“It is strange that philosophers first show how one animal supports itself by destroying another, and then enter into discussions on the apparent admirable order of things in their present state. But though this may be a necessary contrivance, and the only way in which life can be supported, it can never be a beautiful one, in our short sights, notwithstanding that something worse might be, were this not the case.”
Source: Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes (1824), Chapter 2, pp. 49–50
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Lewis Gompertz9
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