ACTA NON VERBA

"Really, Doctor Cors, the evil to which even you should have referred was not suffering, but the unreasoning fear of suffering. Metus doloris. Take it together with its positive equivalent, the craving for worldly security, for Eden, and you might have your 'root of evil,' Doctor Cors. To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law--a perversion. Inevitable, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security." - Walter M. Miller, Jr., "A Canticle for Leibowitz"