zenosanalytic reblogged
As early as 1670, more than eight hundred thousand Dutch and Frisians, a not inconsiderable part of the entire population, were employed in herring fishing. A hundred years later, the number of herring caught annually is estimated to have been sixty billion. Given these quantities, the natural historians sought consolation in the idea that humanity was responsible for only a fraction of the endless destructions wrought in the cycle of life, and moreover in the assumption that the peculiar physiology of the fish left them free of the fear and pains that rack the bodies and souls of higher animals in their death throes. But the truth is that we do not know what the herring feels. All we know is that its internal structure is extremely intricate and consists of more than two hundred bones and cartilages.
The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald, tr. Michael Hulse (via alwaysalreadyangry)