Natural Civilization: The Fourth Revolution in the History of Human Thought

The history of human civilization is a history of continuously breaking intellectual limitations and redefining humanity’s relationship with nature. From the earliest tribal systems to nation-states and empires, from feudal orders to the modern globalized system, humanity has continually attempted to regulate society, manage resources, and pursue long-term stability and development through institutions, culture, and technology. However, a review of historical experience—whether the rise and fall of ancient empires, the institutional deficiencies of modern states, or the systemic crises faced by global civilization in ecology, energy, and economics—reveals a fundamental problem: the long-standing logic of political centralism and anthropocentrism upon which human civilization has relied contains insurmountable limits. This limitation arises not only from imperfect institutional design but is rooted more deeply in human nature itself—in the tendencies toward greed and the expansion of power. Historical examples are abundant: from the centralized imperial systems of the Qin and Han dynasties in ancient China, to modern authoritarian regimes, to the financial, energy, and information networks of the globalized era. Each occurrence of civilizational crisis repeatedly verifies the illusory assumptions of political centralism and anthropocentrism—the mistaken belief that institutions can completely restrain human nature and that civilization can fully control nature. Research in systems science further demonstrates that civilization is a multi-level, nonlinear, and dynamically coupled complex system. Localized centers of power cannot effectively regulate cross-level feedback, nor can they eliminate unpredictable systemic disturbances. For this reason, political philosophy and traditional institutional design appear increasingly inadequate when confronted with the long-term stability of civilization. Against this background, this book proposes the theoretical framework of Natural Civilization Science. Based on the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology, it embeds civilization within a four-level structure: universe – galaxy – planetary ecology – civilization system. In this perspective, civilization is no longer the center of the universe or the Earth, but a participating system constrained by natural laws. Through this view, the stability, sustainability, and resilience of civilization no longer depend on centralized power or institutional dominance, but on alignment with natural laws, closed feedback loops within systems, mechanisms of self-organization, and the principle of low-entropy development. Three scientific revolutions in history have laid the cognitive foundation for this theory. The first was the cosmological revolution. By proposing the heliocentric theory, Copernicus fundamentally overturned the Earth-centered understanding of the universe and liberated human thought, enabling humanity to realize that civilization is not the center of the cosmos. This insight shows that anthropocentric thinking is inevitably an illusion at the cosmic scale. The second was the revolution in life sciences. Darwin’s theory of evolution revealed the natural laws governing the evolution of living systems and emphasized the dependence of civilization on ecological and biological cycles. The development of civilization must take ecological constraints and biological laws into account; otherwise social and technological progress cannot be sustained. The third was the physical revolution of the universe. Einstein’s theory of relativity, along with the modern understanding of space, time, and gravity, demonstrated the fundamental constraints that physical laws impose on civilizational institutions, technological design, and resource utilization. Institutions and technologies cannot transcend the limits of physica