"The forces of destruction"

“OUR generation has been forced to realize how fragile and unsubstantial are the barriers the separate civilization from the forces of destruction. We have learnt that barbarism is not a picturesque myth or a half-forgotten memory of a long-passed stage of history, but an ugly underlying reality which may erupt with shattering force whenever the moral authority of a civilization loses its control.”

~Christopher H. Dawson: Gifford Lectures, 1948: Religion and the Rise of Western Culture.