f
humanity's future, revolutionary in purpose, intoxicating in the
possibilities it opens.

Integral to these teachings are principles that address the administration
of humanity's collective affairs. A widely quoted passage in Baha'u'llah's
Tablet to Queen Victoria expresses emphatic praise of the principle of
democratic and constitutional government, but is also an admonition about
the context of global responsibility in which that principle must operate
if it is to realize its purpose in this age: "O ye the elected
representatives of the people in every land! Take ye counsel together, and
let your concern be only for that which profiteth mankind and bettereth
the condition thereof, if ye be of them that scan heedfully. Regard the
world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect,
hath been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and
maladies. Not for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more
severe, as it fell under the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave
full rein to their personal desires and have erred grievously. And if, at
one time, through the care of an able physician, a member of that body was
healed, the rest remained afflicted as before."(51) In other passages,
Baha'u'llah spells out some of the practical implications. The governments
of the world are called upon to convene an international consultative body
as the foundation, in the words of the Guardian, of "a world federal
system"(52) empowered to safeguard the autonomy and territory of its state
members, resolve national and regional disputes and coordinate programmes
of global development for the good of the entire human race.
Significantly, Baha'u'llah attributes to this system, once established,
the right to suppress by force acts of aggression by one state against
another. Addressing the rulers of His day, He asserts the clear moral
authority of such action: "Should any one among you take up arms against
another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest
justice."(53)

"The power through which these goals will be progressively realized is..."

The power through which these goals will be progressively realized is that
of unity. Although to Baha'is the most obvious of truths, its implications
for the current crisis of civilization appear to escape most contemporary
discourse. Few will disagree that the universal disease sapping the health
of the body of humankind is that