s. Why should these, in a world subject to the
immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that
must needs overtake every human institution? For legal standards,
political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the
interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the
preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.

The Principle of Oneness

Let there be no mistake. The principle of the Oneness of Mankind--the pivot
round which all the teachings of Baha'u'llah revolve --is no mere outburst
of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its
appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of
brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the
fostering of harmonious coeoperation among individual peoples and nations.
Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the
Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not
only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of
those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as
members of one human family. It does not constitute merely the enunciation
of an ideal, but stands inseparably associated with an institution
adequate to embody its truth, demonstrate its validity, and perpetuate its
influence. It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day
society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced. It
constitutes a challenge, at once bold and universal, to outworn
shibboleths of national creeds--creeds that have had their day and which
must, in the ordinary course of events as shaped and controlled by
Providence, give way to a new gospel, fundamentally different from, and
infinitely superior to, what the world has already conceived. It calls for
no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole
civilized world--a world organically unified in all the essential aspects
of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade
and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of
the national characteristics of its federated units.

It represents the consummation of human evolution--an evolution that has
had its earliest beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent
development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to
the constitution of the city-state, and