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The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals. [1] [2] [3] The great chain of being (from Latin scala naturae 'ladder of being') is a concept derived from Plato, Aristotle (in his Historia Animalium), Plotinus and Proclus. [4]
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873 – December 30, 1962) was an American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the discipline known as the history of ideas with his book The Great Chain of Being (1936), on the topic of that name, which is regarded as 'probably the single most influential work in the history of ideas in the United States during the last half century'. [1]
Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being. Harvard University Press, 1936: ISBN 0-674-36153-9. Chapter IV "The Principle of Plenitude and the New Cosmography", p. 99–143. Chapter V "Plenitude and Sufficient Reason in Leibniz and Spinoza", p. 144–182.
It is concerned with the natural order God has decreed for man. Because man cannot know God's purposes, he cannot complain about his position in the great chain of being (ll.33–34) and must accept that "Whatever is, is right" (l.292), a theme that was satirized by Voltaire in Candide (1759). [5]
[16] This scala naturae, described in Historia animalium, classified organisms in relation to a hierarchical but static "Ladder of Life" or "great chain of being," placing them according to their complexity of structure and function, with organisms that showed greater vitality and ability to move described as "higher organisms."
Influenced by Aristotle's theory of higher and lower animals, the Great Chain of Being was created during the Medieval period in Europe and was strongly influenced by religious thought. [2] God was at the top of the chain followed by man and then animals.
The great chain of being, a medieval idea that there was a hierarchical structure of life from the most fundamental elements to the most perfect, began to encroach upon the idea of race. As taxonomy grew, scientists began to assume that the human species could be divided into distinct subgroups.
The first chain was destroyed by British forces in the aftermath of the Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery in October 1777. The more significant and successful was the Great Chain, constructed in 1778 and used through war's end in 1782.