Law
Law and its stabilizing influence can been seen in the flourishing of civilization. Comparable to business and information technology, law influences every element of human action. Beginning with the civil code of Ancient Egypt, on to the Roman law and following through to the legal volumes of the modern era, one can see that law adapts as cultures metamorphose. Undergirding human society, law empowers us to envisage and implement new forms of business and governance, even as we maintain the traditional.
... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"