Francis Schaeffer on Downhill Cultural Momentum

Schaeffer writes:

We view what we are experiencing now as a critical situation which can accelerate month by month until the downhill momentum cannot be arrested. Times of monstrous inhumanity do not come about all at once; they are slipped into gradually. Often those who use certain emotional phrases or high-sounding moral tones about "freedom of the individual" and appeal to "rights" do not even know what they are starting. They see only some isolated condition they want to accomplish, but have not considered soberly the overall direction in which things are moving. At some later point they want to go backwards. But then it is too late. Mankind's selfishness and greed can be counted on to widen every breach, exploiting each to the fullest for selfish purposes.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? in vol. 5 of The Complete Works of Francis A Schaeffer: A Christian View of the West. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books. 1982, p. 345.