World Religion and World Politics
The article: Why One Should Forgive One's Neighbour
Chapter 11
The principles of might and right
But the ordinary terrestrial human being has not yet reached this pinnacle or culmination of behaviour, even if he has advanced some distance on his way out of the animal area.
The unfinished human being is thus a being in whom there exist both animal and human tendencies.
It is not so remarkable that human culture to a corresponding degree is based partly on animal tendencies and partly on human ones, which respectively means on the principle of killing and on the principle of humaneness or love.
We see, therefore, great humane, technical and chemical creations, brilliant material wonders such as power, light and heat produced by Man.
Through great machines one makes the enormous forces of nature work for one.
By means of these harnessed forces the human being is able to transport himself around the planet, through the air as well as under the water, across the continents by rail and motorway and on the ocean routes throughout the world.
But along with these highly civilised human blessings, man's civilisation is permeated by the still remaining vestiges of the animal nature in which it is might, and not right, that prevails.
Within a very great area of human civilisation the principle of might instead of right is still to a greater or lesser extent upheld.
Cultivating the principle of might instead of the principle of right or justice is here not a condition of life and cannot be a virtue, as is the case in the animal kingdom.
Upholding the principle of might instead of the principle of right within human relations creates derailment of all human civilisation in the form of war, murder and killing as well as the destruction of many of the cultural phenomena that have already on a large scale become a joy and blessing for people.