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. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.
Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz, Fiat Voluntas Tua, Ch. 29 (1959)