Why should we suppose that people, who are entirely in the power of God, will always remain under the strange delusion that only human laws – changeable, accidental, unjust, and local as they are – are important and binding, and not the one, eternal, just law of God, common to all men?  Why should we think that the teachers of mankind will always preach, as they now do, that there is and can be no such law, but that the only laws that exist are special laws of religious ritual for every nation and every sect; or the so-called scientific laws of matter and the imaginary laws of sociology (which do not bind men to anything); or, finally, civil laws, which men themselves can institute and change?  Such an error is possible for a time, but why should we suppose that people, to whom one and the same divine law written in their hearts has been revealed in the teaching of the Brahmins, Buddha, Lao-Tsze, Confucius, and Christ, will not at last follow this one basis of all laws, affording as it does moral satisfaction and a joyful social life?  Why should we suppose that they will always follow that wicked and pitiful tangle of church, scientific, and governmental teaching which diverts their attention from the one thing needful, and directs it towards what can be of no use to them, since it does not show them how each separate man should live?

Why should we think that men will continue to unceasingly and deliberately torment themselves, some trying to rule over others, and others submitting to the rulers with hatred and envy and seeking means themselves to become rulers?  Why should we think that the progress men pride themselves on will always lie in the increase of population and the preservation of life, and never in the moral elevation of life; or will lie in miserable mechanical inventions, by which men will produce ever more harmful, injurious and demoralizing objects; and will not lie in greater and greater unity one with another, and in that subjugation of their lusts which is necessary to make such unity possible?  Why should we not suppose that men will rejoice and vie with one another, not in riches and luxuries, but in simplicity, frugality, and kindness one to another?  Why should we not suppose that men will see progress, not in seizing more and more for themselves, but in taking less and less from others, and in giving more and more to others; not in increasing their power, not in fighting more and more successfully, but in growing more and more humble, and in coming into closer and closer union, man with man and nation with nation?

Instead of imagining men unrestrainedly yielding to their lusts, breeding like rabbits, establishing factories in towns for the production of chemical foods to feed their increasing generation, and living in these towns without plants or animals; why should we not imagine chaste people, struggling against their lusts, living in loving communion with their neighbors amid fruitful fields, gardens, and woods, with tame, well-fed animal friends?  Why should we not imagine only this difference from their present condition: that they do not consider the land to be anyone’s private property, do not themselves belong to any particular nation, do not pay taxes or duties, prepare for war, or fight anyone, but on the contrary, have more and more peaceful interaction with every race?

To imagine the life of men like that, nothing need be invented, altered, or added in one’s imagination to the lives of the agricultural races we know in China, Russia, India, Canada, Algeria, Egypt and Australia.  To picture such life to ourselves, one need not imagine any kind of cunning or out-of-the-way arrangement, but need only imagine to oneself men acknowledging no other supreme law but the universal law expressed alike in the Brahmin, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, and Christian religions: the law of love to God and to one’s neighbor.

To imagine such a life we need not imagine men as some new kind of beings or virtuous angels.  They will be just as they now are, with all weaknesses and passions natural to them.  They will sin, perhaps quarrel and commit adultery, take away other people’s property, and even slay; but all this will be the exception and not, as now, the rule.  Their life will be quite different owing to the one fact that they will not consider organized violence a good thing and a necessary condition of life, and will not be trained otherwise by hearing the evil deeds of governments represented as good actions.

Their life will be quite different, because there will no longer be that impediment to preaching and teaching the spirit of goodness, love, and submission to the will of God, that exists as long as we admit governmental violence as necessary and lawful, demanding what is contrary to God’s law, and involving the acceptance of what is criminal and bad in place of what is lawful and good.

Why should we not imagine that, through suffering, men may be aroused from the suggestion, the hypnotism, under which they have suffered so long, and remember that they are all sons and servants of God, and therefore can and must submit only to Him and to their own consciences?  All this is not difficult to imagine; it is even difficult to imagine that it should not be accomplished.