"For the American Indian — and this idea lies at the hidden root of every great spiritual teaching of the world — to be at peace means to be at peace with one's conscience. And to be at peace within the community or to live in peace with other nations is to submit to a rule of law that is the communal expression of conscience and that provides conditions within which an individual is free to listen for that voice within himself. The establishment of such conditions, the establishment of such law, requires an intelligence of a very high order — what is called 'the intelligence of the heart.' And to find such intelligence requires, in turn, an effort of exceptional people working together to respect each individual's fragment of truth until an objective, all-inclusive truth descends into the community from 'above,' that is, from the Great Spirit. Such an objective moral truth may be linked with the word 'justice.'

"Justice is that which sees the place of everything — in ourselves, in our relationships, in nature and in the life of society. Justice not only sees the place of everything, it feels the place of everything. Justice is that which knows what to do to restore things to their right place and knows when and how to do it. But such justice does not necessarily conform to man's subjective predilections concerning what is fair and right.

"The question is: How to think and live in a manner that conforms to cosmic law? How to think and live according to conscience, which is the voice of the universe within each man or woman? How to think and live in a manner that allows a relationship between the greatness of the cosmos and the needs of the earth and all that lives and happens on earth? It is the ancient and eternal question of man as the bridge between heaven and earth, between levels of being in the universe — man, the being of two worlds, two natures, two directions. Man the contradiction and man the reconciliation. The religion and culture of the American Indian rest on this perennial concept of the meaning of human life on earth. To live at peace is to embrace life in all its aspects, all 'four directions,' all 'the winds,' all the creatures outside and within. This is the basis of peace and the basis of the Indian's understanding of justice in nature and society. As we shall see, it was this understanding of justice and its necessary expression in human life that brought forward the great law of the Iroquois nations, which many observers now see in certain key respects as markedly similar to the American Constitution. Could it be that just as our sense of the land and nature is bone deep in us because of the Indian, so equally is our sense of freedom and justice, which we rightly think of as intrinsically American? What is going on here? What did we destroy when we destroyed the Indian? And who are we that destroyed it? To what extent did the Indian form our nature deep down even as we destroyed his culture?"