Let there be no mistake. The principle of the Oneness of Mankind--the pivot
round which all the teachings of Baha'u'llah revolve --is no mere outburst
of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its
appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of
brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the
fostering of harmonious coeoperation among individual peoples and nations.
Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the
Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not
only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of
those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as
members of one human family. It does not constitute merely the enunciation
of an ideal, but stands inseparably associated with an institution
adequate to embody its truth, demonstrate its validity, and perpetuate its
influence. It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day
society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced. It
constitutes a challenge, at once bold and universal, to outworn
shibboleths of national creeds--creeds that have had their day and which
must, in the ordinary course of events as shaped and controlled by
Providence, give way to a new gospel, fundamentally different from, and
infinitely superior to, what the world has already conceived. It calls for
no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole
civilized world--a world organically unified in all the essential aspects
of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade
and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of
the national characteristics of its federated units.
It represents the consummation of human evolution--an evolution that has
had its earliest beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent
development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to
the constitution of the city-state, and expanding later into the
institution of independent and sovereign nations.
The principle of the Oneness of Mankind, as proclaimed by Baha'u'llah,
carries with it no more and no less than a solemn assertion that
attainment to this final stage in this stupendous evolution is not only
necessary but inevitable, that its realization is fast approaching, and
that nothing short of a power that is born of God can succeed in
establishing it.
So marvellous a conception finds its earliest manifestations in the
efforts consciously exerted and the modest beginnings already achieved by
the declared adherents of the Faith of Baha'u'llah who, conscious of the
sublimity of their calling and initiated into the ennobling principles of
His Administration, are forging ahead to establish His Kingdom on this
earth. It has its indirect manifestations in the gradual diffusion of the
spirit of world solidarity which is spontaneously arising out of the
welter of a disorganized society.
It would be stimulating to follow the history of the growth and
development of this lofty conception which must increasingly engage the
attention of the responsible custodians of the destinies of peoples and
nations. To the states and principalities just emerging from the welter of
the great Napoleonic upheaval, whose chief preoccupation was either to
recover their rights to an independent existence or to achieve their
national unity, the conception of world solidarity seemed not only remote
but inconceivable. It was not until the forces of nationalism had
succeeded in overthrowing the foundations of the Holy Alliance that had
sought to curb their rising power, that the possibility of a world order,
transcending in its range the political institutions these nations had
established, came to be seriously entertained. It was not until after the
World War that these exponents of arrogant nationalism came to regard such
an order as the object of a pernicious doctrine tending to sap that
essential loyalty upon which the continued existence of their national
life depended. With a vigor that recalled the energy with which the
members of the Holy Alliance sought to stifle the spirit of a rising
nationalism among the peoples liberated from the Napoleonic yoke, these
champions of an unfettered national sovereignty, in their turn, have
labored and are still laboring to discredit principles upon which their
own salvation must ultimately depend.
The fierce opposition which greeted the abortive scheme of the Geneva
Protocol; the ridicule poured upon the proposal for a United States of
Europe which was subsequently advanced, and the failure of the general
scheme for the economic union of Europe, may appear as setbacks to the
efforts which a handful of foresighted people are earnestly exerting to
advance this noble ideal. And yet, are we not justified in deriving fresh
encouragement when we observe that the very consideration of such
proposals is in itself an evidence of their steady growth in the minds and
hearts of men? In the organized attempts that are being made to discredit
so exalted a conception are we not witnessing the repetition, on a larger
scale, of those stirring struggles and fierce controversies that preceded
the birth, and assisted in the reconstruction, of the unified nations of
the West?