Book Review: Eye of the Beholder by Richard Jefferies

Jefferies was a prolific author and essayist during the Victorian era, one who has been described as having "..wonderful eyes. He saw what other men did not see, or were too preoccupied by the problems of earning a living, to bother about." While searching antiquarian bookstores in Hay on Wye, I happened across a compendium of his writings assembled a few decades ago by a scholar and an artist, and bought it for the princely sum of six quid. In these essays, he clearly demonstrates his…

Says it All

"As birds have flight, our special gift is reason. Part of that reason drives the intelligence that allows us to master DNA or build big power plants. But our reason could also keep us from following blindly the biological imperatives toward endless growth in numbers and territory. Our reason allows us to conceive of our species as a species, and to recognize the danger that our growth poses to it, and to feel something for the other species we threaten. Should we so choose, we could…