P763:4, 68:1.1
When brought closely together, men often learn to like one another, but primitive
man was not naturally overflowing with the spirit of brotherly feeling and
the desire for social contact with his fellows. Rather did the early races
learn by sad experience that "in union there is strength"; and it is this
lack of natural brotherly attraction that now stands in the way of immediate
realization of the brotherhood of man on Urantia.
P763:5, 68:1.2
Association early became the price of survival. The lone man was helpless
unless he bore a tribal mark which testified that he belonged to a group which
would certainly avenge any assault made upon him. Even in the days of Cain
it was fatal to go abroad alone without some mark of group association. Civilization
has become man's insurance against violent death, while the premiums are paid
by submission to society's numerous law demands.
P763:6, 68:1.3
Primitive society was thus founded on the
reciprocity of necessity and on
the enhanced safety of association. And human society has evolved in agelong
cycles as a result of this isolation fear and by means of reluctant co-operation.
P763:7, 68:1.4
Primitive human beings early learned that groups are vastly greater and stronger
than the mere sum of their individual units. One hundred men united and working
in unison can move a great stone; a score of well-trained guardians of the
peace can restrain an angry mob. And so society was born, not of mere association
of numbers, but rather as a result of the organization of intelligent
co-operators. But co-operation is not a natural trait of man; he learns to
co-operate first through fear and then later because he discovers it is most
beneficial in meeting the difficulties of time and guarding against the supposed
perils of eternity.
P764:1, 68:1.5
The peoples who thus early organized themselves into a primitive society became
more successful in their attacks on nature as well as in defense against their
fellows; they possessed greater survival possibilities; hence has civilization
steadily progressed on Urantia, notwithstanding its many setbacks. And it
is only because of the enhancement of survival value in association that man's
many blunders have thus far failed to stop or destroy human civilization.
P764:2, 68:1.6
That contemporary cultural society is a rather recent phenomenon is well shown
by the present-day survival of such primitive social conditions as characterize
the Australian natives and the Bushmen and Pygmies of Africa. Among these
backward peoples may be observed something of the early group hostility, personal
suspicion, and other highly antisocial traits which were so characteristic
of all primitive races. These miserable remnants of the
nonsocial peoples
of ancient times bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the natural individualistic
tendency of man cannot successfully compete with the more potent and powerful
organizations and associations of social progression. These backward and suspicious
antisocial races that speak a different dialect every forty or fifty miles
illustrate what a world you might now be living in but for the combined teaching
of the corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince and the later labors of the
Adamic group of racial uplifters.
P764:3, 68:1.7
The modern phrase, "back to nature," is a delusion of ignorance, a belief
in the reality of the onetime fictitious "golden age." The only basis for
the legend of the golden age is the historic fact of Dalamatia and Eden. But
these improved societies were far from the realization of utopian dreams.