But at other times violence was the means resorted to by him who had previously exhausted all others in defence of the rights of justice which he thought he possessed. It may be regrettable that human nature tends on occasion to this form of violence, but it is undeniable that it implies the greatest tribute to reason and justice. For this form of violence is none other than reason exasperated. Force was, in fact, the ultima ratio. Rather stupidly it has been the custom to take ironically this expression, which clearly indicates the previous submission of force to methods of reason.
Civilisation is nothing else than the attempt to reduce force to being the ultima ratio.
It is the norm which proposes the annulment of all norms, which suppresses all intermediate process between our purpose and its execution. It is the Magna Charta of barbarism. This was, then, the natural modus operandi of the masses. The restrictions of sexual relations are reduced. They are all summed up in the word civilisation, which, through the underlying notion of civis, the citizen, reveals its real origin.