Slowly, agonizingly, humans learned how the universe worked, abandoning most of the fanciful beliefs they carried through their long, dark loneliness. This included belief in—
- the divine right of egotistical kings,
- the mental incapacity of women,
- the idea that a wise state knows all,
- the idea that the individual is always right,
- the sick-sweet addiction that transforms a doctrine from a mere model of the world into something sacred, worth killing for.
Brightness Reef, David Brin.





