Livets Bog, vol. 5
What it is that proves that the terrestrial human being is not a pure "animal"
1763. This goodwill toward men or true peace between them is thus not something that can be arranged or created by a police force alone. Thus we return here to the fact that the whole of mankind's problem of peace is a question of an inner feeling, a sympathetic faculty of such dimensions and with such an organic structure that must be different to the one that the one hundred per cent one-poled beings of both sexes have had up to now. It is obvious that among beings whose sympathetic faculty has exactly the same structure as that of the animals there could not possibly be anything other than a corresponding animal sympathy or the mentality that is a vital necessity in the animals and that can be expressed by the phrase: "Every man is for himself". The drive for self-preservation must be paramount. All other considerations must give way to this. In the human being it is this paramount drive for self-preservation that culminates or blossoms in downright self-adulation or conscious self-worship. And, seen from a certain point of view, this must be said to be quite brilliant. Having intellectual or mental faculties that are far superior to those of the ordinary animal, the human being has been able to make defensive and offensive weapons that are thousands upon thousands of times more effective than the animal's ordinary teeth, claws or other weapons. It has thus been able to improve animal phenomena, characteristics and talents to a level of genius. With the aid of Nature itself or the elements' millions of horsepower it can wipe out an opponent, whether it be in the air, on the ground, on the sea or under the water. People have set up everything to do with borders, economy and mentality in accordance with the principle of "the right of the stronger". They have taken the animal's psyche to a level of genius. The terrestrial human kingdom constitutes the perfect, culminating animal kingdom. It outshines all other animal species of beings on Earth. Why then are terrestrial human beings not satisfied? Surely such fantastically or ingeniously gifted "animals" must be happy in a culminating "animal kingdom". When human beings nonetheless are very far from being happy and could not possibly be happy in the perfect animal kingdom, but wish, hope, pray and fight for a future kingdom of peace – that is to say a kingdom where the animal characteristics of life do not control the beings, a kingdom that is based not on "the right of the stronger", but on justice or equal rights for everyone – it is here established as fact that the human being is no longer a real animal in its pure form. From a purely mental point of view it has to a certain extent become another being, a being with a more sympathetic and humane attitude. "Right instead of might" and "equal rights for everyone" are principles that the animal, outside its sphere of mating or reproduction and its relationship to its offspring, is unacquainted with.