The late Richard W. Wetherill often used this story to make a point.
In the days of coal-burning furnaces, a sleeping family was being
overcome by carbon monoxide gas. As the members of the household
lay in their beds slowly dying in their sleep, a member of the
family awakened. When he realized the dangerous situation that
was going to destroy his family, he jumped out of bed.
Immediately he set about trying to arouse his family members.
As he went from room to room, trying unsuccessfully to arouse
them from their stupor, he kept shouting, "Wake up!" Groggily
they fought him off mumbling, "Go away, I'm fine. Let me
sleep." Mr. Wetherill likened the behavior of that unfortunate
family in their deadly situation to the present situation of
the "family of mankind."
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Wetherill had identified a natural law of
social behavior early in the past century and spent his lifetime trying to awaken the public to the danger of their behavioral
choices. The behavioral law states right action gets right results, whereas wrong
action gets wrong results. In addition, the law defines right as action
that is logical, appropriate, and moral. As all natural laws, it
fixes the results of every action taken by men, women, and children
everywhere on earth.
In a certain real sense, most people today are still mentally
slumbering while they persist in behaving in accord with their
own desires rather than behaving in accord with nature's social
law of right action.
An analogy that Wetherill often mentioned to illustrate another
point is our knowledge and experience with nature's law of gravitation.
People recognize that they function under its absolute control
no matter where on earth they are, what their sex, education, religion,
or desire to ignore it. Ever since people have existed, they have
tried to conform to gravity, even before they knew that it was
a law of nature. And if they failed to heed the law, they blamed
their wrong results on other things. Now, we know such wrong results
are caused by our mistakes.
Nature's law of social behavior also is operating in the lives
of people even though it has been almost totally unrecognized.
For that reason society blames its wrong results on many different
things. People must awaken to nature's social law, dictating the
cause and effect of their every thought, word, and action.
Wrong causes dictate wrong results, which, in turn, lead to more
wrong causes and more wrong results, and on and on. The cycle keeps
repeating itself in human affairs as nations go from one social
and/or economic crisis to another as well as individuals that similarly
experience one personal crisis after another.
The way to stop society's behavioral wrong results is for people
to connect with the one right cause which is to conform to nature's
law of right action: Think, say, and do what is logical, appropriate
and moral. Ultimately it will be accepted that nature's law of
right action truly is God's formula for peace on earth.
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