Peace and Life. They are supreme values in the civil order. They are also values that are interdependent. It is not so. The combination of the two terms in the phrase represents a hardwon conquest in the onward march of human progress-a march still short of its final goal.
Peace is sought and won through conflict, like a sad doom necessary for self-defense.
The close relationship between Peace and Life seems to spring from the nature of things, but not always, not yet from the logic of people's thought and conduct. This close relationship is the paradoxical novelty that we must proclaim for this year of grace 1977 and henceforth for ever, if we are to understand the dynamics of progress. Even today, these objections seem to constitute insurmountable obstacles. The tragic conclusion is that if, in defiance of logic, Peace and Life can in practice be dissociated, there looms on the horizon of the future a catastrophe that in our days could be immeasurable and irreparable both for Peace and Life. Hiroshima is a terribly eloquent proof and a frighteningly prophetic example of this.