Livets Bog, vol. 1
The "League of Nations" as a system of law and justice without a police force amongst "Stone Age individuals".Unselfishness as the basis for the World State
101. We are also witnessing now a development that has already created weak tendencies for establishing a world authority. Today these tendencies show themselves under the concept of the "League of Nations".* But this League can, at the most, be considered as only the "embryo of a World Court". It does not possess the valuable goods, and therefore there is no real power behind it. Like the State powers, it is to a very great extent subject to "money power", and therefore becomes its "servant" instead of its "master". Among those "individuals" (nations) for whom it should be a "system of law" it is still only a beautiful "thought", a "paper agreement" that will be respected only within areas where it does not interfere with the supposed proprietary rights of the "individuals" (nations). It is therefore still only a system of law and justice without a police force, among armed "Stone Age individuals" (nations) and thus it cannot practise law and justice anywhere except within an area which does not clash with the nations' system of arming themselves. But this is only natural. There is nothing which is born mature. And a reality so immense as world authority could not come into being except through progressive development. It would be nothing less than a catastrophe for thousands of people if that could happen in a single day. But of course this does not exempt any person on Earth from a duty to work for the earliest possible establishment of such a World Court.
      The above-mentioned League - or the tendencies for which it is an expression - is thus the beginning of a world authority, and with it the first step in uniting all the States of the world into one single kingdom. But in order that the result of such tendencies, or a League of this kind, can really be a World Court or world tribunal, then the nations, or "individuals", for whom it is to function as a court of law, must surrender their arms to that court of law. As long as they themselves constitute an armed power, and their authority or court of law an unarmed power, the said court or authority can as little guarantee law and justice as the general system of law and justice within a single nation could guarantee security and justice if it were without a police force and the citizens carried weapons. But just as it is forbidden here and now for people to be armed, so in the same way the "individuals" (nations) in the World State will also be prevented from carrying weapons. Only unselfishness, represented in the form of world authority, law and justice, can be the rightful master of instruments of murder. But in order that this may come about, the inhabitants of all countries must come into contact with unselfishness, which in this connection means "internationalism". All forms of development concerning terrestrial humanity will therefore take shape in the direction of internationalism, or unselfishness, which alone can constitute the foundation upon which an all-embracing, divine world kingdom can rest.
 
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* Translator's note: When Martinus wrote this, the "League of Nations", formed after World War 1, had not been superseded by the "United Nations Organisation".