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Baha'u'llah declares that just as lesser living things have times of sudden emergence into new and fuller life, so for mankind also a "critical stage," a time of "rebirth," is at hand. Then modes of life which have persisted from the dawn of history up till now will be quickly, irrevocably, altered, and humanity enter on a new phase of life as different from the old as the butterfly is different from the caterpillar, or the bird from the egg. Mankind as a whole, in the light of new Revelation, will attain to a new vision of truth; as a whole country is illumined when the sun rises, so that all men see clearly, where but an hour before everything was dark and dim. "This is a new cycle of human power," says 'Abdu'l-Baha. "All the horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed as a rose garden and a paradise." The analogies of nature are all in favor of such a view; the Prophets of old have with one accord foretold the advent of such a glorious day; the signs of the times show clearly that profound and revolutionary changes in human ideas and institutions are even now in progress. What could be more futile and baseless therefore, than the pessimistic argument that, although all things else change, human nature cannot change?
(78:5)
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