Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and sudden changes of society (in whatever direction) because they never in fact take place except by a particular technique. That technique involves the seizure of power by a small, highly disciplined group of people; the terror and the secret police follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think any group good enough to have such power. They are men of like passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence, in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned by its modus operandi. The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety. The character in
That Hideous Strength whom the Professor never mentions is Miss Hardcastle, the chief of the secret police. She is the common factor in all revolutions; and, as she says, you won’t get anyone to do her job well unless they get some kick out of it.
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"A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946), published posthumously in
Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966).
Written in response to "Auld Hornie, F.R.S." by J. B. S. Haldane, a review of the Space Trilogy.
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and lay theologian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis
