Seen last week at G&M's Social Studies:
"Civilized ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not at all suited to civilized circumstances."
Walter Bagehot

A corollary of sorts to the excerpts of Michael Pollan's "An Animal's Place" I posted last week:

To contemplate such questions from the vantage of a farm is to appreciate just how parochial and urban an ideology animals rights really is. It could thrive only in a world where people have lost contact with the natural world, where animals no longer pose a threat to us and human mastery of nature seems absolute.