Google Translate: Happy is he who was able to ascertain the causes of things.
The effects one can always see; of the effects one constantly hears: but the cause one must find.- Vladimir Simkhovitch
From page 208, page 9 of 44 in Rome's Fall Reconsidered
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Simkhovitch comes back to this topic on page 224:
But we are told that Italy's depopulation was due to the civil strife and wars, to the ever-increasing marsh areas, and growing unhealthiness, and to a thousand and one other cherished explanations-all of them to a large extent based on contemporary documents and to a greater or lesser extent true, but all of them, at best, important symptoms or minor effects rather than fundamental causes.
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Again, from Romes Fall Reconsidered by Vladimir Simkhovitch, pages 208-209:
So it happens that the true causes of things are hardly discussed in the markets and meeting-places. It is the future, not the past, that worries politicians. Remedies, not causes, are what they are bound to discuss.
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