Ancient man regarded animals much more as a modern ecologist would than an animal philosopher—as a species, that is, rather than a collection of individuals. In the ancient view “they were mortal and immortal,” John Berger writes in “Looking at Animals.” “An animal’s blood flowed like human blood, but its species was undying and each lion was Lion, each ox was Ox.” Which, when you think about it, is probably pretty much how any species in nature regards another.
