The heart of evil

Darkness at Noon
a novel by Arthur Koestler (1941)

p. 209 "Premises of unimpeachable truth had led to a result which was completely absurd . . . Perhaps it was not suitable for a man to think every thought to its logical conclusion. . . . Perhaps it did not suit man to be completely freed from old bonds, from the steadying brakes of "Thou shalt not" and "Thou mayst not", and to be allowed to tear along straight towards the goal. . . .

"It was obviously not enough to direct man's eyes towards a goal and put a knife in his hand; it was unsuitable for him to experiment with a knife. Perhaps later, one day. For the moment he was still too young and awkward. How he had raged in the great field of experiment, the Fatherland of the Revolution, the Bastion of Freedom!

"Gletkin justified everything that happened with the principle that the bastion must be preserved. But what did it look like inside? No, one cannot build Paradise with concrete. The bastion would be preserved, but it no longer had a message, nor an example to give the world. No.1's regime had besmirched the ideal of the Social state even as some Medieval Popes had besmirched the ideal of a Christian Empire. The flag of the Revolution was at half-mast."

p. 210. "... [the error] was a mistake in the system; perhaps it lay in the precept which until now he had held to be uncontestable, in whose name he had sacrificed others and was himself being sacrificed: in the precept, that the end justifies the means. . . . Perhaps the heart of the evil lay there. Perhaps it did not suit mankind to sail without ballast. And perhaps reason alone was a defective compass, which led one on such a winding, twisted course that the goal finally disappeared in the mist."