It strikes me that one might simply presume the worst of whoever put up the fence. It was a farmer, for example, with a malicious desire to keep hill-walkers from enjoying themselves. I would extend the principle of Chesterton’s fence, then, to Chesterton’s farm: one should take care to assess the possible uses that it might have served for the whole institution around it as well as the motives of the man.
Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are: