What has Civilisation to do with Morals and Religion?
If civilisation has nothing to do with morals and religion, if social justice and political liberty are matters of indifference to it, it can have but little contact with human life in its most universal aspects. It is an artificial growth, a hot-house plant which can only flourish in a world in which everyone is witty and well mannered and well dressed; where poverty and suffering are unknown. Such a society can never exist in its own right. It is the result of certain rare and transitory moments in the wider life of humanity. Its exquisite frivolity is powerless to withstand the hard facts of life.
Christopher Dawson, 1928