In peoples' daily lives there are so many mutually conflicting views of life, views of morality and conduct that they turn the mutual relationship of collected mankind into a domicile of unrest, indeed, even into a doomsday or an Armageddon. The entire history of mankind so far is a story of a series of bloody wars, where the strongest peoples have conquered and oppressed the less strong peoples, just as an atmosphere of intolerance, jealousy and envy has existed between one man and another giving rise to murder and killing and other acts of revenge. Quite apart from this, people have also an ocean of killing and oppression of animals on their conscience. If we look at the division into states of the terrains of the Earth, we will see that these states have been promoted by national groups of people who have been the strongest and have had the best weapons. Are not gold-braided uniforms of war with their appendaged sword, the most distinguished adornment of kings, princes and other people of rank when they are in full dress uniform? There are also the many orders and medals of honour, some of which may have been received for bravery in war, which should further show us that we have here a better kind of people. Is it then sinful to wear such adornments? Absolutely not. They correspond very well to the step of evolution that the beings concerned are standing on, indeed they constitute precisely this step's particular symptoms or characteristics, but they are not in contact with the fifth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill".

An evolutionary step is a stage in the transformation of the being from a lower to a higher state of life. A step in evolution is thus an expression for a particular degree of ability to experience and manifest life. Above such a degree lies higher degrees of ability to experience life and to manifest, just as there are lower degrees of ability for sensing and creating under such a degree. This is why all living beings are not the same, but appear in the many different forms of life that we see.

So terrestrial human beings find themselves in two mental worlds. The animal abilities or tendencies of consciousness that they still employ cause their being not finished the animal state yet, while the human tendencies that have begun to become habitual turn them into incipient human beings. It is these two kinds of tendencies of consciousness: the animal and the human in people, that we respectively know by the terms "evil" and "good". The evil in people constitutes thus an aspect of consciousness that was normal for them when they, far back in evolution, were still animals and in the very first feeble incipient human state. Then the killing principle was a vital necessity. This is why the meat-eating animals are equipped with power and strength to be released through an organism that, to a particular degree, is constructed so as to carry out the necessary killings of the animals whose organisms they must inevitably consume as food. Other animals, however, are plant eaters having too a vitally necessary killing nature, even though this is not nearly so bloody and painful as that of the meat-eating animals.

On these stages or steps of the animals their experience of life and their manifestation is borne and regulated by a particular, to a certain extent automatic, unfolding of ability that we know by the term "the instinct of self-preservation". This instinct promotes automatically the animal's striving for a satisfaction of its hunger and the ensuing striving to gather in its food, the satisfaction of its copula-tory drive and the protection of its offspring. This is the animal's entire area of life. And the particular unfoldment of these three kinds of drive or instinct are thus dependent on the particular evolutionary step of the beings in question. This, the way of being of the animals, is promoted quite normally by their instinct. They have no speculations about morality. There is nothing here about "Thou shalt not steal", "Thou shalt not kill", "Thou shalt love thy neighbour ..." and so on. The animal has not yet come so far in evolution that it can speculate about morality and behaviour. If it had come so far it would have become a human being. The animal cannot therefore "sin". It lives totally in contact with the fulfilment of the laws that are a vital necessity on the evolutionary step to which they belong.

With the human being it is quite another matter. It finds itself in a state where it can be in great disharmony with the laws whose fulfilment is a vital condition for normal, human happiness on the step in evolution to which it belongs at the moment. Since it, to a certain extent, has evolved towards human tendencies in experiencing and behaving, it has, to a corresponding extent, come under the conditions that have to be fulfilled in order to attain human perfection and happiness. But since it at the same time still has within itself a greater or lesser degree of inherited animal tendencies of consciousness, and since these are promoted automatically by its instinct or the remains of its animal instinct of self-preservation, its conduct alternates between animal and human conduct, according to the alternative situations in its view and conduct, where its animal and human dispositions alternatively take over its desire and will. Those situations where the human being's conduct is dictated by its animal nature are those in which it acts in hot-temperedness and anger, those in which it wishes to take revenge on the beings that are the object of its anger. It is also the animal dispositions in the human being that make it become envious or jealous, and have other forms of selfish desires and interests. While these mental fluctuations are a vital condition in the animal kingdom and therefore, in this kingdom, must almost be regarded as absolutely normal functions of life without which the animal could not possibly maintain its existence, it is quite another matter in the human kingdom. Because of the human tendency that is already growing here people have been able to begin forming particular moral concepts according to which they then have made laws for conduct, the keeping of which should secure people's mutual life together, their happiness and peace. These moral concepts and the laws based on these are about fighting the animal tendencies in people, since these are a great hindrance for truly humane human coexistence. The humane tendencies in a state of pure cultivation are identical to all the manifestations of behaviour that are unselfish, understanding, forgiving and helpful towards one's neighbour, which means towards all living beings, animals as well as people. It is behaviour that is the complete opposite of the animal's, since it is triggered by the desire to give rather than to receive, while animal behaviour is triggered by the desire to take rather than to give.

Since people are not human beings in a state of pure cultivation, their previous, and to a certain extent their present, moral concepts and precepts are not human in a state of pure cultivation. They are still a mixture of animal and human conduct. Thousands of years ago Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, gave people true instructions for a totally perfect human way of being. But people have as yet been far too underdeveloped as regards humaneness to be able to perceive and practice such a height of morality. In relation to this way of being the animal tendencies in the human being were still far too dominating in the terrestrial human sphere of desire and will. This cosmic, ideal instruction was so high that it seemed to be an impossibility for people, which was and still is in fact the case for a multitude of people past and present. If we take for example this moral injunction: "Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword", we are forced to ask how the gold-braided uniforms of war with their attached swords and war medals can be an expression for the previously mentioned moral injunction? Nothing that comes under the term capital punishment or execution can be in contact with the humane injunction "Thou shalt not kill" either. That God should be able to become angry, to punish and to take revenge is not either an expression for the humane view in a state of pure cultivation. The fact that people have thus their moral concepts or highest ideals connected to killing tendencies, punishment for sins and like, shows that the animal tendencies have assumed control of their perception and their ensuing behaviour. If the humane tendencies had assumed control of people's consciousness, Christ's way of being and humane ideals in a state of pure cultivation would have been much more pronounced in the world culture.

The transformation of the beings from an animal to a human state of consciousness can be promoted only by the beings' evolution, and not by punishment or acts of revenge. The primary feature of evolution that transforms the living beings from a lower to a higher form of existence is the beings' infringement of the laws of life and their ensuing state of misfortune. The sufferings that arise from this provide, of course, experience and develop the intelligence; the important thing about the experiences of suffering is, however, the fact that they develop the being's humaneness or ability to feel sympathy for other beings that suffer or are in need. The more sufferings a being has gone through in previous lives, the greater its faculty of humaneness in its present life. This faculty gives rise to the fact that the being cannot find it in its heart to do anything evil to its neighbour. And so this faculty influences the being's daily conduct. It makes the being ultimately mild and understanding towards other beings. It easily forgives an insult, if it can at all allow itself to be insulted. Here we easily see the difference between the advanced, developed human being and the primitive or less developed human being. The latter being does not know very much about forgiving an insult, just as it easily becomes insulted about quite insignificant trifling matters. It thereby lives in frequent conflict with its fellow beings, and is full of hatred and bitterness, first towards one person and then towards another. Collected mankind is thus a mixture of beings on highly different steps in evolution, just as the animal in these beings' consciousness and conduct to a very great extent is the primary factor in their perception of life and their attitude to their neighbour. It is therefore not so surprising that world wars and wars between one man and another to a great extent are the primary factor in the mental sphere of collected terrestrial mankind.

It is true that religions and precepts from prophets and world redeemers have been contributory factors in the moral guidance of mankind, but what actually develops or transforms mankind is the experiencing of experiences. Without these there would be need for neither prophets nor world saviours. These can guide and lead mankind only with the help of the knowledge that people's sum of experiences enables them to believe and understand. Where they have as yet no experiences or knowledge they cannot understand or believe any guidance.

In order to attain true peace in the world one must thus learn to understand that whatever our neighbour may think of us and whatever evil he may do to us can absolutely only be a manifestation of the limitation of his or her present evolutionary step as regards knowledge and experience. It is precisely knowledge and experience, and the conduct arising from these, that characterise the evolutionary step a being is on. So no being can conduct itself in any way other than that which can arise from the normal pinnacle of its collected experiences, instinct and knowledge. To demand that a being should conduct itself in a way that is higher is in principle the same as demanding that a Neanderthal man should be able to conduct himself like Christ or that a stone-age man should have the same feelings as a very humane, civilised human being. Even though the difference in evolution between people today is not so great, there is, however, a distance. And, by virtue of this, two such beings absolutely cannot conduct themselves in the same humane way. The being that finds itself on the lower step can, of course, conduct itself only in a way that is correspondingly lower than the conduct of the being that finds itself on the higher step. To demand that these two beings should be able to manifest themselves identically is foolish. This is precisely why Christ refers to the fact that one should turn one's right cheek when smitten on the left, and that one should forgive. Is it not precisely this that he expresses by saying that one should forgive, not merely seven times a day, but seventy times seven times a day. This, of course, does not mean that one should allow oneself to be tortured and plagued by one's neighbour.

Where our neighbour's humaneness is not developed, his mentality is still animal. Animal mentality can be life-threatening for other beings. For this reason one must of course protect oneself against a human being's animal schemes and plots, just as one protects oneself against dangerous animals. But this protection must not be in the form of anger or bitterness, revenge or hatred. It must be in the absolute understanding that our neighbour's way of acting is a normal manifestation of the evolutionary step on which he stands. It is this protection that forms the foundation for the establishing of the legal and judicial system, even though its methods still involve punishment and revenge. It will one day accept its neighbour's point of view and conduct, just as it today accepts the conduct of the beast of prey as a matter of course, as something normal for these beings. And so it is not a matter of punishing one's neighbour for his behaviour but on the contrary of creating adequate protection against the less developed human beings' animal or inhumane schemes in such a way that this protection neither judges nor treats them as criminals, but on the contrary as more or less childish souls in the incipient human kingdom, that is, as unfinished human beings. And we must learn to see our neighbour in this way if his conduct is inhumane and if he thus more or less hates and takes revenge, mutilates, destroys and kills, steals, lies or cheats. To regard him as "criminal" can be only a manifestation of the general superstition that he could easily stop acting like this and conduct himself in such a way that he would not come into conflict with the law. But such conduct is precisely what he cannot possibly achieve. There is no point whatsoever in punishing him. His conduct is a normal manifestation of the evolutionary step to which he belongs at the moment. And there he will certainly stay for the time being. If he can be forced to act in another way, his way of acting will become merely a kind of dressage. And the principle will become thus the same as the principle in a circus performance or a menagerie performance.