The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and in the passive.

William Ralph Inge (1860–1954), the Anglican priest and long-serving Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, was known for epigrammatic observations that blend theology, moral philosophy, and a cool-eyed view of human nature. This remark belongs to his habit of puncturing sentimental ideas about “nature” by stressing its underlying economy of predation and consumption. Inge often wrote and lectured in the early 20th century on the limits of progress, the persistence of suffering, and the need for spiritual realism. The phrasing “as has been said” suggests he is repeating or adapting an already-circulating aphorism rather than claiming it as wholly original.

The line reduces the living world to a stark grammatical joke: nature “conjugates” only one verb—“to eat”—in both active (predator) and passive (prey) forms. The wit sharpens a serious claim: biological life is sustained through continual appropriation, and every organism is, sooner or later, consumed. Inge’s point is not merely cynical; it challenges romanticized views of nature as harmonious or morally instructive. By framing ecology as grammar, he implies inevitability and universality: the rule applies everywhere, to all “persons” and “tenses.” The aphorism invites reflection on human participation in this cycle and on whether ethics must be grounded in something other than nature’s processes.