Let me be as explicit as possible concerning my view of the human capacity for regeneration of values.  Imagine that a thriving, lawful community were stricken, in the course of a single night, with an amnesia that erased every memory of law, ethics, tradition, and customs governing standards of conduct.  There would follow, of course, days and nights of bloodshed and looting, murder and rape.  The physically strong would take what they wanted.  People would fight like animals over dwindling food supplies.  Brutal crimes would be committed out of lust, greed, cruelty, and rage.

But the whole history of the race tells us that in a matter of days some members of the stricken community would begin fumbling for means of ending the terror.  They would grope toward some consensus as to which acts were the most intolerable.  They would seek to define certain limits that should circumscribe the behavior of all.  And thus, slowly, painfully, they would set out on the long road back to the rule of law and a framework of values."