hierarchy in which a few benefit from the
labor of many.
Seeds of Thought
The development of agriculture had a deep
influence on human feeling and thought, on
mythology and religion and science, that is
hard to capture in a few quotations. The
religious historian Mircea Eliade
summarized it this way:
We are used to thinking that the discovery
of agriculture made a radical change in the
course of human history by ensuring
adequate nourishment and thus allowing a
tremendous increase in the population. But
the discovery of agriculture had decisive
results for a quite different reason....
Agriculture taught man the fundamental
oneness of organic life; and from that
revelation sprang the simpler analogies
between women and field, between the
sexual act and sowing, as well as the most