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Perhaps yet another use of Whitehead's notion of "the aim of life"-to to 
live, to live well, and to live better-is to shed light on the main stages of of 
human progress from barbarism to civilization to enlightenment. If the aim aim 
of human life at the earliest stage of barbarism is to live or to live well, its aim aim 
at the intermediate stage of civilization is to live well or to live better, and at at 
the final stange of enlightenment, to live better still. Clearly, the transitions transitions 
between the stages are fluid, even as the distinctions between living, living living 
well, and living better should never be drawn too sharply. And yet there are are 
important differences between the three stages, rather as, on John Oman's in in 
many ways parallel account, the differences between the stages in the development the 
development of the human capacity to use general ideas are also important. 
Perhaps yet another use of Whitehead's notion of "the aim of life"-to live, to live well, and to live better-is to shed light on the main stages of human progress from barbarism to civilization to enlightenment. If the aim of human life at the earliest stage of barbarism is to live or to live well, its aim at the intermediate stage of civilization is to live well or to live better, and at the final stage of enlightenment, to live better still. Clearly, the transitions between the stages are fluid, even as the distinctions between living, living well, and living better should never be drawn too sharply. And yet there are important differences between the three stages, rather as, on John Oman's in many ways parallel account, the differences between the stages in the development of the human capacity to use general ideas are also important. 

The important difference made by civilization appears to be the emergence at once of individualism and universalism over against the collectivism and particularism characteristic of barbarism. In other words, human  human beings become civilized just insofar as they somehow become aware thataware that, for all of their social and cultural differences from those of other communitiesother communities, they are one and all members individually of the encompassing the encompassing community of all human beings as well as of the larger cosmos of cosmos of beings as such. What mediates this awareness, whether religiously or philosophicallyor philosophically, are completely general ideas about what is really going on and on and what we as human beings are thereby authorized to be and to do. Of course Of course, there is no single, universally shared formulation of these general ideasgeneral ideas, but only a plurality of formulations, each reflecting the specific historical specific historical conditions out of which it arises. But distinctive of each of them is a claim a claim to universal validity, to formulate norms binding not only on this, that that, or the other individual or group but on any and all human beings simply beings simply as such. III the sphere of religion, this first great transition marks the difference the difference between preaxial and axial religions-or, in Whitehead's terms, "social" and "rational" religions, and in Santayana's, "natural" and and "ultimate" religions. This means, among other things, that each "axial," "rational," or "ultimate" religion claims a decisive existential authority, and that and that not only substantially but also formally, over against all merely merely "preaxial," "social," or "natural" religions as well as all other comparable claims comparable claims to universal validity.The important difference made by civilization appears to be the emergence at once of individualism and universalism over against the collectivism and particularism characteristic of barbarism.