Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systemization. - Jacques Ellul

For the Greeks, physical exercise was an ethic for developing freely and harmoniously the form and strength of the human body. For the Romans, it was a technique for increasing the legionnaire's efficiency. The Roman conception prevails today.

Man has always had one unfailing subject of conversation, life's vexations.

Whereas the good news had first been published for its own sake with no concern for success, now ineluctably success brought, as always, a desire for it. … They were not aware of what was happening, namely, that society was inverting Christianity instead of being subverted by it.