study of ‘world order based on the functional principle’ it is necessary to affirm decisively the wholeness of Universal Humanity in the sense expressed by Comte in his affirmation of ‘le grand Etre’, the Great Being consisting of all mankind, past and future as well as now living. This involves us in a commitment to basic human equality, but it has more depth and content than a mere statement of human equality or unity,

1 ‘The Order of Mankind as seen by Auguste Comte’; D. Shillan; 9th New Atlantis Foundation Lecture, 1963.

2 ‘The Christian Philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov’; Ellen Mayne; 4th Foundation Lecture, 1957.