"If a man...burns down the town, he cannot defend himself by denying that he invented fire."

If anybody seriously alleges a social decay, it is not sufficient to answer that the elements there alleged to be exaggerated can everywhere be discovered. Societies have decayed, and social causes can be reasonably adduced for the decay. Yet in no case could the new corruption be called a new cause, in the sense of never having appeared at all in more normal times. Suppose we think, as some do, that Athens fell through faction, through party passions in internal politics indifferent to dignity and defence. A man denying the decline could always have said with truth that in every age there had been parties, and always would be parties wherever there were people.  Suppose, on the other hand, we think, as others do, that Athens fell through the impatient imperialism of the Syracusan expedition; as the great Thucydides himself said, through "Empire pursued for covetousness and ambition." A man denying the danger could always have said that there had been covetousness in every age and ambition in every age, and would be so long as men were men....In short, the question is one of proportion; or, in other words, of common sense. If  a man...burns down the town, he cannot defend himself by denying that he invented fire. It is a question of the proportion and not the presence of certain forces; of the exaggeration and not the existence of certain follies.

-July 9, 1921, Illustrated London News